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EFF, Gator Against Other Pop-ups?
The Register reports that Gator has filed suit against Extended Stay America Inc to ensure that Extended cannot block its ads. Gator's argument is that consumers should be able to decide what they see on the Web and not Web site owners. It said in its suit that Extended Stay America has no right to prevent computer users from choosing to get its software and "viewing separate works, comprising advertising on that user's own computer screen, even when other works share the screen." Meanwhile, the EFF is considering supporting Gator's case, saying the issue is about who controls a computer when people go on-line.
I think this article is either missing some rather important details, or wasn't very clear. Is Extended Stay America blocking its customers from viewing Gator content while using the "hotel's" network, or somehow magically blocking Gator from working while someone looks at their website from anywhere in the world?
I don't really see a problem with any hotel or whatever that provides me internet access as a service blocking any particular content. So long as it's in the agreement signed at the front counter--seems fair. And if people don't want this type of service, simply don't stay at their chain. Personally, I like that sort of thing so I would be inclined to stay with them more often knowing this. It's not a first ammendment thing since I'm told about it up-front and I can choose to stay elsewhere.
On the other hand, if Extended Stay America has found a way to disable Gator from working on their website from anywhere--my congrats. Yeah, it's probably going to cost them in this civil suit that they may lose. It's still cool to think that someone's found a way to disable Gator, though.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Ok, and what about Gator installing its ad/spyware without users noticing it? What about it opening endless of popup/popunder windows? What about it monitoring users browsing/shopping habits?
Ah, yes. More Internet legal crap being built to slightly alleviate Windows users' ridiculous spyware problems. Not an issue, except for the fact that then there's stupid case law that comes and slaps the rest of us in the face. Why should there be legal grounds for blocking or not blocking anything? Why should it be illegal for something like "smart tags (or whatever MS called its failed link-adding code)", or a Javascript-filtering proxy, or a text-based web browser to be used? The entire fucking point of HTML and the Web was that *anyone* could view the content however they wanted. Use whatever browser, whatever platform. Dumb terminal attached to a VAX/VMS system? No problem.
And now, thanks to *stupid* squabbles over ever-shrinking ad-revenue among dying dot coms, we're going to end up with a massive amount of legal baggage.
Let me put down my feelings. Anyone and anything should be able to process someone's web pages before the user views them, if the user so desires. If I want to have squid+sleezeball eat my ads, then I should be darn well allowed to do so. If I have a fetish with the color blue, I should be able to make my text always blue, and I should have the right to have user-defined !important CSS elements locally.
Now, some people are complaining that Gator does things behind a user's back. Okay, fair enough. Make a law about deceptive claims that software packages make. If you really want regulation over software, do something with a European flavor and require that any software sending personal information (as defined by law) give, in plain English and a standardized format, an enumeration of what information is being transmitted. Via a *standard API*, so that companies can log, filter, and deal with the software being run on their networks, and users can keep a log, etc.
But as for companies complaining about who has the right to slap the next flashing ad banner across some Windows user's screen...who really wants to give company A legal protection from company B?
Nothing would suck more than to have a bunch of "quick-fix" laws slapped on the Internet and software in general. SYN flooding is a federal crime now because for a while, people were pissed off and scared about a hole that was difficult to patch over in TCP. Of course, syncookies came out quickly, but now we have this stupid law on the books that's going to be there forever and ever. Let's not have another mess like that, please.
Thanks. Coments are, as always, welcome.
May we never see th
Could Time Warner Cable block sites that are critical of AOL?
.sig, eh?
Sure, I'd support their legal right to do so, say, come up with a web page saying "this site is blocked by AOL/Time Warner".
Of course, if they redirected requests to a apparently legitimate false (their own) website, I'd consider that illegal, since you're claiming to be www.wehateaol.com or similar. Probably fraud.
I'd also support the right of the media to do a nasty series of articles about this, and the right of the consumer to switch away from AOL after hearing that AOL does this.
Censorship isn't inherently wrong. If all the members of a church don't want porn on their public access computers, that's their right. People should be able to voluntarily engage in censorship. The problem with censorship is when something like the government starts doing it -- then you're screwed, because you can't ever escape it.
Entertaining considering my
Should Universities acknowledge the RIAA letter and continue their P2P crackdowns?
This has nothing to do with whether netadmins should listen to the letter or not -- it only relates to whether, if they do decide to take action based on said letter, they have the righ to do so. Sure, I'd also support the right of a network admin to bandwidth cap or port-block ports on their own network. Of course, such things might factor into my decision to attend that university...
May we never see th
But what if Extended Stay makes the claim that it is acting on the user's behalf to block Gator's ads, That's the claim that Gator is making.
If Gator can make the claim that by the user's download of Gator, Gator is acting on the user's behalf in replacing Extended Stay's ads with its own, what is to keep Extended Stay from saying that by the user's navigation to Extended Stay, Extended Stay is acting on the user's behalf to block Gator.