A dream that all web sites use https for everything. Why do so many web sites still not use https? Do they *like* third-parties being able to snoop on their visitors?
> The difference is that avoidance is legal
It's legal because they change the laws to make it that way. Mitt Romney made his money 'legally' too, but is too ashamed to release his tax returns so we know how. That should tell you something. If every worker in the US insisted they are paid through their Cayman's registered company which employs them on "minimum wage" then Treasury would spit their coffee.
> The tax revenue from these online sales is being lauded as a win for the debt-ridden state, which estimates... more than $83 million of that is expected to come from Amazon alone.
Have they factored in that the new tax will cause people to buy less?
>I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Yes, government wastes a lot of money, but they don't waste all of it. e.g. The platoon taking fire for you somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. (A cheap shot, but I make my point.) The CDC doesn't suck either.
Here's an update on what happened with that case: Even though she was only 15 years old when the photo was taken *and* it was used in a for-profit advertising without her permission, the courts sided with the phone company (Virgin) who did this and dismissed her case. Virgin was unapologetic
The problem is you don't have a say over this: Even if you're not a iPhone-weilding Youtube-uploading Instagram-snapping Facebook-addicted Gmail-enabled Twitter-junkie, you will have friends that are and upload information about you without thinking about it. I'm Privacy aware, but many non-technical people aren't. Now add to that webcams and surveillance video and there is no escape. No wonder they've been dragging their heals on privacy legislation with real teeth: Corporations will love it for data-mining and government will love it for surveillance.
If they are going to serve beer in the Whitehouse it's much cheaper to brew it themselves then to buy it.
About 30 cents for a 750 mil bottle holding the equivalent of two cans.
They also don't have to pay the extortionate government sales tax on alcohol.
Hey hang on...
Come now, Josh. Apple is all-wise and even if their excuses don't make sense - and deep down they don't agree with your political beliefs - they only have your best interests at heart. Yield to their decision. You should be happy they even allow you to play with everyone else in their walled garden. If you don't like it, you can leave. Sense the moment, because this is as close to unbridled, unaccountable power as you will ever come.
Seriously: It sucks. Talk to the EFF and ACLU. Apple refusing to rebroadcast information like this is like your phone company cutting your life because they don't like your politics.
Hey Slashdotters, I wonder if we can get the Federal Government to protect us from terrorists? I was thinking we hire a lobby group together, start our own SuperPAC, stuff like that. I figure if we give "donate" enough money (more than the RIAA is giving Biden) maybe we can shift their law enforcement efforts to things like stopping is from getting killed. As opposed to stopping Spaniards streaming sports.
This guys claim to fame is he had a Mohawk! If someone else in the room has a Mohawk, would they be famous too? Is this all it takes to be famous in America these days? (Answer: YES!)
Microsoft did a similar thing with DirectX for graphics: They kept bringing out new versions which were incompatible with old versions, and it kept demanding rewrites. Yes, some of the new stuff is cool, but even the object names have the version numbers embedded in them e.g. LPDIRECT3DINDEXBUFFER9 === That 9 is for DirectX version 9! Sometimes you want to write code and leave it without having to spend the rest of your life rewriting it, just because some dweeb in Microsoft gets an itch. In the end we gave up and switched to OpenGL.
In Civil Law countries the Judge embarks on a search for the truth. In America we have an adversarial system where the best liar wins. The judge is merely the umpire. Seriously: Even if the judge knows one side is lying their asses off or hiding evidence they won't say or do anything because that would violate their 'independence'. The jurors are seeking the truth, because the courts are not. Better the jurors are allows to search for the truth and the judge joins them as an advocate not for the court but for the truth!
PS. I'm not talking about the Apple-Samsung jurors. I think we all agree they suck ass.
Agree. Patents are supposed to be novel, not obvious and useful, but unfortunately the USPTO is very promiscuous in granting patents; They apply some basic tests, but they're very easy to get through and if you make enough noise they will approve it: Give them a thick enough patent application and they will shrug, approve it and leave it up to the courts to decide. So the jurors in this case should have tested the validity of the patent, and not blindly followed it.
The problem here seems to be the the jury didn't realize that. They didn't realize they could have determined all this crap Apple is patenting is obvious. Instead they thought if the USPTO granted it then it must be valid, which is wrong and upheld something quite ridiculous. What a farce.
I love the way government bureaucrats paint the citizens as the bad guys who can't be trusted and need to be spied on.
Check this out: The Head of the Reserve Bank squirming uncomfortably over a bribe scandal he claims they knew nothing about... until an embarrassing memo surfaced:
The government politicians won't do anything: "The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, whose three-years-and-counting response to this growing scandal has been to say nothing and do nothing. By not confronting the unpleasant questions about the RBA and other government agencies that flow from this scandal, the Gillard government is rapidly becoming part of the cover-up."
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the laws went further than necessary, and the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were needed: ''The European treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does." Ludlam said the new laws are a "lite" version of the laws Roxon had only two weeks ago promised to delay until after the next election. She didn't mention that when she announced her decision to delay those laws: everyone assumed it was over. Australian human rights lawyer Jen Robinson described it as a "A sad day for civil liberties." http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/ http://www.dailydot.com/news/australia-cybersecurity-bill-privacy/
OP is right: The product reviews on Amazon's web site are incredibly useful.
Whenever I'm considering buying a book - or even a toy - I head to Amazon.
But one serious problem the Amazon reviews have is they are getting clogged
with people who give a product review full-marks and then say something inane like:
"Shipping was very fast! Will buy again. A+++ recommended."
In other words they think they're on eBay. It means whenever you do check out a product review
you have to wade through all these crap ones and also it skews the product scores.
I raised this with Amazon a few years ago and the clerk I spoke to did delete some of them,
but besides that they've sat back and let their product review database - something of great worth -
fill up with crap.
For God's sake, Amazon: Fix these reviews. Tell people to review the product and
not the wrapping, shipping time or the vendor. At least let readers have a button to recommend these
inane reviews be checked and dropped, instead of having 31 people go '0 out of 31 people found this review useful.'
How about you let us drop it entirely?
Not only is this a stupid decision - that my genes can be patented by a third party - but it's a decision which will allow the patent trolls to monopolise them and will result in many, many deaths worldwide. These judges should be ashamed of themselves on both levels.
Judge Alan Lourie writes: “Each of the claimed molecules represents a nonnaturally occurring composition of matter.. Oh bullshit. I've noticed when lawyers try and make decisions regarding science and technology - be it copyright or biosciences - more often than not they balls it up and the public is left to bear the cost of their arrogance. In this case research will be curtailed by other scientists not wanting to go anywhere near what may be patented technology, and members of the public will die. Talk about judicial arrogance.
My apologises for CNNing the word 'invasion'. They've surrounded and entered the building:
UPDATE 11:15AM (AEST):
REPORTS suggest more British police have been seen entering the Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seeking asylum.
Observers and protesters at the scene have been Tweeting the arrival of a third police van, and more officers entering the embassy via a side door.
The Press Association had earlier reported officers arriving outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, close to the Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/ecuador-to-announce-assange-asylum-britain-threat-to-raid-embassy/story-fnd134gw-1226451503293
I hope they don't offend Ecuador's new best friend: China in talks with Ecuador over $12.5B refinery: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/china-costarica-idINL4E8JE3R920120815
We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.
"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.” http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html
In the West jailing people for criticising the government would be unpopular, so they find more subtle but equally effective ways to do it. These silence not just bloggers, but journalists too: The easiest of these is libel laws. US Citizens are lucky that their Right to Free Speech is enshrined in the Constitution, but citizens in other supposedly liberal democracies have no such protection.
Libel Law: "In theory, the objective of defamation laws is to balance protection of individual reputation with freedom of expression. In practice, defamation laws are frequently used as a means of chilling speech. A threat of (costly) defamation proceedings and damages, whether or not a plaintiff's claim is likely to be upheld by a court, is often used to silence criticism not only by a particular person or group but also as a threat to others." https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html
> Most Americans think the TSA is doing a 'good job,'
Of course they do. That's the whole point of security theatre:
Security theater: term that describes security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
This has been long forgotten by the people who oversee the court system, but the purpose of the law is "to moderate human behaviour."
Such a petty fine against such an incredibly wealthy company will do nothing to moderate their behaviour. To make it worse, Google is openly engaged in large scale tax evasion/avoidance. In the UK last year out of £224 million in taxes they only paid a pitfull £6 million. A fine of £14 million is pocket money to them - just operating overhead. If the government wants to moderate Google's behaviour (besides just pretending to want to) then they would fine them far, far more.
PS. In the words of Willard Mitt Romney, "Corporations are people too, my friend!"
>The FCC's safety standards include a 50-fold safety factor and, as the FCC has noted, are the most conservative in the world.'
That's hardly a reason to change them. The reason America escaped the thalidomide epidemic was that it's drug approval standards were the safest in the world. FDA Reviewer Frances Oldham Kelsey who upheld those standards received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for not lowering those standards despite heavy pressure from drugmakers. She is the reason some readers still have their arms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey
So don't just water down a standard just because "everyone else is doing it." Do it on hard evidence. That the FCC cites "everyone else is doing in" is a cause for concern.
What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."
The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html
Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm
So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?
And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB?;-)
> Legislation should exist to benefit society, not to maximize profits for a select few corporate entities.
In the overpriced farce that the justice system has become it is forgotten that the purpose of the law is to moderate human behavior. Legislation is merely the embodiment of the law. Allowing a few select corporate entities to bully and monopolize disadvantages society.
As you so rightly point out: This is nothing more that sheer greed by Apple trying to monopolize technologies they popularized by did not invent. If common sense were to prevail the judge would throw this case out, but these lawyers and the judges can't see the forest for the trees.
Slashdot Mirror
A dream that all web sites use https for everything. Why do so many web sites still not use https? Do they *like* third-parties being able to snoop on their visitors?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere/faq
https://httpsnow.org/
http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/03/https-is-more-secure-so-why-isnt-the-web-using-it/
http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/03/https-is-great-here-is-why-everyone-needs-to-use-it-so-ars-can-too/
http://serverfault.com/questions/161854/how-to-set-up-https-without-paying-anything-anywhere-but-with-no-warnings-from
> The difference is that avoidance is legal
... more than $83 million of that is expected to come from Amazon alone.
It's legal because they change the laws to make it that way. Mitt Romney made his money 'legally' too, but is too ashamed to release his tax returns so we know how. That should tell you something. If every worker in the US insisted they are paid through their Cayman's registered company which employs them on "minimum wage" then Treasury would spit their coffee.
> The tax revenue from these online sales is being lauded as a win for the debt-ridden state, which estimates
Have they factored in that the new tax will cause people to buy less?
>I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Yes, government wastes a lot of money, but they don't waste all of it. e.g. The platoon taking fire for you somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. (A cheap shot, but I make my point.) The CDC doesn't suck either.
Here's an update on what happened with that case: Even though she was only 15 years old when the photo was taken *and* it was used in a for-profit advertising without her permission, the courts sided with the phone company (Virgin) who did this and dismissed her case. Virgin was unapologetic
http://blog.internetcases.com/2009/01/22/no-personal-jurisdiction-over-australian-defendant-in-flickr-right-of-publicity-case/
The problem is you don't have a say over this: Even if you're not a iPhone-weilding Youtube-uploading Instagram-snapping Facebook-addicted Gmail-enabled Twitter-junkie, you will have friends that are and upload information about you without thinking about it. I'm Privacy aware, but many non-technical people aren't. Now add to that webcams and surveillance video and there is no escape. No wonder they've been dragging their heals on privacy legislation with real teeth: Corporations will love it for data-mining and government will love it for surveillance.
Take this girl: She had a photo snapped of her at a friend's BBQ. They uploaded it to Flikr without thinking, and next thing she knows she's on advertising billboards: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sesh00/515961023/ http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1047772/virgin-mobile-sued-virgin
> Your tax dollars hard at work yet again!"
If they are going to serve beer in the Whitehouse it's much cheaper to brew it themselves then to buy it. About 30 cents for a 750 mil bottle holding the equivalent of two cans. They also don't have to pay the extortionate government sales tax on alcohol. Hey hang on...
http://taxfoundation.org:81/article/state-sales-gasoline-cigarette-and-alcohol-tax-rates-state-2000-2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrewing
> Josh Begley's at a loss
Come now, Josh. Apple is all-wise and even if their excuses don't make sense - and deep down they don't agree with your political beliefs - they only have your best interests at heart. Yield to their decision. You should be happy they even allow you to play with everyone else in their walled garden. If you don't like it, you can leave. Sense the moment, because this is as close to unbridled, unaccountable power as you will ever come.
Seriously: It sucks. Talk to the EFF and ACLU. Apple refusing to rebroadcast information like this is like your phone company cutting your life because they don't like your politics.
Hey Slashdotters, I wonder if we can get the Federal Government to protect us from terrorists? I was thinking we hire a lobby group together, start our own SuperPAC, stuff like that. I figure if we give "donate" enough money (more than the RIAA is giving Biden) maybe we can shift their law enforcement efforts to things like stopping is from getting killed. As opposed to stopping Spaniards streaming sports.
This guys claim to fame is he had a Mohawk! If someone else in the room has a Mohawk, would they be famous too? Is this all it takes to be famous in America these days? (Answer: YES!)
Microsoft did a similar thing with DirectX for graphics: They kept bringing out new versions which were incompatible with old versions, and it kept demanding rewrites. Yes, some of the new stuff is cool, but even the object names have the version numbers embedded in them e.g. LPDIRECT3DINDEXBUFFER9 === That 9 is for DirectX version 9! Sometimes you want to write code and leave it without having to spend the rest of your life rewriting it, just because some dweeb in Microsoft gets an itch. In the end we gave up and switched to OpenGL.
In Civil Law countries the Judge embarks on a search for the truth. In America we have an adversarial system where the best liar wins. The judge is merely the umpire. Seriously: Even if the judge knows one side is lying their asses off or hiding evidence they won't say or do anything because that would violate their 'independence'. The jurors are seeking the truth, because the courts are not. Better the jurors are allows to search for the truth and the judge joins them as an advocate not for the court but for the truth!
PS. I'm not talking about the Apple-Samsung jurors. I think we all agree they suck ass.
Agree. Patents are supposed to be novel, not obvious and useful, but unfortunately the USPTO is very promiscuous in granting patents; They apply some basic tests, but they're very easy to get through and if you make enough noise they will approve it: Give them a thick enough patent application and they will shrug, approve it and leave it up to the courts to decide. So the jurors in this case should have tested the validity of the patent, and not blindly followed it.
The problem here seems to be the the jury didn't realize that. They didn't realize they could have determined all this crap Apple is patenting is obvious. Instead they thought if the USPTO granted it then it must be valid, which is wrong and upheld something quite ridiculous. What a farce.
I love the way government bureaucrats paint the citizens as the bad guys who can't be trusted and need to be spied on.
... until an embarrassing memo surfaced:
Check this out: The Head of the Reserve Bank squirming uncomfortably over a bribe scandal he claims they knew nothing about
http://www.smh.com.au/business/still-in-the-dark-with-governor-on-the-defensive-20120824-24rr7.html
The government politicians won't do anything: "The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, whose three-years-and-counting response to this growing scandal has been to say nothing and do nothing. By not confronting the unpleasant questions about the RBA and other government agencies that flow from this scandal, the Gillard government is rapidly becoming part of the cover-up."
Whoever tagged the above post flamebait needs their mod privs revoked *bad*.
Australian has Attorney-General Nicola Roxon passed new laws allowing the authorities to "collect and keep Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails." Roxon said the new powers will be used to find people "engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property".
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/new-law-to-control-cyber-data-20120822-24mur.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/authorities-gain-power-to-collect-australians--internet-records-20120822-24m03.html
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the laws went further than necessary, and the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were needed: ''The European treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does." Ludlam said the new laws are a "lite" version of the laws Roxon had only two weeks ago promised to delay until after the next election. She didn't mention that when she announced her decision to delay those laws: everyone assumed it was over. Australian human rights lawyer Jen Robinson described it as a "A sad day for civil liberties."
http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/
http://www.dailydot.com/news/australia-cybersecurity-bill-privacy/
OP is right: The product reviews on Amazon's web site are incredibly useful. Whenever I'm considering buying a book - or even a toy - I head to Amazon.
But one serious problem the Amazon reviews have is they are getting clogged with people who give a product review full-marks and then say something inane like: "Shipping was very fast! Will buy again. A+++ recommended."
In other words they think they're on eBay. It means whenever you do check out a product review you have to wade through all these crap ones and also it skews the product scores. I raised this with Amazon a few years ago and the clerk I spoke to did delete some of them, but besides that they've sat back and let their product review database - something of great worth - fill up with crap.
For God's sake, Amazon: Fix these reviews. Tell people to review the product and not the wrapping, shipping time or the vendor. At least let readers have a button to recommend these inane reviews be checked and dropped, instead of having 31 people go '0 out of 31 people found this review useful.' How about you let us drop it entirely?
Not only is this a stupid decision - that my genes can be patented by a third party - but it's a decision which will allow the patent trolls to monopolise them and will result in many, many deaths worldwide. These judges should be ashamed of themselves on both levels.
Judge Alan Lourie writes: “Each of the claimed molecules represents a nonnaturally occurring composition of matter.. Oh bullshit. I've noticed when lawyers try and make decisions regarding science and technology - be it copyright or biosciences - more often than not they balls it up and the public is left to bear the cost of their arrogance. In this case research will be curtailed by other scientists not wanting to go anywhere near what may be patented technology, and members of the public will die. Talk about judicial arrogance.
It was Judges Lourie and Moore who fucked this up. Bryson dissented. With such a narrow decision I hope the victims can appeal.
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/10-1406_0.pdf
My apologises for CNNing the word 'invasion'. They've surrounded and entered the building: UPDATE 11:15AM (AEST): REPORTS suggest more British police have been seen entering the Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seeking asylum. Observers and protesters at the scene have been Tweeting the arrival of a third police van, and more officers entering the embassy via a side door. The Press Association had earlier reported officers arriving outside the Ecuadorian Embassy, close to the Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/ecuador-to-announce-assange-asylum-britain-threat-to-raid-embassy/story-fnd134gw-1226451503293
I hope they don't offend Ecuador's new best friend: China in talks with Ecuador over $12.5B refinery: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/15/china-costarica-idINL4E8JE3R920120815
We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.
"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html
In the West jailing people for criticising the government would be unpopular, so they find more subtle but equally effective ways to do it. These silence not just bloggers, but journalists too: The easiest of these is libel laws. US Citizens are lucky that their Right to Free Speech is enshrined in the Constitution, but citizens in other supposedly liberal democracies have no such protection.
Libel Law: "In theory, the objective of defamation laws is to balance protection of individual reputation with freedom of expression. In practice, defamation laws are frequently used as a means of chilling speech. A threat of (costly) defamation proceedings and damages, whether or not a plaintiff's claim is likely to be upheld by a court, is often used to silence criticism not only by a particular person or group but also as a threat to others."
https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html
The UK defamation bill will do little to stop corporations suing individuals and should include a public interest defence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jun/27/libel-reform-get-right-defamation-bill
UK Libel reform campaigners demand better public interest defence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/27/libel-reform-campaigners-public-interest-defence
It doesn't affect only bloggers: Even journalists are restricted by what they can say:
http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html
Explanation of UK Libel Law
http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
The Australian Journalist's Defamation Checklist: Can you run this story?
http://www.hss.bond.edu.au/defamkit/
And if they report something embarassing to the Government, then it is jail time:
http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_06.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_Act
http://www.caslon.com.au/secrecyguide4.htm
The government redacted 90% of the recent proposal to snoop on Internet Usage. You would think the public have a right to know, but it's National Security if they say it is:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/no-minister-90-of-web-snoop-document-censored-to-stop--premature-unnecessary-debate-20100722-10mxo.html
I feel like a police negotiator desperately trying to talk a man out of shooting his foot off.
Repeat after me Microsoft: The desktop market is not the smartphone market, and any attempt to ram it down reluctant consumers throats will turn it destroy what is still your biggest cash cow. http://waysofteaandfailure.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/the-many-problems-of-windows-8.html
> Most Americans think the TSA is doing a 'good job,'
Of course they do. That's the whole point of security theatre:
Security theater: term that describes security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
This has been long forgotten by the people who oversee the court system, but the purpose of the law is "to moderate human behaviour."
Such a petty fine against such an incredibly wealthy company will do nothing to moderate their behaviour. To make it worse, Google is openly engaged in large scale tax evasion/avoidance. In the UK last year out of £224 million in taxes they only paid a pitfull £6 million. A fine of £14 million is pocket money to them - just operating overhead. If the government wants to moderate Google's behaviour (besides just pretending to want to) then they would fine them far, far more.
PS. In the words of Willard Mitt Romney, "Corporations are people too, my friend!"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2125883/Amazon-Google-sordid-reality-tax-avoidance.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/09/is-google-avoiding-or-evading-taxes-in-the-uk/
>The FCC's safety standards include a 50-fold safety factor and, as the FCC has noted, are the most conservative in the world.'
That's hardly a reason to change them. The reason America escaped the thalidomide epidemic was that it's drug approval standards were the safest in the world. FDA Reviewer Frances Oldham Kelsey who upheld those standards received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for not lowering those standards despite heavy pressure from drugmakers. She is the reason some readers still have their arms. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey
So don't just water down a standard just because "everyone else is doing it." Do it on hard evidence. That the FCC cites "everyone else is doing in" is a cause for concern.
What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."
;-)
But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse
There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au
The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html
Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm
So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?
And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB?
> Legislation should exist to benefit society, not to maximize profits for a select few corporate entities.
In the overpriced farce that the justice system has become it is forgotten that the purpose of the law is to moderate human behavior. Legislation is merely the embodiment of the law. Allowing a few select corporate entities to bully and monopolize disadvantages society.
As you so rightly point out: This is nothing more that sheer greed by Apple trying to monopolize technologies they popularized by did not invent. If common sense were to prevail the judge would throw this case out, but these lawyers and the judges can't see the forest for the trees.