First Etoys.com had to back down to Etoy. Now DoubleClick has changed their plans for user tracking thanks to hard work by privacy advocates. It’s great to see the Internet community winning thse fights. Look out, Amazon, you’re next. (We need a big win against UCITA, too.)
A lot of people have already seen this technical note from the annals of VMS history, but it’s so funny that I decided to dredge it back up anyway. The funny thing about it is that it perfect smarmy response from tech support in a situation where a user decides that something that works correctly is broken. The user in this case complained that VMS “incorrectly” treats the year 2000 as a leap year, the response that follows clears things up rather nicely.
Microsoft is trying to recruit employees in San Francisco with an ad campaign that wallpapers an entire subway station. I think that if I had to walk through a giant advertisement for Microsoft to get to work every day, I’d find a different train to take or start driving.
It seems UCITA actually passed in Virginia on Valentine’s Day, and that it hasn’t made the news in many places. Pathetic. Tara Calishain did dig up these stories:
So far, the only news I can find about UCITA passing in Virginia is a lousy press release from the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Hey tech journalists, do your jobs!
Paul Barton-Davis, employee number 2 at Amazon.com, has writen a statement criticizing their 1-click ordering patent, and their intellectual property practices in general.
On Feb 21, I linked to a story about Cynthia Herdrich’s case against her HMO that’s being heard before the Supreme Court. Slate’s reporter covered the testimony in that case, and explains the issues involved much better than the LA Times story did.
Apparently the President is easily impressed when it comes to computers.
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Salon has an article about business model patents today that presents both sides of the debate pretty well. I think that the appropriate test is whether an idea is innovative enough that the inventor deserves a monopoly on that idea for the duration of the patent. Obviously, in some cases the answer is yes. In the case of the affiliate patent, I think the answer is clearly no.