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ISPs in the US should still be protected by common carrier status. What this does is simply drive business from Canadian ISPs to US ( and elsewhere ) ISPs.

Hopefully that common carrier status will remain in the US. It seems there's already an assault on it in New Jersey. Knowing this conflicts with section 230 of the CDA, and that federal law supercedes state laws, it might not be a big deal. However, as more and more people are becoming aware of the ability to share information through the Internet (*especially* those who actually do have something to hide) we might see further attempts at regulation.

Of course, people have been aware of this the whole time - it's only now that the cockroaches see the lights on and are saying "OMG they're saying stuff about me on teh Internets!".... and here come the lawyers.

It's not because cartoons were published depicting Mohammed as a terrorist, it's because cartoons were published. This is something that's completely forbidden in their Religion.
It doesn't matter if they depicted Mohammed as a peace-loving hippie, the reaction would have probably been the same.
Another big factor was the spread of fabricated cartoons and the incitement of violence through rumours spread via sms messages.
And of course, the fact that a few years ago Jyllands-Posten rejected Jesus cartoons on the grounds that their readers would find them offensive.

Published Wednesday, December 14, 2005 by Jacob | Post to Del.icio.us

If you are an active Internet user and under the age of 25 (or 30), you probably fit in one of two categories; either [1] You have tried social networking, but didn't really get what the buzz was about, or [2] you get it, you dig it, and you sit for hours scouring, posting comments and photos, and clicking refresh obsessively.

Everyone has heard of Facebook. At almost 2 years old, it's growth is staggering.

Take a look at the Repeat Usage statistics, in particular and tell me that this isn't a craze bordering on obsession. 70 percent of users return on a daily basis to a site that really isn't all that dynamic. There are no blogs; just personal info, a place to post blurbs on users' "wall", and now pictures. With websites like Facebook and MySpace gaining an almost-disturbing amount of popularity, it seems that our desire for networking has trumped our sound-thinking, skepticism and desire for privacy.

I started thinking about this issue recently, and the question just keeps popping up: Why do we place so much trust in the creators of these websites? Since the emergence of "Web 2.0", it seems that with a simple "We're not evil, try our Beta" everyone is falling over themselves to shell out as much information as it takes.

Stop and think about Facebook for one minute. A 21-year-old Harvard student starts a networking site for college students, and now there are over 5 million users, many of which have probably never looked at the Privacy Policy. After all, Facebook is fun, so they freely post their name, address, school, concentration, political affiliation, friends, plans and even photos in which faces are linked to profiles. Comforted by the idea that this info isn't crawled by search engines, the fact remains that membership is only limited by the ownership of an ".edu" e-mail address (the Wall Street Journal expressed concerns about this, in fact).

What about the Privacy Policy? In the Help Section of Facebook it says, "Facebook respects your privacy. We don't distribute your user information to third parties" followed by "Read more about our Privacy Policy." Click the link and it says oh yeah, one more thing: we just might share your info, and it "may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies." This is a pretty typical policy, actually. It's in the section entitled "The Information We Collect" that it gets a little disconcerting.

When you visit the Web Site you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Web Site use information collected by us on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our Web Site.

It goes on to explain cookies, etc., but then ends with this vague third mode of data collection:

I'm not sure what that means, but I do remember something about AOL's updated terms of service.

I'm not usually big on conspiracy theories, but I point out Facebook's privacy policy to highlight some other interesting aspects of this company. It has been just a few months since Accel Partners anno

And you can take a survey about your AIM Fight Score at What is Your AIM Fight Score? on the Aunty Spam site.

A somewhat similar thing happened during the CDN media blackout of the trial of the infamous Carla Homolka. There was a complete media blackout in Canada, and suddenly a newsgroup which Paul Vixie had newgrouped for me back when I was feeling a bit blue (alt.fan.shedevil) was taken over by a bunch of Canadians desparate for news of what was going on, and a place to talk about it, and which was beyond the reach of the CDN authorities. Wow..it's still archived in Google groups!: http://aunty-spam.com/ref/carla-homka-alt.fan.shed evil (URL redirected because the Google url is so darned long.)

Or so he says.

I'll believe it when I (don't) see it.

I saw that too. What a turkey.

"Is it ok if we show your email address on screen?"
"I'd rather you didn't." (as scottrichter442@yahoo.com flashes several times...:)

A couple of weeks ago, the Aunty Spam blog did an interview with Scottie. Very evasive answers. I had a little back and forth dialog with him in there. (scroll about 1/2way down)
Very enlightening as to his mindset.

Aunty has just posted an exclusive interview with Scott Richter here. Even better - you can submit questions and comments to Richter in follow-up to the interview, and he will answer them. Kissy kissy, Aunty