Not a government agency obliged to respect opposing views. Not a corporation bent on maximizing profit. Not a monopoly unfairly using its marketshare to bludgeon potential competitors into submission. A religious organization, part of whose stated purpose is to practice and promote a certain code of conduct.
The Catholic Church is about morality. They're supposed to instill moral behavior by word and by example. Of course they're filtering out porn, and probably other stuff that conflicts with the Catholic ideal. Would you ever take the Church seriously again if they were using their resources to make pornography readily available for all who want it?
For starters, this could be a pretty valuable service for businesses. SnapNames will let you know if your domain gets screwed with or you accidentally let it slip, and for a few extra bucks they'll renew it for you. Nice way to keep your web-site connected to the rest of the internet, if your employees aren't bright enough to do it for you (cough *hotmail* cough).
Monitoring domains to keep an eye on competitors and detractors isn't a big deal. The worst we'll see is an automated cease-and-desist system.
I doubt it would be very effective as a way to steal domain names though. ICANN's rules, screwy though they may be, are still in effect. You can't buy a domain name just to hold it for ransom. And most companies have copyrights or trademarks protecting their domain name. Individuals may get screwed over, but this isn't really a new phenomenon, just a faster way to do it.
I am a bit concerned by the collaboration with registrars. They give SnapNames "instant" access to registration. What do the rest of us get? If there is a substantial difference, is it fair for the registrars to sell preferencial access like that? Legal?
I think the astonished youth is more likely to ask "Your computers were really visible to the naked eye?" or "...required external power sources?" or maybe "...didn't rule the world as harsh yet fair despots?"
I feel so dirty saying this, but "Maybe now it's bad enough".
The DVD thing is pretty bad for those who use them. But DVD players are still not quite mainstream. It's a realm of geeks and the upper-middle classed. Many of them don't even care about region coding because they do their shopping down at the local store.
But start messing with TVs, and the people will care. Of course, that's assuming HDTV really takes off. We've been waiting for that to happen for years. So maybe what I'm really saying is "In 5 or 10 years, when this technology is outdated enough to be mainstream, then it will be bad enough to work up the masses".
I consider myself a patriotic American, but lately...well, we suck.
The French sued over Echelon, meanwhile the Americans government is still playing dumb with the citizens.
American courts are taking cues from American (or international-but-mostly-American) corporations to bully 16-year-old kids on the other side of the world.
And now Australia, which is not generally big in world politics (no offense), is the one to step up and say "hey, this sucks!" to the MPAA.
My fellow Americans...we're doing something wrong!
Those hard drives were indeed lost behind a copy machine, but they were still in a secure area. The area had been searched before; either the searchers overlooked the hard drives (would you look for a hard drive behind a copy machine?) or they were elsewhere the first time.
MS, in its unbroken state, will not make office (or Office) software for *nix anytime soon. To do so would be to acknowledge that *nix is appropriate for use in an office environment. Why would MS want to legitimize one of its competitors as appropriate for one of its biggest markets?
One quick reminder to the raving constitutional catch-phrase throwers:
"Innocent until proven guilty" and "due process" are constraints placed on the U.S. government. More abstractly, they are ideals which America supposedly tends to like. However, private organizations aren't required to uphold these ideals.
Unless MS goes through court to gets auctions taken down, auctioneers are only entitled to whatever scraps of fairness eBay decides to hand out.
I flipped through the comments. Of the four positive comments, only one was actually positive; someone apparently got his auction put back up. Ironically, I would have given neutral for that... The others were actually complaints, maybe the sender clicked the wrong button.
This is fairly evil stuff. I don't know how it was addressed in the DoJ trials, but the way MS controls distribution of software (those annoying "For distribution only with a new PC" licenses) has always been a monopoly complaint.
Since MS is officially an illegal monopoly, eBay is sort of an accomplice. Yes, I'm hyperbolating.
This article kicks a little sand in the face of the open source community, but I'm glad to see it. I wish more security problems would be exposed this way, as opposed to some more-or-less harmless hacker/cracker exploiting a bug.
(Of course, it would be kinda difficult to break into a system by exploiting a non-random PGP key)
I don't think that's quite right. I watched the Nortwest Cable News report on the new lovebug variant, and not once did they mention Microsoft or Outlook, just "destroy your entire system". Nobody's blaming Microsoft for anything, they're just blaming "those darn hackers" for causing the problems.
Well, they should. It was all Microsoft's fault!
Sorry. Moderate me down...I just couldn't resist...
I'm not trying to flame the faceless masses, but...
I think it would be very problematic if the main "customers" were not technically/computer inclined. We live in a world where X thousand people clicked on a VBS script without knowing what it is, then blamed Microsoft for letting them do it. So many people can barely figure out e-mail, you could be asking to trouble by giving them a more complex system to deal with.
That said, it would probably be pretty cool if it was used by sharper minded folk. Throw in a indexed stash of prior problems, and it would cut your workload quite a bit.
I am pretty much the exact opposite of a lawyer (IANAL++), so take this with a grain of salt the size of Omaha...
Would it really be his responsibility to be a police-force for Trademark and Copyright infringement?.. Why should a registrar limit the registration of "mcdonalds.god" or "pepsi.god"? Unless these domains are actually used to infringe the copyright, why shouldn't "Joe McDonald" be able to own "mcdonalds.god"?..
There is a difference between policing and responding to legitimate complaints. He can let someone register pepsi.god, but if he knows it's infringing, he has to revoke whatever support he is giving. Just getting an e-mail from Pepsi may or may not quality, but a court order sure as hell would.
Taking it one step further- even if the site is a parody or direct rip-off of the trademark.. should the registrar really be held accountable rather than the owner?.. The internet is not like TV or Radio.. It is a "many to many" medium, more like the phone system.. Do we hold the phone company accountable if someone has a number that could "potentially" infringe on a copyright? (1-800-FAT-FOOD?)
I could be very, very wrong, but I think parodies are specifically protected a lot of the time. As far as the registrar being "held accountable" it's a matter of assisting a violation of the law. If I know that someone is (physically) stealing, and I support him in any way (even by doing something that would otherwise be legal), I'm an accomplice to the crime.
Conspiracy (which is a felony) might also apply, but I'm not sure how it relates the weird way copyright is sort-of criminal and sort-of civil law.
..Joe Baptista, who will be selling domain names under the TLD, says outright that he will not respect trademarks or even court decisions ordering him to respect trademarks.
It doesn't matter if his policies don't favor trademark holders. Trademark dilution and copyright violations are legal matters, not matters of company policy. If he knowingly lets it happen, he can be fined or go to jail.
Most judges would be pretty ticked at his attitude too, which would make it all the worse for him.
Slashdot Mirror
...but I'm afraid they'd sue me.
Not a government agency obliged to respect opposing views. Not a corporation bent on maximizing profit. Not a monopoly unfairly using its marketshare to bludgeon potential competitors into submission. A religious organization, part of whose stated purpose is to practice and promote a certain code of conduct.
The Catholic Church is about morality. They're supposed to instill moral behavior by word and by example. Of course they're filtering out porn, and probably other stuff that conflicts with the Catholic ideal. Would you ever take the Church seriously again if they were using their resources to make pornography readily available for all who want it?
Monitoring domains to keep an eye on competitors and detractors isn't a big deal. The worst we'll see is an automated cease-and-desist system.
I doubt it would be very effective as a way to steal domain names though. ICANN's rules, screwy though they may be, are still in effect. You can't buy a domain name just to hold it for ransom. And most companies have copyrights or trademarks protecting their domain name. Individuals may get screwed over, but this isn't really a new phenomenon, just a faster way to do it.
I am a bit concerned by the collaboration with registrars. They give SnapNames "instant" access to registration. What do the rest of us get? If there is a substantial difference, is it fair for the registrars to sell preferencial access like that? Legal?
I think the astonished youth is more likely to ask "Your computers were really visible to the naked eye?" or "...required external power sources?" or maybe "...didn't rule the world as harsh yet fair despots?"
The DVD thing is pretty bad for those who use them. But DVD players are still not quite mainstream. It's a realm of geeks and the upper-middle classed. Many of them don't even care about region coding because they do their shopping down at the local store.
But start messing with TVs, and the people will care. Of course, that's assuming HDTV really takes off. We've been waiting for that to happen for years. So maybe what I'm really saying is "In 5 or 10 years, when this technology is outdated enough to be mainstream, then it will be bad enough to work up the masses".
I'm not bitter. No sir, not me.
The French sued over Echelon, meanwhile the Americans government is still playing dumb with the citizens.
American courts are taking cues from American (or international-but-mostly-American) corporations to bully 16-year-old kids on the other side of the world.
And now Australia, which is not generally big in world politics (no offense), is the one to step up and say "hey, this sucks!" to the MPAA.
My fellow Americans...we're doing something wrong!
Prick! Don't Spam the Dot!
"Microsoft is computer stuff. Napster is computer stuff. Could it be any more obvious?"
...
...
*nix, it's not just for servers anymore...
...
"Innocent until proven guilty" and "due process" are constraints placed on the U.S. government. More abstractly, they are ideals which America supposedly tends to like. However, private organizations aren't required to uphold these ideals.
Unless MS goes through court to gets auctions taken down, auctioneers are only entitled to whatever scraps of fairness eBay decides to hand out.
...
This is fairly evil stuff. I don't know how it was addressed in the DoJ trials, but the way MS controls distribution of software (those annoying "For distribution only with a new PC" licenses) has always been a monopoly complaint.
Since MS is officially an illegal monopoly, eBay is sort of an accomplice. Yes, I'm hyperbolating.
...
(Of course, it would be kinda difficult to break into a system by exploiting a non-random PGP key)
...
Well, they should. It was all Microsoft's fault!
Sorry. Moderate me down...I just couldn't resist...
...
I'm not trying to flame the faceless masses, but...
I think it would be very problematic if the main "customers" were not technically/computer inclined. We live in a world where X thousand people clicked on a VBS script without knowing what it is, then blamed Microsoft for letting them do it. So many people can barely figure out e-mail, you could be asking to trouble by giving them a more complex system to deal with.
That said, it would probably be pretty cool if it was used by sharper minded folk. Throw in a indexed stash of prior problems, and it would cut your workload quite a bit.
...
NOT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
---
In this case, it's both. Americans in America are supposed to obey American law, even if the effects of their actions cross national boundaries.
...
Would it really be his responsibility to be a police-force for Trademark and Copyright infringement?.. Why should a registrar limit the registration of "mcdonalds.god" or "pepsi.god"? Unless these domains are actually used to infringe the copyright, why shouldn't "Joe McDonald" be able to own "mcdonalds.god"?..
There is a difference between policing and responding to legitimate complaints. He can let someone register pepsi.god, but if he knows it's infringing, he has to revoke whatever support he is giving. Just getting an e-mail from Pepsi may or may not quality, but a court order sure as hell would.
Taking it one step further- even if the site is a parody or direct rip-off of the trademark.. should the registrar really be held accountable rather than the owner? .. The internet is not like TV or Radio.. It is a "many to many" medium, more like the phone system.. Do we hold the phone company accountable if someone has a number that could "potentially" infringe on a copyright? (1-800-FAT-FOOD?)
I could be very, very wrong, but I think parodies are specifically protected a lot of the time. As far as the registrar being "held accountable" it's a matter of assisting a violation of the law. If I know that someone is (physically) stealing, and I support him in any way (even by doing something that would otherwise be legal), I'm an accomplice to the crime.
Conspiracy (which is a felony) might also apply, but I'm not sure how it relates the weird way copyright is sort-of criminal and sort-of civil law.
...
It doesn't matter if his policies don't favor trademark holders. Trademark dilution and copyright violations are legal matters, not matters of company policy. If he knowingly lets it happen, he can be fined or go to jail.
Most judges would be pretty ticked at his attitude too, which would make it all the worse for him.
...