Just because it's the web, or Google, doesn't mean that all of a sudden rational thought or market forces can be suspended
Market forces just have been suspended - by the French Government. That's what the story is about. They feel that this is a fairer model. I'm not sure if I agree with them or not, but I do favour a rational discussion. Pointing out dubious analogies is my way of contributing to such a debate.
And everytime I make a point you respond with another one. I don't think we need all these analogies. We're both intelligent people and we should be able to discuss the pros and cons of this in terms of Google without likening it to things that it is not.
If only the registered trademark owner is allowed to bid on ad space related to that registered trademark, the bidding is not going to go very high
This is true, but does the harm to Google outweigh harm to other business of allowing the practice? I'm not saying it does or doesn't, just that this is the issue.
It's not quite as bad as it sounds for Google however. That Ad space is still valuable, and they still have a monopoly on selling it. If they decide to set the price at X thousand Euros then Mazda will just have to stump up the cash or not have it. It's not like they can go elsewhere - so I expect a compromise price would happen. Neither will be totally satisfied but both will have gained. True trade happens between equal markets.
Yellow Pages is equivalent to Google advertising in so far as looking up pens will provide a list of pen sellers and stationers. All well and good. But in this case, looking up Parker will bring me listings for Bic and Steadtler! It's like a phone directory in which your entry can be bought by other people.
Secondly, Yellow Pages does not have a finite space that rivals try to outbid each other for. If two companies want to buy quarter-page ads, then you get two quarter page ads. But only the first page of ads are worth anything in Google - that's four or five, maybe, and being a finite resource, other companies can outbid you, leaving you with no advertising at all.
That breaks a number of laws. It doesn't matter whether its a crime boss threatening a witness, or a corporation punishing a company that showed they had committed a crime - the courts take a dim view of any entity that tries to interfere with their monopoly on punishment.
And with a company as big as Google, we need to take great care that there is no abuse of this sort that would stifle the due process of the law.
Just a general point, but France carries a lot of weight in the EU. I don't really know much about Ubisoft or EA, but if the EU follows France on an issue like the Google trademark case then it becomes globally significant. The EU as an entity matches the US economy and is considerably less in debt.
So if you're "surprised that anyone pays attention to the French government," think of it in terms of a leading member of a powerful cartel.
And what if google should decide to block all searches (return no results) for groups who sue them in this manner? Would anyone have a problem with that?
Yes, certainly. That would amount to either threatening people / organizations in order to prevent them from taking you to court or punishing them for bringing your crimes to the judiciaries attention. In Europe, and I should think in the USA, the courts would take a dim view of this.
Whether it's witness intimidation or scaled up to corporate levels, the principle is actually the same. The laws against this behviour are some of the oldest (and best thought out) on the books.
if google had no servers/place of buisness in france, would they liable fcr these practices under french law?
Laws are just bits of paper, they require power to back them up. This is especially true in International Law. If Google were to contravene French law, as they just have, then France effectively says to them change your behaviour (and pay a fine) or else. In the case of business, the "or else" is you don't get to trade there anymore. France can't stop access to Google, but they can control the revenue stream from French advertisers. That's a big stick to threaten them with. So regardless of your countries laws vs. another countries laws, if you want to work there, you have to play by their rules.
Of course, if you have a mean and protective parent, like the USA, then you can go running to them to sort things out for you and they can get other countries to back down by fighting them in a big mud-pit called the WTO.;)
I've already answered this below (both typing at the same time, I guess), but as this is directed at me, I'll just make two points.
There is a finite amount of ad space, you're wrong in this. The space is limited by the readers attention span. Probably the first few entries count, maybe the whole page if she's really doing comparison shopping. At most though, seven or eight little google ads are going to be looked at. The issue is whether someone else can use your own name for advertising against you.
My second point, and the main reason for replying, is that you've either misunderstood me or deliberately misinterpreted what I said. I never said that Microsoft should or shouldn't be allowed to advertise in Linux Magazine. I just thought this was a better analogy for people who don't RTFA than using the word Mazda in a small ad selling a Mazda, which is not the same principle at all.
All that I did in fact, was clarify the issue for people who might have been misled and said their were interesting issues to think about. Contrary to what you say - "advertising - it's the nature of the beast" - we together can decide the nature of that beast; it isn't set in stone. You will find that as of today, advertising is a slightly different beast in Europe than it is in the USA.
You can see my other post for my thoughts on which beast suits society the best.
(And for the record, MS can advertise in Linux Magazine all they like - it's probably the biggest admission of fear they could ever make;)
Replying to my own post - bad etiquette probably - but I've thought about this more and so long as they don't skew the actual search results then nothing hideously wrong has been done by skewing the advertising (through the bidding system). But it's a bit harsh to know that just by typing in your name, someone is going to be deluged with invitations from your much bigger rivals.
You can see how good such a system is for Google however, as it means the big players are forced to bid competitively to secure the advertising rights to their name. It's a little like if domain names were sold not on a first come first serve basis, but on a highest bidder model.
France (with possibly the rest of Europe following) has decided that they don't like this system and granted people exclusive rights to their names. I think that levels the playing field a little between big and small players.
Not so good for Google though who want to run their business how they like.
If I have a Mazda to sell, I can mention the Mazda trademark in ads.
I think you're misleading people. It's more the case of (to use your example) Ford outbidding Mazda for the advertising space on their name. You search for Mazda and up comes Ford.
You might not care much about Ford vs. Mazda. Suppose it were Microsoft buying up all the ad-space for Red Hat, or Walmart buying up the ads for $SMALL_CHAIN.
If they want to bid on a type of item, say car, well that's one thing. But should they be able to out-bid you on your own name? One to think about more carefully.
I'm not saying that many people aren't picking up the belief from others rather than deducing it themselves; but I think that the foundation of it is that the PATRIOT act has provided a means by which the government in the USA can more easily harrass those saying / printing / broadcasting ideas it does not like. Of course the PATRIOT act doesn't say "The President can censor you," but it does provide scope for arresting, spying on and secrecy in obtaining and submitting evidence.
This means the government can't say "Don't print that," but it can now more easily punish such people with less dependence on legal niceties - hence the chilling effect.
I don't think it makes sense to destroy research because of the source.
I think the point of divergance for most people here is whether they feel that using research obtained in such an abhorrent way, is condoning it. Many here feel that they are being pragmatic and saying that they will not add more misfortune on top of what cannot now be changed by refusing knowledge that could help people. If it is as simple as this, then they have a valid viewpoint.
Others may feel that accepting such research is some kind of acceptance. Any kind of acceptance of such an act diminishes us all. Not everyone is so certain that experiments like this will not reoccur and think that being too objective over it is complacency.
At least this is what I think divides many people on this issue. For myself, I don't think trying to 'unknow' something is practical, but I am certain that we should think very deeply on the horror of how it was obtained.
Maybe, but the point is what it is right now, not what it might one day be.
This is your point. My point is the exact opposite.
And I don't seek some moderated community that will protect minorities. I just state my case when it's appropriate in a topic of conversation as I'm doing now.
Of course we pretend it's all done from the moral high ground for the best interests of everyone.
There are two reasons for this - one is to allay the animosity of the rest of the world. The second is to trick its own population into allowing its actions.
Given the latter, how can you have a real democracy. If someone else is making desicions on your behalf over what is "good" for you, then you can be sure that those decisions are really made for the good of they who make them.
The interests of the people will never be best served until the people are able to decide the best course of action for themselves.
Is there any point in trying to protect against BIG Brother really? I mean, if they WANT to get in, they could just storm your house and take away your PC. If the want they could slience you too. So why go so over the top?
Solidarity? I'm getting as many people as possible to use email encryption, just because I know this makes it harder to spy on people generally. When it becomes more common, then it'll be impossible to do the blanket scanning of emails that government agencies do presently.
You can't always stop people treading on you, but you can make it hurt. There's a big difference between people scanning anything they want and being forced to, as you say, kick the door down.
I've posted a more in depth reply to the post below yours, but it addressed yours too.
But as to the users of/. being primarily from the U.S.A.? Probably, but it has the capacity to be much more than a parochial American site. And being interested in technology, I'd like to see it become more so. When every other discussion on the site degenerates immediately into the same two groups haranging each other, an outsider to those two parties might be forgiven for thinking that neither side really cares about the story at all.
Amd if that's so, then it really will just be an American site and the poorer for it.
Well if marks were given to the most certain, I concede that you'd win, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it.
People have been killing each other in wars for thousands of years. I think few cultural shifts have changed human behviour as much as technology. We are still genetically the same beings that we were a thousand years ago with the same instincts. What difference there is, is in what we are capable of doing with those instincts. A war in ancient times would have resulted in thousands of deaths, possibly the establishment or destruction of some settlements. A war today can result in widespread, possibly global, ecological destruction too, in addition to the deaths of tens of millions.
You might as well have said the same thing you said today about Nuclear Weapons sixty years ago. And I'd have diasgreed with you then too. Something fundamental has changed - in this case humanity has taken the first steps to automating the murder of others.
What is different before and after this technology? Not the politicians or human nature. Just the technology and that is why I prefer to read people's thoughts on the story rather than a slanging match about whose candidate was better.
For reference, I don't think this technology is "gee-whiz." I think it's nasty as Hell.
RTFA.
Or, barring that, at least read the first few comments.
No energy is "blasted" anywhere. It's a pad with a zillion tiny connectors that you set your phone on. Pretty stupid, really.
Actually, there are no connectors - it uses magnetic induction. Bascially, you run current through a coil generating a magnetic field. The device to be charged contains a similar coil and when this is placed next to the first, the magnetic field generates a charge in the device.
The GP poster you are replying to is actually right in that this is less efficient than just plugging your phone in. True, the phone uses a transformer in the charger, but this is smaller than the proposed pad and more efficient anyway, I would expect.
A smaller force cannot hope to defeat a larger one
Ain't that the truth.
US Forces in Iraq: approx. 150,000
Population of Iraq: approx 22 million.
I guess victory (or survival) depends on how persuasive the US Forces are in convincing the Iraqi's they're not enemies. Things like Guantanamo and Abu Grahib must have been real boosts.
What's really sad is when a tech news forum story about military robots ends up having the first few pages devoted to Americans arguing over their president (again). The sole reference to said story in amongst it all being the obligatory "I for one..."
A hundred years from now Bush will be dead, the democrats and the republicans will be even more indistinguishable in the eyes of the rest of the world, but we will still have robots patrolling our skies with rockets and guns.
It's technology that will sahpe the future, and it's that we should be looking at.
What, like a President who tells the world he doesn't read newspapers, and makes clear through endless public (and private) acts that he doesn't want anyone to ever learn the truth of anything that makes him look bad, no matter how catastrophic his actions?
Well, if you want to name names, yes - that's the sort of thing. And over here a certain Prime Minister is up to similar tricks.
There's certainly scope for behaviour varying between individuals within an organization, but bear in mind the pressure that can be exerted from the top in an hierarchical organization such as the FBI. It doesn't have to be explicit, just the common sticks that a boss can apply on an employee will often do the job. And if the employee has the notion that the pressure is coming from way-up-high then it might be a very brave employee indeed that breaks ranks.
Incidentally, the British Ministry of [Off|Def]ence has it's own ways of not complying with the Freedom of Information Act.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you'd be interested to learn about the concept of sarcasm.
Perhaps some of us were interested in what he had to say.
Just because it's the web, or Google, doesn't mean that all of a sudden rational thought or market forces can be suspended
Market forces just have been suspended - by the French Government. That's what the story is about. They feel that this is a fairer model. I'm not sure if I agree with them or not, but I do favour a rational discussion. Pointing out dubious analogies is my way of contributing to such a debate.
And everytime I make a point you respond with another one. I don't think we need all these analogies. We're both intelligent people and we should be able to discuss the pros and cons of this in terms of Google without likening it to things that it is not.
Including radio air-time.
If only the registered trademark owner is allowed to bid on ad space related to that registered trademark, the bidding is not going to go very high
This is true, but does the harm to Google outweigh harm to other business of allowing the practice? I'm not saying it does or doesn't, just that this is the issue.
It's not quite as bad as it sounds for Google however. That Ad space is still valuable, and they still have a monopoly on selling it. If they decide to set the price at X thousand Euros then Mazda will just have to stump up the cash or not have it. It's not like they can go elsewhere - so I expect a compromise price would happen. Neither will be totally satisfied but both will have gained. True trade happens between equal markets.
same as the Yellow Pages.
Yellow Pages is equivalent to Google advertising in so far as looking up pens will provide a list of pen sellers and stationers. All well and good. But in this case, looking up Parker will bring me listings for Bic and Steadtler! It's like a phone directory in which your entry can be bought by other people.
Secondly, Yellow Pages does not have a finite space that rivals try to outbid each other for. If two companies want to buy quarter-page ads, then you get two quarter page ads. But only the first page of ads are worth anything in Google - that's four or five, maybe, and being a finite resource, other companies can outbid you, leaving you with no advertising at all.
That breaks a number of laws. It doesn't matter whether its a crime boss threatening a witness, or a corporation punishing a company that showed they had committed a crime - the courts take a dim view of any entity that tries to interfere with their monopoly on punishment.
And with a company as big as Google, we need to take great care that there is no abuse of this sort that would stifle the due process of the law.
Just a general point, but France carries a lot of weight in the EU. I don't really know much about Ubisoft or EA, but if the EU follows France on an issue like the Google trademark case then it becomes globally significant. The EU as an entity matches the US economy and is considerably less in debt.
So if you're "surprised that anyone pays attention to the French government," think of it in terms of a leading member of a powerful cartel.
And what if google should decide to block all searches (return no results) for groups who sue them in this manner? Would anyone have a problem with that?
Yes, certainly. That would amount to either threatening people / organizations in order to prevent them from taking you to court or punishing them for bringing your crimes to the judiciaries attention. In Europe, and I should think in the USA, the courts would take a dim view of this.
Whether it's witness intimidation or scaled up to corporate levels, the principle is actually the same. The laws against this behviour are some of the oldest (and best thought out) on the books.
if google had no servers/place of buisness in france, would they liable fcr these practices under french law?
Laws are just bits of paper, they require power to back them up. This is especially true in International Law. If Google were to contravene French law, as they just have, then France effectively says to them change your behaviour (and pay a fine) or else. In the case of business, the "or else" is you don't get to trade there anymore. France can't stop access to Google, but they can control the revenue stream from French advertisers. That's a big stick to threaten them with. So regardless of your countries laws vs. another countries laws, if you want to work there, you have to play by their rules.
Of course, if you have a mean and protective parent, like the USA, then you can go running to them to sort things out for you and they can get other countries to back down by fighting them in a big mud-pit called the WTO.
I've already answered this below (both typing at the same time, I guess), but as this is directed at me, I'll just make two points.
There is a finite amount of ad space, you're wrong in this. The space is limited by the readers attention span. Probably the first few entries count, maybe the whole page if she's really doing comparison shopping. At most though, seven or eight little google ads are going to be looked at. The issue is whether someone else can use your own name for advertising against you.
My second point, and the main reason for replying, is that you've either misunderstood me or deliberately misinterpreted what I said. I never said that Microsoft should or shouldn't be allowed to advertise in Linux Magazine. I just thought this was a better analogy for people who don't RTFA than using the word Mazda in a small ad selling a Mazda, which is not the same principle at all.
All that I did in fact, was clarify the issue for people who might have been misled and said their were interesting issues to think about. Contrary to what you say - "advertising - it's the nature of the beast" - we together can decide the nature of that beast; it isn't set in stone. You will find that as of today, advertising is a slightly different beast in Europe than it is in the USA.
You can see my other post for my thoughts on which beast suits society the best.
(And for the record, MS can advertise in Linux Magazine all they like - it's probably the biggest admission of fear they could ever make
Replying to my own post - bad etiquette probably - but I've thought about this more and so long as they don't skew the actual search results then nothing hideously wrong has been done by skewing the advertising (through the bidding system). But it's a bit harsh to know that just by typing in your name, someone is going to be deluged with invitations from your much bigger rivals.
You can see how good such a system is for Google however, as it means the big players are forced to bid competitively to secure the advertising rights to their name. It's a little like if domain names were sold not on a first come first serve basis, but on a highest bidder model.
France (with possibly the rest of Europe following) has decided that they don't like this system and granted people exclusive rights to their names. I think that levels the playing field a little between big and small players.
Not so good for Google though who want to run their business how they like.
If I have a Mazda to sell, I can mention the Mazda trademark in ads.
I think you're misleading people. It's more the case of (to use your example) Ford outbidding Mazda for the advertising space on their name. You search for Mazda and up comes Ford.
You might not care much about Ford vs. Mazda. Suppose it were Microsoft buying up all the ad-space for Red Hat, or Walmart buying up the ads for $SMALL_CHAIN.
If they want to bid on a type of item, say car, well that's one thing. But should they be able to out-bid you on your own name? One to think about more carefully.
I'm not saying that many people aren't picking up the belief from others rather than deducing it themselves; but I think that the foundation of it is that the PATRIOT act has provided a means by which the government in the USA can more easily harrass those saying / printing / broadcasting ideas it does not like. Of course the PATRIOT act doesn't say "The President can censor you," but it does provide scope for arresting, spying on and secrecy in obtaining and submitting evidence.
This means the government can't say "Don't print that," but it can now more easily punish such people with less dependence on legal niceties - hence the chilling effect.
I don't think it makes sense to destroy research because of the source.
I think the point of divergance for most people here is whether they feel that using research obtained in such an abhorrent way, is condoning it. Many here feel that they are being pragmatic and saying that they will not add more misfortune on top of what cannot now be changed by refusing knowledge that could help people. If it is as simple as this, then they have a valid viewpoint.
Others may feel that accepting such research is some kind of acceptance. Any kind of acceptance of such an act diminishes us all. Not everyone is so certain that experiments like this will not reoccur and think that being too objective over it is complacency.
At least this is what I think divides many people on this issue. For myself, I don't think trying to 'unknow' something is practical, but I am certain that we should think very deeply on the horror of how it was obtained.
Maybe, but the point is what it is right now, not what it might one day be.
This is your point. My point is the exact opposite.
And I don't seek some moderated community that will protect minorities. I just state my case when it's appropriate in a topic of conversation as I'm doing now.
Of course we pretend it's all done from the moral high ground for the best interests of everyone.
There are two reasons for this - one is to allay the animosity of the rest of the world. The second is to trick its own population into allowing its actions.
Given the latter, how can you have a real democracy. If someone else is making desicions on your behalf over what is "good" for you, then you can be sure that those decisions are really made for the good of they who make them.
The interests of the people will never be best served until the people are able to decide the best course of action for themselves.
Is there any point in trying to protect against BIG Brother really? I mean, if they WANT to get in, they could just storm your house and take away your PC. If the want they could slience you too. So why go so over the top?
Solidarity? I'm getting as many people as possible to use email encryption, just because I know this makes it harder to spy on people generally. When it becomes more common, then it'll be impossible to do the blanket scanning of emails that government agencies do presently.
You can't always stop people treading on you, but you can make it hurt. There's a big difference between people scanning anything they want and being forced to, as you say, kick the door down.
I've posted a more in depth reply to the post below yours, but it addressed yours too.
But as to the users of
Amd if that's so, then it really will just be an American site and the poorer for it.
Wrong.
Well if marks were given to the most certain, I concede that you'd win, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you make it.
People have been killing each other in wars for thousands of years. I think few cultural shifts have changed human behviour as much as technology. We are still genetically the same beings that we were a thousand years ago with the same instincts. What difference there is, is in what we are capable of doing with those instincts. A war in ancient times would have resulted in thousands of deaths, possibly the establishment or destruction of some settlements. A war today can result in widespread, possibly global, ecological destruction too, in addition to the deaths of tens of millions.
You might as well have said the same thing you said today about Nuclear Weapons sixty years ago. And I'd have diasgreed with you then too. Something fundamental has changed - in this case humanity has taken the first steps to automating the murder of others.
What is different before and after this technology? Not the politicians or human nature. Just the technology and that is why I prefer to read people's thoughts on the story rather than a slanging match about whose candidate was better.
For reference, I don't think this technology is "gee-whiz." I think it's nasty as Hell.
RTFA.
Or, barring that, at least read the first few comments.
No energy is "blasted" anywhere. It's a pad with a zillion tiny connectors that you set your phone on. Pretty stupid, really.
Actually, there are no connectors - it uses magnetic induction. Bascially, you run current through a coil generating a magnetic field. The device to be charged contains a similar coil and when this is placed next to the first, the magnetic field generates a charge in the device.
The GP poster you are replying to is actually right in that this is less efficient than just plugging your phone in. True, the phone uses a transformer in the charger, but this is smaller than the proposed pad and more efficient anyway, I would expect.
A smaller force cannot hope to defeat a larger one
Ain't that the truth.
US Forces in Iraq: approx. 150,000
Population of Iraq: approx 22 million.
I guess victory (or survival) depends on how persuasive the US Forces are in convincing the Iraqi's they're not enemies. Things like Guantanamo and Abu Grahib must have been real boosts.
What's really sad is when a tech news forum story about military robots ends up having the first few pages devoted to Americans arguing over their president (again). The sole reference to said story in amongst it all being the obligatory "I for one..."
A hundred years from now Bush will be dead, the democrats and the republicans will be even more indistinguishable in the eyes of the rest of the world, but we will still have robots patrolling our skies with rockets and guns.
It's technology that will sahpe the future, and it's that we should be looking at.
Jeez. Some people are having a bad day today...
What, like a President who tells the world he doesn't read newspapers, and makes clear through endless public (and private) acts that he doesn't want anyone to ever learn the truth of anything that makes him look bad, no matter how catastrophic his actions?
Well, if you want to name names, yes - that's the sort of thing. And over here a certain Prime Minister is up to similar tricks.
In short, your looking for work and you thought
Well that's okay, good luck to you.
By the way, I'm very self-motivated, a genius in C++ and Python and I could probably squeeze the odd small or non-urgent project in....
There's certainly scope for behaviour varying between individuals within an organization, but bear in mind the pressure that can be exerted from the top in an hierarchical organization such as the FBI. It doesn't have to be explicit, just the common sticks that a boss can apply on an employee will often do the job. And if the employee has the notion that the pressure is coming from way-up-high then it might be a very brave employee indeed that breaks ranks.
Incidentally, the British Ministry of [Off|Def]ence has it's own ways of not complying with the Freedom of Information Act.