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Threads of copyright abuse
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 11:58:46 PM PDT
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How far will copyright "protection" organizations go in threatening end users with highly-questionable infringement claims? Far enough to claim that victims of counterfeiters are infringers themselves, as the continuing practices of the Embroidery Software Protection Coalition (ESPC) demonstrate.
(5 comments, 913 words in story) Full Story
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Google should defy court order
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Mon Jul 07, 2008 at 12:34:03 AM PDT
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Has it struck anyone else that Google has been rather weak-kneed in its response to the court order requiring it to turn over YouTube viewing logs to Viacom? Google's entire business is built on our trust that the privacy of all that personal information they have about us will be protected. Yet in this situation, one in which legal experts have pointed out that the judge is actually ordering Google to violate existing privacy law to our detriment, the company appears to be rolling over with a feeble plea that Viacom allow them to "anonymize" the data they yield.
(781 words in story) Full Story
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Bill Gates and PC history
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Tue Jul 01, 2008 at 12:06:44 AM PDT
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With Bill Gates stepping down from his day-to-day role of running Microsoft, he's been receiving a great number of accolades about the role he played in history of the PC. Much of it is deserved. But some of it definitely ignores the reality of how the PC industry evolved and the effect that Bill Gates and Microsoft had, for good and bad, on technology innovation.
(23 comments, 809 words in story) Full Story
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Borderline searches and seizures
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 09:41:05 AM PDT
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Should the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures apply when U.S. Customs agents seizing your laptop at the border to examine your data? Currently the Department of Homeland Security as well as the courts say that such searches are permissible even when then there are no grounds for suspicion against you. But many of my readers feel that it's not only an unreasonable practice but a dangerous invasion of privacy.
(15 comments, 888 words in story) Full Story
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Reader voices: Angry at eBay
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Mon Jun 23, 2008 at 01:47:31 PM PDT
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As we saw a few weeks ago, many eBay sellers are quite upset over changes the online auction giant recently made to its buyer/seller feedback system. Indeed, it sounds like the anger over this issue led to some very testy exchanges at eBay's annual meeting last week. But the comments I've been getting from readers suggest that eBay's problems go way beyond seller anger over the feedback changes.
(12 comments, 1110 words in story) Full Story
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Teleblend's terrible terms
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 12:02:02 AM PDT
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In our continuing search for the worst Terms of Service (ToS) on the Internet, we've seen some pretty nasty legalese. Now a reader points out VOIP provider Teleblend's "Customer Opt-In Service Agreement," which certainly has more than its share of customer-unfriendly provisions. But what's really striking is how Teleblend takes the already laughable "contract formation" rules of the typical sneakwrap license to absurd new heights.
(2 comments, 1329 words in story) Full Story
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Spyware bill cloaks a mini-UCITA
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Mon Jun 16, 2008 at 01:02:19 AM PDT
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The holy grail for the software industry's political muscle has long been what in UCITA was called "electronic self help" - the right of software publishers to remotely disable their software on the mere suspicion that it hasn't been paid for. UCITA was ultimately stopped, but last Wednesday the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on a bill that nominally is supposed to fight spyware but seems intended to make remote disabling legal.
(10 comments, 1341 words in story) Full Story
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Reader Voices: Autorenewal Defenses
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By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Fri Jun 13, 2008 at 12:18:09 AM PDT
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How can we protect ourselves from online services that employ hidden autorenewal clauses to keep charging us? Readers responded to my recent story about how credit card companies like American Express handle disputed autorenewal charges with some ideas on what we can do about it.
(24 comments, 888 words in story) Full Story
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