"Yahoo" is a word that occurs naturally in the english language, and also is the name of a search engine. "Google" and "Altavista" are made-up words to refer to search engines.
So, of course there's going to be more mentions of "yahoo" on the web because it has two contexts in which it can be used, and not all of them relate to the "search engine" turned "web portal" company. Only a yahoo like you would make such an apples-to-oranges comparison.
That'll be the end of Google if that happens. If it does, buy it if you can get into it early on the first day, sell it in the afternoon and then never touch it again.
Google is governed by the rules of designing the best product for the users, and then profits will take care of itself. If they ever got profit-minded ownership, the distingishing feature of having user-friendly ads only will quickly go away because of the demands of investors who'd rather a short term big surge instead of a slow but long and steady return.
Here's where the RFID in your sweater falls apart... Think about your family Christmas gathering, sweaters chaning hands all over the place, with nobody telling the central database what is happening.
If you're wearing an outfit bought for you by somebody else, then the computer will falsely identify you as that gift-giving friend or realitve. Too many false-positive IDs and this system gets considered useless.
Besides, we still use cash to buy things around here. I don't think we need to get paranoid until we see serious proposals to knock that off...
Better yet, what if your lawyer asks "How do you know my client had this illegal MP3 file?"
"Because we used our ultra-secret spy program..." and they then have to tell a non-techie judge and jury how they're doing what they're doing. If any part of their system runs afoul of present anti-hacking law, their evidence becomes inadmissable because it was illegally obtained.
It might be able to claim your P2P shares are for that purpose, but it's perfectly legal to put your MP3s on a server within your own house and then have all of your other devices access from a share on that server. It's being shared in a tech sense, but in reality its transfering from one computer of yours to another computer of yours, so it's you-to-you and no copyright violation can happen there.
Sales tax is based on where the sale takes place, use tax is the one that's based on where you live.
So, one could argue that the sales tax belongs to the jurisdiction where the store is, since the transaction and billing happens with their datacenter.
They can't ask the seller what they sold you, because by defintion the seller is out of state and therefore not subject to your state's tax laws. They can't ask you what you bought, because you can refuse to answer and cite the 5th Amendment.
The federal government could step in and get involved, but that'd be a tax hike and you don't see President Bush being willing to go anywhere near that concept right now...
Maybe no legal impediment, but with G.W. Bush presently trying to cut federal taxes, how can he explain away signing a law authorizing new state taxes that are presently impossible?
Not just rates, but different jurisdictions also disagree as to which items get taxed at all.
One set of places might declare seeds are food and therefore not tax, others might say that seeds are always taxed.
Furthermore, somebody could have a rule that says seeds that lead to foods are non-taxable, and seeds that do not are taxable. And some places might try for that rule, but for some reason forget to name cucumber seeds in that law so they've always been an exception to the rule.
How is a.com gonna keep track of that level of complexity?
The problem is, it's the states who want to do the taxing, but the Federal government is the only one who can unless there's a Constitutional amendment.
But G.W.Bush is currently saying he wants tax cuts, so to get a federalized Internet tax system, even if the money is handed directly to the states, isn't gonna happen right now.
So the only question is whether the states are going to try to come up with a scheme that'll last a little while, before being knocked down by the Supreme Court...
Federal taxes down -> Less money in Federal spending -> Less Federal government grants -> States required to still provide services and do public works projects with less Federal help -> States need to raise taxes.
Doubt that. Any solution to Internet Tax is gonna cover those as well.
The "Catalog Loophole" has been annoying states with sales taxes for a long time, as it effectively gives an advantage to out-of-state purchases. However, it really never was worth too much, so it wasn't worth trying to solve the constutional problems. Even when the 'net first started, it was just brushed off. Now that the economy is slowed and tax revenues are down... they're looking for new ways to tax anything they can.
An outright denail would be something along the lines of "We have made the decision that we will not be doing this."
Instead, it's still possible that they're planning and still planning on going forward, it's just that they haven't announced it. That's why their denial was incomplete... they've denied that they are doing but have not covered is going to
This is where it's nice to remember that IP isn't really property.
If the US Government gets outraged enough, it can revoke specific patents or a whole class of patents with a simple law passing Congress and gaining either presidental approval or overriding the veto. Just throw it in the back of an Economic Recovery Package or something like that.
SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors.
Vendors are safe, but what about those who use Linux?
They made an incomplete denial of the rumor. There's still enough wiggle room for them to have hired Mr. Boise to sue those with deep pockets who use Linux and still not contradict anything they said.
First, Slashdot reported a rumor, which was of questionable validity but claimed that somebody was going to threaten to inflict a patent lawsuits on selected Linux users, going to demand settlements roughly equal to the cost of Windows to avoid being sued.
Now, that somebody has come forward with a less-than-satisfactory denial of the rumor. It's not clear what their intentions are, and we'd rather see an outright claim that the story is false.
Fear that this could wipe out Linux, uncertainty over what SCO is gonna do, and doubt that this going to go very well. Yep. FUD is in full effect, and so far it's justified.
I think the label is clear that you mail the wrapper (complete with the stamped portion that tells them when and where they made the chips) to an address on the label to claim the refund.
Couldn't the underfunded OS makers just insist that their operating system is only for use on "non-DRM" hardware? So long as that still exists on the market, all is well...
No, actually, the phrase on Lay's potato chips products is "Satisfaction Guarenteed" which says that if you can claim that the bag of chips is not to your satisfaction, they promise you a full refund. Yeah, you can't do that if they didn't make that promise, but they did.
Likewise with Microsoft. In order to get a legal shrink-wrap EULA, they must offer a way to decline the EULA. So, the EULA instructs that you indicate acceptance by using the software, and indicate rejection by promptly returning the software to the place of purchase for a full refund.
AMIBIOS will step into this mess if they start releasing BIOS products that need an EULA, as presently they're just being sold as part of a piece of hardware. (Have ever seen an EULA for a motherboard?) DRM might just send them over that bridge...
Something is trusted when it is put in a position where if it screws up, bad can things happen.
Something is trustworthy when it is thought to not be likely to screw up when it is trusted to do something.
So, when you put up your organization's website on an unpatched IIS server, that computer is trusted to serve that set of pages and not all the pages to be changed by anybody other than those people trusted enough to be authorized to do so.
However, since an unpatched IIS server has security holes that allow for the site to be either taken offline, or replaced with an undesired site, that unpatched IIS server is not trustworthy... which means it's not a good idea to put an unpatched IIS server in a trusted position. If you do, it's very possible the unpatched IIS server might fail to live up to its responsiblites, causing the bad things you didn't want to happen.
Likewise, any of the trusted people might go crazy and decide to use their password to walk right in the front door and tear the site apart. This is why its important that you select trustworthy people, and as few people as possible, to hold that password.
If you're gonna provide free Wi-Fi access be prepared to either:
A: Take names-- log your guest's activity against some sort of account system so that if somebody does something that starts to violate the TOS you agreed to to get your bandwidth you can figure out who did it, and cut them off. B: Limit access-- firewall your guests so that they can only do what you allow them to do over your bandwidth, and have to follow your rules, which make sure that it's not possible to do anything that violates your ISP's TOS.
As far as this is concerned, there's no need to make a distiction between the terrorist who wants to blow up the USA, and the common lowlife spammer. When Internet traffic flows through your wire, you are responsible for it. If it's clear that your port is being used to send spam, but you don't know who's connecting to your Wi-Fi to send it, you're the one who's gonna be blamed. If your Wi-Fi turns out to be the one that the local Al Queda rep is using to communicate, you sure are going to wish you have something to give the investigators to move on the path beyond you.
And you really should double check to see if your TOS allows you do have an open Wi-Fi port in the first place. If your school's IT department depends on funding from sale of the in-dorm Internet connections, and some of the students around you are mooching off you instead of buying their own connection, you are setting yourself up to be cut off.
I think I had your whole post's line of reasoning when I said in my post that "anybody with the money to launch an anti-RIAA label has no real incentive to do so."
Ultimately, the last, best plan for the RIAA will be to come up with some kind of co-branded version of KaZaA, which allows people to trade their music collections freely, but charges them for the transfer. Royalties would be automatically allocated, and the whole file-trading industry could be made legal overnight. In fact, transfers would be encouraged because they would generate more royalties, and consumers would also receive targeted advertising encouraging them to buy music DVDs, posters, concert tickets and the like.
That is the RIAA's worst nightmare. See, if such a system existed and was commonly used, why would an artist need to go through the RIAA members to get onto that system. New promotion companies would form, without the need to build an expensive CD pressing plant, to enter new artists onto the system and collect their royalties. The RIAA members would lose the advantage they have now in controling supply to record stores, and have to lose market share on this system to a bunch of upstarts.
The RIAA would rather the present system to any other system possible.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yahoo" is a word that occurs naturally in the english language, and also is the name of a search engine. "Google" and "Altavista" are made-up words to refer to search engines.
So, of course there's going to be more mentions of "yahoo" on the web because it has two contexts in which it can be used, and not all of them relate to the "search engine" turned "web portal" company. Only a yahoo like you would make such an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Any word on an IPO?
That'll be the end of Google if that happens. If it does, buy it if you can get into it early on the first day, sell it in the afternoon and then never touch it again.
Google is governed by the rules of designing the best product for the users, and then profits will take care of itself. If they ever got profit-minded ownership, the distingishing feature of having user-friendly ads only will quickly go away because of the demands of investors who'd rather a short term big surge instead of a slow but long and steady return.
Here's where the RFID in your sweater falls apart... Think about your family Christmas gathering, sweaters chaning hands all over the place, with nobody telling the central database what is happening.
If you're wearing an outfit bought for you by somebody else, then the computer will falsely identify you as that gift-giving friend or realitve. Too many false-positive IDs and this system gets considered useless.
Besides, we still use cash to buy things around here. I don't think we need to get paranoid until we see serious proposals to knock that off...
Better yet, what if your lawyer asks "How do you know my client had this illegal MP3 file?"
"Because we used our ultra-secret spy program..." and they then have to tell a non-techie judge and jury how they're doing what they're doing. If any part of their system runs afoul of present anti-hacking law, their evidence becomes inadmissable because it was illegally obtained.
It might be able to claim your P2P shares are for that purpose, but it's perfectly legal to put your MP3s on a server within your own house and then have all of your other devices access from a share on that server. It's being shared in a tech sense, but in reality its transfering from one computer of yours to another computer of yours, so it's you-to-you and no copyright violation can happen there.
Sales tax is based on where the sale takes place, use tax is the one that's based on where you live.
So, one could argue that the sales tax belongs to the jurisdiction where the store is, since the transaction and billing happens with their datacenter.
Does anyone actually enforce this?
Nope.
They can't ask the seller what they sold you, because by defintion the seller is out of state and therefore not subject to your state's tax laws. They can't ask you what you bought, because you can refuse to answer and cite the 5th Amendment.
The federal government could step in and get involved, but that'd be a tax hike and you don't see President Bush being willing to go anywhere near that concept right now...
Maybe no legal impediment, but with G.W. Bush presently trying to cut federal taxes, how can he explain away signing a law authorizing new state taxes that are presently impossible?
How about depositing the money in an Internet Universial Service Fund so those people who still can't get DSL or Cable Modem can get a turn?
Not just rates, but different jurisdictions also disagree as to which items get taxed at all.
.com gonna keep track of that level of complexity?
One set of places might declare seeds are food and therefore not tax, others might say that seeds are always taxed.
Furthermore, somebody could have a rule that says seeds that lead to foods are non-taxable, and seeds that do not are taxable. And some places might try for that rule, but for some reason forget to name cucumber seeds in that law so they've always been an exception to the rule.
How is a
The problem is, it's the states who want to do the taxing, but the Federal government is the only one who can unless there's a Constitutional amendment.
But G.W.Bush is currently saying he wants tax cuts, so to get a federalized Internet tax system, even if the money is handed directly to the states, isn't gonna happen right now.
So the only question is whether the states are going to try to come up with a scheme that'll last a little while, before being knocked down by the Supreme Court...
Here's the links...
Federal taxes down -> Less money in Federal spending -> Less Federal government grants -> States required to still provide services and do public works projects with less Federal help -> States need to raise taxes.
Doubt that. Any solution to Internet Tax is gonna cover those as well.
The "Catalog Loophole" has been annoying states with sales taxes for a long time, as it effectively gives an advantage to out-of-state purchases. However, it really never was worth too much, so it wasn't worth trying to solve the constutional problems. Even when the 'net first started, it was just brushed off. Now that the economy is slowed and tax revenues are down... they're looking for new ways to tax anything they can.
An outright denail would be something along the lines of "We have made the decision that we will not be doing this."
Instead, it's still possible that they're planning and still planning on going forward, it's just that they haven't announced it. That's why their denial was incomplete... they've denied that they are doing but have not covered is going to
This is where it's nice to remember that IP isn't really property.
If the US Government gets outraged enough, it can revoke specific patents or a whole class of patents with a simple law passing Congress and gaining either presidental approval or overriding the veto. Just throw it in the back of an Economic Recovery Package or something like that.
SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors.
Vendors are safe, but what about those who use Linux?
They made an incomplete denial of the rumor. There's still enough wiggle room for them to have hired Mr. Boise to sue those with deep pockets who use Linux and still not contradict anything they said.
We are in a situation of FUD right now.
First, Slashdot reported a rumor, which was of questionable validity but claimed that somebody was going to threaten to inflict a patent lawsuits on selected Linux users, going to demand settlements roughly equal to the cost of Windows to avoid being sued.
Now, that somebody has come forward with a less-than-satisfactory denial of the rumor. It's not clear what their intentions are, and we'd rather see an outright claim that the story is false.
Fear that this could wipe out Linux, uncertainty over what SCO is gonna do, and doubt that this going to go very well. Yep. FUD is in full effect, and so far it's justified.
I think the label is clear that you mail the wrapper (complete with the stamped portion that tells them when and where they made the chips) to an address on the label to claim the refund.
Couldn't the underfunded OS makers just insist that their operating system is only for use on "non-DRM" hardware? So long as that still exists on the market, all is well...
No, actually, the phrase on Lay's potato chips products is "Satisfaction Guarenteed" which says that if you can claim that the bag of chips is not to your satisfaction, they promise you a full refund. Yeah, you can't do that if they didn't make that promise, but they did.
Likewise with Microsoft. In order to get a legal shrink-wrap EULA, they must offer a way to decline the EULA. So, the EULA instructs that you indicate acceptance by using the software, and indicate rejection by promptly returning the software to the place of purchase for a full refund.
AMIBIOS will step into this mess if they start releasing BIOS products that need an EULA, as presently they're just being sold as part of a piece of hardware. (Have ever seen an EULA for a motherboard?) DRM might just send them over that bridge...
Something is trusted when it is put in a position where if it screws up, bad can things happen.
Something is trustworthy when it is thought to not be likely to screw up when it is trusted to do something.
So, when you put up your organization's website on an unpatched IIS server, that computer is trusted to serve that set of pages and not all the pages to be changed by anybody other than those people trusted enough to be authorized to do so.
However, since an unpatched IIS server has security holes that allow for the site to be either taken offline, or replaced with an undesired site, that unpatched IIS server is not trustworthy... which means it's not a good idea to put an unpatched IIS server in a trusted position. If you do, it's very possible the unpatched IIS server might fail to live up to its responsiblites, causing the bad things you didn't want to happen.
Likewise, any of the trusted people might go crazy and decide to use their password to walk right in the front door and tear the site apart. This is why its important that you select trustworthy people, and as few people as possible, to hold that password.
If you're gonna provide free Wi-Fi access be prepared to either:
A: Take names-- log your guest's activity against some sort of account system so that if somebody does something that starts to violate the TOS you agreed to to get your bandwidth you can figure out who did it, and cut them off.
B: Limit access-- firewall your guests so that they can only do what you allow them to do over your bandwidth, and have to follow your rules, which make sure that it's not possible to do anything that violates your ISP's TOS.
As far as this is concerned, there's no need to make a distiction between the terrorist who wants to blow up the USA, and the common lowlife spammer. When Internet traffic flows through your wire, you are responsible for it. If it's clear that your port is being used to send spam, but you don't know who's connecting to your Wi-Fi to send it, you're the one who's gonna be blamed. If your Wi-Fi turns out to be the one that the local Al Queda rep is using to communicate, you sure are going to wish you have something to give the investigators to move on the path beyond you.
And you really should double check to see if your TOS allows you do have an open Wi-Fi port in the first place. If your school's IT department depends on funding from sale of the in-dorm Internet connections, and some of the students around you are mooching off you instead of buying their own connection, you are setting yourself up to be cut off.
No matter how many DRM technologies AMIBIOS does adopt, can you promise that AMIBIOS will continue to offer DRM-free BIOS products?
I think I had your whole post's line of reasoning when I said in my post that "anybody with the money to launch an anti-RIAA label has no real incentive to do so."
Ultimately, the last, best plan for the RIAA will be to come up with some kind of co-branded version of KaZaA, which allows people to trade their music collections freely, but charges them for the transfer. Royalties would be automatically allocated, and the whole file-trading industry could be made legal overnight. In fact, transfers would be encouraged because they would generate more royalties, and consumers would also receive targeted advertising encouraging them to buy music DVDs, posters, concert tickets and the like.
That is the RIAA's worst nightmare. See, if such a system existed and was commonly used, why would an artist need to go through the RIAA members to get onto that system. New promotion companies would form, without the need to build an expensive CD pressing plant, to enter new artists onto the system and collect their royalties. The RIAA members would lose the advantage they have now in controling supply to record stores, and have to lose market share on this system to a bunch of upstarts.
The RIAA would rather the present system to any other system possible.