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Yes, there is. The telcos have stated repeatedly that their agenda is to collect an extra toll for simply providing the same service they are already selling to their end-user customers.

All they want, right now, is a business model that allows them to get revenues from both content providers and consumers.

In other words, they want to double-dip and charge twice for providing the same service.

Right now, they have to claw back pretty much all revenues from consumers.

Businesses need to get their revenue from their customers? What a shockingly outre concept!

It's not that I object to the principle that, if the user pays for a service of quality X, they should get X across the board

Well, then your argument isn't with me; it's with the AT&T, Verizon, etc executives who do object to the notion that they are obligated to provide X even though they've only been paid for it once, not twice.

...and now it REALLY sucks dogballs: http://www.techdirt.com./

Didn't you hear, you don't have to invent anything to get wallstreet to throw money at it.

US government has already tried it, and the FCC is on our side. For now. But when South Dakota makes abortion virtually illegal, do you really trust our government to do what's in our best interests? They'll do anythign they can to get their paws on it somehow. They (the illusive "man/men for proper conjugation") are trying to get us to pay for email, for fuck's sake! It's up to us and how much BS we're willing to deal with. Sony's DRM didn't last long, now did it? The market will even itself out, or that's the going theory...

omfg phony:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060207/1817205_ F.shtml

This is a cut-and-paste from an article on Wednesday at TechDirt: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060222/0812215_F.sh tml

UGH, wth did my keyboard do.... All I have to say is they should have looked at patents before upping this...as reported last night on techdirt and today on /. a company has patented exactly this. Along with a few other interesting things if you read the entire patent.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060222/1644208_F.sh tml http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/23/01 59230&from=rss

All I have to say is they shou'd have looked at patents before upping this...as reported last night on techdirt and today on /. a copy has patented exactly this. http://techdirt.com/articles/20060222/1644208_F.sh tml
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/23/01 59230&from=rss

You want a newer article? http://techdirt.com/articles/20060217/1510213_F.sh tml Google's a company. They wouldn't be fighting this JUST for privacy. If they cared that much they wouldn't be in China...though I fully support that move, I'm just saying that if they cared about their users that much they either wouldn't have censored in the first place or they'd be listening to all the people protesting.

I thought the /. difference is that it wouldn't expose its readers to these higly vapourous 'fairy articles'.

Nope. Techdirt makes that claim, not /.

/. is just a "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." site. There's an implied "or" between those sentences. Slashdot is for fun and conversation, nothing else.

"He was not the greatest businessman in the world," Mr. Campana Sr. concedes. "Even when his business was going broke his employees never missed a day's pay. He went home without paying himself."

Mean while RIM in Nov. of 2002, to meet the finacial quota, layoffs followed;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/824

To be more balanced, here is the timeline on RIM vs NTP stories/posts;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/search?quer y=RIM&topic=&author=

I am not defending NTP or RIM, however this seems awfully a lot like history being repeated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth (Father of TV)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstron g (Father of FM radio)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci (Father of Telephone)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole (Father of Digital Age)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel (Father of Internal Combustion Engine)

All died with tregic end, without entitlement or recognition or compensation for their life's work while they were alive, only to be stolen and profited by thieves and corrupt hands of greed.

This may sound naive and to some "slashdotters," idiotic, but I value true human story in history more so than the profit margin or success of marketing and public opinion. The truth is, Mr. Stout and Campana are robbed from their rightful entitlement as Mr. Stout successfully demonstrated his idea through practical usage and only to be failed as business venture later on. This does not mean that Mr. Lazaridis didn't have any valuable input for this technology. However as patent is to protect the legitimacy of an idea, our legal system should validate that entitlement, not manipulate and craft to falsify the technical validity of original idea of the inventor.

I don't personally care for how many lines of code are there, regardless if it's 16 million lines or 16 billion lines to make BlackBerry work flawlessly. This patent isn't about who has how many lines of code or how much work has been put in or how much money it made or how important it is on fight against "terrorist." It's about the innovative idea and technology.

Other point is that often people are too quick to judge that patent itself is wrong, however without patent, non-profit driven, non-corporate endorced, average inventors and innovators of technology become faceless, only to be digged up later to be found in history book as many Open Source developers and programmers may face later.

Or are we all that naive that one day, giant corporations and investers will dig up the holder of the original idea their proprietary software/technology benefited from in oder to share the profit and entitlement? Will FOSS and GPL ever have enough backbone or teeth to enforce its ideal and fight legal battles against billion dollar corporations'?

What if Farnsworth became billionaire with his invention, what change could we have seen in today's TV broadcasting? What if Armstrong could have made his FM radio available to millions, what different sound could we hear over the radio today? What if Meucci and not Bell profitted from telephone, what could have happen for today's telecommuncation industry? What if Boole's idea was taken seriously and valued as later Claude Elwood Shannon, nearly 70 years later, found it to be, what could we have accomplished in today's computing industry? What if Rudolf Diesel was alive and prospected as Ford, could we have seen cars running on vegetable oil mor

"He was not the greatest businessman in the world," Mr. Campana Sr. concedes. "Even when his business was going broke his employees never missed a day's pay. He went home without paying himself."

Mean while RIM in Nov. of 2002, to meet the finacial quota, layoffs followed;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/824

To be more balanced, here is the timeline on RIM vs NTP stories/posts;
http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/search?quer y=RIM&topic=&author=

I am not defending NTP or RIM, however this seems awfully a lot like history being repeated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth (Father of TV)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstron g (Father of FM radio)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci (Father of Telephone)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole (Father of Digital Age)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel (Father of Internal Combustion Engine)

All died with tregic end, without entitlement or recognition or compensation for their life's work while they were alive, only to be stolen and profited by thieves and corrupt hands of greed.

This may sound naive and to some "slashdotters," idiotic, but I value true human story in history more so than the profit margin or success of marketing and public opinion. The truth is, Mr. Stout and Campana are robbed from their rightful entitlement as Mr. Stout successfully demonstrated his idea through practical usage and only to be failed as business venture later on. This does not mean that Mr. Lazaridis didn't have any valuable input for this technology. However as patent is to protect the legitimacy of an idea, our legal system should validate that entitlement, not manipulate and craft to falsify the technical validity of original idea of the inventor.

I don't personally care for how many lines of code are there, regardless if it's 16 million lines or 16 billion lines to make BlackBerry work flawlessly. This patent isn't about who has how many lines of code or how much work has been put in or how much money it made or how important it is on fight against "terrorist." It's about the innovative idea and technology.

Other point is that often people are too quick to judge that patent itself is wrong, however without patent, non-profit driven, non-corporate endorced, average inventors and innovators of technology become faceless, only to be digged up later to be found in history book as many Open Source developers and programmers may face later.

Or are we all that naive that one day, giant corporations and investers will dig up the holder of the original idea their proprietary software/technology benefited from in oder to share the profit and entitlement? Will FOSS and GPL ever have enough backbone or teeth to enforce its ideal and fight legal battles against billion dollar corporations'?

What if Farnsworth became billionaire with his invention, what change could we have seen in today's TV broadcasting? What if Armstrong could have made his FM radio available to millions, what different sound could we hear over the radio today? What if Meucci and not Bell profitted from telephone, what could have happen for today's telecommuncation industry? What if Boole's idea was taken seriously and valued as later Claude Elwood Shannon, nearly 70 years later, found it to be, what could we have accomplished in today's computing industry? What if Rudolf Diesel was alive and prospected as Ford, could we have seen cars running on vegetable oil mor

While other sites have their debates on the issue, I believe it will be ultimately up to the public to decide just how far a company can go in compromising their values. Either they won't care or they'll stop using Google altogether.
 
Are there any other search engines out there that are as good, and don't do this?

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes)

North Carolina had the same problem with their voting machines (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051130/1121207 _F.shtml).

The only new thing here is the current state finding Diebold non-compliant.

Thing is that Disney's new CEO, Robert Iger, announced the ABC deal without bothering to tell their network affiliates about it.

What mostly worried them was the "for sale the day after air" policy, which the affiliates argued will ruin their prime time ratings, since who'll watch TV when they can go buy it the next day (ya sounds absurd, especially in the context of this slashdot article).

Check this article on Slashdot, talking about how Disney's new CEO "managed to piss most of Hollywood", regarding the iPod video sales:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051014/1856227_ F.shtml

"While he restored Disney's relationship with Steve Jobs by agreeing to offer downloadable TV shows, we noted that this caught all the ABC affiliates by surprise, and they freaked out at the thought people might just download the shows instead of watching them on TV (despite, of course, the cost advantage to watching them or recording them off the TV). Turns out it wasn't just the affiliates that Iger forgot to let in on the secret. Actors, writers and directors are all up in arms and are collectively demanding that they get a piece of every $1.99 for every TV show sold through iTunes. In other words, even if Apple is actually making any money at $2/show, it's unlikely to last very long."

Taco always writes lame articles like this. He likes to give us "his take" on Slashdot as a "movement" and all that crap. The truth is that he is truly irrelevant to Slashdot. I didn't even know he was still alive. If he died today, it wouldn't matter except he's the only guy with keys to the Slashdot office supply room. Whether he's here posting articles (or Hemos, or Cowboy Neal, or whoever else) or not doesn't matter to us. I don't bother reading who's posting an article. I don't care. It's the article itself that matters, not the lame middlemen like Taco, who by virtue of his divine editorial powers chooses it as worthy of us and posts it to the front page, along with his High School-level observations.

Slashdot is only great because of the huge number of people submitting comments. Without the million monkeys here, Slashdot is http://www.techdirt.com/. Nobody posts there because nobody else posts there. Simple as that. Nobody's here because Taco's a guru. We're here because there are 50 geniuses posting in that crowd of a million monkeys, and we might actually learn something wading through the 900 thousand astroturfing Mac users and the GNAA trolls.

Taco, you and the other editor/moderator/nazis are irrelevant. Just keep paying your bandwidth bill and we need nothing else from you. Most of the time, you're just getting in the way, either with your retarded censorship or with your idiotic banning of IP addresses for a day or two. One of you idiots banned fucking OHIO one time. ALL of Ohio, as far as I could tell. I tried getting my MOM to post here (over an hour's drive away) and even her address was locked out due to someone's bad behavior. Nice work, Chairman Mao.

The problem is - there are too many of these subscription services now.
You almost have to pay an intermediary to give you the chunks of all of them that you need. For example, I should be able to subscribe to satellite radio as another piece of my cable service. If you have a 'set-top' box that can limit your attention to one media stream at a time, I believe the providers will be able to divide up my $20-$30/month into chunks for the music service, the scheduled TV program service, and the TV program 'rental' service. At $1/day, there's enough revenue for everything except possibly marketing. Oh well.

Just because something is a new technology doesn't mean I'll pay for it in addition to all the other stuff I pay for now. The current media systems are much more flexible and long-lived than what the proposed replacements are.

I use NetFlix at 18.00/month. If there were a digital movie subscription that didn't impose restrictions on my ability to watch my movie anywhere that has a DVD player, for example, I'd do that. With a DVD, I can take the physical medium to any convenient viewing location. I can't do that with my laptop (yet)

Free experiences will always be valued - Open Source can give me a viable software experience that I can obtain for the cost of the media or the bandwidth to download it with. I don't have to pay an annual subscription or 'software maintenance' fee unless I see the value in it.

Companies do not seem to want unbundling of their services, it makes their life more complicated, since they have to treat each customer individually. Telephone companies, and their obsoleted-by-VOIP 'settlement' process for sharing revenue among the originating, terminating, and 'long-distance' telephone company, will be used as a model for this kind of sharing.
I predict SBC and others' attempts to charge Internet 'information providers' such as Google will fail. However, if it appears to take hold, a community-based 'serverless' search engine will take it's place.

Pressure for 'unmetered' access will be constant, now that people have had a taste.

I thought they were referring to DotComGuy who changed his name to well...DotComGuy. And then back again.

...then the CD can't be played. Yes but it can be ripped: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051101/1514209_ F.shtml

"A group in the middle east who previously infected PCs with a rootkit via IM, apparently installed BitTorrent without user permission on infected machines, then started piping movies to the end users."
http://digg.com/security/BitTorrent_installed_with out_permission%2C_downloads_movie_files

more links:
http://www.vitalsecurity.org/2005/12/bittorrent-re loaded-unauthorised.html
http://www.spywareguide.com/articles/the_bittorren t_auto_installs_98.html
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051220/2013214_ F.shtml

Actually, the Lindows/Linspire guy is trying to get in this game again. He didn't go with 'gPhotoshop' or with spelling out the GIMP acronym though. I'm not sure how well his 'Compare' tagging will fare as he repackages GIMP and puts it next to a PhotoShop box in Wal-Mart.

Packaging free software up for retail sale didn't fly too well for the major distros in the consumer-space, I don't know what Robertson's expectations are for this ploy. At the very least though you would have to say he knows how to generate buzz (for better or worse)...

You might find this interesting then : http://techdirt.com/articles/20051216/029251_F.sht ml

Public Patent foundation knocked out the Pfizer patent Look at the guy who is taking on the Amazon "One Click" for example http://www.infoanarchy.org/section/features http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051130/1243250_ F.shtml http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/12/4/45354/8981 http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/ etc

This whole article is a misunderstanding. The French's press release in English was just poorly worded. When the original text is looked at it is obvious that the French are only instituting a DMCA of their own (sucks!). They are also banning open source software that is used to pirate. This is what we should really be complaining about. See article on techdirt for details. http://techdirt.com/articles/20051202/1451240_F.sh tml

How about Techdirt as well? You see Techdirt stories being picked up by /. on an an increasing basis...

This is awfully interesting... From TFA
University of Southern Mississippi, The Student Printz: History seems to show that anything done to stop files sharing will only create new methods and technologies to get around their controls. In light of that, should the middlemen (RIAA, et al) be thinking about ways to bring consumers what they want -- which they'll mostly end up getting in any case -- instead of futilely struggling to keep their finger in the dike, which ultimately only causes further public unhappiness with them?

Cary Sherman: History also shows that no matter what is done to stop bank robberies or shoplifting, some people will always find a way around those techniques. Does that mean we should simply give up and allow people to take what they should be paying for? Record companies ARE trying to give consumers what they want. Think of how music was available just a couple of years ago and how it's available now. You can buy an individual track, at any time of the day or night, and get it instantly on line. You can subscribe to services with a million-and-a-half tunes to choose from that you can listen to whenever you want, for an all-you-can-eat monthly fee.

Hrmmm Did he ever stop to think that if "Record companies ARE trying to give consumers what they want." Then the ratio of Illegal music downloads to Bank Robberies might be a little more consistent with what he is implying? Companies need to realize that copy protection isn't a trade off. It's a limitation. And it's a limitation that most people don't want to bother with.

Is it really? Or is EMI just talking out of their rears.

Whoops, forgot about this: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051108/1718242_ F.shtml

All the Sony companies share the same parent, and apparently the same (lack) of corporate ethics...

Whoops, forgot about this: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051108/1718242_ F.shtml

All the Sony companies share the same parent, and apparently the same (lack) of corporate ethics...

I believe Techdirt runs Slashcode. IMHO, they are a meaningful site.

Police searched his computer. The browser saves recent searches.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20051111/1819200_F.sh tml Google did not hand over anything the browser did.
Get your story right.

Is there anything that is not ridiculous to patent, in your opinion?

Ya, anything that someone working in the field goes "Hey, That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that." Or: "Wow that's amazing I'd have never thought of it!" But when half the industry goes "Gee, I made 5 of those last year but didn't consider any part of it worth the effort to patent." There's a good chance it isn't obvious...

I mean on the face of it my mind just boggles. "Variable speed wipers" isn't an invention, it's a requirement. Unless that sucker had to be dug out of a deep deep hole it just doesn't seem patent worthy. (Now, building the things could have been difficult at the time given a serious lack of methods and technology, it sure wouldn't be today.)

If so, what formal criteria could be used to separate the ridiculous ones from the non-ridiculous ones?

Well, non-obviousness can be approached in a number of ways.

Looks like the boycott will need to go beyond Sony - in the more bad news department, Techdirt is reporting that Universal Music Group is using the same copy protection on certain CDs. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051102/103241_F .shtml/ This situation is out of control, I will not be buying any music CDs from anyone until this crap gets sorted out.

Apparently Universal uses a similar system:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20051102/103241_F.sht ml

According to TechDirt the grandfather was sued for offering movies for download. Claiming that he isn't liable because his grandson was the one doing it, not him, is about as rediculous as saying that he's not liable if someone cracks their head open on faulty steps in his house because his grandson lives there not him. He owns the line, he's liable for any copyright infringement performed from that line. And no, it doesn't matter if it wasn't his son but some hackers who broke into his computer; if a burglar breaks into your house and puts his back out trying to lug away your safe, you're still liable. Much like copyright law in general, personal liability is insane and should be abolished.

With an online spreadsheet and word processor, I won't have to jack around with my flash drive all the time between school, work and home. I can create a document online and save it there; forward it to whomever I need to; and access it whenever without the need for my flash drive intermediary. Big news for me and the other kajillion students out there. I used to shuttle stuff around via email and even a web site I had before. This eliminates machinations like that too.

Also, the city of Houston and state of Indiana both set up a similar system called SimDesk a few years ago.

Hotel Card Keys

by Robert Mitchell on Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 @ 09:00AM

www.computerworld.com

"Regarding the hotel key information on Computerworld's Web site, that was indeed an observation in my blog and not a reported story. It's a snippet of information gleaned while talking to Wallace for another topic. Often during reporting interesting asides come up and my blog is a good place to drop those snippets from time to time. I have no reason to think that Wallace would make any of this up. It was simply a side comment he made. Wallace won't say which hotels, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that a few smaller chains have this problem. But one doesn't have to take his word for it. There's an easy way to find out if he's right, isn't there?"

Mitchell at Techdirt

http://techdirt.com/articles/20050907/1311206_F.sh tml

I would love to point people to

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050907/1311206_ F.shtml

or more simply,

http://hive.jup.com/analysts/elliott/archives/0103 02.html

(man, slashdot needs to do more research!)

it's not the only faul of You! Know! Who!

if itunes totally goes away.

they can take their drm ridden crap and put it and the DMCA where the music doesn't play.

at least with a cd I can take it and rip it and put on as many devices as I see fit.

I see itunes going away in the future because I think artists are getting sick of the record companies and now with the internet they can distribute their own songs that people will buy and not be DRM ridden.

I.E.
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050826/0920259_ F.shtml

I hope all the other artists out there see this and tell their record companies and their lawyers to get screwed. I think they will realize that they shouldn't treat their fans as automatic criminals.

Instead treat them like honest hard working people that will pay for their music on their terms and not some lawyers.

You may recall from a very earlier post that Bill Gates claims to recieve more spam than pretty much anyone else - one time claiming to recieve on the order of 1 million spams daily.

That has been revised now, but still a very large number:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041202/1547234_ F.shtml
  4 million per year.

http://www.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/5716

MjM

Here's my story submission, which provides some more info, that didn't make the cut:

starrsoft writes, "Apparently AMD's lawsuit isn't just just a PR stunt, as some have suggested. In related news to today's earlier story about AMD's claims concerning Intel compilers discriminating against AMD, EU regulators raided several of Intel's European offices regarding 'an ongoing competition case.' From the article: 'European antitrust regulators raided Intel Corp. offices Tuesday, two weeks after rival U.S. chip-maker Advanced Micro Devices filed a lawsuit claiming Intel used its market dominance to bully computer makers away from using AMD chips... For more than four years, the EU has been investigating claims that Intel used unfair business practices to persuade clients to buy its microprocessors to the exclusion of rivals' chips.In March, the bloc said it was continuing its probe after a Japanese investigation found that Intel had violated antitrust rules there. The EU cooperated with the Japanese regulators.'

Check out

http://www.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/5617

The first completely robotic fast food restaurant opened in 2031

It won't be anything like that long:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030801/1345236_ F.shtml
http://www.businesspundit.com/archives/000463.html
http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,211 026-1-454,00.html

You're assuming he *did* save and encrypt the alleged files. They're not mentioned anywhere in the articles I've read; merely that he had software installed. Considering most Linux distros come with GPG, Mac OSX comes with FileVault and Windows comes with EFS this proves nothing.

If he *had* encrypted files, then they'd have evidence to show for it - a virtual "locked safe", which at the very least arouses suspicion. Just having a safe with nothing in it implies nothing.

I think, apart from ignorance of the prevalence of encryption technologies in computers, the judge is conflating cryptology with steganography. Encrypting the files would make them more obvious, and couldn't account for the fact that they are not to be found.

It's my opinion that the prosecution are encouraging this confusion in an attempt to vilify the defendant, to gloss over that fact that their only other evidence is the word of a nine-year-old girl. If there is more to the case I'd be interested to find out what, but the articles I have read do not reveal much:

http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/2005/05 /24/mere_presence_of_encryption_on_pc_relevant_to_ criminal_acts.php
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050524/1639237_F.sh tml

As Internet use broadens, it is likely that software piracy also will expand, according to a study done by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and research firm IDC.

Currently, about one-third of software used is illegally made copies. But within five years, that number could boom to two-thirds, with the value of pirated software nearing US$200 billion.

Worldwide revenue loss due to software piracy was estimated at $33 billion for 2004.

"These losses have a profound economic impact in countries around the world," said BSA president Robert Holleyman. "Every copy of software used without proper licensing costs tax revenue, jobs and growth opportunities for burgeoning software markets."

Disturbing Numbers

Another key finding in the report focused on piracy rates per country. Piracy decreased in 37 countries, increased in 34 and remained consistent in 16.

In 24 of the countries studied, the piracy rate exceeded 75 percent. Countries with the highest rates were Vietnam, Ukraine, China, Zimbabwe and Indonesia.

Those with the lowest piracy rates were the United States, New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Culture Clash

The BSA anticipates continued spikes in piracy activities due to a continued influx of new users in emerging markets and increased availability of pirated software through P2P networks.

Piracy operating as business-as-usual in some countries is a major factor, said Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio.

"There are some places where they don't really think of it as piracy; they're just buying discounted software," she said. "Companies and the BSA are going to have to address the way that piracy has become the norm in some countries."

Class in Session

The BSA hopes to launch more education programs, policy initiatives and enforcement efforts in an attempt to lessen piracy.

The tactics have been used effectively in some locations. IDC noted that the United Arab Emirates adopted policies for curbing piracy in the 1990s, and now is on the list of low-piracy nations.

But it is likely that piracy still will be a difficult scourge in the years ahead. As IDC points out in the study, piracy is not uniform within a country -- it varies from city to city, and even among age groups within the same city.

the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"

You're right. Even if it didn't work, the perception that it does will keep it going. It's not unlike a former boss. He recoiled in terror when I referred to George W. Bush as "The Shrub." He warned me that I should watch out for the Department of Homeland Security and started looking around as if solders were about to burst in through the windows to haul me off.

The US Government is not, at present, hauling people off for being critical of the President, but the perception that they might was enough to keep at least one milquetoast from speaking up.

As for data about people buying from Spam, that's out there too.

One in five Brits 'buy software from spam'

One in ten users have bought products advertised in junk mail.

This thread, implies that the 10% number above is a bit inflated.

For those looking for the original analysis, it can be found at http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050427/0548219_ F.shtml