A federal district court recently refused to dismiss cybersquatting claims against Google based on its AdSense for Domains program. The plaintiff is accusing Google of "trafficking in" domain names via that program, which allegedly brings Google profits from large-scale domain-tasting activities. As the blog post in the first link reports, Google has recently made some policy changes in response to widespread domain-tasting activities.
The best would be an open, web-based solution that let third-party hardware and software repair technicians add their own notes to it--sort of like a medical record that follows the computer through its life.
I propose a system wherein the caller can change the channel of the hold music, which would make people happier about being on hold and would result in fewer lost calls.
Instead of being forced to listed to a monolithic, one-way conduit of bad music the next time you're on hold, wouldn't it be great if you could change the station? "Press 1 for Jazz, press 2 for Top 40, etc." People would stay on hold longer, which means the businesses who used this would get more customers. I might even call it just to listen to the music! It could be Internet radio, XM, or anything else.
Discussion here.
Eliot Spitzer does a lot of good internet work, like suing spammers and enforcing privacy rights, and today he will announce a settlement with five major music labels to force them to pay illegally-withheld royalties to musicians. He's got my vote when he runs for governor.
To maximize window-opening speed, I switched from Google.com to about:blank. But then, I had no Google, so I added the Google toolbar. Now I have acheived start-page nirvana.
I am sure you will be surprise to read this from me having not met me before. I decided to contact you via e-mail after concluding that there is no other way to reach you as I got your contact through an international internet business directory in Abuja-Nigeria. I am the Deputy Director of Approvals and Appraisals OF THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF AVIATION. I have been
priviledged to head the Contract Awarding Committee of THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF AVIATION (FMA) for the past Six(6) years now.
I am on a five months course here in Holland. Myself and my other colleagues have carefully mapped out the sum of Thirteen Million, Two
Hundred And Sixty Thousand United States Dollars(US$13,260,000) only which was received from contracts and commissions we awarded to some foreign firms for supply and installation of Airport Equipment. With our position
as Directors, we were able to ask the foreign firms to over invoice the contract by 10% to enable us get our money on request from the Central Bank of Nigeria. This idea came as a result of the fact that as Civil Servants here in Nigeria, we are not allowed to operate an offshore account. Therefore, we decided to look for a reliable and trustworthy partner to whom we can remit these funds into his private or company's account, hence my contacting you.
For the numerous assistance you are going to provide, you will be entitled to 35% of the total amount,60% will be for us while 5% has been set aside for expenses that will be incurred in the course of this transaction. To
effectively and officially get these funds transferred into your personal or Company's account, would require the following;
1.Bank name and Address
2.Name of Beneficiary
3 Company Name and Address
4. Account Number.
5. Confidential Telephone and Fax number of Beneficiary.
In order to avoid delay, please get in touch with me immediately via my e-mail address for immediate action to commence and hopefully, we must get these funds into your account within a few working days. Please contact me immediately as we cannot afford to waste much time in this strictly risk free transaction.
We need to comply with the present democratic government in Nigeria that has instructed us to pay immediately all debts and outstanding payments of all foreign firms. While thanking you for your anticipated cooperation, I
await your immediate response.
It could be that they're absorbing a financial hit now so that 3 years from now, when brick-and-mortar stores vanish, they have brand awareness and at least some following among consumers. Besides having to compete w/ iTMS, Napster's problem is that they need something to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. As Napster II has discovered, brand awareness isn't always enough: it sure as hell didn't work for them his time around!
I do Web design for a Middle-Eastern Jewish band, and, like 54,360 other independant artists, they sell their CD at CDBaby.com. Unlike traditional distribution schemes that leave signed bands with, say, 25 cents for every CD (which they have to split among the band members), CDBaby takes only $4 from every sale and gives the rest to the artist. They have already paid out over $6 million to independant artists, and they are univerally loved by those artists.
If the artist so requests, CDBaby will also shop the CD to download services like Rhapsody, BuyMusic, Emusic, the new Napster, AOL's MusicNet, and MusicMatch (no iTunes yet). The cool part is that CDBaby only takes 5% of what the download services pay them, passing on the rest, which is about 60 cents per track, to the artist, and when they do that they forward the detailed accounting report to the artist.
This is great, CDBaby has an impeccable track record of honesty and fair dealing with the artists, and 60 cents is more per track than what the vast majority of signed artists get per entire CD. But the potential for accounting shenanigans perpetrated by the download services themselves is high. They could simply lie, or fail to correct some error in their accounting software, and the artist would be none the wiser. CDBaby already helps independant artists by harnessing the collective bargaining power of all its members, but the additional pressure and oversight of a union like Mudda could help keep the pressure on.
You got it right. The lawsuits go after the whole ring of scumbags, not just the punk who pushes the Send button. In this case, all who profited from it are targeted.
Remember that your online backup provider's backup versions of your files are fair game for subpoenas from the RIAA or whoever else can shell out a few bucks to a lawyer.
These sorts of cases can be prosecuted by the attorney general of any state in which part of the criminal activity takes place. For example, if any part of the crime took place in New York, even if it's only that some New York residents received the spam, then you would contact the Internet Bureau of the New York State Attorney General. They have a complaint form you can use, or you could call them up. They'll know what you're talking about. If you follow that link, you'll see press releases about spammers they have successfully brought to justice.
The FTC also has some jurisdiction over this.
I'm not a lawyer, but the lawyers at those places will be happy to but your investigational talent to use. Keep up the good work!
One way to prevent a scripted catalog-signup attack would be to centralize the processing of the signup forms. If all signup requests were routed through a single source, that source could easily detect a spike in signups. At that time, a confirmation phone call or letter could be sent to the recipient to determine whether they actually want all the junk, much in the same way that email list signups often generate an email that requests confirmation.
Of course, there are privacy concerns, centralization vulnerability concerns, and the issue of getting people to use the system. There is a collective action problem because normal members of the public don't have much of a reason (or way) to pay for this, and the catalog companies don't have much incentive to pay for it either since it's probably cheaper to send the occasional unwanted catalog than it is to restructure and pay more for their signup system.
When the spammers finally do teach their bots to recognize the increasingly common "myname at domain dot com" techniques or the masking tricks, we will still have another method of defense: dispensing with text for listing email addresses. We can avoid detection by posting the names in graphic form, inserting a GIF of the email inline with the rest of the page's text.
If the spammers ever respond with OCR, we could hold them at bay (where practicable) with slightly distorted text in the gif, like what you see in the PayPal registration screen.
Slashdot Mirror
A federal district court recently refused to dismiss cybersquatting claims against Google based on its AdSense for Domains program. The plaintiff is accusing Google of "trafficking in" domain names via that program, which allegedly brings Google profits from large-scale domain-tasting activities. As the blog post in the first link reports, Google has recently made some policy changes in response to widespread domain-tasting activities.
The best would be an open, web-based solution that let third-party hardware and software repair technicians add their own notes to it--sort of like a medical record that follows the computer through its life.
Instead of being forced to listed to a monolithic, one-way conduit of bad music the next time you're on hold, wouldn't it be great if you could change the station? "Press 1 for Jazz, press 2 for Top 40, etc." People would stay on hold longer, which means the businesses who used this would get more customers. I might even call it just to listen to the music! It could be Internet radio, XM, or anything else. Discussion here.
Eliot Spitzer does a lot of good internet work, like suing spammers and enforcing privacy rights, and today he will announce a settlement with five major music labels to force them to pay illegally-withheld royalties to musicians. He's got my vote when he runs for governor.
To maximize window-opening speed, I switched from Google.com to about:blank. But then, I had no Google, so I added the Google toolbar. Now I have acheived start-page nirvana.
I am sure you will be surprise to read this from me having not met me before. I decided to contact you via e-mail after concluding that there is no other way to reach you as I got your contact through an international internet business directory in Abuja-Nigeria. I am the Deputy Director of Approvals and Appraisals OF THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF AVIATION. I have been priviledged to head the Contract Awarding Committee of THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF AVIATION (FMA) for the past Six(6) years now.
I am on a five months course here in Holland. Myself and my other colleagues have carefully mapped out the sum of Thirteen Million, Two Hundred And Sixty Thousand United States Dollars(US$13,260,000) only which was received from contracts and commissions we awarded to some foreign firms for supply and installation of Airport Equipment. With our position as Directors, we were able to ask the foreign firms to over invoice the contract by 10% to enable us get our money on request from the Central Bank of Nigeria. This idea came as a result of the fact that as Civil Servants here in Nigeria, we are not allowed to operate an offshore account. Therefore, we decided to look for a reliable and trustworthy partner to whom we can remit these funds into his private or company's account, hence my contacting you.
For the numerous assistance you are going to provide, you will be entitled to 35% of the total amount,60% will be for us while 5% has been set aside for expenses that will be incurred in the course of this transaction. To effectively and officially get these funds transferred into your personal or Company's account, would require the following;
1.Bank name and Address 2.Name of Beneficiary 3 Company Name and Address 4. Account Number. 5. Confidential Telephone and Fax number of Beneficiary.
In order to avoid delay, please get in touch with me immediately via my e-mail address for immediate action to commence and hopefully, we must get these funds into your account within a few working days. Please contact me immediately as we cannot afford to waste much time in this strictly risk free transaction.
We need to comply with the present democratic government in Nigeria that has instructed us to pay immediately all debts and outstanding payments of all foreign firms. While thanking you for your anticipated cooperation, I await your immediate response.
Regards, Minister William Okokobioko
Introvertster
Give phonespell your number and it will give you all the word combinations in your number.
It could be that they're absorbing a financial hit now so that 3 years from now, when brick-and-mortar stores vanish, they have brand awareness and at least some following among consumers. Besides having to compete w/ iTMS, Napster's problem is that they need something to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. As Napster II has discovered, brand awareness isn't always enough: it sure as hell didn't work for them his time around!
If the artist so requests, CDBaby will also shop the CD to download services like Rhapsody, BuyMusic, Emusic, the new Napster, AOL's MusicNet, and MusicMatch (no iTunes yet). The cool part is that CDBaby only takes 5% of what the download services pay them, passing on the rest, which is about 60 cents per track, to the artist, and when they do that they forward the detailed accounting report to the artist.
This is great, CDBaby has an impeccable track record of honesty and fair dealing with the artists, and 60 cents is more per track than what the vast majority of signed artists get per entire CD. But the potential for accounting shenanigans perpetrated by the download services themselves is high. They could simply lie, or fail to correct some error in their accounting software, and the artist would be none the wiser. CDBaby already helps independant artists by harnessing the collective bargaining power of all its members, but the additional pressure and oversight of a union like Mudda could help keep the pressure on.
Then the WMV crap won't play. When you're done with the New York Times, set it back to medium or whatever.
You got it right. The lawsuits go after the whole ring of scumbags, not just the punk who pushes the Send button. In this case, all who profited from it are targeted.
This site gives you step-by-step instructions:
http://www.smallclaim.info/
Remember that your online backup provider's backup versions of your files are fair game for subpoenas from the RIAA or whoever else can shell out a few bucks to a lawyer.
Press release is here.
download this software from Pentium: It's on this screen
The org is on the ball: http://www.verifiedvoting.org
The FTC also has some jurisdiction over this.
I'm not a lawyer, but the lawyers at those places will be happy to but your investigational talent to use. Keep up the good work!
There's also info at the same page concerning some other cool Internet work that the NY Attorney General has done.
See what I mean?
The official notice in the Federal Register is here.
One way to prevent a scripted catalog-signup attack would be to centralize the processing of the signup forms. If all signup requests were routed through a single source, that source could easily detect a spike in signups. At that time, a confirmation phone call or letter could be sent to the recipient to determine whether they actually want all the junk, much in the same way that email list signups often generate an email that requests confirmation.
Of course, there are privacy concerns, centralization vulnerability concerns, and the issue of getting people to use the system. There is a collective action problem because normal members of the public don't have much of a reason (or way) to pay for this, and the catalog companies don't have much incentive to pay for it either since it's probably cheaper to send the occasional unwanted catalog than it is to restructure and pay more for their signup system.
-Mason
When the spammers finally do teach their bots to recognize the increasingly common "myname at domain dot com" techniques or the masking tricks, we will still have another method of defense: dispensing with text for listing email addresses. We can avoid detection by posting the names in graphic form, inserting a GIF of the email inline with the rest of the page's text.
If the spammers ever respond with OCR, we could hold them at bay (where practicable) with slightly distorted text in the gif, like what you see in the PayPal registration screen.