You're right that the customer is always right. I'm telling you that the easiest way to get a real company to stop sending you e-mail is to use their opt-out or unsubscribe link. That's the distinction I'm trying educate people about.
Reporting an e-mail as spam does not necessarily stop the e-mails from being sent to you because not every ISP or mail software or sender is tied into a standardized spam reporting system. Your clicking the "spam" button in your e-mail system does NOT necessarily report your opt-out request back to the hotel. You may be justified in marking them spam but there's a good chance you are shooting yourself in the foot.
A real business like a hotel is legally required to provide an easy way opt-out, and to respect it. Take advantage of that. If you want to punish them, take your business elsewhere and/or name names online on a site like the consumerist.
CAN-SPAM requires a "global" opt-out method--the ability to remove yourself from ALL the lists from a particular sender. So your first part about the plans is not correct.
However you are correct that CAN-SPAM does not prevent Company A from selling your (now confirmed good) e-mail address to Company B.
If an e-mail triggers their content filters, some ISPs will return a "hard bounce" error on an e-mail address that is actually valid and in use. If you're doing e-mail marketing you cannot necessarily trust the SMTP error codes from ISPs. This is one reason why legitimate e-mailer service providers maintain direct relationships with big ISPs.
As someone who does responsible e-mail marketing, please let me make a distinction between that and spamming.
If you are getting notices to enhance your johnson or "Che@p drug$" or whatever, DO NOT use the "opt out" link. It confirms your e-mail address is functional. In fact don't open them at all. Report them as spam and help your ISP improve their filters.
HOWEVER, if you are receiving e-mail marketing you just don't want anymore--like say the daily deal e-mail from Expedia*--please use the opt-out link to cancel your subscription. Deleting them won't stop the flow, and marking them as spam hurts deliverability reputation, making it harder to get them to people who actually want them.
Perhaps I'll get modded down for saying this, but e-mail marketing can be done responsibly and is a big part of many legitimate businesses. I think this sometimes gets lost in the War On Spam.
* I don't work for them, this is just an example of an e-mail marketing that I know I get.
The U.S. is the #1 manufacturer in the world, as well as the #1 exported of manufactured goods, as measured by dollar value.
That's NOT true if measured by tonnage. China has us beat there. But the difference is that the stuff we manufacture and export are things like high-end construction equipment, airplanes, scientific equipment, industrial tooling, pharmaceuticals, etc. These things are valuable because of their design and the ideas they implement--because of the IP that they represent. Not because of the weight of the material in them.
The value of manufacturing is wholly tied up in the IP of what is being manufactured. You can make as much crappy product as you want; if people don't want it, it will not sell and will not generate value.
And that does not get into the pure IP products like software, movies, or games. Those are each multi-billion-dollar domestic industries who add to the bottom line of the nation and employ whole supply chains (including manufacturing!).
It's easy to get caught up in opposing the shitty tactics of the RIAA and the MPAA, but I think those are really details in the big picture. Those problems will be largely addressed by the marketplace...look at the state of music DRM today for instance. Although some aspects can use improvement, copyright as a concept is a great idea and it is important to defend it. The same rules that protect Mickey also protect the open-source movement.
The soviet economic collapse was triggered by OPEC, not SDI. When Saudi Arabia et al opened stopcocks and flooded the world with cheap oil, the Soviet export economy collapsed.
And why did OPEC flood the world with cheap oil? The answer is clear: SDI!:-)
We didn't do the design for them, we helped them understand certain technologies they were thinking of employing in their designs. We did the same thing for HP a few years earlier. Most technology companies employ consultants occasionally--even Logitech!
It's doubly weird because Microsoft only makes software (and a few peripherals) for PCs. The campaign would make a lot more sense if it was being run by one of the companies who actually make the computers that are featured...like Dell, HP, etc.
Think about it -- this is a Microsoft ad campaign that says absolutely nothing about any Microsoft product whatsoever. It seems like they are running from their own brand rather than executing a strategy to improve it.
I think you misunderstand--the patents were not Microsoft patents. I was helping to provide patent reviews so MS Hardware could make decisions about technologies in their future products. I know Microsoft designs their own hardware because I got paid to help them do it.
The point of this online naming contest (and online naming contests in general) is not to make a democratic and fair decision, but to raise publicity. The greatest hope is to create controversy, since that drives more publicity. Not naming it after Colbert is the best way to continue the controversy. This way he can continue to be mock-outraged about it for weeks.
If there is a true majority party, then it doesn't matter whether or not we have a proportional allocation system, since the majority party will win either way.
Proportional allocation just gives you more ways to throw away your vote. A minority platform will be forced into compromise under any political system--that's just a consequence of being in the minority.
As someone who spent many long hours performing patent searches while working for a consultant to MS Hardware, I can assure you that yes, they do their own hardware design. They are subject to counterfeiting and "third shift" IP theft* just like many other companies who manufacture overseas, and the keyboard you saw was no doubt one or the other. In parts of Asia it is just as easy to find counterfeit or copycat Logitech stuff too. I know because my company bought them to study.
* Third shift theft is when a company (often Chinese) signs a legitimate manufacturing deal with a U.S. company but purposefully overproduces. So say Company X does a deal to manufacture 2 million MS keyboards. They produce 2.5 million and do another deal on the side to slap a no-name label on the extra 500,000.
I don't like "Producer" as it can mean the money-person (a la Hollywood producers), but the idea is in the right place. At my shop--an inside Web team at a nonprofit--we have the following roles:
- Interactive Designer--someone who has a 4-year degree (or more) in art or graphic design. "Designer" should only apply to people who actually know how to design! We're lucky in that our designer also knows front-end UI development including HTML, Flash, and some javascript. - Web Content--information architecture with some writing and editing. - Web Development--back-end coding and server management, some more complicated front-end UI scripting. - New Media--runs the blog and drives social media engagement, including video. - Web Production--builds Web pages day to day. Also provides basic CMS training and support to staff.
From your Minneapolis Fed link: "On balance, the evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA lies at the root of the current mortgage crisis." Did you actually read the paper?
I'm sorry, but that's not accurate. Fannie, Freddie, and Fed-managed banks (the only banks subject to the CRA) were all held to government-mandated standards for underwriting and capital reserves. Most subprime loans were sold by private companies and underwritten by private investment banks, hedge funds, bond funds, structured investment vehicles, etc.--none of whom were covered by the CRA.
Fannie, Freddie, and most banks got into trouble not because they issued a ton of bad loans, but because they bought and held the highly-rated securities issued by the investment banks, hedge funds, bond funds, SIVs, etc.--which turned out to be not so highly rated in the end. This lowered their capital ratios and forced them to all try to raise capital at the same time, creating a liquidity and ultimately a credit crisis.
To address the argument of this thread, capitalism as a system is simply the right to earn and keep a profit by selling in a free market. It did not get us into this mess--bad decisions by certain capitalists got us into this mess. Arguing otherwise is like arguing that the success of the Conficker worm is proof that computer programming in general is a failure. Or arguing that the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge is proof that it's time to abandon engineering. One problem--even a big one--does not negate the entirety of one of the most successful ideas in the history of humanity.
I've read the whole thread and you simply have the wrong idea about how the U.S. federal government relates to money. It is never an option to lend out government money at market rates and it is never an option for the government to maximize profit. Government is a public institution that spends money--collected through taxes and borrowing--to accomplish public policy goals.
In the case when the government is running a substantial deficit (as it is now), the opportunity cost of an additional loan is the rate at which the government borrows money from the public to finance the loan, since it does not currently have that money. U.S. Treasury rates are historically low right now and so the government would not need to earn much of an interest rate from Tesla to beat their financing cost.
Anything the labels do to harm music sales at the iTMS will hurt them much more than Apple. The iTunes Music Store makes almost no profit for Apple. About 70% of the revenue (not net--the sales price) of each song goes directly to the labels. Apple makes enough to cover expenses, but mostly benefits by selling iPods and iPhones. Apple could run the iTMS at a loss for the rest of time and still come out way ahead on their electronic product sales. Heck they could shut it down completely and as long as music is sold somewhere in a digital format, they'll do ok. Amazon's music store for instance makes it easy put the music you buy there onto your iPod. And let's face it, some percentage of customers who turn away from the iTMS will just pirate instead.
Not that I wouldn't put this past the labels. They have already demonstrated the ability to make dumb decisions.
Treaties must be approved by the Congress before they take the force of law within the United States, which presents ample opportunity for public interest groups to weigh in. See for the example the Colombia free trade agreement, which is stalled over union opposition.
The problem for opponents of ACTA is that the type of people who oppose it tend to be independent folks who dislike mass organizing and lobbying, which makes it hard to track and affect pieces of legislation. Business groups on the other hand are highly pragmatic and will do whatever they need to to succeed, including coalition-building, mass organizing, and lobbying. And they fund their efforts.
Folks, you can't have your cake and eat it too...if you want to be effective at shaping or killing legislation you have to embrace and get good at lobbying. You get no points for principled withdrawal. Look to the environmentalists for instance, who have been able to keep drills out of ANWR for years despite strong business support for it and a Republican Congress. They organize and they fund their interest groups--do you?
Microsoft is continually trying to improve their products too--would you say they were wrong to use the "beta" tag on the recent free version of Windows 7?
Windows 7 beta was free to anyone because Microsoft did not consider it good enough yet to charge for, and they needed to test it and gather data. Google thinks of itself more like Microsoft than like Slashdot--a professional software company. You better believe that Salesforce.com goes through real beta phases before they roll things out to their paying customers. They do not beta test on paying customers.
Likewise if Google's strategy is to eventually build a software subscription revenue stream (and I think it is), then it makes sense to have a free version for testing and data-gathering. Like Microsoft Windows, they call it their beta version. Unlike Microsoft Windows, the beta and commercial versions of Gmail can exist simultaneously because they are fully hosted by Google.
Does your business encrypt all e-mail? If not, what technology is preventing your ISP from simply saving out a copy of everthing you send and receive?
When you purchase a service, your best protection is your contract with the service provider. Free Gmail is still in beta, but Google Apps Premier Edition has a price, SLA, and terms and conditions that protect confidential data and intellectual property. It is a real business relationship. I would be wary of putting a business onto free beta Gmail, but I have a lot fewer concerns about Apps Premiere Edition.
Now you might say that the business is putting itself at risk by trusting Google to handle its data security. But really the risk assessment there has to take into account the company's own competence at data security.
I think the "beta" remains on the consumer free edition because they are still not sure if it will turn a profit, and they do not want to provide an SLA. I'm not even sure what an SLA would look like on a free product.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that the customer is always right. I'm telling you that the easiest way to get a real company to stop sending you e-mail is to use their opt-out or unsubscribe link. That's the distinction I'm trying educate people about.
Reporting an e-mail as spam does not necessarily stop the e-mails from being sent to you because not every ISP or mail software or sender is tied into a standardized spam reporting system. Your clicking the "spam" button in your e-mail system does NOT necessarily report your opt-out request back to the hotel. You may be justified in marking them spam but there's a good chance you are shooting yourself in the foot.
A real business like a hotel is legally required to provide an easy way opt-out, and to respect it. Take advantage of that. If you want to punish them, take your business elsewhere and/or name names online on a site like the consumerist.
CAN-SPAM requires a "global" opt-out method--the ability to remove yourself from ALL the lists from a particular sender. So your first part about the plans is not correct.
However you are correct that CAN-SPAM does not prevent Company A from selling your (now confirmed good) e-mail address to Company B.
If an e-mail triggers their content filters, some ISPs will return a "hard bounce" error on an e-mail address that is actually valid and in use. If you're doing e-mail marketing you cannot necessarily trust the SMTP error codes from ISPs. This is one reason why legitimate e-mailer service providers maintain direct relationships with big ISPs.
As someone who does responsible e-mail marketing, please let me make a distinction between that and spamming.
If you are getting notices to enhance your johnson or "Che@p drug$" or whatever, DO NOT use the "opt out" link. It confirms your e-mail address is functional. In fact don't open them at all. Report them as spam and help your ISP improve their filters.
HOWEVER, if you are receiving e-mail marketing you just don't want anymore--like say the daily deal e-mail from Expedia*--please use the opt-out link to cancel your subscription. Deleting them won't stop the flow, and marking them as spam hurts deliverability reputation, making it harder to get them to people who actually want them.
Perhaps I'll get modded down for saying this, but e-mail marketing can be done responsibly and is a big part of many legitimate businesses. I think this sometimes gets lost in the War On Spam.
* I don't work for them, this is just an example of an e-mail marketing that I know I get.
The U.S. is the #1 manufacturer in the world, as well as the #1 exported of manufactured goods, as measured by dollar value.
That's NOT true if measured by tonnage. China has us beat there. But the difference is that the stuff we manufacture and export are things like high-end construction equipment, airplanes, scientific equipment, industrial tooling, pharmaceuticals, etc. These things are valuable because of their design and the ideas they implement--because of the IP that they represent. Not because of the weight of the material in them.
The value of manufacturing is wholly tied up in the IP of what is being manufactured. You can make as much crappy product as you want; if people don't want it, it will not sell and will not generate value.
And that does not get into the pure IP products like software, movies, or games. Those are each multi-billion-dollar domestic industries who add to the bottom line of the nation and employ whole supply chains (including manufacturing!).
It's easy to get caught up in opposing the shitty tactics of the RIAA and the MPAA, but I think those are really details in the big picture. Those problems will be largely addressed by the marketplace...look at the state of music DRM today for instance. Although some aspects can use improvement, copyright as a concept is a great idea and it is important to defend it. The same rules that protect Mickey also protect the open-source movement.
The soviet economic collapse was triggered by OPEC, not SDI. When Saudi Arabia et al opened stopcocks and flooded the world with cheap oil, the Soviet export economy collapsed.
And why did OPEC flood the world with cheap oil? The answer is clear: SDI! :-)
We didn't do the design for them, we helped them understand certain technologies they were thinking of employing in their designs. We did the same thing for HP a few years earlier. Most technology companies employ consultants occasionally--even Logitech!
It's doubly weird because Microsoft only makes software (and a few peripherals) for PCs. The campaign would make a lot more sense if it was being run by one of the companies who actually make the computers that are featured...like Dell, HP, etc.
Think about it -- this is a Microsoft ad campaign that says absolutely nothing about any Microsoft product whatsoever. It seems like they are running from their own brand rather than executing a strategy to improve it.
How about sleep and wake reliably when I close and open the lid. This is reason #1 why my portable computer is a Mac.
Reason #2 is that OS X is the only OS on which I can run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a Unix shell.
I think you misunderstand--the patents were not Microsoft patents. I was helping to provide patent reviews so MS Hardware could make decisions about technologies in their future products. I know Microsoft designs their own hardware because I got paid to help them do it.
The point of this online naming contest (and online naming contests in general) is not to make a democratic and fair decision, but to raise publicity. The greatest hope is to create controversy, since that drives more publicity. Not naming it after Colbert is the best way to continue the controversy. This way he can continue to be mock-outraged about it for weeks.
If there is a true majority party, then it doesn't matter whether or not we have a proportional allocation system, since the majority party will win either way.
Proportional allocation just gives you more ways to throw away your vote. A minority platform will be forced into compromise under any political system--that's just a consequence of being in the minority.
As someone who spent many long hours performing patent searches while working for a consultant to MS Hardware, I can assure you that yes, they do their own hardware design. They are subject to counterfeiting and "third shift" IP theft* just like many other companies who manufacture overseas, and the keyboard you saw was no doubt one or the other. In parts of Asia it is just as easy to find counterfeit or copycat Logitech stuff too. I know because my company bought them to study.
* Third shift theft is when a company (often Chinese) signs a legitimate manufacturing deal with a U.S. company but purposefully overproduces. So say Company X does a deal to manufacture 2 million MS keyboards. They produce 2.5 million and do another deal on the side to slap a no-name label on the extra 500,000.
I don't like "Producer" as it can mean the money-person (a la Hollywood producers), but the idea is in the right place. At my shop--an inside Web team at a nonprofit--we have the following roles:
- Interactive Designer--someone who has a 4-year degree (or more) in art or graphic design. "Designer" should only apply to people who actually know how to design! We're lucky in that our designer also knows front-end UI development including HTML, Flash, and some javascript.
- Web Content--information architecture with some writing and editing.
- Web Development--back-end coding and server management, some more complicated front-end UI scripting.
- New Media--runs the blog and drives social media engagement, including video.
- Web Production--builds Web pages day to day. Also provides basic CMS training and support to staff.
You can't sell sub-prime loans to FNMA--that's what makes them "sub-prime." Your argument makes no sense.
From your Minneapolis Fed link: "On balance, the evidence runs counter to the contention that the CRA lies at the root of the current mortgage crisis." Did you actually read the paper?
It's not a question of "should." It's a question of "can't." That's why your argument falls apart.
I'm sorry, but that's not accurate. Fannie, Freddie, and Fed-managed banks (the only banks subject to the CRA) were all held to government-mandated standards for underwriting and capital reserves. Most subprime loans were sold by private companies and underwritten by private investment banks, hedge funds, bond funds, structured investment vehicles, etc.--none of whom were covered by the CRA.
Fannie, Freddie, and most banks got into trouble not because they issued a ton of bad loans, but because they bought and held the highly-rated securities issued by the investment banks, hedge funds, bond funds, SIVs, etc.--which turned out to be not so highly rated in the end. This lowered their capital ratios and forced them to all try to raise capital at the same time, creating a liquidity and ultimately a credit crisis.
To address the argument of this thread, capitalism as a system is simply the right to earn and keep a profit by selling in a free market. It did not get us into this mess--bad decisions by certain capitalists got us into this mess. Arguing otherwise is like arguing that the success of the Conficker worm is proof that computer programming in general is a failure. Or arguing that the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge is proof that it's time to abandon engineering. One problem--even a big one--does not negate the entirety of one of the most successful ideas in the history of humanity.
I've read the whole thread and you simply have the wrong idea about how the U.S. federal government relates to money. It is never an option to lend out government money at market rates and it is never an option for the government to maximize profit. Government is a public institution that spends money--collected through taxes and borrowing--to accomplish public policy goals.
In the case when the government is running a substantial deficit (as it is now), the opportunity cost of an additional loan is the rate at which the government borrows money from the public to finance the loan, since it does not currently have that money. U.S. Treasury rates are historically low right now and so the government would not need to earn much of an interest rate from Tesla to beat their financing cost.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seatransit/message/2763
Anything the labels do to harm music sales at the iTMS will hurt them much more than Apple. The iTunes Music Store makes almost no profit for Apple. About 70% of the revenue (not net--the sales price) of each song goes directly to the labels. Apple makes enough to cover expenses, but mostly benefits by selling iPods and iPhones. Apple could run the iTMS at a loss for the rest of time and still come out way ahead on their electronic product sales. Heck they could shut it down completely and as long as music is sold somewhere in a digital format, they'll do ok. Amazon's music store for instance makes it easy put the music you buy there onto your iPod. And let's face it, some percentage of customers who turn away from the iTMS will just pirate instead.
Not that I wouldn't put this past the labels. They have already demonstrated the ability to make dumb decisions.
Treaties must be approved by the Congress before they take the force of law within the United States, which presents ample opportunity for public interest groups to weigh in. See for the example the Colombia free trade agreement, which is stalled over union opposition.
The problem for opponents of ACTA is that the type of people who oppose it tend to be independent folks who dislike mass organizing and lobbying, which makes it hard to track and affect pieces of legislation. Business groups on the other hand are highly pragmatic and will do whatever they need to to succeed, including coalition-building, mass organizing, and lobbying. And they fund their efforts.
Folks, you can't have your cake and eat it too...if you want to be effective at shaping or killing legislation you have to embrace and get good at lobbying. You get no points for principled withdrawal. Look to the environmentalists for instance, who have been able to keep drills out of ANWR for years despite strong business support for it and a Republican Congress. They organize and they fund their interest groups--do you?
Microsoft is continually trying to improve their products too--would you say they were wrong to use the "beta" tag on the recent free version of Windows 7?
Windows 7 beta was free to anyone because Microsoft did not consider it good enough yet to charge for, and they needed to test it and gather data. Google thinks of itself more like Microsoft than like Slashdot--a professional software company. You better believe that Salesforce.com goes through real beta phases before they roll things out to their paying customers. They do not beta test on paying customers.
Likewise if Google's strategy is to eventually build a software subscription revenue stream (and I think it is), then it makes sense to have a free version for testing and data-gathering. Like Microsoft Windows, they call it their beta version. Unlike Microsoft Windows, the beta and commercial versions of Gmail can exist simultaneously because they are fully hosted by Google.
Does your business encrypt all e-mail? If not, what technology is preventing your ISP from simply saving out a copy of everthing you send and receive?
When you purchase a service, your best protection is your contract with the service provider. Free Gmail is still in beta, but Google Apps Premier Edition has a price, SLA, and terms and conditions that protect confidential data and intellectual property. It is a real business relationship. I would be wary of putting a business onto free beta Gmail, but I have a lot fewer concerns about Apps Premiere Edition.
Now you might say that the business is putting itself at risk by trusting Google to handle its data security. But really the risk assessment there has to take into account the company's own competence at data security.
Google Apps Premier Edition does not have a beta label and even provides a 99.9 uptime SLA. It also provides legal language covering confidential data and intellectual property, for those who are concerned about Google managing their business data.
I think the "beta" remains on the consumer free edition because they are still not sure if it will turn a profit, and they do not want to provide an SLA. I'm not even sure what an SLA would look like on a free product.