I agree. Twitter's hyper-connectivity is the slippery slope to the singularity. Anything that brings forth the dominion of our future evil robot overlords is evil.
A friend with a house in the area (still standing) told me the best source of information he had was the police, suggesting that speaking to any group directly responsible for managing the situation was a waste of time.
It's shameful that the copyright could be used to block dissemination of information like this. But I'm inclined to suspect that the Department just didn't want to expose just how poor their information was/is.
A hotel with a limited extortionate internet offering. That never happens!
OK, I'm being sarcastic, but except as some kind of extreme outlying case, a hotel is not the place to go looking for the real impact of metered (and/or capped) access.
Mind you the irony of a professor of law being caught out by not understanding a contract...
On the second point whether or not people can rely Google to fight legal battles for them. Call me cynical, but I dont think that you ever really could - outside the "20%" time, google will look after their interests.
I dont agree that an ISP can just cut off service.
If you are falsely accused of spamming or otherwise violating the ToS then you have the option to go to court and issue an injunction and argue your case before a judge. This was standard operating procedure before there was legislation.
Now that it's illegal I'm guessing that the guilty just cave. But if you are innocent the legal avenue is still there.
As to whether prematurely cutting off a spammer before getting the cops involved might reduce the ability to prosecute - you might have a point. Although any ISP will have built up a reasonable body of evidence in the form of abuse reports that should cover an evidence that there was indeed illegal spam.
These guys are forgetting that its a symbiotic relationship. The telcos need google if they want to serve their customers and google need the telcos to push their ads at consumers.
The telcos seem to think that they're getting screwed, but in reality they're getting laid.
"This seems pretty questionable, as the supposed fear was that Cogent would send too much. "
Settlement free peering agreements are based upon the concept of equality. This is rather subjective. About all people can agree on is that if the traffic sent and received between two networks is roughly equal then each party must be receiving roughly equal value.
You might think that the ideal situation is when a content provider peers with a broadband provider. The broadband provider needs content and the content provider needs an audience, but the debate seems to descend into a discussion over whether the ad revenue generated by the content provider is worth more than the subscription revenue generated by the broadband provider. This is why Google are so keen on network neutrality.
"claimed that Cogent still didn't meet the terms of the agreement, but for a totally different reason: complaining that Cogent didn't send enough traffic"
Once again this is about defining equality. The theory goes that if you cant generate some minimum volume of traffic then you must have a smaller customer base and therefore you get greater value from peering with the network with the larger customer base. It's a rather fuzzy concept of equality I think sometimes rather akin to comparing penis size (yes the discussions can be that juvenile). But while setting the threshold is subjective as hell once the threshold is set at least taking the criteria is objective.
Sprint were almost certainly within the letter of the contract. Too bad they forgot that blocking Cogent's access to Sprints customers is the same a blocking Sprint's customers access to Cogents.
I appreciate that most of you are focused on the bail out angle, but seriously, the attempt to patent this says more about how warped the patent system is to me.
This was the telcos chanting their mantra that unless the gubmint gives incentives (cash and regulatory), they cant justify investing in broadband and if they dont invest then broadband Armageddon is coming.
They may have taken the opportunity to throw in a coda on how these "challenging economic times" make investing less attractive, but it was the same old song.
In 1996 I worked for in Vietnam for a few weeks. Driving down the highway we past peoples homes: bamboo walls, palm frond thatching, dirt floors. The thing that astounded me was the number of 26" colour TVs you could see through the door. I mean genuine two room grass huts with a TV bigger than the one I had sitting back in my double brick house back in the west. Wow.
Of course, things have improved there enormously since so it would look very different today. But a TV is one of those things that people with almost nothing will still spend money on. So I'm not going to buy that having a TV in a developing nation means that you likely have a computer.
The real question is how do they expect someone who cant afford a basic PC to be able to afford the data usage fees?
So they cant be expected to know when an individual decides to use their service? So what? Google does it's best to employ some really smart people. Unless you are an idiot, you've got to believe that they understand that there are persons that are *using* Google for some shady stuff.
Cookie billboard? It's closer to a landlord taking the rent, suspecting that a tenant is dealing drugs, but not calling in the cops to bust his arse.
Nothing illegal in that. Not liable in a legal sense. But they are raking in the doe and that could be evil.
I don't think that there is anything legally wrong with what Google are doing - at least, as far as the letter goes. As long as they are unaware of what a particular adsense agent is doing, they cant be liable.
But they do profit from the actions of parasites, many of which are far from benign. They can not possibly be unaware of this. They could be doing more, but they are not and collecting a tithe from their inaction, could be evil...
He was using the trade mark quite prominently in his theme.
Now if he was using the site to review or otherwise comment on the product it should be the same as a [?]sucks site. But he wasnt.
It's a little difficult to argue that a web development blog might somehow trick JD drinkers into buying a competing product or otherwise damage the brand.
He may have won the argument to keep the domain but he probably would have had to lose the theme.
My first reaction was to half disagree, but the article you refer to said it already:
"Without additional information, IP addresses do not count as personal data"
Once you are able to link the IP address to something that identifies you personally like a user name or the email address entered above then it becomes a common key that could possibly be used to mine all sorts of private information.
On the post: And Now It's Twitter That's Evil
Now It's Twitter That's Evil
On the post: Australian Copyright Laws Stymied Google Bushfire Map Overview
It's shameful that the copyright could be used to block dissemination of information like this. But I'm inclined to suspect that the Department just didn't want to expose just how poor their information was/is.
On the post: Wall Street Journal Gets Rid Of Its Research Librarian
Accedental or Deliberate?
I mean, Carlos' "Wikipedia's Circular Logic Pops Up Again" post might easily have been retitled "Idiot Journalists fail at research".
On the post: Congressman Buys Recording Industry Argument That Radio Is Piracy
Re: Article Title is Wrong
On the post: Why Internet Companies And Content Companies Should Oppose Broadband Caps
OK, I'm being sarcastic, but except as some kind of extreme outlying case, a hotel is not the place to go looking for the real impact of metered (and/or capped) access.
Mind you the irony of a professor of law being caught out by not understanding a contract...
On the post: Too Much Facebook Makes Girls Depressed... Or Depressed Girls Use Facebook?
Irony
Its sad when some half educated journalist confuses correlation with causation but frightening when a supposed learned academic does the same thing.
On the post: Have The Big Internet Companies Turned Their Back On Net Neutrality?
On the second point whether or not people can rely Google to fight legal battles for them. Call me cynical, but I dont think that you ever really could - outside the "20%" time, google will look after their interests.
Nothing wrong with that.
On the post: Do We Really Want An Internet Run By Lynch Mobs?
If you are falsely accused of spamming or otherwise violating the ToS then you have the option to go to court and issue an injunction and argue your case before a judge. This was standard operating procedure before there was legislation.
Now that it's illegal I'm guessing that the guilty just cave. But if you are innocent the legal avenue is still there.
As to whether prematurely cutting off a spammer before getting the cops involved might reduce the ability to prosecute - you might have a point. Although any ISP will have built up a reasonable body of evidence in the form of abuse reports that should cover an evidence that there was indeed illegal spam.
On the post: Is Google Really Using 21x The Bandwidth It Pays For?
The telcos seem to think that they're getting screwed, but in reality they're getting laid.
On the post: Details Revealed Behind Cogent/Sprint Fight
A couple of points
Settlement free peering agreements are based upon the concept of equality. This is rather subjective. About all people can agree on is that if the traffic sent and received between two networks is roughly equal then each party must be receiving roughly equal value.
You might think that the ideal situation is when a content provider peers with a broadband provider. The broadband provider needs content and the content provider needs an audience, but the debate seems to descend into a discussion over whether the ad revenue generated by the content provider is worth more than the subscription revenue generated by the broadband provider. This is why Google are so keen on network neutrality.
"claimed that Cogent still didn't meet the terms of the agreement, but for a totally different reason: complaining that Cogent didn't send enough traffic"
Once again this is about defining equality. The theory goes that if you cant generate some minimum volume of traffic then you must have a smaller customer base and therefore you get greater value from peering with the network with the larger customer base. It's a rather fuzzy concept of equality I think sometimes rather akin to comparing penis size (yes the discussions can be that juvenile). But while setting the threshold is subjective as hell once the threshold is set at least taking the criteria is objective.
Sprint were almost certainly within the letter of the contract. Too bad they forgot that blocking Cogent's access to Sprints customers is the same a blocking Sprint's customers access to Cogents.
On the post: Bank Of America Rewrites Its 'We-Don't-Need-No-Stinking-America' Patent Application
On the post: De Beers About To Learn That The Streisand Effect Is Forever
Re: Diamonds Are Forever
That's what I was going to go with. Even bad publicity is publicity.
On the post: Telcos: The Internet Will Collapse If The Gov't Doesn't Gives Us Lots Of Money
Bailout? Sheeze!
They may have taken the opportunity to throw in a coda on how these "challenging economic times" make investing less attractive, but it was the same old song.
On the post: Qualcomm Offering Up A BYO Screen Internet Terminal For Developing Nations
Of course, things have improved there enormously since so it would look very different today. But a TV is one of those things that people with almost nothing will still spend money on. So I'm not going to buy that having a TV in a developing nation means that you likely have a computer.
The real question is how do they expect someone who cant afford a basic PC to be able to afford the data usage fees?
On the post: White House Gives Banks One Year To Stop Online Gambling Transactions, Despite Protests
If they don't go after things like on line gambling then they might not have any accomplishments to thrust at an impatient electorate.
On the post: Why Does The MPAA Get To Approve DVD Players?
The MPAA's actions no longer surprise me. It's like they've forgotten the difference between reality and one of their member's scripts.
On the post: Is Google Liable For Typosquatting Domains That Use AdSense?
Re: Re: Not legally wrong, but could be evil
Cookie billboard? It's closer to a landlord taking the rent, suspecting that a tenant is dealing drugs, but not calling in the cops to bust his arse.
Nothing illegal in that. Not liable in a legal sense. But they are raking in the doe and that could be evil.
On the post: Is Google Liable For Typosquatting Domains That Use AdSense?
Not legally wrong, but could be evil
But they do profit from the actions of parasites, many of which are far from benign. They can not possibly be unaware of this. They could be doing more, but they are not and collecting a tithe from their inaction, could be evil...
On the post: Sucks Sites May Be Legal... But What About Loves Sites?
Now if he was using the site to review or otherwise comment on the product it should be the same as a [?]sucks site. But he wasnt.
It's a little difficult to argue that a web development blog might somehow trick JD drinkers into buying a competing product or otherwise damage the brand.
He may have won the argument to keep the domain but he probably would have had to lose the theme.
Either way, I hope he cashed in.
On the post: German Court Rules That IP Addresses Are Not Personal Info
"Without additional information, IP addresses do not count as personal data"
Once you are able to link the IP address to something that identifies you personally like a user name or the email address entered above then it becomes a common key that could possibly be used to mine all sorts of private information.
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