"I totally agree with you here. I use Opera with javascript.open disabled, (except when I need it for something), and then one day I went onto a friend's computer to look for something. The only browser they had was Internet Explorer, and it blows my mind how abusive these ads are. Well, I guess the ads themselves don't blow my mind, but the fact that people will put up with them does."
This happens to me every now and then... I've used Mozilla or Opera steadily for the past 2 years. IE doesn't get used at ALL by me, except when it HAS to be (Windows Update).
When I'm at a client site, or working on a client PC on the bench, it just FLOORS me how fast and furious "pop up hell" appears soon as you go ANYWHERE on the web in IE.
Really, Opera or Mozilla NEED to market themselves as THIS FEATURE ALONE makes their browsers so superior to IE that it's not funny.
It's like MS doesn't care. Of course they don't. They are one of the web's largest sellers of advertising, so why wouldn't they make their browser, and therefore, their users, the bitch of every marketer and his pop ups?
One thing that can be improved in Opera or Mozilla... Controls are needed for Flash. Something that allows me to enable/disable the flash plugin on a site by site basis the way both browsers let me do to cookies. I do not mind inline ads at all, but flash ones are just as bad as popups.
"This is not good. Once the advertising companies realise that people find the ads an annoyance, they'll stop paying for them. And if they're not paying, I'll have to. I'd much prefer a free web and popup-killer apps to paying for anything."
I'd prefer a web that is free of these commercial "we're gonna get rich online" sites, that is made up of sites created FOR THE LOVE of it.
I run one such site myself, www.wvradio.net.
It's not just online that advertising is in trouble. It's ALL advertising... The whole market in general is depressed, and isn't recovering as fast as expected. Radio billing is down, and broadcast TV face a similar problem.
The reason, IMO, is that the public at large have been oversaturated with advertising. Their exposure to ever more obnoxious ads online is leading them to an overall CONTEMPT for ALL FORMS of advertising. I know it sure has for me.
It also doesn't help that radio stations, for example, are running longer and longer commercial stopsets (Clear Channel's standard one now is 6-8 minutes, with 10 minute+ stopsets not at all uncommon in certain dayparts on my local CC Top 40 station).
What this all does is FURTHER annoy consumers. They get to the point where they resent IT ALL, even the traditional type, especially as TV and radio programming gets shorter to make stopsets longer.
I think in many ways, the Internet ad market collapse has led to all of this. Advertisers are increasingly stingy in paying what the marketers want, because they are doubting rate of return "click through" on traditional TV and radio ads, now that they know how low they are online.
So, the marketers offer ever more intrusive, annoying ad methods to their clients. Which pisses off the targeted consumer even more. Which in turn hurts ad response rate, which in turn depresses the value and revenue of advertising.
It's a viscious circle, all fueled by the fact that the marketer types have no ethics to speak of, and no sense of RESTRAINT at all. Ergo, Darwin is now teaching them a lesson.
Re:And if they didn't?
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"Interestingly enough, I did this as well, several weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when last night, after a reboot, I suddenly noticed the Messenger icon in my systray again! I have auto-updating disabled, and I'm blocking all requests to microsoft.com at my router. So how did it suddenly pop back after being gone for weeks?"
Windows Update will put the MS Messenger "trojan" back on your PC.
See this Register article (which has a link to a simple batch file hack that will expunge Messenger for you):
The article on the "trojan" behavior of Windows Update on reinstalling MS Messenger:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24668.htm l
It's not that I MIND MS Messenger... It's that I DONT USE IT. So why should I have it wasting RAM and running? I use AIM, have for years, and all my IM friends use it, so I have no reason to change or to sign up for a Passport...
Re:But it makes the firewall illegal, no?
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 1
"Microsoft has the right to do whatever they want on your computer.
Trying to stop them is not only futile but also illegal."
All they have to do is invoke the DMCA and send in the BSA.
Microsoft could install the BSA auditing software on your server and PC's, if they so choose. There is NOTHING in this EULA change that AT ALL specifies WHAT KIND of updates will be installed.
Re:Script kiddies' wet dream
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"If I'm reading the EULA right, it lets them auto-download, but not auto-install. That's not full admin rights."
Really? Why would the update NEED to "run" when their EULA gives them the "right" to download them to places like \WINDOWS and \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. You get the picture...
Re:But it makes the firewall illegal, no?
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 1
"Well, we're just applying exactly the same principle to Microsoft: they may have the right to remotely perform installs and upgrades to your system, but you don't have an obligation to make that possible. By putting the appropriate firewalls in place, you're simply not giving them the technological means to do what they have a "right" to do."
This is sort of what the MPAA is doing with DVD, right? By calling CSS "encryption" they are able to invoke the DMCA to keep you from doing what would otherwise be legal...
But then, I see the proposed "RIAA/MPAA DoS bill" as a way MS'd have around this. They would just claim that your failing to allow them access to your `net as "suspicion" that you are hiding "pirated" copyrighted works of theirs.
"They already exist. They're called stateful firewalls, and they inspect the communication actively. These firewalls vary from simple (block unauthorized sites) to complex (disable popups in javascript on the response). All that is needed is refinement of the existing code. What may happen is a restriction on whatever tricks MS may pull to automatically update your system."
To whit MS will poll your firewall, find such a restriction, and threaten you with the BSA for violating their EULA...
Or else invoke the proposed stupid new law that would let a copyright owner hack or DoS your net until you let them in.
Re:And if they didn't?
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"I'm running windows XP and my MS Messenger never comes on becuase I clicked the setting to have it never come on unless I tell it to. And I did this without any type of "hack", it's in the options."
You can stop it from coming on and being VISIBLE in the system tray, or from bugging you about a Passport. But you can't stop it from loading without a hack.
You can't go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall MS Messenger.
"The EULA states that they have the power to essentially seek & destory digital rights management circumvention techniques...."
All being done to forcefeed Palladium to us, and to get the xAA's on their side in getting it put into law (CBDTPA would seemingly MANDATE Palladium, now wouldn't it?).
"I would feel a lot better if the people like Gates and McNealy and Ellison who keep telling us to "get over" this privacy hangup would put up a public web site with their medical and tax records. After all, they only need to worry if they have nothing to hide."
Privacy to them is a right limited only to public officials and to Fortune 500 corporate types.
We peasant consumers have the right to consume. Whenever and whatever we are told.
Unfortunately there IS no explicit "right to privacy" in the US Constitution, one of the Bill of Right's main weaknesses. However, the 4th and 5th Amendments would seemingly limit how INTRUSIVE that any governemnt or corporate entity can be in gaining such information.
Re:And if they didn't?
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"The issue you microsoft loving moron is the EULA does not say that by turning off the Auto updates they wont do anything to your system..
The EULA gives them TOTAL power of your computer no matter what you do short of taking away any connection between you and them.."
Who's to say that the next version of `Doze won't make IMPOSSIBLE to turn off "auto update", just as they have made it impossible in XP to (without a hack) to turn off or uninstall MS Messenger (which will bug you to get a Passport until you either DO, get rid of it by a hack, or throw a brick into your monitor).
I can see them doing just the same with AutoUpdate. Why not? The new EULA gives them the right.
Microsoft doesn't give a rats ass about patching defects. Indeed, history shows that they generally do so only when dragged into it kicking and screaming, as they have recently by the mounting embarassment and BAD PUBLICITY over their OS's many security holes.
They want everyone running AutoUpdate in the background for these reasons:
1. So they can slip in upgrades to fix embarassing holes without scruitiny (ie, the public knowing about the defect). This will reduce media attention.
2. So that they can slip in updated "activation" and key crap at will.
3. So that they can slip in DRMware whenever they feel like it. That is exactly what the recent Media Player EULA was changed to allow them to do.
"It's really only the people who are afraid of having their warez/MP3 collection deleted or who are pirating Windows itself that are afraid of these remarks in the EULA. Most users are not worried about those things because they have nothing to hide."
So, then, I'd guess that you'd be all for "law enforcement", be it government, or corporate, having the rights to enter and search your home, car, person, and PC's at will?
Why, only someone who'd comitted a crime (such as deprive the RIAA of profit) would object to such searches, wouldn't they?
And you wouldn't object if the corporate or governemnt law enforcement officers left behind "bugs", tracking devices, or other "improvements" to your home, car, phones, and PC, would you? After all, only the GUILTY would object to such things, right?
That is EXACTLY what you just said about those who object to MS's being allowed to install software onto their PC's at will. Think about it.
Why corporatism needs to be restrained...
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 1
Given the tendency of MS "service packs" to "coincidentally" BREAK third party software upon installation (as NT Service Pack 6 did to Lotus Notes), do you REALLY want BillG loading them onto your servers and desktops AT WILL?!
Also the benchmarking clause is a classic... So you aren't allowed to publish benchmarks that reveal that.NET server is slower than 2K server? Or that 2K server is slower than NT server? (which is all true, BTW).
And especially you can't release benchmarks comparing it to a Linux server. No way
When will it end? And, to bring up an old point, WHAT LIMITS are there that a corporation can put into a contract? Also, what right does MS have to alter the EULA for Windows on a SERVICE PACK (ie, a release of fixes for PRODUCT DEFECTS in the original)?
Seems to me that they are COERCING you into accepting the more restrictive license, because not doing so means running a defective product.
8/6? Just bought it at the local Wal-Mart. I wonder if someone sold it before they were allowed to...
It's awesome to have all the deleted scenes in it, in high quality. FYI, most of the additions are bits that were shown on ABC when they would televise the movie, but was never on the VHS or original DVD version.
The interviews with the set designers, ILM, and the director, Nicholas Meyer are VERY nice, and very well done.
I DESPISE SPAM'ers, but I despise the thought of the government and trial lawyers getting their greasy mitts into the net even more.
What irks me the most about some of the SPAM I get (over a hundred a day, so many that I've just started filtering whole domains, especially foreign ones) are the ones from LEGIT companies and sites, stuff I've signed up to get.
Such as news headlines from All Access, etc (I run a radio news site, and like to keep up on news items to post). Well, they, among others, have started using the lowball techniques that VeriSign's SPAMM'ers (easily the MOST obnoxious non-porn or scam SPAM on the net), in randomizing their e-mail sender.
The purpose of which is to defeat you inbox filtering (I use Agent) which I use to shunt mailing list e-mail, and news updates from All Access among others to their own folders so as to make the 200+ emails a DAY I get organized so that I MIGHT actually be able to make sense of them...
All of which is done, of course, because for some reson, marketers think they MUST be in your Inbox or else, they don't want you filtering.
In my case, getting into my Inbox makes you LESS likely to be read...
Also, I've pretty much had to make up folders and filters for the domains of all the popular "free" e-mail services, such as Yahoo! and Hotmail, so much SPAM arrives from those addresses daily. Which makes it LESS liklely that anyone needing to send me something using one of those services to get my notice, as 99% of the stuff I receive from those two domains are SPAM.
Anyone else resorted to this? I'm starting to get more and more SPAM from aol.com, as well, making me consider doing the same to them...
"These Indian ISPs sure as hell didn't come up with this brilliant scheme to help out their customers; they realized if they pooled their markets into a monopoly, they could charge both their customers for access to the Net, and outside Net sites for access to Indian customers through the firewall ISPs will build up around the Indian web domains."
I wonder when that will be tried here... Probably as soon as broadband kicks in and everyone is left with only 1-2 choices for net access, just as they are for other utilities...
This is why such intercorporate cartels should be illegal. This is EXACTLY how the RIAA controls the prices of CD's, after all...
"So, if a car company sells u a car with a contract that endangers u, that's legit? This is like saying Ford can sell you a car but deny you the right to notify others of problems with it. Its invalid."
They just haven't been smart enough to bribe their own version of the DMCA out of Congress yet.
The DMCA allows JUST THAT in software. And some software and servers run things that are VITAL to life...
"We have the right to know exactly what problems their are in our software."
No you don't, because the shrinkwrap EULA makes you purchaser of a LICENSE, not software, and you have no rights that Carly Fiorina, who has only led companies to RUIN, doesn't WANT you to have.
"let them eat cake" she says.
If not, well, she's saying that by letting this happen.
The moral? STICK TO OPEN SOURCE. The DMCA protects closed source from critique, is basically HP's argument.
How about this? Copyright SOMETHING accesed on each page on your server...
Claim that site access is pursuant to your "EULA" which reads that "By READING this page and using this site in any way you agree to waive your right to DoS this server under article XYZ".
How is that any different than corps getting away with shrinkwrap licenses that waive CONSTITUTIONAL rights? Or any different than teh most ardent of capitalist corps (when they lay off 10,000 workers after defrauding their investors) who become hardline Marxists when Joe Schmo worker wants to dump THEM for a better job!
"Rather than give up payola due to its clear perception in the public's mind as a reprehensible act, they just started doing it through middlemen [salon.com]. They didn't do this particularly secretly either. It was just a way to get around the letter of the law, without any concern whatsoever for the spirit of the law."
Nope, they do it through agents they call "indies". People who basically receive money FROM the labels, and spread it around the corporate radio conglomerates.
Clear Channel ALONE received several million dollars in cash from them.
All that money is payola and bribes, nothing else, meant to do one thing: make the "charts" a fraud, AND SHUT OUT INDEPENDANT ARTISTS... Radio stations these days won't play ANYONE without payola. This is another way the RIAA keeps it's monopoly.
Only the recording/radio industry can do such a thing in broad daylight and get away with it.
"The only way I see to possibly get back the initiative and stop this nonsense is to separate the MPAA and the RIAA from their pet legislators. What's making this legislative payola so effective is that there is no big downside to it for Congressmen"
Don't forget that the RIAA 5 record labels are probably more experienced in professional bribery than ANY other gang of crooks... They've been strategically bribing radio stations for DECADES, directly, or indirectly, to get airplay and manipulate the charts.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone how skilled they are to get the most out of their bribes of Congress.
Slashdot Mirror
"I totally agree with you here. I use Opera with javascript.open disabled, (except when I need it for something), and then one day I went onto a friend's computer to look for something. The only browser they had was Internet Explorer, and it blows my mind how abusive these ads are. Well, I guess the ads themselves don't blow my mind, but the fact that people will put up with them does."
This happens to me every now and then... I've used Mozilla or Opera steadily for the past 2 years. IE doesn't get used at ALL by me, except when it HAS to be (Windows Update).
When I'm at a client site, or working on a client PC on the bench, it just FLOORS me how fast and furious "pop up hell" appears soon as you go ANYWHERE on the web in IE.
Really, Opera or Mozilla NEED to market themselves as THIS FEATURE ALONE makes their browsers so superior to IE that it's not funny.
It's like MS doesn't care. Of course they don't. They are one of the web's largest sellers of advertising, so why wouldn't they make their browser, and therefore, their users, the bitch of every marketer and his pop ups?
One thing that can be improved in Opera or Mozilla... Controls are needed for Flash. Something that allows me to enable/disable the flash plugin on a site by site basis the way both browsers let me do to cookies. I do not mind inline ads at all, but flash ones are just as bad as popups.
Do patent examiners do any search at all for prior art, or do they just take the applicant's "word" for it?
"This is not good. Once the advertising companies realise that people find the ads an annoyance, they'll stop paying for them. And if they're not paying, I'll have to.
I'd much prefer a free web and popup-killer apps to paying for anything."
I'd prefer a web that is free of these commercial "we're gonna get rich online" sites, that is made up of sites created FOR THE LOVE of it.
I run one such site myself, www.wvradio.net.
It's not just online that advertising is in trouble. It's ALL advertising... The whole market in general is depressed, and isn't recovering as fast as expected. Radio billing is down, and broadcast TV face a similar problem.
The reason, IMO, is that the public at large have been oversaturated with advertising. Their exposure to ever more obnoxious ads online is leading them to an overall CONTEMPT for ALL FORMS of advertising. I know it sure has for me.
It also doesn't help that radio stations, for example, are running longer and longer commercial stopsets (Clear Channel's standard one now is 6-8 minutes, with 10 minute+ stopsets not at all uncommon in certain dayparts on my local CC Top 40 station).
What this all does is FURTHER annoy consumers. They get to the point where they resent IT ALL, even the traditional type, especially as TV and radio programming gets shorter to make stopsets longer.
I think in many ways, the Internet ad market collapse has led to all of this. Advertisers are increasingly stingy in paying what the marketers want, because they are doubting rate of return "click through" on traditional TV and radio ads, now that they know how low they are online.
So, the marketers offer ever more intrusive, annoying ad methods to their clients. Which pisses off the targeted consumer even more. Which in turn hurts ad response rate, which in turn depresses the value and revenue of advertising.
It's a viscious circle, all fueled by the fact that the marketer types have no ethics to speak of, and no sense of RESTRAINT at all. Ergo, Darwin is now teaching them a lesson.
"Interestingly enough, I did this as well, several weeks ago. Imagine my surprise when last night, after a reboot, I suddenly noticed the Messenger icon in my systray again! I have auto-updating disabled, and I'm blocking all requests to microsoft.com at my router. So how did it suddenly pop back after being gone for weeks?"
7 46 .html
m l
Windows Update will put the MS Messenger "trojan" back on your PC.
See this Register article (which has a link to a simple batch file hack that will expunge Messenger for you):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/24
The article on the "trojan" behavior of Windows Update on reinstalling MS Messenger:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24668.ht
It's not that I MIND MS Messenger... It's that I DONT USE IT. So why should I have it wasting RAM and running? I use AIM, have for years, and all my IM friends use it, so I have no reason to change or to sign up for a Passport...
"Microsoft has the right to do whatever they want on your computer.
Trying to stop them is not only futile but also illegal."
All they have to do is invoke the DMCA and send in the BSA.
Microsoft could install the BSA auditing software on your server and PC's, if they so choose. There is NOTHING in this EULA change that AT ALL specifies WHAT KIND of updates will be installed.
"If I'm reading the EULA right, it lets them auto-download, but not auto-install. That's not full admin rights."
Really? Why would the update NEED to "run" when their EULA gives them the "right" to download them to places like \WINDOWS and \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. You get the picture...
"Well, we're just applying exactly the same principle to Microsoft: they may have the right to remotely perform installs and upgrades to your system, but you don't have an obligation to make that possible. By putting the appropriate firewalls in place, you're simply not giving them the technological means to do what they have a "right" to do."
This is sort of what the MPAA is doing with DVD, right? By calling CSS "encryption" they are able to invoke the DMCA to keep you from doing what would otherwise be legal...
But then, I see the proposed "RIAA/MPAA DoS bill" as a way MS'd have around this. They would just claim that your failing to allow them access to your `net as "suspicion" that you are hiding "pirated" copyrighted works of theirs.
"They already exist. They're called stateful firewalls, and they inspect the communication actively. These firewalls vary from simple (block unauthorized sites) to complex (disable popups in javascript on the response). All that is needed is refinement of the existing code. What may happen is a restriction on whatever tricks MS may pull to automatically update your system."
To whit MS will poll your firewall, find such a restriction, and threaten you with the BSA for violating their EULA...
Or else invoke the proposed stupid new law that would let a copyright owner hack or DoS your net until you let them in.
"I'm running windows XP and my MS Messenger never comes on becuase I clicked the setting to have it never come on unless I tell it to. And I did this without any type of "hack", it's in the options."
You can stop it from coming on and being VISIBLE in the system tray, or from bugging you about a Passport. But you can't stop it from loading without a hack.
You can't go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall MS Messenger.
"The EULA states that they have the power to essentially seek & destory digital rights management circumvention techniques...."
All being done to forcefeed Palladium to us, and to get the xAA's on their side in getting it put into law (CBDTPA would seemingly MANDATE Palladium, now wouldn't it?).
"I would feel a lot better if the people like Gates and McNealy and Ellison who keep telling us to "get over" this privacy hangup would put up a public web site with their medical and tax records. After all, they only need to worry if they have nothing to hide."
Privacy to them is a right limited only to public officials and to Fortune 500 corporate types.
We peasant consumers have the right to consume. Whenever and whatever we are told.
Unfortunately there IS no explicit "right to privacy" in the US Constitution, one of the Bill of Right's main weaknesses. However, the 4th and 5th Amendments would seemingly limit how INTRUSIVE that any governemnt or corporate entity can be in gaining such information.
"The issue you microsoft loving moron is the EULA does not say that by turning off the Auto updates they wont do anything to your system..
The EULA gives them TOTAL power of your computer no matter what you do short of taking away any connection between you and them.."
Who's to say that the next version of `Doze won't make IMPOSSIBLE to turn off "auto update", just as they have made it impossible in XP to (without a hack) to turn off or uninstall MS Messenger (which will bug you to get a Passport until you either DO, get rid of it by a hack, or throw a brick into your monitor).
I can see them doing just the same with AutoUpdate. Why not? The new EULA gives them the right.
Microsoft doesn't give a rats ass about patching defects. Indeed, history shows that they generally do so only when dragged into it kicking and screaming, as they have recently by the mounting embarassment and BAD PUBLICITY over their OS's many security holes.
They want everyone running AutoUpdate in the background for these reasons:
1. So they can slip in upgrades to fix embarassing holes without scruitiny (ie, the public knowing about the defect). This will reduce media attention.
2. So that they can slip in updated "activation" and key crap at will.
3. So that they can slip in DRMware whenever they feel like it. That is exactly what the recent Media Player EULA was changed to allow them to do.
"It's really only the people who are afraid of having their warez/MP3 collection deleted or who are pirating Windows itself that are afraid of these remarks in the EULA. Most users are not worried about those things because they have nothing to hide."
So, then, I'd guess that you'd be all for "law enforcement", be it government, or corporate, having the rights to enter and search your home, car, person, and PC's at will?
Why, only someone who'd comitted a crime (such as deprive the RIAA of profit) would object to such searches, wouldn't they?
And you wouldn't object if the corporate or governemnt law enforcement officers left behind "bugs", tracking devices, or other "improvements" to your home, car, phones, and PC, would you? After all, only the GUILTY would object to such things, right?
That is EXACTLY what you just said about those who object to MS's being allowed to install software onto their PC's at will. Think about it.
Given the tendency of MS "service packs" to "coincidentally" BREAK third party software upon installation (as NT Service Pack 6 did to Lotus Notes), do you REALLY want BillG loading them onto your servers and desktops AT WILL?!
.NET server is slower than 2K server? Or that 2K server is slower than NT server? (which is all true, BTW).
Also the benchmarking clause is a classic... So you aren't allowed to publish benchmarks that reveal that
And especially you can't release benchmarks comparing it to a Linux server. No way
When will it end? And, to bring up an old point, WHAT LIMITS are there that a corporation can put into a contract? Also, what right does MS have to alter the EULA for Windows on a SERVICE PACK (ie, a release of fixes for PRODUCT DEFECTS in the original)?
Seems to me that they are COERCING you into accepting the more restrictive license, because not doing so means running a defective product.
"The producers had to recover the chair on the bridge of the Klingon Warbird in Corinthian Leather before he would sit in it."
;)
;) I still remember those commercials.
And they had to name his ship (USS Reliant)after a model of Chrysler too
Fine Corinthian Leather
8/6? Just bought it at the local Wal-Mart. I wonder if someone sold it before they were allowed to...
It's awesome to have all the deleted scenes in it, in high quality. FYI, most of the additions are bits that were shown on ABC when they would televise the movie, but was never on the VHS or original DVD version.
The interviews with the set designers, ILM, and the director, Nicholas Meyer are VERY nice, and very well done.
I DESPISE SPAM'ers, but I despise the thought of the government and trial lawyers getting their greasy mitts into the net even more.
What irks me the most about some of the SPAM I get (over a hundred a day, so many that I've just started filtering whole domains, especially foreign ones) are the ones from LEGIT companies and sites, stuff I've signed up to get.
Such as news headlines from All Access, etc (I run a radio news site, and like to keep up on news items to post). Well, they, among others, have started using the lowball techniques that VeriSign's SPAMM'ers (easily the MOST obnoxious non-porn or scam SPAM on the net), in randomizing their e-mail sender.
The purpose of which is to defeat you inbox filtering (I use Agent) which I use to shunt mailing list e-mail, and news updates from All Access among others to their own folders so as to make the 200+ emails a DAY I get organized so that I MIGHT actually be able to make sense of them...
All of which is done, of course, because for some reson, marketers think they MUST be in your Inbox or else, they don't want you filtering.
In my case, getting into my Inbox makes you LESS likely to be read...
Also, I've pretty much had to make up folders and filters for the domains of all the popular "free" e-mail services, such as Yahoo! and Hotmail, so much SPAM arrives from those addresses daily. Which makes it LESS liklely that anyone needing to send me something using one of those services to get my notice, as 99% of the stuff I receive from those two domains are SPAM.
Anyone else resorted to this? I'm starting to get more and more SPAM from aol.com, as well, making me consider doing the same to them...
"These Indian ISPs sure as hell didn't come up with this brilliant scheme to help out their customers; they realized if they pooled their markets into a monopoly, they could charge both their customers for access to the Net, and outside Net sites for access to Indian customers through the firewall ISPs will build up around the Indian web domains."
I wonder when that will be tried here... Probably as soon as broadband kicks in and everyone is left with only 1-2 choices for net access, just as they are for other utilities...
This is why such intercorporate cartels should be illegal. This is EXACTLY how the RIAA controls the prices of CD's, after all...
Is how much India's internet users are willing to pay to actually HAVE a reason to use the net?
/.'ers around. What will they do if access to OSDN is cut?
Looks to me as though this is an elaborate blackmail scheme, any time a site becomes popular among India's users, the ISP cartel hits them up.
Given the large percentage of English speakers there, I'd bet there are a fair amount of
"So, if a car company sells u a car with a contract that endangers u, that's legit? This is like saying Ford can sell you a car but deny you the right to notify others of problems with it. Its invalid."
They just haven't been smart enough to bribe their own version of the DMCA out of Congress yet.
The DMCA allows JUST THAT in software. And some software and servers run things that are VITAL to life...
"We have the right to know exactly what problems their are in our software."
No you don't, because the shrinkwrap EULA makes you purchaser of a LICENSE, not software, and you have no rights that Carly Fiorina, who has only led companies to RUIN, doesn't WANT you to have.
"let them eat cake" she says.
If not, well, she's saying that by letting this happen.
The moral? STICK TO OPEN SOURCE. The DMCA protects closed source from critique, is basically HP's argument.
For HP to swallow Compaq, pass IBM in size and turn into Evil Incarnate -tm.
Sad.
Compaq R.I.P. One of THE cool companies. Made great servers, now slandered as "HP" ProLiants... I despised HP Netservers as a network engineer.
How about this? Copyright SOMETHING accesed on each page on your server...
Claim that site access is pursuant to your "EULA" which reads that "By READING this page and using this site in any way you agree to waive your right to DoS this server under article XYZ".
How is that any different than corps getting away with shrinkwrap licenses that waive CONSTITUTIONAL rights? Or any different than teh most ardent of capitalist corps (when they lay off 10,000 workers after defrauding their investors) who become hardline Marxists when Joe Schmo worker wants to dump THEM for a better job!
"Rather than give up payola due to its clear perception in the public's mind as a reprehensible act, they just started doing it through middlemen [salon.com]. They didn't do this particularly secretly either. It was just a way to get around the letter of the law, without any concern whatsoever for the spirit of the law."
Nope, they do it through agents they call "indies". People who basically receive money FROM the labels, and spread it around the corporate radio conglomerates.
Clear Channel ALONE received several million dollars in cash from them.
All that money is payola and bribes, nothing else, meant to do one thing: make the "charts" a fraud, AND SHUT OUT INDEPENDANT ARTISTS... Radio stations these days won't play ANYONE without payola. This is another way the RIAA keeps it's monopoly.
Only the recording/radio industry can do such a thing in broad daylight and get away with it.
"The only way I see to possibly get back the initiative and stop this nonsense is to separate the MPAA and the RIAA from their pet legislators. What's making this legislative payola so effective is that there is no big downside to it for Congressmen"
Don't forget that the RIAA 5 record labels are probably more experienced in professional bribery than ANY other gang of crooks... They've been strategically bribing radio stations for DECADES, directly, or indirectly, to get airplay and manipulate the charts.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone how skilled they are to get the most out of their bribes of Congress.