I cancelled XM a while back and the rep kept trying to get me to stay with various free offers. He kept asking "Don't you want free service for 2 months?" and English was clearly his 5th language because he failed to understand NO. I finally got him to cancel by asking for a supervisor since she couldn't seem to do a simple cancellation. I must have caught him when he was on the edge of losing a bonus. Had he simply said "Hey. Help me out. If you cancel I lose a bonus. How about hanging up and calling back" I would have don that. Wouldn't with Comcast because it takes 20 minutes and multiple phone trees to get to human.
They got the word Microsoft into millions of home and unlike with their home PC, made it into a positive experience. Any money that might have been lost was made up for by the marketing gains. When people think XBox, they think Microsoft and successful product--two words that don't usually go together. That's worth any price Microsoft may have paid for the experience. Considering how much Xbox charges you for everything and everything, it certainly takes an extraordinary level of incompetence to lose money on something like that.
Marketing gains? Where? Windows and Office are already the de-facto standard. MS struggles in areas where they don't enjoy the benefits of being the standard; or as economist should say enjoy network externalities. The Xbox isn't going to make people decide to run out and buy a new copy of Windows or Office. "Gee. I really loved playing SuperMegaBlast. Maybe the new Windows will be as fun. Maybe I should get Office365 while I am at it." isn't a response to the Xbox. So unless it makes enough profit to justify its costs then they should get rid of it.The problem is who can afford to buy it and the development costs to stay ahead of the game? If they can they'd probably get a better return from a bond or mutual fund than the Xbox. Upside? What console maker makes any big profit on the hardware?
No, it is a economical thinking that there are external costs and profits.
External costs are fine because you do not pay them, external profits, OTOH, are bad because you do not make them.Unless you can clearly articulate how a product improves profits elsewhere or has high potential you kill it.
Great example. A specialty retailer that focused on electronic hobbyists for whom a PC is a natural extension of their interest.
2. A lot of people bought personal computers even though their utility was even less obvious at the time. Advertising helped.
True. Cows sold a lot of PCs. However,at that point PCs were not that much of a novelty. People used them at work. They were no longer something brand new, and, more importantly they actually worked reasonably well.
I haven't enjoyed doing my own 3D prints yet, but I've a whole host of plastic parts that I'd either like to make replacements for (lost battery compartment covers, a broken hinge on a PC door, etc.) or would like a custom solution for, such as a case for a bedside automation control and display that's shaped for where it will be installed.
You really hit in the crux of the problem; expectations vs reality. Currently technology won't let you simply buy a MB, take it home, and start making parts. You have to be able to design the part, put into language the machine understands, fabricate it, wait for it to be made and the ned result is a part but not the nice smooth injection molded one you are replacing. Contrast that with the rest of the tools HD sells; where the customer can take it home and use it out of the box. Sure, I may not be as proficient wit it as a pro who uses one every day but I can use it at a level that meets my expectations.There isn't a steep learning curve with a lot of things I simply have to create for myself for the tool to be usable.
As in the case of PCs and lasers, we'll eventually know when and where to use/not use 3D printing. Making it accessible is the first step.
I agree; it's just I think the MB industry is still in the hobbyist phase, sort of like where the PC industry was in the Altair / IMSI / pre standard OS era. Hobbyist found them fun because they could tinker with them. Simply getting them to do anything was the goal, wether or not the result was useful. Programming in machine code, flipping toggles or even basic wasn't a chore but something new to learn. Contrast that with the subsequent waves of purchasers who simply wanted to use the tool and had expectations there would be programs that made it useful; not that they would need to create them all by themselves.
Accessibility is great and a first step; but that gets back to my original comment. Is HD opening up MB to the right audience? Are their customers the type of people who will pay 2K+$ for a tool that is really just a hobbyist item at the is point. I think HD customers will expect a level of quality and speed a MB machine won't meet; and thus disappoint those customers. Right now, MBs are a lot like the early computers in that selling them in locations where hobbyists gather and help each other, much like the original small computer stores, is really where success lies. I think they will eventually become mainstream, much like PCs, but they aren't ready for prime time, yet.
OTOH, getting into HD gives them a marketing splash, for sure.
On the other hand, when I went looking for stuff to run some CAT-5 in my house HD had everything needed, including 2 models of switches (4 and 8 port both 10/100). This was in late 2000.
Not surprising. Lots of folks run wire and cable. Doesn't mean they also wold buy a MB.
the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
What can I say? What about all of us who dropped thousands on PCs back before they were practically sold in blister packs?
Most of those sales however were through either specialty retailers who had a customer base that self selected rather than being sold along side a bunch of none related items. It wasn't until the PC moved past the early adopter stage did they start appearing in more conventional retail outlets. MBs are still a hobbyist early adopter product targeted at people who are willing to put up with many restrictions and tinker to make it work. That demographic probably has little overlap with Home Depots. More to the point, MBs don't yet answer the "what useful things can it do that make my job quicker or easier" question in a way to appeal to the non-hobbyist.
the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
Custom cases for phones/electronics projects (Raspberry Pi comes to mind), prototypes of all sorts of things (custom rings is one I saw in their twitter feed, heck I read a story about a surgeon in the UK who used 3D printing to make models of bones and organs to practice surgery procedures on saving several thousand pounds and several weeks vs traditional hand made models.
The question is "How much overlap is there between the MakerBot market and the Home Depot shopper market?" My anecdotal experience says there is not a lot of overlap. The pros are buying in bulk at a discount and for them time is money. Waiting hours to make a widget isn't what they are looking for. The average homeowner wants to fix a problem or do some upgrades and needs help and advice. Tinkering with a MB machine isn't really what they want either. Sure, some MB hobbyist also shop at HD but do enough do this to but what is essentially a bleeding edge toy vs a really useful tool for regular work. Toys are nice but the market is limited.
It seems oddly contradictory to a capitalist society that you would legislate specifically to keep prices high. And it seems odd that people would want their elected representatives to do so. After all, if most people want the corner book shop to exist, even though it keeps prices high, they are entitled to vote with their wallet. I mean, what's next, airliners are banned because the SS France will be put out of business?
It's not that odd or unusual. Many areas of the US have liquor laws that require purchase through a distributor and some even set minimum pricing, all of which protectors the entrenched interests and is why the fight tooth and nail against mail order alcohol sales.
So you are saying that Amazon has somehow found a way to actually ship items
for free, to both the user and itself?
No, I'm saying that the cost of shipping cannot be accounted for as an integral part of the product price, rather it must be accounted for separately. If it is nevertheless accounted for as part of the price, then Amazon would be doing a bunch of illegal things.
How you charge for it and how you account for the cost of shipping are two separate items. As long as the accounting makes clear that it is an expense related to sales volume and thus scales with sales I think you have accounted for that expense in a proper manner. You can price a product so that shipping costs are included, even if the exact cost may be more or less for that particular item; the goal is to ensure the variations even out so you maintain desired margins. It's no different than the shopkeeper or tradesman who quotes you a price and then delivers goods to your location. I fail to see what is illegal about it, unless a specific law prevents that in your location.
When was the last time the government auctioned off seized money?
Wouldn't they just add it to their accounts instead?
But instead they auctioned bitcoins, as an object. Now they claim they're money. All in the same case.
Everyone focuses on the money aspect but in actually the ruling focuses on the transfer of funds, and funds is a broad concept per the ruling. What I find ironic is the judge referred to online references to using Bitcoin as currency to refute the defense's claims.
Finally, the feds routinely auction of seized currency when the collectors value is greater than the face value. In Bitcoins case, auctioning them was simpler than attempting to convert them over time and possibly drive the market price down significantly.
Cool? Maybe. Idiotic? Definately. It's stupid things like this that ruin it for responsible hobbyists. I have friend who is a fire works pro and the stuff they do to make it safe is endangered by such irresponsible actions. Now get of my lawn.
Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes.
Google cache. Google news. Enough said.
Fair enough, I should have been clear that I was only referring to search results, not news aggregation sites which could be held to a different standard just as print news.
Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.
Which causes all sorts of potential slander and defamation headaches. Slander can be as simple as repeating an untruth, thereby sullying someone's reputation. As a private company without any special legal status, I would expect they should embrace the possibility that a simple request for removal from their index might prevent a more protracted legal proceeding. In fact, refusing to remove material when reasonably requested would likely qualify easily as obstruction.
Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet [...] If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.
Except that, because Google is indiscriminate, they will repeat and amplify, for profit, any untruths that they happen to find on obscure websites. Suppose I accuse you by name of being a terrorist. You can attack me legally, but most likely my blog isn't worth the effort. But Google enhances and duplicates my outrageous claims to anyone, especially if I've been clever about it. So now you have a problem. While technically I originated the terrorist claim, Google is slandering you in this case orders of magnitude more than I. And both legally and practically, you really need to tell Google to stop.
Actually, the onus should be on the original publisher to remove the material, not on the indexer. That ensures any link to the original information is now gone, not just the search engine results; which really ensures it is "forgotten." Google et. al. may make it easier to to find the information but since they are not the originator they have no liability for what is said.You do have a good point in that Google i stye easy target to go after rather than actually ensuring information is forgotten. However, the EU could require the hosting site to remove the page or, if they are a non-EU site not to serve it to EU IP addresses.
So while it may be practical to stop Google (and any other research engine that has a physical EU presence) I do not think Google should be legally liable for any material they index simply because they make it easier to find something someone does not like.
I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy?
I disagree with this interpretation. Google is an unregulated private company. They have neither an obligation to the public, nor any higher binding standards that are imposed by law on them. They are solely responsible to their shareholders, to maximize returns within the ordinary bounds of the law.
The problem of deciding what is legitimate or not isn't a problem for Google to solve, it is a problem for the courts to decide on a case by case basis. But since that is obviously highly impractical, I feel that gving the subjects of the information the right to censor it from Google searches is the next best solution. The same requirement about data should apply to all ordinary private companies without special status.
I would propose just the opposite - obtain a court order to remove the material from the search and then Google w
1. Apparently a final ruling has not been reached. While a court has found the operator guilty it's not clear if that will ultimately hold.
2. None of TFA provide any details of what the ruling was based on, beyond the TOT node being used for illegal activity by someone else. Without more details, it is impossible to conclude that merely running a TOR node is illegal; the only conclusion from TFA is someone was prosecuted for running one. A relationship between the operator and the user committing fraud, or if the operator new the user was using the node of illegal purposes, is vastly different than merely running a node where a user is using it for illegal activities. The former is much more reasonable to prosecute than the latter.
3. As others point out, in keeping with/. traditions, the car analogy is bogus.
It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for
appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it
was a valid request.
Why should there be a provision for appeal? It's the person's data, and Google isn't an organ of the state offering a social service. They're just some private company that collects data indiscriminately, whether true or false, and publishes it for profit. At best there should be strict identity checking to prevent fraud.
Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes. A real world counterpart would be to expect every librarian to vet every article in very newspaper, magazine, encyclopedia,book or other document they catalogue for fraud. As unreasonable expectation for them as for Google. Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.
The best way to view this is like those car window washers at the red lights. They start washing your windscreen without asking, and then expect payment as if you'd agreed to this. Similarly, Google goes around publishing stuff about everyone without asking, and without quality control, to make money.
First of all, Google is not intruding an property without permission no taking any action to
Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet, i.e. searching for specific terms and returning the results. Unlike Kibo and his all seeing grep; they use those sort results based on their algorithms and store information for quicker access. If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.
A more relevant real world example would be requiring publishers to remove material from their archives so it would be as if they never existed.
It's perfectly natural to be able to tell Google to stop publishing rumours and hearsay, or even true fact that are embarassing.
I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy? Should the press be shutout from Google searches because what they publish could be embarrassing, damaging, and possibly wrong? Get a bad review? Take it down. This path, taken to an extreme, means no negative information would be searchable, no matter if it is true or not.
Finally, how do you address cases where a company has no presence in the EU, but is reachable from the EU? Should they comply with removal requests? Should EU based companies with no presence in China remove material the Chinese find offensive, threatening or otherwise want removed?
I am not saying their shouldn't be a mechanism to address a right to privacy but in the absence of clear guidance it can have many unforeseen consequences.
There definitely needs to be a legal mechanism in place to make appeals at no or very little cost. It's a shame Google didn't wait and work with the EU to get that in place, before processing all these requests.
My guess is they didn't want risk legal action once the court ruled. They can clarify later at while still complying even if their actions may be stricter than needed. Given the pace of getting a definitive answer and legal framework out if EU regulatory and legislative processes what Google did seems a reasonable approach.
To be fair to Google, it opposed the European court ruling.
He does question why there's no apparent right to appeal. It would certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.
It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it was a valid request. It appears the data holder could decide the request was not a valid one; however given the requester could litigate such a decision it seems many will simply take the expedient route of deleting links.
Quite frankly, an appeals process would be an onerous burden on the data holder since they would then be placed in the position of deciding who is right and possibly face legal challenges. If they want to build in an appeals process then the legal liability and burden out to be on the person making the appeal, not the search engine. After all, Google isn't deleting their content just ignoring it per EU directive; and anyone with a VPN can still go to a non-EU proxy to get access.
Best way of managing those issues I have seen is to project on a whiteboard, markup there, while someone independent is marking up the PDF files electronically. When the discussion is finished, project up the markup PDF.
Having tried similar rings, here are some issues we ran into:
1. Latency. Nothing breaks up a train of thought than having too wait while the tablet tried to draw on the screen.
2. Such setups ar e by nature 1 to many; i.e. only one person can draw while many can view. It's real hard for someone to make a quick note or addition like you can by walking up next to them, grabbing a marker and drawing.
Zoltan Szabadi agreed to the non-compete and in returned was employed by Amazon. Now that Zoltan can find a job a Google he decides to go against the contract that he signed.
A few points:
1. He contends he isn't revealing any trade secrets and thus complying with the non-compete in that regard. To me, and INAL
2. The length of time he is not allowed to work for a competitor seems excessive, especially since the are not compensating him in return for not going to work for a competitor. 18 months of unemployability based on your most marketable skills seems unreasonable, and I would expect a court to throw out that clause.
3. Twelve months of not working with previous clients seems reasonable to me. He just needs to not call on any clients he worked with at Amazon so unless Google was hiring him to poach Amazon clients he should be able to do that with no problem. I say that because when I was in a similar situation I had a 12 month no solicit clause and had no problem keeping it. Oddly enough, my non-compete actually only was a non-solicit so I could and did setup shop doing the exact same thing I did at my employer except charge less. Technically, if they called me I could work with them since they did the initial contact. My lawyer found the clause bizarre but also pointe rout they labor law is constantly changing due to court cases and legislation so chances are something written a few years ago would have sections that were no longer enforceable; which is why he suggest companies periodically review and update non-competes.
He also said courts tend to take a dim view of agreements that prevent a person from working in his normal field unless they are getting reasonable compensation for not working. Merely being paid while you worked there is usually not enough, despite what some companies would like you to believe. He also pointed out they can't withhold pay you are owed because you fail to sign something or not return company equipment; despite what they may say. Of course, IANAL and the laws may be different where you live.
This is the Detroit that didn't take Japanese brands seriously until it almost killed them.
The Detroit that needed 30+ years to bring a small, efficient, powerful engine to the US.because they knew best what American wanted (big V8s for drag racing).
The Detroit that hides the fact that Mitsubishi (Chrysler), Toyota (GM) and Mazda (Ford) built their small cars for 20-some years.
But Google is arrogant.
Right.
While Detroit has a long history of missing trends and stupid decisions, I think this may be as much a case of very different POVs and culture crash.
Detroit, coming from a manufacturing POV, is probably asking themselves:
1. What liabilities am I assuming if I do this? How many, and how expensive, lawsuits will result from this?
2. How do I sustain this in terms of support and parts over the life of a vehicle?
3. What will it cost?
Google is coming from a technology POV:
1. We can do all this cool stuff, don't worry if it's all beta we can iron out the bugs as we go.
2. If it doesn't catch on we can kill it and move on.
3. Don't worry about the support infrastructure, that will eventually come about.
As long as each has a different set of needs, wants and POV discussions will be difficult at best.
What's actually more problematic to me is that the paper explicitly claimed they asked for and received "informed consent". But their justification is that users agreed to the Facebook EULA. That is a serious misunderstanding of what constitutes informed consent in research ethics; it does not just mean that someone agreed to some fine print, possibly months ago, in a transaction unrelated to the current study.
If they want to argue that this doesn't require informed consent at all, because it's e.g. just data mining of effectively existing data, that would be less problematic imo than watering down the standard for informed consent to include EULAs.
I agree, with an added thought. It wasn't just data mining but a controlled experiment that altered the data they received. That, IMHO, cross the line between "let's look at the existing data" to "let's conduct an experiment."
Another part to his argument seem to be "the impact was so small as too be negligible and thus it was OK." However, the researchers did not know the results would be negligible so using that as an excuse after the fact doesn't fly.
Slashdot Mirror
I cancelled XM a while back and the rep kept trying to get me to stay with various free offers. He kept asking "Don't you want free service for 2 months?" and English was clearly his 5th language because he failed to understand NO. I finally got him to cancel by asking for a supervisor since she couldn't seem to do a simple cancellation. I must have caught him when he was on the edge of losing a bonus. Had he simply said "Hey. Help me out. If you cancel I lose a bonus. How about hanging up and calling back" I would have don that. Wouldn't with Comcast because it takes 20 minutes and multiple phone trees to get to human.
They got the word Microsoft into millions of home and unlike with their home PC, made it into a positive experience. Any money that might have been lost was made up for by the marketing gains. When people think XBox, they think Microsoft and successful product--two words that don't usually go together. That's worth any price Microsoft may have paid for the experience. Considering how much Xbox charges you for everything and everything, it certainly takes an extraordinary level of incompetence to lose money on something like that.
Marketing gains? Where? Windows and Office are already the de-facto standard. MS struggles in areas where they don't enjoy the benefits of being the standard; or as economist should say enjoy network externalities. The Xbox isn't going to make people decide to run out and buy a new copy of Windows or Office. "Gee. I really loved playing SuperMegaBlast. Maybe the new Windows will be as fun. Maybe I should get Office365 while I am at it." isn't a response to the Xbox. So unless it makes enough profit to justify its costs then they should get rid of it.The problem is who can afford to buy it and the development costs to stay ahead of the game? If they can they'd probably get a better return from a bond or mutual fund than the Xbox. Upside? What console maker makes any big profit on the hardware?
No, it is a economical thinking that there are external costs and profits.
External costs are fine because you do not pay them, external profits, OTOH, are bad because you do not make them.Unless you can clearly articulate how a product improves profits elsewhere or has high potential you kill it.
1. Radio Shack.
Great example. A specialty retailer that focused on electronic hobbyists for whom a PC is a natural extension of their interest.
2. A lot of people bought personal computers even though their utility was even less obvious at the time. Advertising helped.
True. Cows sold a lot of PCs. However,at that point PCs were not that much of a novelty. People used them at work. They were no longer something brand new, and, more importantly they actually worked reasonably well.
I haven't enjoyed doing my own 3D prints yet, but I've a whole host of plastic parts that I'd either like to make replacements for (lost battery compartment covers, a broken hinge on a PC door, etc.) or would like a custom solution for, such as a case for a bedside automation control and display that's shaped for where it will be installed.
You really hit in the crux of the problem; expectations vs reality. Currently technology won't let you simply buy a MB, take it home, and start making parts. You have to be able to design the part, put into language the machine understands, fabricate it, wait for it to be made and the ned result is a part but not the nice smooth injection molded one you are replacing. Contrast that with the rest of the tools HD sells; where the customer can take it home and use it out of the box. Sure, I may not be as proficient wit it as a pro who uses one every day but I can use it at a level that meets my expectations.There isn't a steep learning curve with a lot of things I simply have to create for myself for the tool to be usable.
As in the case of PCs and lasers, we'll eventually know when and where to use/not use 3D printing. Making it accessible is the first step.
I agree; it's just I think the MB industry is still in the hobbyist phase, sort of like where the PC industry was in the Altair / IMSI / pre standard OS era. Hobbyist found them fun because they could tinker with them. Simply getting them to do anything was the goal, wether or not the result was useful. Programming in machine code, flipping toggles or even basic wasn't a chore but something new to learn. Contrast that with the subsequent waves of purchasers who simply wanted to use the tool and had expectations there would be programs that made it useful; not that they would need to create them all by themselves.
Accessibility is great and a first step; but that gets back to my original comment. Is HD opening up MB to the right audience? Are their customers the type of people who will pay 2K+$ for a tool that is really just a hobbyist item at the is point. I think HD customers will expect a level of quality and speed a MB machine won't meet; and thus disappoint those customers. Right now, MBs are a lot like the early computers in that selling them in locations where hobbyists gather and help each other, much like the original small computer stores, is really where success lies. I think they will eventually become mainstream, much like PCs, but they aren't ready for prime time, yet.
OTOH, getting into HD gives them a marketing splash, for sure.
On the other hand, when I went looking for stuff to run some CAT-5 in my house HD had everything needed, including 2 models of switches (4 and 8 port both 10/100). This was in late 2000.
Not surprising. Lots of folks run wire and cable. Doesn't mean they also wold buy a MB.
the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
What can I say? What about all of us who dropped thousands on PCs back before they were practically sold in blister packs?
Most of those sales however were through either specialty retailers who had a customer base that self selected rather than being sold along side a bunch of none related items. It wasn't until the PC moved past the early adopter stage did they start appearing in more conventional retail outlets. MBs are still a hobbyist early adopter product targeted at people who are willing to put up with many restrictions and tinker to make it work. That demographic probably has little overlap with Home Depots. More to the point, MBs don't yet answer the "what useful things can it do that make my job quicker or easier" question in a way to appeal to the non-hobbyist.
the same audience that purchases a $2500 Generator when the lights go out for more than 5 minutes.
Except that sale is based on calming a fear; i.e. they will be out of power for a while. What fear or need does a MB fulfill that can be articulated in a way that the person who drops 2.5k$ for a generator will see the value of a MB? Just because someone can drop several K$'s on something doesn't mean they will drop it on any item.
Does the Home Depot force Makerbot to eat the returns?
Probably. Given their size they can, and do, pretty much dictate terms.
Custom cases for phones/electronics projects (Raspberry Pi comes to mind), prototypes of all sorts of things (custom rings is one I saw in their twitter feed, heck I read a story about a surgeon in the UK who used 3D printing to make models of bones and organs to practice surgery procedures on saving several thousand pounds and several weeks vs traditional hand made models.
The question is "How much overlap is there between the MakerBot market and the Home Depot shopper market?" My anecdotal experience says there is not a lot of overlap. The pros are buying in bulk at a discount and for them time is money. Waiting hours to make a widget isn't what they are looking for. The average homeowner wants to fix a problem or do some upgrades and needs help and advice. Tinkering with a MB machine isn't really what they want either. Sure, some MB hobbyist also shop at HD but do enough do this to but what is essentially a bleeding edge toy vs a really useful tool for regular work. Toys are nice but the market is limited.
customers want $175.00 refund for failure to provide good quality power
It seems oddly contradictory to a capitalist society that you would legislate specifically to keep prices high. And it seems odd that people would want their elected representatives to do so. After all, if most people want the corner book shop to exist, even though it keeps prices high, they are entitled to vote with their wallet. I mean, what's next, airliners are banned because the SS France will be put out of business?
It's not that odd or unusual. Many areas of the US have liquor laws that require purchase through a distributor and some even set minimum pricing, all of which protectors the entrenched interests and is why the fight tooth and nail against mail order alcohol sales.
No, I'm saying that the cost of shipping cannot be accounted for as an integral part of the product price, rather it must be accounted for separately. If it is nevertheless accounted for as part of the price, then Amazon would be doing a bunch of illegal things.
How you charge for it and how you account for the cost of shipping are two separate items. As long as the accounting makes clear that it is an expense related to sales volume and thus scales with sales I think you have accounted for that expense in a proper manner. You can price a product so that shipping costs are included, even if the exact cost may be more or less for that particular item; the goal is to ensure the variations even out so you maintain desired margins. It's no different than the shopkeeper or tradesman who quotes you a price and then delivers goods to your location. I fail to see what is illegal about it, unless a specific law prevents that in your location.
When was the last time the government auctioned off seized money? Wouldn't they just add it to their accounts instead?
But instead they auctioned bitcoins, as an object. Now they claim they're money. All in the same case.
Everyone focuses on the money aspect but in actually the ruling focuses on the transfer of funds, and funds is a broad concept per the ruling. What I find ironic is the judge referred to online references to using Bitcoin as currency to refute the defense's claims.
Finally, the feds routinely auction of seized currency when the collectors value is greater than the face value. In Bitcoins case, auctioning them was simpler than attempting to convert them over time and possibly drive the market price down significantly.
electronic keypads should randomize the numeric order and that the device should not mirror the letter typed on the inout line or on the keypad.
Cool? Maybe. Idiotic? Definately. It's stupid things like this that ruin it for responsible hobbyists. I have friend who is a fire works pro and the stuff they do to make it safe is endangered by such irresponsible actions. Now get of my lawn.
Google cache. Google news. Enough said.
Fair enough, I should have been clear that I was only referring to search results, not news aggregation sites which could be held to a different standard just as print news.
Actually, the onus should be on the original publisher to remove the material, not on the indexer. That ensures any link to the original information is now gone, not just the search engine results; which really ensures it is "forgotten." Google et. al. may make it easier to to find the information but since they are not the originator they have no liability for what is said.You do have a good point in that Google i stye easy target to go after rather than actually ensuring information is forgotten. However, the EU could require the hosting site to remove the page or, if they are a non-EU site not to serve it to EU IP addresses.
So while it may be practical to stop Google (and any other research engine that has a physical EU presence) I do not think Google should be legally liable for any material they index simply because they make it easier to find something someone does not like.
I would propose just the opposite - obtain a court order to remove the material from the search and then Google w
1. Apparently a final ruling has not been reached. While a court has found the operator guilty it's not clear if that will ultimately hold.
2. None of TFA provide any details of what the ruling was based on, beyond the TOT node being used for illegal activity by someone else. Without more details, it is impossible to conclude that merely running a TOR node is illegal; the only conclusion from TFA is someone was prosecuted for running one. A relationship between the operator and the user committing fraud, or if the operator new the user was using the node of illegal purposes, is vastly different than merely running a node where a user is using it for illegal activities. The former is much more reasonable to prosecute than the latter.
3. As others point out, in keeping with /. traditions, the car analogy is bogus.
Why should there be a provision for appeal? It's the person's data, and Google isn't an organ of the state offering a social service. They're just some private company that collects data indiscriminately, whether true or false, and publishes it for profit. At best there should be strict identity checking to prevent fraud.
Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes. A real world counterpart would be to expect every librarian to vet every article in very newspaper, magazine, encyclopedia,book or other document they catalogue for fraud. As unreasonable expectation for them as for Google. Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.
The best way to view this is like those car window washers at the red lights. They start washing your windscreen without asking, and then expect payment as if you'd agreed to this. Similarly, Google goes around publishing stuff about everyone without asking, and without quality control, to make money.
First of all, Google is not intruding an property without permission no taking any action to
Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet, i.e. searching for specific terms and returning the results. Unlike Kibo and his all seeing grep; they use those sort results based on their algorithms and store information for quicker access. If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.
A more relevant real world example would be requiring publishers to remove material from their archives so it would be as if they never existed.
It's perfectly natural to be able to tell Google to stop publishing rumours and hearsay, or even true fact that are embarassing.
I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy? Should the press be shutout from Google searches because what they publish could be embarrassing, damaging, and possibly wrong? Get a bad review? Take it down. This path, taken to an extreme, means no negative information would be searchable, no matter if it is true or not.
Finally, how do you address cases where a company has no presence in the EU, but is reachable from the EU? Should they comply with removal requests? Should EU based companies with no presence in China remove material the Chinese find offensive, threatening or otherwise want removed?
I am not saying their shouldn't be a mechanism to address a right to privacy but in the absence of clear guidance it can have many unforeseen consequences.
There definitely needs to be a legal mechanism in place to make appeals at no or very little cost. It's a shame Google didn't wait and work with the EU to get that in place, before processing all these requests.
My guess is they didn't want risk legal action once the court ruled. They can clarify later at while still complying even if their actions may be stricter than needed. Given the pace of getting a definitive answer and legal framework out if EU regulatory and legislative processes what Google did seems a reasonable approach.
He doesn't really blame Google. From the article:
He does question why there's no apparent right to appeal. It would certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.
It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it was a valid request. It appears the data holder could decide the request was not a valid one; however given the requester could litigate such a decision it seems many will simply take the expedient route of deleting links.
Quite frankly, an appeals process would be an onerous burden on the data holder since they would then be placed in the position of deciding who is right and possibly face legal challenges. If they want to build in an appeals process then the legal liability and burden out to be on the person making the appeal, not the search engine. After all, Google isn't deleting their content just ignoring it per EU directive; and anyone with a VPN can still go to a non-EU proxy to get access.
Best way of managing those issues I have seen is to project on a whiteboard, markup there, while someone independent is marking up the PDF files electronically. When the discussion is finished, project up the markup PDF.
Agreed. That's similar to what we do as well.
Having tried similar rings, here are some issues we ran into:
1. Latency. Nothing breaks up a train of thought than having too wait while the tablet tried to draw on the screen.
2. Such setups ar e by nature 1 to many; i.e. only one person can draw while many can view. It's real hard for someone to make a quick note or addition like you can by walking up next to them, grabbing a marker and drawing.
In the end, utility won out over cool technology
Zoltan Szabadi agreed to the non-compete and in returned was employed by Amazon. Now that Zoltan can find a job a Google he decides to go against the contract that he signed.
A few points:
1. He contends he isn't revealing any trade secrets and thus complying with the non-compete in that regard. To me, and INAL
2. The length of time he is not allowed to work for a competitor seems excessive, especially since the are not compensating him in return for not going to work for a competitor. 18 months of unemployability based on your most marketable skills seems unreasonable, and I would expect a court to throw out that clause.
3. Twelve months of not working with previous clients seems reasonable to me. He just needs to not call on any clients he worked with at Amazon so unless Google was hiring him to poach Amazon clients he should be able to do that with no problem. I say that because when I was in a similar situation I had a 12 month no solicit clause and had no problem keeping it. Oddly enough, my non-compete actually only was a non-solicit so I could and did setup shop doing the exact same thing I did at my employer except charge less. Technically, if they called me I could work with them since they did the initial contact. My lawyer found the clause bizarre but also pointe rout they labor law is constantly changing due to court cases and legislation so chances are something written a few years ago would have sections that were no longer enforceable; which is why he suggest companies periodically review and update non-competes.
He also said courts tend to take a dim view of agreements that prevent a person from working in his normal field unless they are getting reasonable compensation for not working. Merely being paid while you worked there is usually not enough, despite what some companies would like you to believe. He also pointed out they can't withhold pay you are owed because you fail to sign something or not return company equipment; despite what they may say. Of course, IANAL and the laws may be different where you live.
This is the Detroit that didn't take Japanese brands seriously until it almost killed them. The Detroit that needed 30+ years to bring a small, efficient, powerful engine to the US.because they knew best what American wanted (big V8s for drag racing). The Detroit that hides the fact that Mitsubishi (Chrysler), Toyota (GM) and Mazda (Ford) built their small cars for 20-some years. But Google is arrogant. Right.
While Detroit has a long history of missing trends and stupid decisions, I think this may be as much a case of very different POVs and culture crash.
Detroit, coming from a manufacturing POV, is probably asking themselves:
1. What liabilities am I assuming if I do this? How many, and how expensive, lawsuits will result from this?
2. How do I sustain this in terms of support and parts over the life of a vehicle?
3. What will it cost?
Google is coming from a technology POV:
1. We can do all this cool stuff, don't worry if it's all beta we can iron out the bugs as we go.
2. If it doesn't catch on we can kill it and move on.
3. Don't worry about the support infrastructure, that will eventually come about.
As long as each has a different set of needs, wants and POV discussions will be difficult at best.
without their consent
What's actually more problematic to me is that the paper explicitly claimed they asked for and received "informed consent". But their justification is that users agreed to the Facebook EULA. That is a serious misunderstanding of what constitutes informed consent in research ethics; it does not just mean that someone agreed to some fine print, possibly months ago, in a transaction unrelated to the current study.
If they want to argue that this doesn't require informed consent at all, because it's e.g. just data mining of effectively existing data, that would be less problematic imo than watering down the standard for informed consent to include EULAs.
I agree, with an added thought. It wasn't just data mining but a controlled experiment that altered the data they received. That, IMHO, cross the line between "let's look at the existing data" to "let's conduct an experiment."
Another part to his argument seem to be "the impact was so small as too be negligible and thus it was OK." However, the researchers did not know the results would be negligible so using that as an excuse after the fact doesn't fly.