From The New York Times: Retargeting Ads Follow Surfers to Other Sites

This is my favorite quote from the article: “‘I don’t think that exposing all this detailed information you have about the customer is necessary,’ said Alan Pearlstein, chief executive of Cross Pixel Media, a digital marketing agency. Mr. Pearlstein says he supports retargeting, but with more subtle ads that, for instance, could offer consumers a discount coupon if they return to an online store. ‘What is the benefit of freaking customers out?’”

Still, this is so painfully simple to eliminate…simply don’t accept cookies from marketers, or if you must (when shopping at on-line stores, for example), save cookies only per session and not persistantly; the next time you open your browser, the cookies are gone, and the marketers can no longer associate you with your last browsing session. The Firefox browser, along with add-ons like BetterPrivacy, Cookie Monster, NoScript, and others gives you extremely fine-grained control over what these slimeballs can track about your browsing habits, if you are willing to spend a little time actually setting-up and controlling your cookies.

From NewTeeVee: Copy Protection Makes Dozens of Blu-ray Titles Unplayable

From the article: “Samsung recently updated the firmware of its devices, and now users are reporting that a large number of Blu-ray titles from Warner Bros. and Universal don’t play anymore.”

This is yet another example where pirates who illegally copied the affected films have no problem at all viewing them in high-def, where legitimate purchasers are locked-out. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is universally evil, and I promise we will continue to see stories like this so long as it is accepted, and so long as people spend their monies where DRM is used.

From CNN: Google unveils Internet phone service to compete with Skype

From the article: “Google announced Wednesday that it will allow users to make phone calls over the Internet through its Gmail service, encroaching on territory that has thus far been dominated by Skype.”

Great…now Google will not only monitor what websites you visit and who you email and IM, but also who you telephone. How creepy is that?

From The New York Times: F.C.C. Chief Opposes Fees for Internet Priority

From the article: “‘Any outcome, any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable,’ Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman, told reporters on Thursday.”

I rarely agree with the FCC (which has a history of catering to media conglomerates and allowing the consumer to be royally screwed), but this time they are dead-on. Verizon and Google make a deal, I may be looking at other alternatives for my phone and Internet broadband.

From The New York Times: Google and Verizon in Talks on Selling Internet Priority

More like selling out the consumer. From the article: “Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”

Net neutrality will be a distant memory if this nonsense is allowed to happen.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Privacy issues hit Facebook again

From the article: “Privacy concerns swirled around Facebook again after an employee of a firm called Skull Security compiled and released personal data on more than 100 million Facebook users, about a fifth of the site’s membership.”

Oh, yeah, and there’s only one small advertisement on this page, too, instead of boatloads that link to your private information. Facebook is just too creepy for my tastes.

From the New York Times: Ruling Allows ‘Jailbreaking’ of iPhones

From the article: “Owners of the iPhone will be able to legally unlock their devices so they can run software applications that haven’t been approved by Apple Inc., according to new government rules announced Monday.”

It won’t stop Apple from blowing it up with a software update, but at least it’s a step in the right direction…

Veteran journalist Daniel Schorr, whose hard-hitting reporting got him on Nixon’s ‘enemies list’ in the 1970s, dies at 93. More as I find it.

Edit: The New York Times obit.

Edit: For those who missed it, my trip to Politics and Prose to meet Mr. Schorr (includes photos and a short cell-phone video).

From TheWrap.com: Feds Join Hands With H’wood in Anti-Piracy Initiative

From the article: “The launch of ‘Operation in Our Sites,’ a new U.S. initiative aimed at internet counterfeiting and piracy, was announced on Wednesday. But what makes this initiative different is that it partners law-enforcement officials with representatives of the entertainment industry.”

Great. Largest deficits in history, and your tax dollars are being spent to help the rich corporations in what is essentially a civil matter. Gotta love the government…even Joe Biden is in the MPAA’s pocket.

From The New York Times: Amish Farming Draws Rare Government Scrutiny

From the article: “…Farmers…are facing growing scrutiny for agricultural practices that the federal government sees as environmentally destructive. Their cows generate heaps of manure that easily washes into streams and flows onward into the Chesapeake Bay.”

From The Paid Death Notices at the New York Times: HIMAN BROWN Paid Death Notice

From the paid death notice: “(He) died peacefully at his home in Manhattan on Friday June 4th 2010 at 8:13pm.”

Much thanks to Doug Douglass for posting the info to the OTR Digest.

From The New York Times: Google to Give Governments Street View Data

From the article: “Google is bowing to the demands of four European governments and says it will begin surrendering the data it improperly collected over unsecured wireless networks.”

English translation: “All your data are belong to us.”

From CNN: ‘Easy Rider’ actor Dennis Hopper dies

From the article: “Dennis Hopper, the one-time Hollywood enfant terrible who portrayed such indelible characters as ‘Easy Rider’s’ biker Billy, ‘Blue Velvet’s’ huffing villain Frank Booth and ‘Hoosiers'’ forlorn Shooter Flatch, died of prostate cancer Saturday morning at his home in Venice, California, his wife said. He was 74.”

After having recently mourned the death of the TV series 24, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Mr. Hopper’s villainous character Victor Drazen was killed by Jack Bauer in the very first season of the series.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Creators Must Move Beyond Suing the Audience

This commentary from the EFF explains what content providers are up against, and how the lawyers are the only ones profiting from the virtual blackmail in the proffered “settlements.” From the article: “This much should be abundantly clear by now: creators must move beyond suing the audience. File-sharers are characterized as shallow thieves, when in reality they’re just fans who are using one of the most efficient technologies for distribution ever invented to explore creative works in the most convenient way possible. The majority of these fans would like to live in a world where there’s an efficient, effective, modern framework for compensating the creators. That framework will be built through innovation and experimentation — not litigation.”

From The New York Times: Art Linkletter, TV Host, Dies at 97

From the article: “Art Linkletter, whose ‘People Are Funny’ and ‘House Party’ shows entertained millions of TV viewers in the 1950s and ’60s with the funny side of ordinary folks and who remained active as a writer and speaker through his ninth decade, died Wednesday. He was 97.”

From Ars Technica via CNN: Sites caught sharing secret data with advertisers, report says

From the article: “A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that Facebook, along with MySpace, Digg and a handful of other social-networking sites, have been sharing users’ personal data with advertisers without users’ knowledge or consent.”

Actually, a more in-depth article on the Ars Technica website explains that, other than Facebook, this isn’t as big a problem as the WSJ suggests. Still, it’s part-and-parcel of the issues we face on the Net…and the way we are giving up our privacy to advertisers.

From TorrentFreak: Giganews Lawyer Says Steal This Film Is An Illegal Download

While this website takes a definitive stance on the copyright debate and as such has a distinct bias to its articles, they have called this one dead-on; suggesting that downloading Steal This Film, a film given away freely by the producers, is somehow a copyright violation is completely ludicrous, and Giganews should be ashamed of itself for suggesting anything of the sort. Honestly, anyone with a Giganews account should close it and go somewhere less draconian and more knowledgable for their USENET access. If you do, let them know why.

Warning: there is profanity (the “F-bomb”) in one of the pieces of correspondence quoted in the article. Of course, there is likely to be profanity in the comments section almost anywhere - but I wanted to give you a heads-up anyway.

From The New York Times: World’s Largest Social Network - The Open Web

An interesting opt-ed on why Facebook is a bad idea, and explains better than I can why we have chosen not to participate. From the article: “Susan Herring, professor of information science at Indiana University, sees it this way: ‘What the statistics point to is a rise in Facebook, a decline in blogging, and before that, a decline in personal Web pages.’ The trend is clear, she said — Facebook is displacing these other forms of online publication.”

From The New York Times: Google Admits to Inadvertent Data-Collecting

“Inadvertent” they say. Bull-pucky; Google’s entire business model is based upon violating as much of your privacy as possible, with or without your permission, and selling the personal information about you to advertisers and others. The idea there was some piece of data they collected “accidentally,” or didn’t use, is hog-wash.

From ZeroPaid: MPAA Successfully Kills TVs Record Button

While this site clearly has a position to push (and the articles are generally filled with typos and grammatical errors), it’s still important to read this, since legitimate outlets don’t seem to be covering it; the FCC is granting a, “limited waiver of the prohibition on disabling audio-visual outputs.” Basically, the long-dead “Broadcast Flag” has reared its ugly head once again.

It’s a shame the regulators of so many things in this country have forsaken the consumers and so heavily shifted to supporting the industries they are obliged to reign in.