Tue. August 30, 2005
Up Your Ass
Saturday's New York Times detailed the rising battle between Apple Computer and the recording industry over pricing of digital music downloads. Apple, Digital Music's Angel, Earns Record Industry's Scorn [New York Times]. Apparently, the music industry dislikes the $0.99 fixed per-song price pioneered by Apple as part of its iTunes Music Store.
Now that's quite a metaphor. Seems that Lack is saying that his revenue stream is someplace where the sun doesn't shine. Perhaps the record labels need a proctologist? I represent these guys (at the FCC), but I still can't understand their business strategy. Before iTunes, they were nowehere in the digital domain. But I guess for content in today's information economy, it's acceptable behavior to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or even some other part of the anatomy.
Posted by glenn at Fri. February 25, 2005
Sucker Born Every Minute
Yeah, I too received one of these spoofed emails from "fbi@fbi.gov" purportedly warning that my IP address had been recorded visiting "40 illegal Web sites." Virus Arrives in E-mail Allegedly Sent by FBI [ZDNet.com]. It's just hard to understand that anyone could be so gullible as to believe that the FBI would do such a thing or that, even if it did, the agency would notify a target via email. Even harder to comprehend is why anyone would open an attachment forwarded with such an email, which arrived with a .pif extension that all but cried out "virus." But it happens every day. Folks fall for the silliest phishing ruses to disclose their confidential financial information, answer those ridiculous emails from ex-wives of deposed Nigerian dictators promising millions of dollars, and the like. Take the latest scam, a mythical French company that allegedly promised cases of free champagne for forwarding a chain lettter to 10 friends. C'est fantastique!
Thu. February 17, 2005
Bloggers Don't Do It Daily
Well it's 500 posts for me at Fear & Loathing since this blog was launched in March 2003. That's an average of 1.378 days between entries, or just a little under one a day (689 days since inception). Not bad for a part-time gig slotted into the busy life of a practicing lawyer, but also not the "do it daily" ideal -- for whatever that's worth -- of the blogosphere.
Fri. February 11, 2005
SCO's Follies
Most people other than the SlashDot and open source crowds haven't been following the case, but a small company called SCO Group has sued IBM, claiming that the latter violated copyright rules in developing the Unix (and hence Linux) operating systems. I have always regarded this as a simple strike suit, designed to terrorize the open source movement with threat of copyright judgments -- a legal strategy funded by Microsoft -- without much substantive merit. Well, the courts appear to agree. Judge Slams SCO's Lack of Evidence Against IBM [ZDNet.com]
That's judicial-speak for "you lying bastards, get out of my court"!!
Mon. January 3, 2005
We're Not Alone
By the end of 2004, seven percent of U.S. adults, or more than 8 million people, had written a blog, according to a recent study. Big Boost for Blogs in 2004 [ZDNet.com]. But at the same time, a majority of Americans still do not know what a blog is.
This amusing contradicton was brought home to me last week, at lunch with an old friend. He knew that blog was shorthand for "weblog," but had never seen one and just could not get his arms around the concept that ordinary people now are empowered to write about -- and publish on the Internet -- anything they want. So the blogosphere is gaining traction, but like the Internet itself will take some time before its mysterious DNA is explicable to the casual user. Back in the "old days" of 1994-95, the Web itself was the same way. In other words, everything new is really old!
Not that all this stuff is so great, however. Witness an article today in the New York Times about whacko politico-scientific "theories" for how the War in Iraq actually caused the Southeast Asian tsunamis of last week, i.e., revealing that even faced with real suffering by millions of people on this sphere we call Earth, "the blogosphere's tendency toward crackpot theorizing and political smack down could not be suppressed for long."
Wed. October 20, 2004
Long Live the Digital Divide
This has been a long-standing pet peeve of mine about telecom regulation. Home Tech Study Reveals "Digital Divide," But Not Necessarily The One You'd Think It Is [MediaDailyNews].
The report, released by Knowledge Networks/SRI, does find a surprisingly wide gap in the penetration of seemingly ubiquitous digital media technologies such as personal computers and broadband access, but it also reveals that some newer media, including digital TV and cell phone services are accelerating more rapidly among lower or niche socio-economic groups.
So, we know that the government does not subsidize VCRs, yet in 20 years they have penetrated to 95% of the marketplace. Every welfare mom (and this I know from persoal experience representing formerly homeless families) has one. On the other hand, America has subsidized POTS (regular telephone service) to low-income and rural users for 70 years and we're still at 94% penetration -- and falling. Now we find that the poor are actually earlier adopters of some communications technologies, like cell phones, without any subsidies. So I say it's time to abandon the "universal service" shibboleth and let the market work. If it's good enough for VCRs, it's good enough for telephones and computers, too.
VoIP Urgency, Not
FCC Chairman Michael Powell vows to declare that Internet telephony services, known as Voice Over IP (or VoIP), are exempt from state regulation. "We cannot avoid this question any longer," Powell said yesterday.
Well, they can and likely will. See, the FCC has been sitting on this hot potato, the third rail of American telecommunications regulation, for eight years now. In that time the legal doctrine and politics of VoIP have become so convoluted that conservatives are openly fighting among themselves and the special interests -- in this case state regulators, consumer advocates and ostensible protectors of "universal service" -- are essentially able to block VoIP with a simple veto threat of taxes.
Powell says he wants a regulatory revolution. Stirring rhetoric and logically correct. Mike is a very smart guy. But that's not the same as action, for which the FCC's lack thereof is hardly unpexpected, just disappointing. The FCC is the black hole of American public policy and its steady mission-creep into high-tech issues has been remarkable. But even more disapppointing is that the Internet and IT industries have let this happen. It may be too late to save them because to make a revolution, the rebels have to attack before the empire becomes organized. (Yes, those aren't the droids you want.) I fear we are at that point already.
Update: Still, I am very glad to be an American. In Belarus, they are arresting business people for providing VoIP services.
Fri. October 8, 2004
Microsoft and DRM
In a move to prevent Microsoft from using its dominance in PC operating systems to control the burgeoning field of digital rights management (DRM), European regulators are considering blocking the company's acquisition of an influential DRM patent holder. EU Wants Windows Cleaned of DRM [Wired News]. The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation into Microsoft's and Time Warner's acquisition of the digital rights management company ContentGuard.
The issue here in reality is not DRM, but rather the anticompetitive use of patents. Proprietary technologies and standards are OK, indeed beneficial -- witness VHS v. Beta, etc. -- and even firms with market power are permitted to benefit from the protections accorded by patent law. On the other hand, where a monopolist uses patent acquisition to foreclose entry, especially in "innovation" markets, antitrusters are naturally and properly worried.
Having said that, this is no different from Microsoft's historic patterns. The company has never invented anything, rather buys up technologies (like DOS, Internet Explorer, PowerPoint, etc.) and excels -- no pun intended -- at commercializing new ideas and integrating them into its dominant Windows operating system. Microsoft's Windows Media Player and proprietary A/V format are still losing in the battle with Real, QuickTIme and the protected AAC format used by Apple's iTunes Music Store. So instead of building a better mousetrap, Redmond buys one. (Whether it's better or not of course remains to be seen.) Par for the course.
Thu. September 30, 2004
Free Falling
For those who thought the excesses of the dot.com boom all got washed away in the subsequent bust, the optical fiber telecommunications industry has some disappointing news. Prices for access along the vast expanses of long-haul fiber optic networks built in the late 1990s and 2000 haven't finished falling to earth. Wired News: Bandwidth Glut Lives On.
Wed. September 29, 2004
The Costs of War
For years near Madison Square Garden in New York there was a large, digital billboard showing the size (increasing) of America's national debt. Now the liberal Center for American Progress has done the same thing for the War in Iraq, with an Internet billboard showing the costs of the war, dubbed "Project Billboard." It's well worth a look. As of this post, $140.7 billion and rising. (They've put up a real-world billboard in Times Square, but it sadly doesn't have the digital cost figures.)
Tue. September 28, 2004
Email Standards
Standards are good (by promoting interoperabilty) and standards are bad (by deterring innnovation for component products). And there has been an ongoing controversy, lasting decades, about whether "open" industry standards may or should include patented inventions. For instance, ANSI and W3C each have patent policies calling for disclosure and nondiscriminatory or royalty free licensing of intellectual property (IP) included in standards.
Now that same debate has spilled over into IETF, the Internet's standards-setting body. Anti-Spam Effort Killed Amid Patent Row [washingtonpost.com]. This time the standards body killed a proposal by Microsoft for an email "Sender ID," designed to prevent spoofed emails, because the folks in Redmond had patented the scheme. Though the company promises to make the IP available for free, it wants to bar software developers from further licensing it, a restriction that several members of the open-source community find unacceptable.
The end result is that consumers get stuck holding the bag -- in this case, junk emails -- while the engineers and lawyers bicker, perhaps endlessly. So what else is new?
Mon. September 27, 2004
Wi-Fi Everywhere
You probably know already that the City of Philadelphia plans to build the largest, municipal-owned wireless Internet system -- a 135-square-mile "hot spot" to serve 1.5 million people -- so that residents and vistitors alike can surf the Web wirelessly. E-Commerce Report: Big Wi-Fi Project for Philadelphia [NYTimes.com]. What you may not know is that this move has sparked a raging debate about whether all of this should be left to private-sector ISPs.
In New York, the city government recently awarded contracts to six wireless contractors, who paid a total of $23 million for the right to use 3,000 city light poles as bases for cellular and, possibly, wireless Internet service for paying customers. In contrast, Phildelphia says that government cannot just "let the market do this because there are societal needs that aren't inherently part of the capitalist system. We need to be sure no communities n Philadelphia are excluded, whether there's an ROI [return on investment] or not."
This mirrors the debate over municipal ownership of telcos generally, something to which conservative think tanks and the local monopolies (like SBC and Comcast) object vehemently. Yet USA Today headlined recently that "Small Towns Tired of Slow Rollout Create Own High-Speed Networks." I tend generally to agree that government should stay out of competition with private firms and that the market will produce more and better products than a government-run cooperative. But where the market is not responding, why should economic theory or idealogy stand in the way of the people giving themselves what they want? If Philadelphia is wrong, about demand, or costs, or otherwise, it is entitled to make its own experiment and mistakes, since no one else will be footing the bill.
Besides, having ubiquitous Wi-Fi would be way cool and would solve the perplexing question of whether, and if so how, private-sector Wi-Fi providers -- like T-Mobile at Starbucks -- can create a sustainable business model. Since the market ain't happening, at least just yet, more power to Philly!!
Sun. September 26, 2004
Fantasy is Reality
I have been playing fantasy football for more than 20 years, since long before the days of computerization and the Internet. Well, today I caught up with technology, following the Hungry Homers -- the fantasy team my son and I operate in an NFL-sanctioned fantasy league -- with Web-based, real-time scoring while watching all the games on DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket.
Way cool. Oh, the Homers lost by 16 points when our opponent scored four TDs in the late games. "On any given Sunday" is as true in fantasy-land as it is in real life.
Thu. September 23, 2004
Web Withdrawal
Yahoo! has released the results of a fascinating survey showing serious "web withdrawal" for people deprived of Internet access. The Internet Deprivation Study concludes that for some people, carrying on a normal routine without the Web is almost impossible, because the Internet's tools and services have become firmly ingrained in their daily lives.
Well, one can only experience withdrawal if one is addicted. I love the Internet and obviously am actively connected almost always. But there's a time and a place for everything. Web withdrawal is as bad as heroin withdrawal only because some folks have succumbed to the temptation of the wickedness of cyberspace.
Seriously, you can't be "wired" all the time. With a little down time, there's no addiction and no withdrawal. Some of these users should get psychological counseling, IMHO.
Mon. August 16, 2004
internet Goes Down
Starting today, Wired News will no longer capitalize the "I" in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net. It's Just the 'internet' Now [Wired.com].
Wired explains that "in the case of internet, web and net, a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television."
I don't disagree, but changing conventions here is far more revealing than Wired lets on. While the Internet (before) was revolutionary, the internet (now) is just part of everyday life. Coupled with today's somewhat contradictory news that a majority of people still do not use internet search engines for information retrieval routinely, I think this development means that the first phase of the internet's development is well and truly over. Most pundits felt that phase ended in 2001 with the dot.com meltdown, but this small change in punctuation is actually far more significant. Or at least symbolic.
Thu. July 29, 2004
Web Attacks Growing
Yesterday's news was about how the MyDoom virus took down many of Google's servers. Today it's that DoubleClick was crippled from a similar distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack launched against its ad-serving system. Denial of Service Attack Downs DoubleClick [PC World].
If ever there was solid evidence that the interconnectedness of the modern Internet is fostering increasing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, this is it. The government has called for a "public-private partnership," but otherwise done little to mandate security disclosures or jump-start private sector investment in cybersecurity. There's a big price we are all going to pay, in the long run, if this trend of avoiding major problems continues.
Mon. July 19, 2004
ICANN Is a Eunuch
ICANN Moves Toward Self-Rule [InternetNews.com]. If you know anything about domain name competition or Internet governance, you will quickly realize that this story is pure fantasy.
In 1998 the Clinton Administration proposed to move Internet administration and governance to the private sector. The result was the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which still operates under a contract with the Commerce Department. In short, it's been nearly a decade and the U.S. government has shown no signs of being willing to cede control of the Internet to anyone else.
Sort of like "it's our ball, and if you won't play along we'll take it home." Childish, but oh so very effective.
Thu. July 15, 2004
iPod Mastery
As an iPod owner since the first version came out three years ago -- and before then a denizen of Nomad Jukebox MP3 players -- I am thrilled to see that Apple's music devices and online iTunes music store have lifted the company's profitability. As Cythnia Webb writes, "Apple has been transforming itself into an entertainment company from a pure computer maker." Apple Thanks Its Lucky iPods [TechNews.com]. This is a shift that has been years in the making, and is a great development. The "digital hub" is becoming reality.
Tue. July 13, 2004
Phishing For Bandaids
Last year the U.S. Congress outlawed spam. Of course, the actual legislation was so weak, and covered only American firms, that it was doomed from the start and has done nothing to stop the torrent of unsolicited commercial email.
Now legislators want to make it a crime to engage in "phishing." This is the use of chameleon-like emails, typically made to look as if they originate from a bank, PayPal, eBay or some other financial-related institution, to entice folks to part with sensitive personally identifiable information, like passwords and account numbers. Senate Bill Targets "Phishers" [TechNews.com].
The new bill is a charade. Pfishing is fraud, which is already a civil tort and a crime under both federal and state law. Adding a specific statute ciminalizing this behavior will do nothing to stop it and will not protect consumers who are too stupid to protect themselves. It's grandstanding of the worst sort, because it won't stop the abuses one iota. And don't even get me started on the United Nations' recent declaration of a two-year "war against spam." Worse than empty words.
Wed. June 30, 2004
Can't Win 'Em All
Much as last week's judicial decision on media concentration was a great victory, today's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeal for the D.C. Circuit -- upholding the government's 2001 antitrust settlement with Microsoft -- was a terrible loss. Microsoft Prevails in Antitrust Appeal [InternetNews.com]. Not only because I was counsel to the appellants, as "third fiddle" behind former Judges Robert Bork and Ken Starr (renowned lawyers whether one agrees with their rather extreme politics), but more importantly because the court just failed to grasp the significance of the issues it was dealing with. For instance, even though Microsoft was found to have unlawfully monopolized the PC operating system market by bundling Internet Explorer into Windows, the court ruled that a decree (i.e., a remedy) that does NOT require unbundling is adequate and in the "public interest."
This is really bad news for antitrust enforcement and utilmately for consumers. The market has moved far beyond the "browser wars" between Netscape and Microsoft that gave rise to the case in 1995, but an end result that allows a convicted monopolist to do the same things to other upstarts -- and thus squelch competition -- that it did to drive Netscape from the market is inexplicable.
Wed. June 16, 2004
Technology and Terrorists
As if the USA PATRIOT Act and calls for a "Patriot Act II" are not bad enough, the Justice Department again demanded today that emerging Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services -- essentially telephone calling via the Internet -- be postponed until they are made compatible with digital wiretapping by the government.
This reminds me of the political debate over gun control, except backwards. Just as "guns don't kill people, criminals do," VoIP doesn't cause terrorism, terrorists do. The government should not take out its paranoia over over the inability of the CIA to get good intelligence on Al Qaeda by restricting the development of technology. Law enforcement has been trying to hamstring the Internet since the days of the "Clipper Chip" and encryption in the Clinton Administration. They were rebuffed then and these new calls to reign-in nascent techologies until law enforcement catches up adopt the same luddite approach. It should go into the dustbin of bad ideas.
Mon. May 31, 2004
Legal Back Doors
The U.S. Steps Up Push Against Online Casinos by Seizing Cash [NYTimes.com]. This is just unbelievable. John Ashcroft's Justice Department has frequently been turned down in attempts to apply federal anti-gambling laws to offshore Internet casinos. So now they're seizing funds in America that those operations have used to pay for advertising, on the grounds that media companies are "aiding and abetting" gambling by accepting ads. Talk about an unconscionable, morality-driven use of the legal back door. This takes the cake.
Sat. April 24, 2004
JPEGs and Laches
Yesterday a small computer company said that it holds a patent on the JPEG compression format used widely for Web-based images. Forgent Networks, which acquired Compression Labs in 1997, sued 31 major computer manuacturers for patent infringement, claiming they all violate a 1987 patent issued to Compression.
This is absurd. Neither Forgent nor Compression invented the JPEG image compression format. The technology (short for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the group which developed it) is in the public domain and is one of two standards for Web graphics. Having waited seven years -- and a full 17 years after the patent was issued -- before asserting any claim of infringement, it seems ludicrous that Forgent should be able to step in at the last moment to muck everything up.
Under U.S. law, the equitable doctrine of laches holds that rights can be waived if not asserted promptly. (Defined as "neglecting to do what should or could have been done to assert a claim or right for an unreasonable and unjustified time causing disadvantage to another.") Simply put, if you "sit on your rights," you lose them. It' also possible that the Federal Trade Commission may find that Compression misled the Intenet task force that originally standardized JPEG by not revealing its patent claims, which could force open licensing as a remedy for anticompeitive patent misuse in the standards process.
But of course, it will probably turn out to be less expensive for Apple, Adobe, Dell and the other defendants to settle than to take this case to its logical conclusion. Sony has already paid $16 million in licensing fees. So little Forgent will profit handsomely from an old patent they inadvertently discovered lying around, and everyone who uses the Web will pay a little more as a result.
Mon. April 5, 2004
Prosecutorial Leverage Unchecked
As if it were not bad enough that United States proescutors have repeatedly tried to extend U.S. law extraterritorially to online casinos operating offshore, now it appears they are going after American businesses, like Google and Yahoo!, that sell ads to these foreign entities. Web Engines Plan to End Online Ads for Gambling [nytimes.com]. The theory is that, by accepting advertising money, the Internet search providers are "aiding and abetting" gambling.
But then how to distinguish folks who are really assisting a criminal enterprise from those who are just selling ordinary products? Should the company that sells computers, office supplies or toilet paper to offshore casinos also be deemed to "aid" allegedly unlawful gambling? When there's no rational way to draw such lines, all that is left is the naked exercise of power. The U.S. Constitution used to have something to say about that.
Mon. March 29, 2004
TV Racked by Defection of Young Males
The television industry was shaken last October when the ratings from Nielsen Media Research showed that a huge part of a highly prized slice of the American population was watching less television. As the fall TV season began, viewership among men from 18 to 34 fell 12% compared with the year before, Nielsen reported. And for the youngest group of adult men, those 18 to 24, the decline was a steeper 20%. Leisure Pursuits of Today's Young Man [nytimes.com]
And of course this trend is changing the nature of entertainment itself. The prevalence of pornography online has helped to turn porn stars like Jenna Jameson and topics like masturbation into mainstream conversation among young adults. What seemed raw and bold in "Portnoy's Complaint" in the 1960s became fodder in the 1990s for sit-coms like "Friends" and hit movies like "There's Something About Mary." And many TV ads are looking more and more like Web sites, complete with pop-up menus and JavaScript rollovers.
But the bottom line is that the television industry, battered first by inroads from cable and satellite providers, then DVDs, now has to worry about the Internet taking its prime viewers -- those most demanded by advertisers -- away. A "30 share" used to be the norm on network television. Now not even the most popular reality series (whether "Survivor Tahiti" or "American Idol") can come close. The times they are indeed a changing, my friend.
Sat. March 27, 2004
Bush's Broadband Liberalism
Reacting to President Bush's speech Friday in New Mexico, in which Dubya proposed a federal plan for nationwide broadband access by 2007 (presumably complete with tax subsidies), Right Thinking From the Left Coast concludes that "I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to see Michael Moore's point -- there is virtually no difference these days between the Republicans and the Democrats."
Well, on telecom policy Lee is certainly right, because the twin shibboleths of "universal service" and that elusive "digital divide" have merged into a new third-rail of technology policy. Politicians are as afraid to speak out on this issue as they are on Social Security, because it means political death. At the same time, in the U.S. we've got a telecom policy structure that is based on antiquated, baseless deviations from competitive markets (we don't subsidize TVs or VCRs, yet they've got higher, 95%+, penetration rates than broadband) and that buries hidden taxes in a morass of administrative rules implemented by bureaucrats advancing social policy in the name of economic regulation.
If you want a principled approach to technology policy, don't look to either the "blue" or "red" states, they're all the same temporizing, opportunistic chameleons.
Thu. March 25, 2004
Hyperbole and Antitrust Politics
Readers of this blog know that I am an antitrust lawyer and that I've worked on the United States v. Microsoft antitrust case -- for the competitive side of the software industry -- for years. Well, now we have a situation in which the European Union has accomplished something that the U.S. government failed to do in its nearly decade-long prosecution of Microsoft: it issued a meaningful punishment to the Redmond monolith. Microsoft was found to have violated the U.S. antitrust laws by bundling Internet Explorer (IE) into Windows in order to prevent competition from then-insurgent Netscape. Yet American antitrust officials squandered that judgment in favor of a sell-out settlement that allows Microsoft to continue the same practice of integrating new functions into Windows -- backed by no technical or efficiency justifications, rather only to stifle competition -- that the government's landmark case had proven was intended only to maintain the Windows PC monopoly.
By forcing Microsoft to unbundle Media Player from Windows, the European Union is doing just what the United States tried (but then lost the balls to stay the course) when it fought to force divestiture. So, what is the reaction of the U.S. Justice Department to the EU's remedy? On an objective basis, they should applaud it, saying that the EU hung tough and persevered to a conclusion that achieves the very results the U.S. case sought. Instead, the Justice Department's antitrust czar releases a statement calling the EU decision a threat to innovation, because "[i]mposing antitrust liability on the basis of product enhancements and imposing 'code removal' remedies may produce unintended consequences." Yet as Paul La Monica cogently observed for CNN, "if Microsoft no longer can rely on bundling, isn't it reasonable to argue that Microsoft would need to work harder in order to build a product that's truly better than the competition? If anything, Microsoft would need to be more innovative, not less."
The Bush Justice Department, some might say like the White House itself, is riddled with double-speak and hyperbole. Well, repeating myths may work in electoral politics, but it doesn't suffice for antitrust. The EU is not a threat to innovation; monopoly surely is. Just as they like fat-cat lobbyists and haven't met a billionaire they didn't want to curry favor with, the Bushies now pretend that monopolies are good for innovation and benefit consumers. The worst part is that, just two months ago, the federal judge overseeing the U.S. Microsoft settlement found on-the-record that it wasn't working at all as the Bush DOJ had promised. Like Rick's bristo in Casablanca, I am shocked to learn there's gambling going on here!@!
Wed. March 24, 2004
Internet Gambling OK
Despite years of efforts by federal and state prosecutors in the U.S. to apply antiquated old laws against use of "wires" (i.e., telephone service) for betting to try and outlaw Internet casino and sports wagering -- and to adapt those old paradigms to offshore betting operations conducted over the Net from foreign countries -- the World Trade Organization is prepared to rule these efforts violate international trade laws and treaties. [Los Angeles Times]. This is just another example that the square peg of pre-Internet law and policy does not fit into the round hole of globally networked e-commerce. The system is broken, boys and girls, and no amount of tinkering can fix it. We've got to fundamentally rethink the application of legacy law to Internet-based activities in this brand new environment.
Societies that use the law to fight against technological change always lose. And those that do so, like here, in paternalistic efforts to protect citizens against the moralistically "harmful" effects of victimless conduct are figthing a rear-guard and quixotic action against human nature. Every other civilized Western nation except the U.S. permits casino and sports betting. If Americans want to do so via the Internet, what business does government have trying to stop them? The answer -- the Christian Right notwithstanding -- is NONE.
Mon. March 15, 2004
Europe Squares Off Against Gates
In less than two weeks, barring a last-minute settlement, the European Commission -- the EU's enforcement arm -- is expected to declare Microsoft an abusive monopolist, impose a fine of $100 million to $1 billion and order the company to make fundamental changes to the way it sells software in Europe. Europe Supports Antitrust Ruling Against Microsoft [NYTimes.com]. So once again -- read GE-Honeywell, etc. -- EU antitrusters are doing the job that American antitrust officials have declined or botched.
Sun. February 8, 2004
A Real Mickey Mouse
"[I]t's no secret that Apple is running circles around Microsoft when it comes to pushing the digital entertainment envelope." So the news that Disney -- after having been jilted by Steve Jobs' Pixar animation studios (of Finding Nemo fame) -- has now cut a deal with Microsoft to "improve the quality and security of digital content which can be delivered to homes over the Internet" rings a little hollow. Sort of like two wallflowers dancing with themselves at the prom. They're made for each other.
Thu. January 22, 2004
Google Bombing
So if you enter "miserable failure" into Google you come up with George Bush's White House bio. Engineering Google Results to Make a Political Point [nytimes.com]. They call this networked use of Web links "Google Bombing," since it takes a coordinated effort to influence the search engine's algorithms.
The only weird thing is that BBC reported on this fad nearly six weeks ago. What took The Times so long to catch up? And why haven't our conservative blog colleagues counter-attacked to place someone else in the #1 Google position for "miserable failure"?
Fri. January 2, 2004
The Top 10
One of the more fun annual year-end lists is Google's report on its "top ten" searches. For 2003, they say that Brittney Spears and Harry Potter were 1-2, followed by The Matrix, Shakira, David Beckham and 50 Cent. Even if one digs deeper, looking only at new searches, the results -- Laci Peterson, Kobe Bryant, etc. -- suggest that the Internet reflects our celebrity and crime-obsessed culture. Technocrats used to say "The Internet changes everything." I don't think so!!
Mon. December 29, 2003
Mainstream Or Warning Sign?
The Internet Becomes Mainstream. So says a Pew Research Center report, released last week, which finds that 63% of the adult U.S. population regularly uses the Internet. While Pew found "increasing reliance on the Internet in everyday life and higher expectations about the way the Internet can be used in matters both mundane and mighty," the report also warns that "[d]espite this growth in activity, the growth of the online population itself has slowed. There was almost no growth over the course of 2002 and there has been only a small uptick in recent months." And it is even more problematic that "[a]bout a quarter of Americans live lives that are quite distant from the Internet –- they have never been online, and don’t know many others who use the Internet." So while the mainstream media, like the New York Times, headlined "The Growing Web," we may actually be seeing warning signs that the Internet is reaching its peak.
Wed. December 24, 2003
Down With Pop-Ups
Things are becoming very interesting on the legal front in the Internet realm. With the U.S. courts blocking RIAA from violating privacy on suspicion of P2P file sharing and the Norwegian courts doing the same thing for DeCSS, the tide is moving away from copyright holders. Of course, then you get decisions like yesterday's against WhenU -- a pop-over advertising firm -- that enjoined its use of pop-ups on copyright grounds in a lawsuit brought by an e-commerce site owner. Judge Downs Pop-Ups in Contrary Decision [InternetNews.com]
Pop-ups are annoying, but it is a dangerous sign when the law uses copyright principles to ban entire technologies. The same thing happened to Napster. The irony, of course, is that the law can't put technology back in the can. So pop-ups are, in the final analysis, going to stand or fall based on their responsiveness to what consumers want. If we don't click 'em, they won't build them!!
Mon. December 22, 2003
RIAA Unplugged
Well, another arrow has been shot into the rotting corpse of the Recording Industry Association of America. Even though their lawsuits against P2P file-sharing consumers had looked like they were becoming very successful, RIAA could only sue by using private subpoenas to force ISPs to reveal the names and addresses of their customers. Now, a federal court has said it can't do so anymore, that the DMCA does not allow subpeonas against ISPs unless the ISP itself is serving up the allegedly infringing material. RIAA: Shot Through the Heart? [TechNews.com]
I am sure RIAA will be back with some new strategy, but the tide has turned. As the court said, their argument "borders on the silly." But that has never stopped them before!!
People Are To Blame
In their Real Time column in the Wall Street Journal, Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry cogently point out that 2003 has not been a good year for the Internet.
That sort of sums it up for me. I've been online since 1987 and on the Net since 1994. The degree to which the Internet has changed lives, businesses and culture is fascinating. But it is well and truly a different place -- a more dangerous, annoying and sometimes revolting place -- than it was at the dawn of the Internet era. And people are to blame.
Mon. December 8, 2003
Teach the World To Sing
Coca Cola's television commercials used to say that it "would like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony." Now, 30 years later, Coke has announced it will begin offering a digital music download service for the UK. [Reuters.com]. This time it's hardly idealistic, though, as this more recent initiative is just a belated reaction to Pepsi's deal with the Apple iTunes Music Store, in which the arch-rival soda maker will give away 100 million free song downloads. So put those love beads away and take the flowers out of your hair, people!!
Mon. November 3, 2003
Not Google, Too!
While Google continues exploring an IPO, Friday's business press indicates that Microsoft has been making overtures to buy the Internet search leader. I agree with this opinion piece from The Mac Observer, titled For The Love Of Everything That Is Good, Let It Not Happen. Let's go back 6 years and ask how the software market would be different if Microsoft had succeeded in acquiring Intuit and thus taking over Quicken -- perhaps the single best piece of consumer software on the market today. We all should shudder at the mere thought.
Sun. October 26, 2003
Cybersecurity Starts At Home
In a joint venture with the National Cyber Security Alliance, the federal government is planning to spend $1 million on television ads educating home and small business Internet users about the benefits of firewalls and anti-virus software. U.S. Gov't Plans Internet Security Ads [TechNews.com]. This is like the Fall '02 Homeland Security campaign to have families prepare a safe room with plastic wrap and duct tape for windows. It offers a false sense of security and is an unfortunate illustration that government leacks either the will or the means to take any real concrete steps on cybersecurity.
Thu. October 23, 2003
Empty Words On Spam
The vote was 97-0 for a bill in the Senate outlawing spam. Senate Votes to Crack Down on Some Spam [nytimes.com]. But the rules in the Can Spam Act are empty and the proposed creation of a "Do Not Email" list meaningless. "If such a list were established, I'd advise customers not to waste their time and effort," Tim Muris, chairman of the FTC said in August. "Most spam is already so clearly illegitimate that the senders are no more likely to comply with new regulations than with the laws they now ignore."
The issue with spam isn't whether it's illegal -- lots of spammers have been sued on a variety of legal grounds -- it's that they use technology to cloak their identities and move from server to server, and place to place, at the drop of a hat. The Bush Administration is spending $100 million on a witness protection program in Iraq. If we devoted the same resources to hunting down and prosecuting spammers, maybe the government could make a dent in the ever-increasing volume of unsolicited commercial email. Otherwise, it is indeed a waste of time trying to make spammers obey new rules when they don't care about rules in the first place!
Tue. October 21, 2003
Saying "No" to Internet Taxes
Congress is once again taking up the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which has barred special or "discriminatory" taxes on Internet access and Web transactions since 1998. Hill Hurrying to Renew Ban on Web-Access Taxes [TechNews.com] Now the debate centers on high-speed ISPs -- cable modem and DSL services -- which the current Senate bill defines as "information" services not subject to telecommunications taxes. (This is an outgrowth of the labels issue discussed in other posts.)
The problem is that taxation has a way of morphing into an entrenched system of subsidization and weatlh transfers. Those telecommunications "taxes" are mainly in two forms: a 3% federal excise tax, enacted more than 100 years ago to finance the Spanish-American War, and a cloudy system of "universal service" payments, administered by the FCC, that go to small and rural telcos. The former is clearly an anachronism, the latter is a political sacred cow that nobody has the courage to call out. But together they add 16-18% to consumers' bills for telecom services.
The uninversal service system has been around since 1934. In those 70 years, telephone "penetration" has climbed to 97%. Meanwhile, the government does not tax or subsidize VCRs, which in a mere 20 years are now in about 85% of American homes. Do we need telecom taxes to close the so-called "digital divide?" The numbers clearly say "No."
Tue. October 7, 2003
Rational Thinking On Telemarketing
Starting in late September, the federal courts completely screwed up the law on privacy and telemarketing, deciding that the Federal Trade Commission's "Do Not Call" registry was, first, unauthorized, and second, in violation of the First Amendment. Today the 10th Circuit stayed those decisions, holding that "there is a substantial likelihood that the FTC will be able to show ... that the list directly advances the government's substantial interest and is narrowly tailored." [yahoonews.com]. Finally, a little sanity is brought to the law.
The Washington Post calls the situation "Do-Not-Call Recalled," which is cute but a little misleading. What's been recalled are the asinine decisions by decrepit old judges hand-picked by the Direct Marketing Association to assure stupid rulings favoring local calling center business over the privacy rights of consumers nationwide. DMA says the court of appeals "appears to allow" the FTC to proceed with its plans. So, these guys can't read either!! What "appears" true is that the telemarketers still refuse to admit that consumers hate them and that their entire business depends on being so obnoxious and misleading that people are bullied into submission. The courts have closed them down, at last.
Labels Are Important
In another stunning example of judicial myopia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held that cable modem service is "telecommunications," and thus subject to sharing with independent ISPs. Big Win For Brand X [Forbes.com]. The issue here is not that the court reversed the Federal Communications Commission -- which happens all the time, with good reason -- but rather that the Communications Act bases regulatory treatment on the categorization of services. If the court had found, like the FCC, that cable modem services are "information" services because they connect users to the Internet, that would have led to the opposite result.
This illustrates that the rules governing communications, written before the Internet explosion of the mid-1990s, hardly make sense in an era of technological convergence. In short, the rules are broken. For a more in-depth examination, see the presentations I have made on this subject, as long ago as 1996. Then I called this penchant for labels and the conflicting technolgoical and regulatory histories of circuit switched (telephone) and packet switched (Internet) networks a "war of two worlds." Some things never change!!
Fri. October 3, 2003
Cybersecurity Class Actions
It was a while in coming, but the first consumer class action lawsuit has been filed against a software company for security flaws in software products. The fact that Microsoft is the defendant is not surprising, given the holes in Windows and the focus of so much of the hacking community on developing worms and viruses that exploit Windows' vulnerabilities. What is surprising is that it has taken so long.
Now that the plaintiffs' class action bar has discovered cybersecurity, the focus in corporate board rooms should increasingly shift to reducing the risks of cyber crime and protecting IT networks against cyber intrusion, since corporate legal exposure is growing rapidly. That's a good thing, as it should help prevent a Chernobyl or Enron-type crisis for cybersecurity. But if companies don't act, the lawyers will end up sticking them where it hurts.
Tue. September 30, 2003
RIAA's Nazi Tactics Are Winning
Today's news indicates that P2P file sharing has dropped 45% since the RIAA started suing indiviuals a few months back. That is despite that fact that only 261 lawsuits were filed and that settlements accepted have been just a few thousand dollars each. Settling in With the RIAA [TechNews.com].
I think the lesson here is that the legal process can and often is used solely for purposes of intimidation. RIAA is not even covering its legal fees, and certainly not giving anything back to the artists who may lose royalties where songs are traded instead of bought. But from the user perspective, the randomness of being sued may overpower the relative anonimity of the Internet, where 261 folks out of the many millions utilizing P2P technology are surely just a drop in the ocean. It looks like alot of them are afraid of drowning!!
Tue. September 2, 2003
Digital Vandalism
The Internet has become a vital part of commerce and culture, yet it is still a free-for-all when it comes to facing computer meltdowns. As America's 156 million Internet users brace for the next round of what the New York Times today dubbed "digital vandalism," some outspoken cybersecurity experts say that it is time for the government to bolster a basic sense of stability in cyberspace that societies expect from their critical public resources. Digital Vandalism Spurs a Call for Oversight [NYTimes.com]. SoBig.F may have come and gone quickly, but I sense a change in the Internet industry's position on cybersecurity and government regulation.
Sun. August 31, 2003
Hapless Hackers
Good thing we have the FBI and Bill Gates on the case for tracking those elusive hackers. Yesterday they captured a teenage script-addict who tweaked the "Master Blaster" worm. [SFGate.com]. As Alan Saracevic noted in the San Francisco Chronicle, the "best part is they put this 6-foot-4-inch, 320-pound fellow under home detention."
Doesn't sound like young Jeffrey Lee Parson got out much in the first place. Losers are losers, whatever the age. Way to go, FBI!! And we're relying on these bozos to protect the US from terrrorists?
Tue. July 1, 2003
Taking Lessons From the Supreme Court
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law requiring libraries to filter out pornographic and other adult Web sites from all computer users. Taking a page from the Court's playbook, the ruling mullahs in Iran now use the same filtering technology to suppress free speech and political dissent on the Internet.
Over 140 Web sites promoting opposition to the ruling Islamic establishment, dancing and sex have been blocked since the crackdown was launched last month. [USA Today Online] Most blocked sites belong to Iranian resistance groups, including one run by Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Abolhassan Banisadr, Iran's first-elected president after 1979, who now opposes the clerical establishment. The Iranian official responsible says the government is using the same U.S. technology employed to filter offensive content from library patrons, but that he's just "following orders from the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council," an unelected body controlled by Iranian hard-liners. Yeah, and so was the Supreme Court!!
Mon. June 30, 2003
Business Methods Run Wild
The U.S. Patent and Trademark office recently granted a patent to NetFlix for their online DVD ordering system. [NYTimes.com]. Now, I am a long-time NetFlix customer, but this indicates there's a real problem in our patent system with the increasing issuance of so-called "business method patents." Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry write in Real Time for the Wall Street Journal that
Hear, hear!! It was bad enough with Amazon's "one-click" patent, but now we've got insurance patents, order-processing patents and other patents for what are not inventions, but just ideas. Of course ideas are creative and deserve protection, but they should not be patentable. The difference is that copyright and trademark permit others to use creative ideas -- within limits -- to make better works, but patents are exclusive. It's a difference of kind, and a crucial distinction between things that people actually build and things that they just dream of. Dreams are wonderful fantasies, as are business methods patents.
Thu. June 26, 2003
Who You Gonna Sue?
Wired News: Are You in RIAA's Cross Hairs? That's the question of the day, as the recording industry says it will start investigating individual Internet users who offer "substantial" amounts of music online over peer-to-peer networks then file "hundreds" of copyright infringement lawsuits beginning in August. Scare tactics, for sure. But they just may work. More than 70% of P2P users are "free riders" who share no files, and the system would break down if everyone just downloaded and blocked uploads. That's the RIAA game plan.
Wed. June 25, 2003
Holy Cybersecurity
Pope Moves Against Hackers [abcNews.com]. Pope John Paul II's Web site is attacked by some 10,000 viruses a month and at least 30, mainly American (and teenage), hackers every day. Now the Vatican has hired a team of cybersecurity experts to defend against network intrusions. Seems than omniscience and divine perfection are not enough when it comes to cybersecurity today.
Fri. June 20, 2003
Can Spam Act
The Senate Commerce Committee has passed a "tough" anti-spam bill, reports MSNBC. But this Cox-Wyden-Burns measure would only require accurate headers and opt-in -- nearly all spam messages already say you "asked" to be on their list -- but would also preempt all state remedies against spammers. Meaning there's no way to go after these folks. It's a little bit of nothing on spam and a lot of political spin. But that's Washington.
Thu. June 19, 2003
Tilting At P2P Windmills
Having won its case forcing Verizon to reveal the names of ISP customers, the RIAA has now sent "cease and desist" letters to five people it says are unlawfully offering copyrighted music via peer-to-peer Internet technologies. [MTV.com]
Hey, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Even MPAA, the movie industry association, has never sued individuals for taping broadcast television or DVDs. There's millions of P2P users on the Internet, and RIAA can't sue them all. What a wild goose chase they've embarked upon.
Update: Just a week after this post, RIIA announced it will starting bringing lawsuits against individuals for file sharing.
Mon. June 9, 2003
iTunes Sharing Back?
iTunes Music Swap Just Won't Die [Wired News]. Apple disabled Internet sharing in iTunes 4.0.1. It only took a week for the hacks to appear, but they're out there already. The lesson is: never bet against technology! Meanwhile, the current rumor is that Apple will make a bid for Napster -- now owned by Roxio -- and its PressPlay affiliate. So will Apple continue to stick to the record labels' line on sharing or are they indicating a desire to set their own course?
Tue. June 3, 2003
Apple Reverses Course on Internet Sharing
I have written before about how Apple's downloadable music service -- the "iTunes Music Store" -- is revolutionizing the lawful distribution of digital music. Part of the original iTunes service, just 30 days old, was the ability of the end user (the music "licensee") to share iTunes files over the Internet with other authorized computers. Now, in an almost hidden part of an update, Apple has discontinued the Internet sharing feature, igniting a storm of controversy. Apple iTunes Update Irritates Fans [BBCNews.com].
Personally, I don't think this is such a big deal, since the number of times I would want to share my music with another computer of mine -- say a laptop while traveling -- are almost non-existent. I can just bring along my iPod, which has all the same digital songs, anyway. But the criticisms and debate are raging on Apple's support Web site, and they're fun to watch.
In any event, chalk up another win for the RIAA and its record label members. The only reason for Apple to discontinue Internet sharing was pressure from RIAA. Yet since this form of "sharing" does NOT involve file transfers, but only listening to the music, it's hard to find a legitimate basis to oppose. Of course, that has never stopped Hillary in the past!!
Fri. May 30, 2003
Microsoft Does It Again
Microsoft settled its antitrust lawsuit with AOL for $750 million and the promise of a future technology partnership. [washingtonpost.com] Four years ago AOL bought Netscape for $10 billion. At the time, Microsoft was embroiled in the trial of the U.S. government's monopolization prosecution, and argued that "AOL-Netscape" would be a fierce competitor across the spectrum of software and media. Of course, nothing of the sort transpired. AOL never tried to resuscitate Netscape -- never even replaced Internet Explorer as its default browser -- and now whimpers away with a handful of cash. And pittance it is. Microsoft has $46 billion in cash reserves, so this settlement will not put even a small dent in its monopoly coffers.
Thu. May 29, 2003
Convergence Is Not News Anymore
OK, so Sprint has started replacing some of its circuit-switched local loops with newer packet-switching technology, like that used on the Internet. Sprint Begins Converting Network [InformationWeek]. But convergence between telecom and the Internet has been a reality for years. I've been representing clients and speaking on that topic since at least 1996. So there's nothing new here at all. Maybe a little in scale, but hardly a newsworthy event. Reveals the power of the Press Release, apparently.
Sat. May 24, 2003
Surfing At the Speed of . . . Whatever's Available
The broadband debate continues, but more recent research suggests that nearly 60% of Americans are satisfied with dial-up modem speeds. And since penetration rates for broadband services are still tiny, what's the fuss all about? The United States is never going to spend tax money to subsidize the build-out of a nationwide broadband network, and there still isn't a "killer app" spurring demand for broadband connections, so the policy arguments are really much ado about nothing. Even if you build it, they will not come.
Fri. May 16, 2003
Standards Competition
Standards in technology markets has always been a troublesome issue, as standards both facilitate and constrain competition. Now there's a developing battle not between companies promoting different technologies for standardization, but rather between competing standards-developing organizations. Business Process Spec Handed Off to OASIS, Not W3C.
I don't see any difference here. If members of W3C and OASIS competed with different products in the marketplace, everyone agrees that would be great. So the fact that W3C and OASIS are competing to become the standard is no different than Beta v.VHS, which was clearly a good thing for consumers and competition. In fact, had the technologists and the standards groups gotten their hand on VCRs before the marketplace, they probably would have chosen Beta -- wrong!!
Fri. May 9, 2003
MailBlocks Tries To Block Spam Blocker Technology
Our patent system is becoming crazy if MailBlocks can stop EarthLink from deploying a challenge-response e-mail system just because it thought of the idea first. EarthLink Is Sued by Holder of Anti-Spam Patents.
You can't patent ideas, only inventions. If someone figures out a way to do something with a different process or using different technology, a patent is not a barrier. So what's the problem, Phil?
Wed. May 7, 2003
Challenge-Response E-Mail
EarthLink to Offer Anti-Spam E-Mail System [TechNews.com]. This is the MailBlocks system I wrote about last month, and I still think it's both too clunky and aimed at the wrong part of the spam problem. But with EarthLink on board, perhaps the culture of e-mail will change to accomodate a one-time verification by the sender.
Thu. May 1, 2003
Four Tracks Per Second
Apple's iTunes Music Store sold 275,000 downloaded songs in its first 18 hours of operations. That's four songs per second. So as Michael Malone of ABC News points out, this suggests that Steve Jobs has done more than create a legal means of distributing "untethered" music online, he's also rung the death knell of the recording industry.
How has the music industry responded to the threat from MP3 and digital distrubution, now estimated at 10 percent of its revenues? Like all dying industries: with more of the same, plus armies of lawyers. They're dinosaurs who just don't realize that the comet has already struck. They're walking extinctions.
Tue. April 29, 2003
Apple's Music Store
Forbes.com - Apple Tunes Up. Not a bad start to a new online music download service from the folks who began the "rip, mix and burn" revolution. 
I tried out the iTunes Music Store last night. At $0.99 per song and seamless integration with iTunes 4.0, it's a real winner. Plus, the DRM features do not limit a user's ability to burn CDs, backup files or share among computers, so the music is virtually the same as MP3s -- and better if Apple is right about the AAC format.
Sun. April 27, 2003
Cisco's Eavesdropping Apparatus
In response to what it terms its "customer's needs," Cisco will start to embed "lawful interception" capability into its router products. [C|Net News.com] What's really going on here is that the convergence of packet-switched and circuit-switched networks is accelerating. So the law enforcement community is no longer content to give the Internet and ISPs a free ride when it comes to wiretapping. Cisco can't be blamed, since it's job is to sell products, but this is just another sign that the days of anonimity on the Internet are numbered.
Fri. April 25, 2003
Ballmer Says Linux Is "Cancer"
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, once again on an anti-open source crusade, now says that Linux is a "cancer" but that the new Windows Server 2003 product can compete with free software because is it "innovative." [CNET.com]
All this from the company that brought us a desktop GUI in 2000 that Apple made available in 1987, that specializes in buying technology developed elsewhere (DOS, PowerPoint, IE, etc.) and that still cannot fugure out how to put a laptop computer to sleep. Eat your Cheerios, Steve, you're going to need them. All you have is monopoly power; in the long-run, that's not enough to save the company.
Fri. April 18, 2003
.NET Is .NOT
Microsoft announced yesterday it is abandoning the ".NET" brand for its Web services product line, re-christening them "Windows Server System." [The Register]. That's a long-overdue admission that servers are best described as "servers," not some amorphous blob of language, runtime or webservices. ".NET" clearly meant a lot of things to a lot of people at Redmond, but very little to the outside world.
Thu. April 17, 2003
Spam, Spam and More Spam
Always On includes a post by Phil Goldman, founder and CEO of Mailblocks and former co-founder of WebTV, commenting that spam is killing consumer e-mail and that the Web portals -- which dominate consumer e-mail -- are doing nothing about it. The State of Consumer Email: Consumers Deserve Better :: AO
Well, I think that Mailblocks is doing nothing, too. Filtering and blocking e-mail is a quixotic exercise, because spammers proliferate domains and e-mail addresses and because doing so only increases the chances that good e-mail will be filtered out. Mailblocks requires human confirmation, from the sender, if a "from" address is not in the recipient's address book, which of course just makes getting mail from new people -- like prospective clients, long-lost childhood friends, etc. -- problematic.
Goldman does say:
Now I can agree with that entirely. See Suing Spammers.
Wed. April 16, 2003
Internet Security Index
So cybersecurity risks are increasing. Wow, what a surprise! RSA Unveils "Internet Insecurity Index".
Sort of like the 5-minutes-to-midnight clock that the scientists used on nuclear proliferation. We may never get there, but it's a good way to scare folks into action.
Tue. April 15, 2003
Suing Spammers
America Online on Tuesday said it is filing five lawsuits against individuals and companies that are allegedly purveying bulk unsolicited e-mail, or spam, to its members. [CNET News.com]. Boowah! Spam is destroying the Internet's real killer app, e-mail, by forcing users towards filtering software that kills the good unsolicited messages along with the hundreds of bad ones for Viagra, penis enlargement and Nigerian ex-dictator's wives fortunes. It is preventing legitimate marketers from communicating with customers and raising costs for ISPs, enterprises and regular Joes. Legislation won't do anything. AOL, we salute you!
Mon. April 14, 2003
Browser Wars Redux
Apple adds features to Safari browser | CNET News.com
Apple Computer this morning released an updated beta version of its Safari Web browser as part of a reported effort to "distance its software environment from Microsoft's." Apple says that:
Many folks, myself included, felt that the network effects characteristics of the software industry meant that the browser market had already "tipped" decisively to IE. Which would suggest that there is little reason for anyone, including Apple, to innovate in the browser space. So what is going on here? Platform independence perhaps, but it is unclear what the commercial benefits are (if any) that accrue to Apple from developing a new browser. Having said that, I am indebted to Steve Jobs and am rapidly becoming a devoted Safari user.
Wed. April 9, 2003
Fear & Loathing in Cyberspace
In my continuing search for interesting usages of Hunter Thompson's phrase, the first entry is Fear & Loathing in Cyberspace, an essay by BYU Professor Michael Bush. He concludes that Microsoft's commitment to so-called "open" systems belies claims that Bill Gates has improperly dominated the PC industry.
Personally, I agree with a quote the author attributes to Apple Computer's Steve Jobs:
That was 1996, before the iMac, before digital hubs and before the MP3 revolution. Steve was wrong, but so is Bush. To say that Microsoft supports "open" systems is absurd.
Sat. April 5, 2003
Real-Time Music List
Kung-Tunes, a new "donation-ware" Mac OSX app from Adriaan Tijsseling, is a great tool for adding real-time content to weblogs. Kung-Tunes uses AppleScript to pull MP3 information from iTunes and upload it to an FTP server, with an array of formatting options. I use a server-side include (because it's simpler), which allows my main index page to retain the CSS formatting of its stylesheet.
A very cool application. Far superior to myMediaList.com because it requires no work and isn't limited to the few formatting options available on a remotely hosted javascript. You can see the results in the right sidebar of my main page. Available at kung-foo.tv. Thanks, Adriaan! (I'll be donating soon.)
Fri. April 4, 2003
English.Aljazeera.net Back Up
After a week of battling hackers, a distributed denial of service attack and the cancellation of its hosting contract by Akami, the Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera has finally gotten its english-language Web site back up.
This is really offensive. Not their coverage, which may or may not be accurate, but rather that hackers -- surely Americans -- would use their technology skills to prevent other Americans from getting news and information with other viewpoints from around the globe. We live in a pluralistic world, and whether you agree with the Iraq War or not, all Americans should decry any attempt to restrict the ability of our citizens to have free access to news and information on the Internet from any media source worldwide. Yet in spite of being mostly knocked offline, the Al Jazeera Web site of was among the most sought-after last week. So there is some intelligence in the universe after all!