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ewhac was one of several to inform us that Yahoo has knuckled under. Their auction site will now start using "computer software," which as we all know is infallible, to roboban auctions of Nazi and Klan items (see SFGate's story or CNN's story). France wanted its countrymen kept away from these items, and since Yahoo couldn't block the French, they blocked the stuff. Cigarettes, switchblades and used underwear are also forbidden, but it seems only the hateful stuff gets autoblocked. "Photons have neither morality nor visas" my ass. Just wait until every one of the planet's sovereignties gets a proscripted category of its own -- will I be able to sell paintings by John Wayne Gacy? Wounded Knee medals? Confederate flags? The world's full of offensive knickknacks, Yahoo, have fun banning it all.

The actual terms of service forbid: "any item which, in Yahoo!'s sole discretion, is inflammatory, offensive, unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable, or otherwise inconsistent with the spirit of Yahoo! Auctions." It's the robo-enforcement that's new.

Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

DigDug wrote in with a scary article about how closely AOL cooperates with law enforcement agencies. In the article, a local (Loudoun County, VA) Sheriff's Deputy is quoted as saying, "AOL is extremely law-enforcement friendly ... they don't hold anything back." While I'm sure we all want criminals brought to justice, there are some serious privacy concerns here. If you send e-mail to someone with an AOL account, apparently you'd better be v-e-r-y careful about what you say.

We break the week barrier, and tons of people email to gloat that they've seen screenings. The rest of us will have to settle for massive media hype including mantid's note from harper's that proclaims that Reagan's Star Wars project costed $4.166 billion, but Star Wars merchandise costed $4.5 billion. mattdm noted that Moviefone blew up under the ticket demand yesterday. ZD-Net has a report. DH1 sent us a really top notch interview at Salon with Empire Director Irvin Kershner- kinda nice to read something cool about the original movies after all this gas over the new one. Lastly Jethro73 sent us a George Lucas's take on piracy of Star Wars. Basically, he will be very angry and fight very hard (big surprise) against pirates. Update: 05/14 01:59 by CT : My ticket plans haven't happened, so if anyone has bright ideas on getting tickets for the Slashdot crew while we're at LinuxExpo, lemme know...