TechdirtEasily digestible tech news...We Should Be More Worried About Our ISPs Than Google When It Comes To Abuse- September 16, 2008 With the government gearing up to potentially go after Google for antitrust violations, we're seeing all sorts of press coverage of stories about how Google may be abusing its position, from supposedly hurting companies to potentially having too much insight into your web surfing activities. And, no one's gloating over this turn of events more than some of the broadband providers, who often find themselves at odds with Google over issues such as net neutrality, patent reform and other issues. .http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/1845252277.shtml Is Firefox Missing The Point In Its Response To Google Chrome- September 16, 2008 Seth Godin thinks Firefox is missing the point by launching new features in response to Google Chrome. He says the problem now is that "when your friends switch to Firefox, your life doesn't get better." Firefox needs to provide people with an incentive to spread it, so that the more people use it, the better it gets for users (think of a social networking site -- you have a better experience if more of your friends join). He suggests new communication and collaboration features that only work..http://techdirt.com/articles/20080914/2322362265.shtml Student Charged With Crime For Telling University Officials About Security Hole- September 16, 2008 For many years, we've covered case after case after case after case after case after case after case of people being blamed, arrested or even jailed for pointing out a security flaw. It should come as no surprise that many security researchers claim that it's just not worth it to research security vulnerabilities, since the risk is just too high. It doesn't seem like those on the other side are getting the message just yet. Slashdot points us to the latest example, where a student at...http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0227582273.shtml Is Stubhub Guilty Of Violating Anti-Scalping Laws Not This Time...- September 16, 2008 We've seen a few different lawsuits involving ticket reselling website Stubhub (owned by eBay). Last year, you may remember, a court forced Stubhub to hand over the identity of sellers of New England Patriots' tickets, despite the fact that Stubhub's terms of service protect users' privacy. One of the big questions brought up by various lawsuits is whether or not Stubhub is guilty of violating various anti-scalping laws. It seems like it would be clear that Stubhub, as the platform provider,.http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0218312272.shtml AT&T Moves Away From 'Up To' Marketing- September 16, 2008 For years, one of our pet peeves was the use of "up to" in telco marketing -- as in, "you get speeds up to 10 Mbps!" The "up to" lets providers basically make up whatever they want, as any speed below that number is still technically covered. However, in the last few years, some have started pushing back -- even questioning whether the use of "up to" marketing was false advertising. That's why it's nice to see that AT&038;T, for one, appears to be moving away from the practice. Broadband...http://techdirt.com/articles/20080911/1854452246.shtml Google On The High Seas- September 16, 2008 It looks like Google has had enough of the taxes, rules, and regulations associated with hosting its data in various countries around the world. Its solution Floating data centers anchored beyond national boundaries. The idea seems pretty ridiculous on its face. The costs associated with maintaining a fleet of barges, in addition to the challenges that would arise regarding server maintenance, power requirements (wave power really), and security (protection from real pirates), make the...http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/1152292276.shtml Baidu Expose Suggests That It's A Lot More Involved In Music Downloads Than It Lets On- September 15, 2008 More than three years ago, when Chinese search engine Baidu first filed to go public, we noted that it's huge advantage over Google in China appeared to stem from its very popular music download search engine -- and we wondered if going public would force that to go away, potentially damaging the company's bottom line significantly. In fact, we were surprised that it appeared that the investors in the site hadn't done much due diligence to understand what was going on. The recording industry..http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0150502269.shtml Apple Now Banning Potentially Competitive Apps From The iPhone- September 15, 2008 Yet another day and yet another odd attempt by Apple to arbitrarily control what's in the App Store for the iPhone. A bunch of folks have submitted the news of a podcasting app that's been blocked because Apple claims it competes with iTunes. This should, of course, scare of iPhone developers even more than previous bans. After all, it means that should an app get particularly popular, Apple would most likely just create its own competing version and remove the popular app from the...http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0136292268.shtml Malaysia Stops Blocking Opposition Blog... But Arrests Its Founder- September 15, 2008 Over the last few years, we've followed the ongoing efforts of gov't officials to figure out the whole "blogging" thing. It started off poorly with gov't officials insulting bloggers and trying to pass a law that would have required all bloggers to register with the government. After that failed, the ruling party looked, for a bit, as if it might be trying to understand and embrace blogs. It set up an agency just to respond to blogs and even told certain of its own candidates for office that.http://techdirt.com/articles/20080915/0055182266.shtml |