Huh!? Being a Cali (though I'm currently living in Australia and voting by absentee ballot) I assumed that it was a nation wide service!? Sorry 'bout that! I was pretty impressed that they could relate a street address to a specific "ballot" and I wondered how the underlying Db schema/Geo-data was structured. Maybe they were just lazy, or maybe the required address-to-ballot info they are using is only available for CA and OH?! Oh well, one more reason to move to California!
... but the League of Women Voters have a very good site called SmartVoter.org which gives you analysis on each measure/prop. They have some VERY limited information on the candidates, but they do link to more info. The info is broken all the way down to your local ballot.
Yea, this got me thinking if this was the second reason they choose "Google", as "go ogle" is a damn good one too! Maybe there's a future Windows -vs- Lindows-esque lawsuit in that one?!
Well, I am running Win2k SP4+ on my Shuttle box (waits for the boos and hisses to subside from the Linux zealots out there), and I had to do the BIOS update for the 200gig drive!?!
I'm not sure if Laptop HDDs (Hard Disk Drives, we nerds LOVE our acronyms!) have reached the 120gig+ range yet, but you COULD have some issues with your laptop not recognizing the entire drive. I know it's apples & oranges, but I recently had to dig up a BIOS update for an old Shuttle case I have when I put in a 200gig HDD in it (as it only saw the first 120gigs).
So in summary, this sort of BIOS issue won't keep a new HDD from working, but if you can't see all of it, you may need a BIOS update.
Good luck! It really is quite easy (says the experienced computer nerd...)!
Something I'd find reassuring is to have a list of the income -vs- costs of last year. For anyone who asks why the price has gone up this year, you can point them to the financial breakdown so they can see for themselves. Though you may not want to break down each individual sponsors input.
Also, you may want to offer some sort of CoOp membership, so you can share any profits with the CoOp members, again heading off any bitching about fees increases/profiteering. It's all about having fun, right? Not profits, per say...
Fair point... you owe me.000235 cents (USD) for the email that was spawned and sent by/. for your post then.
If you want to count computer cycles/power requirements of the receivers as part of the "cost" of email, then you should also account for part of the time it takes to walk out to the mailbox to collect the real mail along with the junk mail. Then, the "cost" of junk mail has just shot up precipitously (not to mention the walk to the trash can to throw it out, or the increased number of trips required to empty the internal trash can into the outer thanks to the increase of refuse, the additional cost to the county to process the additional refuse, etc, etc). In actuality, these are sunk costs (save the additional costs on the country). It's not like you're going to turn on your email server just to receive your real email, then turn it right back off again.
So, really the "cost" of the telegram is shared by both the sender and receiver as well. The monetary costs by the sender, and the time to read/deal with/dispose of "costs" to the receiver (not to mention the time for staff to answer the door, summon the master, etc, etc). So in effect, you are bearing some of the costs of your junk mail that ends up in your snail mail box, as you are having to cover the additional costs borne by the county to dispose of the additional waste (not to mention your time in handling the things in the first place).
Now in the realm of junk faxes, you're right as consumables (paper and ink/toner/slightly more electricity) are being used for something that was never requested. I supposed you are also correct when it comes to spam in scale to a small degree (read: ISPs), as possibly more HDDs are required in the mail server to store the unwanted spam. But when calculated as a cost per spam, the amount is virtually nothing (though still something), I'm sure the additional cost to power the extra drive(s) ends up being more then the HDD itself. But with spam, there are no consumables that are being used that aren't already part of the sunk costs! Sure, some additional HDD space may be required, which is an additional cost, but these aren't consumables.
Um... I was precise about the 'e' in email, but not about 'electricity' used for telegraphs. So here's a hint for you: don't bother arguing about imprecise definitions if you aren't prepared to be precise about what was imprecise in the first place. Least I'm not a coward, like some...
And 'retardedness'? Is English your first language? 'Cause methinks no.
Didn't you read my sig: "A programmer needn't spell correctly, just koncistentlee". Spell checkers are a bane to my existence...
Besides, I say tomato/tomato(e)... sending "taps" down a line are damn well close enough to sending 0/1s down a pipe for this discussion! The idea is the same (using a network of wires to transmit text from point A to point B) in both cases, only the technology is different. A conversation is still a conversation, no matter if it took place face to face, over a POTS line, or over a cell network (be that network CDMA, or...)
A Lamborghini is 'essentially free' for Bill Gates, but that doesn't mean it's 'essentially free' for you or me. Likewise, spamming a ton of email address is 'essentially free' for you and me (or your and my companies) but that doesn't mean it's still more then some poor bastards yearly wage in rural China (or Africa, or India). And again, the 'direct-mailing' done by the uber-rich's ocean liner of choice was probably 'essentially free' for them as well.
So by the contemporary definition, a telegram is not an 'email', but by the Clinton-ish definition, is sure seems to fit! Granted, it was generally printed on a piece of paper and hand delivered, but that is still done today with email ('here's the letter from Billy, grandma.')!
Please see my comment above, but in a nutshell you're 100% correct... Outsourcing != "Local Work at Home Employees" by any means, but do you trust your boss/shareholders in making that distinction?
Let me clarify... I was not supporting the outsourcing argument (though I am a self outsourced American in Australia, but I don't think that counts;). I was simply drawing out the logical progression of thought from the point of view of a PHB. Outsourcing != "Local Work at Home Employees" by any means, but do you trust your boss/the shareholders in making that distinction?
As I alluded to above, I believe the drawbacks of outsourcing will be played out publicly sooner rather then later. The case in point is of course the Pakistani transcriber -vs- UCSF for the medical transcription industry, but I think the scarier (for Corporate America) stories are yet to come.
How long until an outsourcing company gets a bid on making a widget for a piece of (let's say) financial software that they just happened to have just completed for a competing product/company. Of course they'll be able to undercut their competition cause they've already got 95% of the code in hand. So they make the necessary modifications and ship off the (slightly revised) code to the second company. With this, you of course get a huge shit fight over who owns the blessed IP of said code. Of course this particular situation could be quietly covered up, but only if the first company never gets wind of it. I'd bet Quicken would love to be able to say that "...our product is soooo good, Money stole some of our source code!"
Or wait until the first outsourcing company goes out of business with projects still in the pipeline. How is small-to-medium company X going to be able to mount a suit in India (or Russia or where ever)? Of course these companies could (and should) get a middle man company to provide such indemnities, but that takes a decent portion of the savings away from outsourcing. Couple this to the time when labor begins to tighten up in the outsourcing markets and any savings could be wiped out entirely.
As for the assertion that all employees that could be outsourced have been outsourced (well... "If it were really the case that the employees could be outsourced, I doubt they'd still have jobs." in your words)... Everyone cannot learn everything new all at the same time (or at least they don't). I'm sure there are quite a few jobs that "could" be outsourced that haven't been. Here in Oz, there seems to be very little in the way of outsourcing, in the programming market anyway. BUT, the technology that enables people to dial in from across the street is indeed the same technology that enables an Indian (or Russian, or) to "take" a job from another country. Though the cat's outta the bag on that one, so there's nothing that can be done about it anyway. And companies rarely outsource a single employee, so they get the "collaboration and other activities require employees being together, with management" in the deal, unfortunately.
For the employees, this sounds like a rocking idea (well, really, it is). You'd not have to worry about traffic, parking, or the noisy bastard in the cube next to you. BUT, the technology enabling employees to work from home is the exact same technology that enables outsourcing of that same employees work across oceans.
For employers, they are untrusting of their at home employees because they cannot run task over them all day, making sure they're getting their work done, etc. BUT, this same paranoia is probably helping to keep these same managers from outsourcing the same work over the same fears.
So, put this all together - if an untrusting manager tries out the work from home approach, and finds that it does indeed cut costs as well as have the same (or greater) output, then why not cut costs a little more by using cheaper employees across an ocean?
Personally... I think that once managers (and employees for that matter) are able to grasp the idea of working from home, it will revolutionize the work place. I can do a hell of a lot more work in 6 hours at home then I can in 8 hours at the office (well, 8 hours + 1.5 hours of commuting, so 9.5 hours of "work"). The employers could save bank by letting me work from home, and only coming in on a day or two a week for face to face meetings by letting someone(s) else use my cube the other 4 days a week. I also personally believe that outsourcing will garner some really bad press sooner rather then later, scaring off many businesses from the practice. Don't believe me? Ask your local hospital =)
You are right, though almost by definition an analogy is a bad example of what you're trying to explain. But I don't really agree with your reinterpretation (as Yahoo is not "breaking the law", sellers allowed to use their auction facilities are)... so let me try again.
Take Westfield Corp. for example. It is a company that owns retail locations (malls, strip centers, etc) in the US, the UK and Australia. So let's just say that they also own retail locations in Holland and France (which they very well may).
OK, so Westfield happens to rent space in Holland to a pot shop that takes phone and/or fax orders. A French(wo)men places an order by phone from within France, giving her credit card details to the clerk so that the dime-bag is fully paid for. Now technically, Westfield is profiting (by proxy) from this sale as the pot shop pays them their rent from the profits they made form this and other sales. By your and France's argument, Westfield would be culpable in the same way Yahoo is for auctions it hosts on its sites even though the pot shop is in Holland.
I'd guess that the true question is where did the sale take place? In this case, the French(wo)man would have to pick up the pot in Holland (which is legal to do in Holland). The actual crime is when the French(wo)man attempts to get the pot procured in Holland past French customs and onto French soil (where it is illegal to possess), not at the time of sale and certainly not at the time of pickup (as, again, the act is legal in the place where it's occurring - Holland).
Now, in the Yahoo case the same rings true... An order and the assoc. billing information is placed by "phone" (well, the internet which generally via the phone line, but the intent of the buyer is exactly the same) to an individual (the seller of the auction in this case) outside of France. The seller, in turn is utilizing the resources of a company (Yahoo) to make the transaction possible (just like the pot shop renting space from Westfield). This company (Yahoo) in turn receives a percentage of the sale as "rent". So once again, I believe the question becomes where is the transaction taking place? If the transaction is taking place outside of France, then no French laws are (should be) broken until the item arrives on French soil. And then the item is only allowed on French soil after the French customs officers allow it onto French soil. Hence this should be a French customs problem. You wouldn't hold Westfield France responsible for the French(wo)man buying pot from a Holland pot store that just so happens to be in a Westfield Holland property, so why is it that Yahoo is culpable in exactly the same case?
It seems by your and France's definition, if you ever do something that is illegal in one part of the world, though not illegal where it happened you are fine as long as you never visit the place where it's illegal. I.E. - You buy a Nazi flag while on vacation in the US. At some point in the future you travel to France, at which point you can be arrested for purchasing the Nazi flag while in the US?!
No, laws have jurisdictions. If an infraction occurs outside of a particular laws jurisdiction, you are not guilty of breaking that law, nor are you guilty of breaking that law if you enter that jurisdiction sometime in the future because the infraction did not occur within its jurisdiction.
If it worked the way you and France suggest, then there could no longer be any international companies (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing), as they would have to always obey every law from every jurisdiction for which they have a presence in every other jurisdiction. This, besides being logistically impossible, would be illegal as well, as if you happened to have properties in Saudi Arabia and in the US, you couldn't both treat women as subordinates and as equals!?
Yahoo.com is hosted in the US and is therefore governed by US laws and jurisdiction. Westfield properties within Holland are governed by Dutch laws and jurisdiction. Westfield properties within France are governed by French laws and jurisdiction. So what am I missing here?
Corporate responsibility is a good thing! (although as an American, I very rarely see it =) I want to see more of it, rather then less of it (even in it's WalMart form).
You are basically advocating that anything that makes money for a company is a good thing. Well, contract murders are a lucrative business (thought, granted illegal), but I can't see Yahoo entering that particular segment of the market...
First of all, see "WalMart". By no means am I agreeing with their (in my opinion) draconian view on stocking/selling certain items, but their company's value hasn't seemed to suffer in the slightest (maybe it's because too many of my fellow Americans agree with their version of draconianism).
In response to your first paragraph... I'd, frankly, be willing to loose the neo-Nazi segment of the market. Hell, even if it pissed off the KKK and we lost them too, I'd be ok with it.
In response to the second paragraph, see "free market". If s/he (the decision maker that is) was high enough and felt strongly enough and was able enough to stop selling those related items, then fine. If the market decided that we as a company went too far then the company would loose money. Maybe then the money-grubbing... err... stockholders would see fit to "restructure" at that point (as it is well within their right to do so).
In response to the third paragraph... as was put forth in the original post, it'd be up to Franc... err... Israel to block the shit they didn't like. It's their right, but it's also their prerogative to keep what they don't like out of their country.
In my opinion, only governments can "censor". Companies can and damn well should be able to decide what they do and don't make money off of. Just because hard-core porno DVDs exist doesn't mean I should expect to pick them up at the local Christian (or Muslim or Buddhist or what ever) book store next to the latest Dalai llama or Billy Graham DVD or from the snack kiosk at the local elementary school.
I do agree with your point when it is in relation to governmental censorship. Once a government decides to ban "gangster rap" because it's "too violent", it is a very short and very slippery slope to them also banning other violent tales in other genera's of the arts (books, in this case).
Shouldn't this be a job for their customs service?
Something is happening in another country that is considered illegal activity within France (or where ever). Pot is sold in Holland, there are probably even places that accept phone or fax orders for said pot. But it's still happening in Holland! So if you as a country have a problem with this activity, you have two alternatives in my opinion: block all telephone traffic to said telephone numbers (or, in this case, all traffic to http://auctions.yahoo.com) and/or stop the pot at the border with your own customs service (or, blocking all traffic from http://auctions.yahoo.com).
In either case, it's not a problem for the pot house in Holland. It's not (shouldn't be) their job to enforce the laws of every other country in the world, that is what the police and customs services for each country are for.
You don't like something going on over there? Fine, make sure it can't get in here. Don't expect the people over there to give a flying #$% about your beliefs/laws/whatever (let alone take on the financial responsibility to ensure that your beliefs/laws/whatever aren't broken). It's up to your own government to enforce your own laws. If something is "skirting" the law and making its way into your country, simply cut off it's route into your country and everything is fine. You can't blame the pot shop or the government of Holland if Dutch pot makes its way past your customs service! It's their job to stop it from entering your country in the first place, else what is a customs service paid to do?
On an aside, if I were a decision maker within Yahoo, I'd find it abhorrent that Nazi stuff was being peddled by my company by proxy. I would do my best to make sure it was no longer peddled due to my own personal beliefs. Only governments can censor, private companies can decide what they will and will not profit from. Of course, this has no bearing on the case from a precedent point of view, I just felt it should be said.
Well, according to the SMH article I linked to, it's good to go in Oz. It may be illegal in your country, but it's a legal service in mother Russia (least as far as the SMH could tell).
Take a look at AllOfMP3.com The bullet points are:
Music by the meg
You buy in blocks of 500 megs for $5 USD (yes, that right, it's a penny a meg!)
Choice of encoding type, including MP3, OGG, PCM-WAV and FLAC
Despite it's price, it's a 100% legal site run out of Russia
I just found out about this place yesterday. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but music by the pound in nearly any damned format I want sounds good to me!
Check out the Sydney Morning Hearld article for more info. I really can't believe we here at/. missed this in April!?
Slashdot Mirror
Huh!? Being a Cali (though I'm currently living in Australia and voting by absentee ballot) I assumed that it was a nation wide service!? Sorry 'bout that! I was pretty impressed that they could relate a street address to a specific "ballot" and I wondered how the underlying Db schema/Geo-data was structured. Maybe they were just lazy, or maybe the required address-to-ballot info they are using is only available for CA and OH?! Oh well, one more reason to move to California!
... but the League of Women Voters have a very good site called SmartVoter.org which gives you analysis on each measure/prop. They have some VERY limited information on the candidates, but they do link to more info. The info is broken all the way down to your local ballot.
Yea, this got me thinking if this was the second reason they choose "Google", as "go ogle" is a damn good one too! Maybe there's a future Windows -vs- Lindows-esque lawsuit in that one?!
Well, I am running Win2k SP4+ on my Shuttle box (waits for the boos and hisses to subside from the Linux zealots out there), and I had to do the BIOS update for the 200gig drive!?!
So in summary, this sort of BIOS issue won't keep a new HDD from working, but if you can't see all of it, you may need a BIOS update.
Good luck! It really is quite easy (says the experienced computer nerd...)!
Also, you may want to offer some sort of CoOp membership, so you can share any profits with the CoOp members, again heading off any bitching about fees increases/profiteering. It's all about having fun, right? Not profits, per say...
The real story here should be that Microsoft seems to be completely gutting all the "new features" of Longhorn by either pushing them into XP SP2+, delaying or scrapping them all together! So now that Longhorn is mearly a shadow of its former self, really what reason will anyone have to upgrade to it? Well, now you'll need at least XP just to get updates.
Same shit, different day...
If you want to count computer cycles/power requirements of the receivers as part of the "cost" of email, then you should also account for part of the time it takes to walk out to the mailbox to collect the real mail along with the junk mail. Then, the "cost" of junk mail has just shot up precipitously (not to mention the walk to the trash can to throw it out, or the increased number of trips required to empty the internal trash can into the outer thanks to the increase of refuse, the additional cost to the county to process the additional refuse, etc, etc). In actuality, these are sunk costs (save the additional costs on the country). It's not like you're going to turn on your email server just to receive your real email, then turn it right back off again.
So, really the "cost" of the telegram is shared by both the sender and receiver as well. The monetary costs by the sender, and the time to read/deal with/dispose of "costs" to the receiver (not to mention the time for staff to answer the door, summon the master, etc, etc). So in effect, you are bearing some of the costs of your junk mail that ends up in your snail mail box, as you are having to cover the additional costs borne by the county to dispose of the additional waste (not to mention your time in handling the things in the first place).
Now in the realm of junk faxes, you're right as consumables (paper and ink/toner/slightly more electricity) are being used for something that was never requested. I supposed you are also correct when it comes to spam in scale to a small degree (read: ISPs), as possibly more HDDs are required in the mail server to store the unwanted spam. But when calculated as a cost per spam, the amount is virtually nothing (though still something), I'm sure the additional cost to power the extra drive(s) ends up being more then the HDD itself. But with spam, there are no consumables that are being used that aren't already part of the sunk costs! Sure, some additional HDD space may be required, which is an additional cost, but these aren't consumables.
And 'retardedness'? Is English your first language? 'Cause methinks no.
Besides, I say tomato/tomato(e)... sending "taps" down a line are damn well close enough to sending 0/1s down a pipe for this discussion! The idea is the same (using a network of wires to transmit text from point A to point B) in both cases, only the technology is different. A conversation is still a conversation, no matter if it took place face to face, over a POTS line, or over a cell network (be that network CDMA, or...)
The cost of a service (or lack there of) doesn't/shouldn't define that service. Besides, telegrams are sent electronically, just like email! So really, how is it different?
So by the contemporary definition, a telegram is not an 'email', but by the Clinton-ish definition, is sure seems to fit! Granted, it was generally printed on a piece of paper and hand delivered, but that is still done today with email ('here's the letter from Billy, grandma.')!
Please see my comment above, but in a nutshell you're 100% correct... Outsourcing != "Local Work at Home Employees" by any means, but do you trust your boss/shareholders in making that distinction?
As I alluded to above, I believe the drawbacks of outsourcing will be played out publicly sooner rather then later. The case in point is of course the Pakistani transcriber -vs- UCSF for the medical transcription industry, but I think the scarier (for Corporate America) stories are yet to come.
How long until an outsourcing company gets a bid on making a widget for a piece of (let's say) financial software that they just happened to have just completed for a competing product/company. Of course they'll be able to undercut their competition cause they've already got 95% of the code in hand. So they make the necessary modifications and ship off the (slightly revised) code to the second company. With this, you of course get a huge shit fight over who owns the blessed IP of said code. Of course this particular situation could be quietly covered up, but only if the first company never gets wind of it. I'd bet Quicken would love to be able to say that "...our product is soooo good, Money stole some of our source code!"
Or wait until the first outsourcing company goes out of business with projects still in the pipeline. How is small-to-medium company X going to be able to mount a suit in India (or Russia or where ever)? Of course these companies could (and should) get a middle man company to provide such indemnities, but that takes a decent portion of the savings away from outsourcing. Couple this to the time when labor begins to tighten up in the outsourcing markets and any savings could be wiped out entirely.
As for the assertion that all employees that could be outsourced have been outsourced (well... "If it were really the case that the employees could be outsourced, I doubt they'd still have jobs." in your words)... Everyone cannot learn everything new all at the same time (or at least they don't). I'm sure there are quite a few jobs that "could" be outsourced that haven't been. Here in Oz, there seems to be very little in the way of outsourcing, in the programming market anyway. BUT, the technology that enables people to dial in from across the street is indeed the same technology that enables an Indian (or Russian, or) to "take" a job from another country. Though the cat's outta the bag on that one, so there's nothing that can be done about it anyway. And companies rarely outsource a single employee, so they get the "collaboration and other activities require employees being together, with management" in the deal, unfortunately.
Oops! Here's the wurkin' clicky - A tough lesson on medical privacy Pakistani transcriber threatens UCSF over back pay
For the employees, this sounds like a rocking idea (well, really, it is). You'd not have to worry about traffic, parking, or the noisy bastard in the cube next to you. BUT, the technology enabling employees to work from home is the exact same technology that enables outsourcing of that same employees work across oceans.
For employers, they are untrusting of their at home employees because they cannot run task over them all day, making sure they're getting their work done, etc. BUT, this same paranoia is probably helping to keep these same managers from outsourcing the same work over the same fears.
So, put this all together - if an untrusting manager tries out the work from home approach, and finds that it does indeed cut costs as well as have the same (or greater) output, then why not cut costs a little more by using cheaper employees across an ocean?
Personally... I think that once managers (and employees for that matter) are able to grasp the idea of working from home, it will revolutionize the work place. I can do a hell of a lot more work in 6 hours at home then I can in 8 hours at the office (well, 8 hours + 1.5 hours of commuting, so 9.5 hours of "work"). The employers could save bank by letting me work from home, and only coming in on a day or two a week for face to face meetings by letting someone(s) else use my cube the other 4 days a week. I also personally believe that outsourcing will garner some really bad press sooner rather then later, scaring off many businesses from the practice. Don't believe me? Ask your local hospital =)
Uh... was hosting a Mac > PC switch page a condition of the investment money they got from Microsoft in the late 90's?
Take Westfield Corp. for example. It is a company that owns retail locations (malls, strip centers, etc) in the US, the UK and Australia. So let's just say that they also own retail locations in Holland and France (which they very well may).
OK, so Westfield happens to rent space in Holland to a pot shop that takes phone and/or fax orders. A French(wo)men places an order by phone from within France, giving her credit card details to the clerk so that the dime-bag is fully paid for. Now technically, Westfield is profiting (by proxy) from this sale as the pot shop pays them their rent from the profits they made form this and other sales. By your and France's argument, Westfield would be culpable in the same way Yahoo is for auctions it hosts on its sites even though the pot shop is in Holland.
I'd guess that the true question is where did the sale take place? In this case, the French(wo)man would have to pick up the pot in Holland (which is legal to do in Holland). The actual crime is when the French(wo)man attempts to get the pot procured in Holland past French customs and onto French soil (where it is illegal to possess), not at the time of sale and certainly not at the time of pickup (as, again, the act is legal in the place where it's occurring - Holland).
Now, in the Yahoo case the same rings true... An order and the assoc. billing information is placed by "phone" (well, the internet which generally via the phone line, but the intent of the buyer is exactly the same) to an individual (the seller of the auction in this case) outside of France. The seller, in turn is utilizing the resources of a company (Yahoo) to make the transaction possible (just like the pot shop renting space from Westfield). This company (Yahoo) in turn receives a percentage of the sale as "rent". So once again, I believe the question becomes where is the transaction taking place? If the transaction is taking place outside of France, then no French laws are (should be) broken until the item arrives on French soil. And then the item is only allowed on French soil after the French customs officers allow it onto French soil. Hence this should be a French customs problem. You wouldn't hold Westfield France responsible for the French(wo)man buying pot from a Holland pot store that just so happens to be in a Westfield Holland property, so why is it that Yahoo is culpable in exactly the same case?
It seems by your and France's definition, if you ever do something that is illegal in one part of the world, though not illegal where it happened you are fine as long as you never visit the place where it's illegal. I.E. - You buy a Nazi flag while on vacation in the US. At some point in the future you travel to France, at which point you can be arrested for purchasing the Nazi flag while in the US?!
No, laws have jurisdictions. If an infraction occurs outside of a particular laws jurisdiction, you are not guilty of breaking that law, nor are you guilty of breaking that law if you enter that jurisdiction sometime in the future because the infraction did not occur within its jurisdiction.
If it worked the way you and France suggest, then there could no longer be any international companies (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing), as they would have to always obey every law from every jurisdiction for which they have a presence in every other jurisdiction. This, besides being logistically impossible, would be illegal as well, as if you happened to have properties in Saudi Arabia and in the US, you couldn't both treat women as subordinates and as equals!?
Yahoo.com is hosted in the US and is therefore governed by US laws and jurisdiction. Westfield properties within Holland are governed by Dutch laws and jurisdiction. Westfield properties within France are governed by French laws and jurisdiction. So what am I missing here?
You are basically advocating that anything that makes money for a company is a good thing. Well, contract murders are a lucrative business (thought, granted illegal), but I can't see Yahoo entering that particular segment of the market...
In response to your first paragraph... I'd, frankly, be willing to loose the neo-Nazi segment of the market. Hell, even if it pissed off the KKK and we lost them too, I'd be ok with it.
In response to the second paragraph, see "free market". If s/he (the decision maker that is) was high enough and felt strongly enough and was able enough to stop selling those related items, then fine. If the market decided that we as a company went too far then the company would loose money. Maybe then the money-grubbing... err... stockholders would see fit to "restructure" at that point (as it is well within their right to do so).
In response to the third paragraph... as was put forth in the original post, it'd be up to Franc... err... Israel to block the shit they didn't like. It's their right, but it's also their prerogative to keep what they don't like out of their country.
In my opinion, only governments can "censor". Companies can and damn well should be able to decide what they do and don't make money off of. Just because hard-core porno DVDs exist doesn't mean I should expect to pick them up at the local Christian (or Muslim or Buddhist or what ever) book store next to the latest Dalai llama or Billy Graham DVD or from the snack kiosk at the local elementary school.
I do agree with your point when it is in relation to governmental censorship. Once a government decides to ban "gangster rap" because it's "too violent", it is a very short and very slippery slope to them also banning other violent tales in other genera's of the arts (books, in this case).
Something is happening in another country that is considered illegal activity within France (or where ever). Pot is sold in Holland, there are probably even places that accept phone or fax orders for said pot. But it's still happening in Holland! So if you as a country have a problem with this activity, you have two alternatives in my opinion: block all telephone traffic to said telephone numbers (or, in this case, all traffic to http://auctions.yahoo.com) and/or stop the pot at the border with your own customs service (or, blocking all traffic from http://auctions.yahoo.com).
In either case, it's not a problem for the pot house in Holland. It's not (shouldn't be) their job to enforce the laws of every other country in the world, that is what the police and customs services for each country are for.
You don't like something going on over there? Fine, make sure it can't get in here. Don't expect the people over there to give a flying #$% about your beliefs/laws/whatever (let alone take on the financial responsibility to ensure that your beliefs/laws/whatever aren't broken). It's up to your own government to enforce your own laws. If something is "skirting" the law and making its way into your country, simply cut off it's route into your country and everything is fine. You can't blame the pot shop or the government of Holland if Dutch pot makes its way past your customs service! It's their job to stop it from entering your country in the first place, else what is a customs service paid to do?
On an aside, if I were a decision maker within Yahoo, I'd find it abhorrent that Nazi stuff was being peddled by my company by proxy. I would do my best to make sure it was no longer peddled due to my own personal beliefs. Only governments can censor, private companies can decide what they will and will not profit from. Of course, this has no bearing on the case from a precedent point of view, I just felt it should be said.
OK, fare enough...
I really can't believe that I missed this in April!? ;)
Well, according to the SMH article I linked to, it's good to go in Oz. It may be illegal in your country, but it's a legal service in mother Russia (least as far as the SMH could tell).
I just found out about this place yesterday. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but music by the pound in nearly any damned format I want sounds good to me!
Check out the Sydney Morning Hearld article for more info. I really can't believe we here at /. missed this in April!?
How 'bout giving us the link then?