Whether your search results include porn or not begs what is a fundamental shortcoming with the search engines. To a degree they are not really designed to actually give you what you want but to give you something that others think that you want.
I don't want to receive porn, but neither do I want to receive irrelevant sales pitches that interferes with "real" research, such as product reviews. When I am looking up product specifications, I don't want the sales pitch. For example, I was looking for a watch battery where the vendor implied that they had the battery, but when you actually went there, they neither had the battery specs nor did not have the battery. In another case, I mistyped at URL and got a fake web page full of adds, instead of the "Sorry but you are an idiot for mistyping ...".
While advertising pays for our ability to surf the net, the search engines need to give us what we are asking for, not what is being crammed down our throats.
"It always suprised me how seldom the FTC or the FCC goes after large companies that could change the way the industry behaves in stuff like this."
So true. As a corollary, it amazes me how many people seem to accept the premise of "buyer beware" and the need for so-called regulatory relief from disingenuous business practices in the name of "fostering business". If we are a nation where things such as responsibility and the law mean anything, companies should willfully stop playing these "games". If a company is not willing to act responsibly then regulate them.
The US, a nation of by and for the corporations.
That reminds me, one person I know suggested that all lawmakers, like the race car drivers, wear the emblem of their corporate sponsors!!!!!!
I have no idea concerning the scope of what the Supreme Court will be ruling on, but obvious business practices should not be entitled to patent/copyright protection.
We can only hope that those advocating the elimination of patent protection will file a "friend of the court" petition full of these absurdities.
Julia Boorstin writes: "Her HuffingtonPost.com, which is entirely ad supported, is profitable and growing, unaffected by the downturn in ad spending. And Huffington is a firm believer in the ad model. As newspapers struggle to compensate for the downturn in print advertising with new digital revenues she cautions that publications should be wary of a "walled garden" approach."
Performance is irreverent under American capitalism. Companies claim that must pay the "best and brightest" the highest possible retention bonuses to keep them on-board. To paraphrase the endless ads of the companies that promise to fix your credit, "Its not your fault that you can't run the company".
The financial meltdown has demonstrated that pay for performance is a farce. Our corporate executives seem to believe that their companies are fiefdoms to be stripped of all value for management's own private gain.
Newspapers serve a valuable purpose of collecting and disseminating "news". But at the same time, they are just as prone (as any blog on the internet) to have biased reporting.
For example, the New York Times, when it comes to discussing copyright and patent law has an obvious bias for "stronger" laws. Not only that but their so-called reporting, in many cases, is simply a regurgitation of industry press-releases. Given this unfair bias and lazy approach, I wouldn't label many of the Times articles on copyright as real journalism that discusses both sides of an issue to inform the reader so that the reader can make up their own mind on the issue.
Many copyright and patent advocates also want to dismiss "free" content such a Wikipedia since it is "unverified". While this criticism may have some truth to it, I don't think that traditional sources of information such as the Encyclopedia Britannica are really any better and are a susceptible to distorting bias as the New York Times.
We can only hope that truth, from whatever source will emerge out of the cacophony.
Well it is not often that I disagree with Mike, but ....
Mike writes: "when all it really does is create extra burdens on both companies and users without any corresponding privacy benefit." The fault is with the companies, if they want they could give us, at least in theory, real privacy. There is nothing preventing them from not sharing data. The are willfully distributing our data, so they are free to stop.
We don't need government involvement to create the "extra burden and expense". Companies could save this extra burden and expense by simply not sharing/trading/selling private data, by not sending us junk mail, by not telemarketing. Lets recognize that many so-called onerous regulations are really the result of willful disingenuous business practices.
Additionally, the dismal state of our privacy laws is because corporate lobbyists water them down to the point that they are useless. Disclosing the "whole" story requires an acknowledgment that many of our laws that don't work as expected are the consequence of corporate interference. Does that excuse the government; NO.
Lets look at it this way, if corporations are not self disciplined to act responsibly then they deserve to be regulated. Period.
Too bad our politician have "sold out" the American people.
Re: It's a shame, Sony was a visionary company once
Lamentably it seems that most visionary companies once they become successful abandon innovation for the status-quo and use the legal process and/or dishonorable business practices to lock-out competition. Microsoft is a prime example.
We seem to lose sight that this is an unfortunate "natural" social progression. To misquote Hegel the "cause of failure is success".
To expand a bit on Mike's comments. Mr. Lynton makes the statement: "The Internet has brought people with no regard for the intellectual property of others together with a technology that allows them to easily steal that property and sell or give it away to everyone, with little fear of being caught or prosecuted."
My response to Mr. Lynton, what property rights. It seems to me that the content industry is actually stealing property rights from the public.
If I buy a music CD, I should be able to use it on my MP3 payer or on my computer anyway that I wish. The content industry seems to want to claim that you owe them $$ every time you "transform" the product (Sony rootkit fiasco). Not only that they are even attempting in some cases to claim that they can turn off your access to content for any reason that they wish. Seems to defeat the purpose of "sale".
The content industry has increased the time period that content remains under the protection of copyright before it falls into the public domain. This is theft from the public!
They have changed the law to diminish your rights.
Its time to point out to the content industry that they cannot claim property rights that they do no possess and that they should not steal from the public.
I guess our non-representing Congressional representatives didn't get enough money to find this enterprise legal. How is tracking for the purposes of advertising illegal while tracking for purposes of seeing if you went to music download site is legal? Boggles the mind!
The problem is that the studios are going to the congressional supermarket to buy laws to grant them special privileges (Corporatism). What we need are lawmakers who have some backbone and make laws that benefit society.
Here's another one, what is the difference between strip searching a 13 year old girl on an allegation of misconduct and an ISP strip searching your packets on their own volition and without a warrant looking for contraband?
The New York Times screams moral outrage when it comes to strip searching a 13 year old girl based on a false accusation but then is silent concerning demands by the content industry that ISPs "filter" internet traffic without any due process or even probable cause. Seems to me that the concept of "justice" for the Times is a matter or perspective and not law.
Excellent point.
-------------
Thanks to William Stepp at Against Monopoly for finding the quote below from John Perry Barlow. This quote was written in 1994!
"The greatest constraint on your future liberties may come not from government but from corporate legal departments laboring to protect by force what can no longer be protected by practical efficiency or general social consent."
It seems to me that Sanford and Brown have made a couple of fundamental mistakes.
First, in terms of copyright, a publisher does NOT directly have copyright protection. A publisher is a distributor, not a creator. True, a content creator can enter into a contract with a publisher that gives the publisher some copyright privileges and yes publishers can create some content. Nevertheless, content creators (with our computer technology) today should just simply fire their publisher and market the content themselves. But, I guess the publishers want to fool you into thinking that they are entitled to copyright protection, which they are not.
Second, our legal system is supposed to be based on a level playing field. If we follow what Sanford and Brown are advocating, every profession and I mean every profession would be entitled to protective legislative welfare. The free market would be non-existent.
As a quick take, it might not apply to credit cards since they let you "terminate" your card if you don't agree to the change in terms.
As for cell phone contracts, I would not consider them valid. One aspect of a contract is the concept of damages. If you terminate early, I don't see what the real damage is to the phone company, so I don't see how they could collect an early termination fee.
I suspect that they would claim that the "damage" is that they gave you a phone at a significant discount and that they needed to recoup that "damage" if you quit their service. But if they did that, the early termination fee would then be on a sliding scale. Do the cell phone companies do that? (Sprint many years ago had an early termination fee even if you kept your old phone. Clearly no damage in that situation.) I would take the position that the phone was simply an enrollment gift, a loss-leader in a sense. So if the phone company made a bad business decision by giving you a gift, then they are NOT entitled to any early termination fee.
Now if we can fix the fiction of "one click agreements", contracts by adhesion, and that products are only leased/licensed (not sold) we will be on the road back to rationality.
With the way our legal system is going it appears that it is OK for a Corporation to "hack" a customer's computer. If its OK for a Corporation to "hack" your computer than it should be OK for an individual to "hack" the Corporate computer.
Also, as has been pointed out by others, would we have to pay for spam, advertising, and other unwanted content that is forceably delivered without our consent?
On the post: That's One Way To Grab Search Traffic
A Different Take
I don't want to receive porn, but neither do I want to receive irrelevant sales pitches that interferes with "real" research, such as product reviews. When I am looking up product specifications, I don't want the sales pitch. For example, I was looking for a watch battery where the vendor implied that they had the battery, but when you actually went there, they neither had the battery specs nor did not have the battery. In another case, I mistyped at URL and got a fake web page full of adds, instead of the "Sorry but you are an idiot for mistyping ...".
While advertising pays for our ability to surf the net, the search engines need to give us what we are asking for, not what is being crammed down our throats.
On the post: Sears Settles With FTC For Putting Spyware On Customers' Computers
Re: So when will they do this for everything?
So true. As a corollary, it amazes me how many people seem to accept the premise of "buyer beware" and the need for so-called regulatory relief from disingenuous business practices in the name of "fostering business". If we are a nation where things such as responsibility and the law mean anything, companies should willfully stop playing these "games". If a company is not willing to act responsibly then regulate them.
The US, a nation of by and for the corporations.
That reminds me, one person I know suggested that all lawmakers, like the race car drivers, wear the emblem of their corporate sponsors!!!!!!
On the post: Store Payment Info In Your Online Store? Watch Out For Patent Infringement Lawsuits
Is There Room on the Supreme Court for this type of Abuse?
I have no idea concerning the scope of what the Supreme Court will be ruling on, but obvious business practices should not be entitled to patent/copyright protection.
We can only hope that those advocating the elimination of patent protection will file a "friend of the court" petition full of these absurdities.
On the post: Newspaper Association Insists That Only Newspapers Can Do Real Reporting
Arianna Huffington Interview at CNBC
Julia Boorstin writes: "Her HuffingtonPost.com, which is entirely ad supported, is profitable and growing, unaffected by the downturn in ad spending. And Huffington is a firm believer in the ad model. As newspapers struggle to compensate for the downturn in print advertising with new digital revenues she cautions that publications should be wary of a "walled garden" approach."
On the post: Suggestion For Warner Music: Maybe Look At How Much You're Paying Your Execs
Cut Executive Pay, You Must be Joking
The financial meltdown has demonstrated that pay for performance is a farce. Our corporate executives seem to believe that their companies are fiefdoms to be stripped of all value for management's own private gain.
On the post: Newspaper Association Insists That Only Newspapers Can Do Real Reporting
Biased Reporting
For example, the New York Times, when it comes to discussing copyright and patent law has an obvious bias for "stronger" laws. Not only that but their so-called reporting, in many cases, is simply a regurgitation of industry press-releases. Given this unfair bias and lazy approach, I wouldn't label many of the Times articles on copyright as real journalism that discusses both sides of an issue to inform the reader so that the reader can make up their own mind on the issue.
Many copyright and patent advocates also want to dismiss "free" content such a Wikipedia since it is "unverified". While this criticism may have some truth to it, I don't think that traditional sources of information such as the Encyclopedia Britannica are really any better and are a susceptible to distorting bias as the New York Times.
We can only hope that truth, from whatever source will emerge out of the cacophony.
On the post: More Privacy Laws Don't Mean More Privacy
Its the Fault of the Companies
Mike writes: "when all it really does is create extra burdens on both companies and users without any corresponding privacy benefit." The fault is with the companies, if they want they could give us, at least in theory, real privacy. There is nothing preventing them from not sharing data. The are willfully distributing our data, so they are free to stop.
We don't need government involvement to create the "extra burden and expense". Companies could save this extra burden and expense by simply not sharing/trading/selling private data, by not sending us junk mail, by not telemarketing. Lets recognize that many so-called onerous regulations are really the result of willful disingenuous business practices.
Additionally, the dismal state of our privacy laws is because corporate lobbyists water them down to the point that they are useless. Disclosing the "whole" story requires an acknowledgment that many of our laws that don't work as expected are the consequence of corporate interference. Does that excuse the government; NO.
Lets look at it this way, if corporations are not self disciplined to act responsibly then they deserve to be regulated. Period.
Too bad our politician have "sold out" the American people.
On the post: Sony Pictures CEO: The Internet Is Still Bad
Re: It's a shame, Sony was a visionary company once
We seem to lose sight that this is an unfortunate "natural" social progression. To misquote Hegel the "cause of failure is success".
On the post: Sony Pictures CEO: The Internet Is Still Bad
What Property Rights?
My response to Mr. Lynton, what property rights. It seems to me that the content industry is actually stealing property rights from the public.
If I buy a music CD, I should be able to use it on my MP3 payer or on my computer anyway that I wish. The content industry seems to want to claim that you owe them $$ every time you "transform" the product (Sony rootkit fiasco). Not only that they are even attempting in some cases to claim that they can turn off your access to content for any reason that they wish. Seems to defeat the purpose of "sale".
The content industry has increased the time period that content remains under the protection of copyright before it falls into the public domain. This is theft from the public!
They have changed the law to diminish your rights.
Its time to point out to the content industry that they cannot claim property rights that they do no possess and that they should not steal from the public.
On the post: Ding Dong, NebuAd Is Dead
What about the RIAA and MPPA?
On the post: Movie Studios Continue To Demand Australian ISP Admit To Supporting Piracy
Re: Logical
On the post: Should Police Be Arrested For Illegal Hacking For Setting Up Fake Facebook Profile?
Moral Duplicity
The New York Times screams moral outrage when it comes to strip searching a 13 year old girl based on a false accusation but then is silent concerning demands by the content industry that ISPs "filter" internet traffic without any due process or even probable cause. Seems to me that the concept of "justice" for the Times is a matter or perspective and not law.
Please see: Piracy and the Legal System
On the post: Lawyers: To Save Newspapers, Let's Destroy Pretty Much Everything Else Good
Copyright and the abuse of Freedom
-------------
Thanks to William Stepp at Against Monopoly for finding the quote below from John Perry Barlow. This quote was written in 1994!
"The greatest constraint on your future liberties may come not from government but from corporate legal departments laboring to protect by force what can no longer be protected by practical efficiency or general social consent."
On the post: Lawyers: To Save Newspapers, Let's Destroy Pretty Much Everything Else Good
Publisher's don't Have Copyright Protection
First, in terms of copyright, a publisher does NOT directly have copyright protection. A publisher is a distributor, not a creator. True, a content creator can enter into a contract with a publisher that gives the publisher some copyright privileges and yes publishers can create some content. Nevertheless, content creators (with our computer technology) today should just simply fire their publisher and market the content themselves. But, I guess the publishers want to fool you into thinking that they are entitled to copyright protection, which they are not.
Second, our legal system is supposed to be based on a level playing field. If we follow what Sanford and Brown are advocating, every profession and I mean every profession would be entitled to protective legislative welfare. The free market would be non-existent.
On the post: Court Rejects Online Terms Of Service That Reserve The Right To Change At Any Time
Re: Re: I wonder...
As for cell phone contracts, I would not consider them valid. One aspect of a contract is the concept of damages. If you terminate early, I don't see what the real damage is to the phone company, so I don't see how they could collect an early termination fee.
I suspect that they would claim that the "damage" is that they gave you a phone at a significant discount and that they needed to recoup that "damage" if you quit their service. But if they did that, the early termination fee would then be on a sliding scale. Do the cell phone companies do that? (Sprint many years ago had an early termination fee even if you kept your old phone. Clearly no damage in that situation.) I would take the position that the phone was simply an enrollment gift, a loss-leader in a sense. So if the phone company made a bad business decision by giving you a gift, then they are NOT entitled to any early termination fee.
On the post: Court Rejects Online Terms Of Service That Reserve The Right To Change At Any Time
Its a Start
On the post: Guy Convicted Of Hacking For Uploading Naked Picture Of Himself
Endless Permutations
On the post: Who Will Monitor And Audit Broadband Metering?
Only the Beginning
Cellphone user shocked by charges of $85K
Man gets $27,000 phone bill after watching Bears game on web
Also, as has been pointed out by others, would we have to pay for spam, advertising, and other unwanted content that is forceably delivered without our consent?
On the post: Former RIAA Lawyer At DOJ Will Only Avoid RIAA Issues For A Year
Re: Souter's Exit to Give Obama First Opening
On the post: Former RIAA Lawyer At DOJ Will Only Avoid RIAA Issues For A Year
Souter’s Exit to Give Obama First Opening
TechDirt could run a contest, the winner gets a cheap prize from EFF.
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