Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Epson, AbiWord, Justification
It was the least they could do. Last week, AbiWord's PayPal account for donations was lightened to the tune of several hundred dollars. Now, an anonymous reader writes "According to this posting, PayPal has succumbed to the pressure. They have agreed to reimburse the AbiWord team for the money that was stolen from their account last week. I still want to know how the AbiWord account was broken into..."
Because licenses matter. specht writes "I am a bit surprised that nobody has reported this yet. EPSON KOWA made their scanner and printer software available for downloading again after they had to pull it because of a GPL violation (see the previous Slashdot story). More information about this (and why it had to be removed in the first place) are here . Kudos to EPSON KOWA and EPSON for working with the FSF to resolve these issues."
No, that's "Gorilla marketing." akiaki007 writes "As many might have noticed, Friday most of Manhattan was covered with butterflies. This article on CNN that states that NYC fined MS $50.00 and the cost of cleaning up the static-cling plastic ads. On a side note, most other companies probably would have been fined per ad, though somehow MS got off, pretty much scot-free."
Priceless -- which is nice when you're paying. Digital Soldier writes "HERE is an article from Government Executive Magazine justifying, from a security perspective, the use of open source software in government. In short, the article makes the point that open source software allows security administrators to be pro-active rather than purely reactive in their work. I guess they don't like waiting for service packs."
Lovely spam, lovely spam ah ah ah ah ... ghostrider_one writes "Australian IT is reporting that notorious Australian spammers T3 direct have appealed the recent dismisssal of their lawsuit against the person they blame for being blacklisted in SPEWS."
...that many marketing companies in London regularly go around spray-painting music artist's names onto street furniture...
Maybe us Londoners are more relaxed about that sort of thing?
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
$50.00 to Microsoft is like 1 cent to the rest of the world. I suppose that the reason they got is because they 'support' public officials. In fact I wouldn't be suprised if those public officials gave them support on the ads in the first place.
Well the thing about Epson allowing downloads again has already been reported. BTW Epson makes some nice high-end scanners. One model for about $800 can have any particular interface installed. USB, FireWire, SCSI, Ethernet. Plug-in card.
Of course the marketers knew what they were doing with the ads. Did they not realize they were breaking the law? Of course they knew. They were counting on it, and by making waves, they were counting on getting on CNN and maybe others (/.). If they didn't make a fuss and apologize and such, then I, who am not a New Yorker, would never have known or seen the photo of the campaign. It worked. That's why they did it, and took the risk. So what if they have to pay a few dollars, even per butterfly. Its cheaper than running an add, most likely!
Here's my question: did Pay Pal give AbiWord the information about the transaction so they can track down the thieves who did this?
If not, why not? Maybe there's NOT a security problem... and the thieves work at PayPal?
OK, it's ridiculous... but so is the idea that Pay Pal wouldn't help AbiWord with such info...
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Does that make Mayor Bloomberg Officer Obie?
Ceci n'est pas un post
So, did ebay make this reimbursement as a donation or refund? In other words, did they admit guilt, or make a tax deductable gifte?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The issue is that EACH of the stockmarket, 401k plans and social security plans are regulated as a SPECIAL CASE by the government. In fact, in the US, there's an entire portion of the government dedicated to regulating financial institutions, the Securities and Exchange Commission. In fact, I can't think of any company or institution that can move around large sums of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY without some sort of special regulation or dispensation. This means banks, clearing houses, wire transfer service companies, credit unions, insurance sellers, investment institutions of all sorts. Why are these institutions regulated? Because in the past, before they were not regulated, they did enough terrible things to people to cause the government to have to pass laws to put in some checks an balances to keep things from getting that bad.
And that's just malicious things that companies can do. What about if things go south with the company itself? What happens to your money? Paypal cares so much about the safety of your money that they are not even FDIC (Federal Desposit Insurance Corporation) insured. This is considered the minimum standard of safety with any corporation that stores or moves around any consumer money.
I'm sort of happy their tipjar was broken in to as well, since it gives me a concrete example of how insecure PayPal is. I'm also glad they got it back, though I'm sure if there was not so much PR about it, it would not have happened. It should be obvious that most people or companies do not have the ability to raise as big of a stink as AbiWord.
My next question is, though: What the heck were they doing leaving all that money in their paypal account? Most people I know that use paypal for business at least have the sense to get all the money out of there ASAP.