searches, personalization, and privacy
on
Yahoo to Dump Google
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Second, Yahoo wants to combine personalization and customization features to extend the usefulness of searches.
It will be interesting to see what this develops into. I'm already a bit uncomfortable with the thought of such a "service." While it may be "convenient" to create a profile of your interests and perhaps an overview of previous searches and marking of what were "good" search results, I don't like the idea of Yahoo! storing all this data in the first place. How do I know that they won't sell this data to marketers? (Most privacy policies are bullshit.) Or give it to government officials looking for terrorists and political opponents and the such? Will I have to give up a lot of personal data in order to get search for information results that don't lead me to sites that try to sell me the product I'm trying to research?
Thanks, but for now I think I'll stick to spending time and effort to get the search results I want, no matter how big of a pain in the ass it is, rather than sell my soul for the same.
We have no doubt that the TCPA provides more than such reasonable clarity and precision for persons of common intelligence.
It was appaling to read about fax.com's arrogance while reading through the ruling, though it really shouldn't surprise me. It's nice to see the law working.
I remember there being a public outcry in Norway when certain cd's would not play on computers etc. I was expecting to see this appear in a Norwegian court, but a Belgian one will do!
I have a feeling that it eventually will appear in a Norwegian court. There is more than enough support for it to happen, and a good PR campaign by EFN and consumer rights groups will bring even more support. I think the "delay" (i.e. why it hasn't been in court already) has been due to the whole DVD-Jon thing. But now that that's over, we can move on to other things.
I can see the same thing happening in Norway, as a lot of people are very upset about so-called copy protection disallowing the consumer to play their CDs in any old player or on the computer. Forcing a consumer to play their legally-owned CDs on "approved" players is in violation of Norwegian law. Furthermore, tiny print saying "copy protected" in any other language than Norwegian is also against the law.
Already as early as 2002, EFN (Norway's version of EFF) has launched campaigns against the purchase of certain types of CDs as well as offering assistance in pressing charges against record producers whose CDs damage CD and/or DVD players or computers.
By the way, the verdict against DVD-Jon is NOT going to be appealed!
...unless the person you're spying on consents. (But that defeats the purpose, doesn't it?) The person behind the spyware can face criminal charges if/when caught.
For the Norwegians here, the relevant laws are personopplysningsloven and straffeloven.
I'll second that recommendation. I bought a bottle (one of many) on my last trip to Catalonia. Great stuff!
I've travelled a bit in Spain, but I don't speak Spanish (I make do with French, more effective than English), so I'm not really sure what Spaniards really call their cava. I've ordered "cava sorbet" and bottles of cava from menus, but I've never seen or heard "champn" (or similar) as far as I can remember.
On that note, don't go to Spain and call their wonderful cava champagne. Ever. When I was researching on a travel website for information on Barcelona last summer, I read a story about someone who did just that and wondered why the Spaniards were so upset and suddenly cold towards him. On a friendlier note, you can get some excellent cavas at a fraction of the price of champagne, though the top champagnes beat anything else out there.
In Italy, sparkling wine is called asti spumanti. In Germany you can get a local Sekt. South Africa has cape classic. I'm not too crazy about any of these, but chacun a son gout.
...would like to congratulate Pamela Jones for a job well done. It's especially refreshing to see a woman who doesn't have some kind of techie degree so active in and passionate about the open source movement!
Having a graduate degree in a funky fusion of computer science and law, I know all to well about the challenges involved in getting the geeks, lawyers, and everyone else, involved or not involved, to understand one another. It is a challenge to write and explain things in a way with a goal of getting as many people as possible to understand what is written and where the fewest people feel like they are being patronized, belittled, hearing "old news," etc. From what I can see (maybe others think differently), Jones does a good job in meeting that challenge.
I hope to see other cases on Groklaw, in addition to all the SCO stuff, both from the US and the rest of the world. I'll be more than willing to contribute stuff. Just keep the site going!
We will, however, see dramatic growth in cyber-extortion and plain old theft.
I think this could have been predicted for 2003.We've already seen examples of cyber-extortion here (the medical transcriptionist in Pakistan), and I've seen lots of other reports of cyber-extortion attempts here and there, especially in the last 6 or so months. And this is the stuff that is actually reported in the news! I wonder how much of it goes unreported...
Yes and no. I normally don't get spam in my yahoo.no account, and I normally don't get spam in most of my other.no accounts. I do get a spam from a.no address once in a blue moon and I deal with it in the appropriate manner. But as mentioned many times already, spammers outside of Norway and the EEA don't give a shit about Norwegian/European rules and regulations.
Over here, the rule is opt-in. The recipient of the spam has to have consented to it beforehand. (for the Norwegians here - markedsforingsloven 2 b).
I used to have a job where I had to deal with different kinds of questions from the public that dealt with, among other things, spam. After contacting various Norwegian spammers to lay down the law, I found that a lot of them bought CDs or whatever with e-mail addresses. They seemed to (usually arrogantly) think that because they bought these lists, they were fully legal to use. This is not the case.
I don't know if these CDs were sold with the implication that their use was legal. Hindsight is 20-20 and I realize now I should have told these spammers to demand their money back from the people who sold them the CDs.
It's only a matter of time when someone (Al Queda?) will use the zombie network for something that will truly be noticed.
It's only a matter of time when someone (not tuxette though) will do an al Qaida on some notorious spammer or other. There are only so many catalogs and pizzas you can send a spammer...
I've heard similar and decided to do a google search. I found the following article very interesting:
Coffee - the Wine of Islam
Here are some excerpts:
Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE.
To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor.
The beverage became known as qahwa -- a term formerly applied to wine -- and ultimately, to Europeans, as "The Wine of Islam."
Throughout the first few centuries of its history in the Islamic world, coffee's popularity engendered great controversy. Many were suspicious of the effects of caffeine and the gatherings in which it was consumed -- they seemed debauched to some and subversive to others.
Coffeehouses competed with mosques for attendance, and as unsupervised gathering places for wits and learned men, provided spawning grounds for sedition. The wags of Istanbul jokingly called the coffeehouses mekteb-i 'irfan, "schools of knowledge." Efforts were launched, and persisted for at least a hundred years, to declare coffee an intoxicant forbidden by Islamic law.
In Persia, coffeehouses evolved into hotbeds of lasciviousness and political dispute soon after they were introduced.
In private valises, coffee reached Venice in 1615, Marseilles in 1644, and London in 1651; but it did not make its official debut into European high society until 1669, when it was introduced to Parisians by the Turkish ambassador, Suleyman Mustapha Koca.
"Caffeine is the Christian drug of preference. Drink a glass of red wine or light up a cigarette during Sunday Night Fellowship Hour, and you will be thrown out on your ear. But a two-hundred-gallon pot of black adrenal-rush will bring friendly smiles of delight. The meeting would not be the same with the absence of its nutty aroma filling the church basement. Little white Styrofoam cups floating in small clusters of heavenly conversation."link
Hmm. Da boyfriend gave me an MP3 player for Christmas. Maybe he's trying to get rid of me...
All jokes aside, I have never had problems with the batteries for my devices either. I don't know anyone who has ever had a problem. I have heard of people having problems, and the reason they have problems is that they buy "non-approved" batteries from "dodgy third world countries."
And if you think those in the business are bad at maths, think of who the customers are. Politicians and the such. Notorious maths flunkies. Show them some fancy pie charts and percent signs, especially those in their favor, and they're your best friend forever.
People don't want to be called and pestered by pollsters. The only people that don't seem to understand are the pollsters.
Some excerpts from the first article:
In an unscientific poll last month by CNN and Money magazine, 41 percent of more than 11,000 voluntary participants said they would be inclined to pull the plug on their land lines and go entirely wireless.
Unfortunately no reason is stated, but I have a feeling that "so these stupid pollsters don't call and pester me" is one of the leading reasons.
A recent Sprint Wireless survey of more than 500 college students found that half are cell-only customers.
No kidding, Sherlock. Think about it. Students are always on the move, changing addresses frequently. It is MUCH easier to have a cell phone only than to deal with changing land lines every 6 months.Students are also the demographic group with too many other things to do and think about than answer some stupid survey.
"That makes it an opt-in situation where the cellphone user somehow signs up to allow researchers to call," she said. "Who's going to do that?"
Like....DUUUUUUH! Get a clue already! YOU'RE UNWANTED!
No, forvaltningsloven. At least an interpretation of it.
If you're in Norway, take a look at EFN's website. There, you can find information on how to make government agencies give you documents in "appropriate" formats.
Slashdot Mirror
It will be interesting to see what this develops into. I'm already a bit uncomfortable with the thought of such a "service." While it may be "convenient" to create a profile of your interests and perhaps an overview of previous searches and marking of what were "good" search results, I don't like the idea of Yahoo! storing all this data in the first place. How do I know that they won't sell this data to marketers? (Most privacy policies are bullshit.) Or give it to government officials looking for terrorists and political opponents and the such? Will I have to give up a lot of personal data in order to get search for information results that don't lead me to sites that try to sell me the product I'm trying to research?
Thanks, but for now I think I'll stick to spending time and effort to get the search results I want, no matter how big of a pain in the ass it is, rather than sell my soul for the same.
We have no doubt that the TCPA provides more than such reasonable clarity and precision for persons of common intelligence.
It was appaling to read about fax.com's arrogance while reading through the ruling, though it really shouldn't surprise me. It's nice to see the law working.
People don't want to place responsibility where it belongs. People want to cash in on misfortunes. Cha-ching.
Okokrim is The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime. More information here.
I have a feeling that it eventually will appear in a Norwegian court. There is more than enough support for it to happen, and a good PR campaign by EFN and consumer rights groups will bring even more support. I think the "delay" (i.e. why it hasn't been in court already) has been due to the whole DVD-Jon thing. But now that that's over, we can move on to other things.
Already as early as 2002, EFN (Norway's version of EFF) has launched campaigns against the purchase of certain types of CDs as well as offering assistance in pressing charges against record producers whose CDs damage CD and/or DVD players or computers.
By the way, the verdict against DVD-Jon is NOT going to be appealed!
So to the RIAA - the WHOLE WORLD is proving you wrong!
For the Norwegians here, the relevant laws are personopplysningsloven and straffeloven.
I've travelled a bit in Spain, but I don't speak Spanish (I make do with French, more effective than English), so I'm not really sure what Spaniards really call their cava. I've ordered "cava sorbet" and bottles of cava from menus, but I've never seen or heard "champn" (or similar) as far as I can remember.
In Italy, sparkling wine is called asti spumanti. In Germany you can get a local Sekt. South Africa has cape classic. I'm not too crazy about any of these, but chacun a son gout.
They get you drunk faster.
Having a graduate degree in a funky fusion of computer science and law, I know all to well about the challenges involved in getting the geeks, lawyers, and everyone else, involved or not involved, to understand one another. It is a challenge to write and explain things in a way with a goal of getting as many people as possible to understand what is written and where the fewest people feel like they are being patronized, belittled, hearing "old news," etc. From what I can see (maybe others think differently), Jones does a good job in meeting that challenge.
I hope to see other cases on Groklaw, in addition to all the SCO stuff, both from the US and the rest of the world. I'll be more than willing to contribute stuff. Just keep the site going!
I thought they were called spammers.
I think this could have been predicted for 2003.We've already seen examples of cyber-extortion here (the medical transcriptionist in Pakistan), and I've seen lots of other reports of cyber-extortion attempts here and there, especially in the last 6 or so months. And this is the stuff that is actually reported in the news! I wonder how much of it goes unreported...
If you get a spam from a .no sender, send a complaint to Forbrukerombudet (Consumer Ombudsman). (Or just go right to the complaint form.)
Over here, the rule is opt-in. The recipient of the spam has to have consented to it beforehand. (for the Norwegians here - markedsforingsloven 2 b).
I used to have a job where I had to deal with different kinds of questions from the public that dealt with, among other things, spam. After contacting various Norwegian spammers to lay down the law, I found that a lot of them bought CDs or whatever with e-mail addresses. They seemed to (usually arrogantly) think that because they bought these lists, they were fully legal to use. This is not the case.
I don't know if these CDs were sold with the implication that their use was legal. Hindsight is 20-20 and I realize now I should have told these spammers to demand their money back from the people who sold them the CDs.
It's only a matter of time when someone (not tuxette though) will do an al Qaida on some notorious spammer or other. There are only so many catalogs and pizzas you can send a spammer...
EPIC's VoIP letter to the FCC
Here are some excerpts:
Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE.
To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor.
The beverage became known as qahwa -- a term formerly applied to wine -- and ultimately, to Europeans, as "The Wine of Islam."
Throughout the first few centuries of its history in the Islamic world, coffee's popularity engendered great controversy. Many were suspicious of the effects of caffeine and the gatherings in which it was consumed -- they seemed debauched to some and subversive to others.
Coffeehouses competed with mosques for attendance, and as unsupervised gathering places for wits and learned men, provided spawning grounds for sedition. The wags of Istanbul jokingly called the coffeehouses mekteb-i 'irfan, "schools of knowledge." Efforts were launched, and persisted for at least a hundred years, to declare coffee an intoxicant forbidden by Islamic law.
In Persia, coffeehouses evolved into hotbeds of lasciviousness and political dispute soon after they were introduced.
In private valises, coffee reached Venice in 1615, Marseilles in 1644, and London in 1651; but it did not make its official debut into European high society until 1669, when it was introduced to Parisians by the Turkish ambassador, Suleyman Mustapha Koca.
google links here
"Caffeine is the Christian drug of preference. Drink a glass of red wine or light up a cigarette during Sunday Night Fellowship Hour, and you will be thrown out on your ear. But a two-hundred-gallon pot of black adrenal-rush will bring friendly smiles of delight. The meeting would not be the same with the absence of its nutty aroma filling the church basement. Little white Styrofoam cups floating in small clusters of heavenly conversation." link
Otherwise, I found this interesting: Scientists cast doubt on caffeine addiction.
All jokes aside, I have never had problems with the batteries for my devices either. I don't know anyone who has ever had a problem. I have heard of people having problems, and the reason they have problems is that they buy "non-approved" batteries from "dodgy third world countries."
And if you think those in the business are bad at maths, think of who the customers are. Politicians and the such. Notorious maths flunkies. Show them some fancy pie charts and percent signs, especially those in their favor, and they're your best friend forever.
Some excerpts from the first article:
In an unscientific poll last month by CNN and Money magazine, 41 percent of more than 11,000 voluntary participants said they would be inclined to pull the plug on their land lines and go entirely wireless.
Unfortunately no reason is stated, but I have a feeling that "so these stupid pollsters don't call and pester me" is one of the leading reasons.
A recent Sprint Wireless survey of more than 500 college students found that half are cell-only customers.
No kidding, Sherlock. Think about it. Students are always on the move, changing addresses frequently. It is MUCH easier to have a cell phone only than to deal with changing land lines every 6 months.Students are also the demographic group with too many other things to do and think about than answer some stupid survey.
"That makes it an opt-in situation where the cellphone user somehow signs up to allow researchers to call," she said. "Who's going to do that?"
Like....DUUUUUUH! Get a clue already! YOU'RE UNWANTED!
If you're in Norway, take a look at EFN's website. There, you can find information on how to make government agencies give you documents in "appropriate" formats.