Because they don't have to. Since it is their property they can institute any rules or program that they want (provided obviously that it doesn't break the law) that will help them manage their service or please their partners. In this case they offered a content matching and content removal system to their corporate clients as a means to encourage them to use youtube heavily and stop suing them. The reason youtube is changing their policy is that it has been heavily abused and is starting to generate negative publicity and shift users elsewhere not because they have any obligation to.

They have always accepted DMCA notices but also allowed an alternative non-DMCA process too.

They should be indicted - every last one of them.

Being a elected official in the US is extremely lucrative with lots of 'gifts' and 'free' vacations from friends and supporters after they have finished serving their terms, highly paid jobs within industries they 'regulated', highly paid jobs with companies that got legislated overpriced no-bid contracts, highly paid lobbying jobs that take advantage of their access, and a rate of return on investments 60% higher than market average (and about 20% higher than average RoR with insider trading). Simply because the payoff is delayed doesn't mean that it isn't happening and because it is so well known about nobody ever has to actually make an agreement for the bribery because the politician takes the lead knowing that if they behave in a particular way that they are guaranteed a lucrative result.

One of the reasons that other countries look at the US with horror is how blatant and openly corrupt your government officials are. In Canada the governing party for over 40 years fell and was replaced over a scandal directing work to a company that supported the Liberal party. The total amount was under $2 million dollars over 8 years which is less than every single representative and senator directs to supporters each and every budget. Even the most ethical politician on the national stage is wildly corrupted and should be charged and imprisoned.

Are you trying to suggest that Lead and Mercury are modified from their 'natural state'? If so, I strongly recommend looking at the periodic table of elements and getting a remedial science education. They may be purified but they are dangerous at naturally occuring lower purities as well.

As well the claim that CO2 is natural and thus as a natural occurrence we shouldn't need to concern ourselves with it is completely non-sensical. CO2 exists at levels not seen in 800,000 years simply because it existed before doesn't make it harmless or not potentially catostrophic to human survival. A jug of water is useful, having a river redirected into your town is incredibly destructive but we shouldn't worry because water is a natural product and thus massive changes in the quantity and location of it are entirely irrelevant.

Beyond the fact that NBC has a history of doing this with political ads (for both parties) which clearly are fair use, I think this particular use does not rise to the criteria of fair use. The entire ad is the copyrighted material with nothing else except the legally mandated "paid for by" and thus is not transformative, doesn't comment or criticise it, and is simply a recitement of facts on record that could be presented in a different way without using the copyrighted material without losing any impact. Except to falsely imply an endorsement by Brokaw there is no reason that they couldn't have presented the exact same facts in this ad without using the NBC clip.

I think characterising anything related to politics as 'non-profit' is ludicrously ironic despite the puported purpose of representing the public good. Beyond the kickbacks (read Campaign Donations), cushy jobs with industries they regulated, and wealthy friends who appreciate their 'hard work' over the years US Senators have an average rate of return on their stock investments on 30.2% annually compared to a 17.9% market average (Representatives average 23.9%) and in fact consistently outperform corporate insiders (who only manage 25.3%). Unless you somehow believe that Senators and Representatives are better stock traders than professional brokers it is pretty clear they are using insider information on bid distributions, regulations, and hearings to profit.

This study in no way outs men impersonating women. In fact it specifically identifies gender for analysis by comparing it to the linked blog/website profile information and assuming that "the effort involved in maintaining this deception in two different places suggests that the blog labels on Twitter data are largely reliable". Basically it assumes that anyone attempting to impersonate the opposing gender is a tech ignorant moron that has made no effort to create a persona - something that is contrary to pretty much every piece of information we have on people who do this.

Overall, a poorly constructed study that oversells what it discovers and is then exagerated and stretched by the media who claim things that even the study isn't pretending that it does - in other words a typical day in research and scientific reporting.

They also had a handful of Amazon Mechanical Turk users identify gender for the same tweets and they were 67.3% accurate for single tweets compared to the automated system's 67.8%.

They claim 75% accuracy when they analyze every tweet the account produced.

According to the study's (dubious) technique of identifying the gender of tweeters, the breakdown is 42% female, 35% male, 23% unidentified.

To be fair California (and all the other states) don't trust their citizens to pay the use tax with good reason - the vast, vast majority don't. Not only is it complicated and time consuming for the individual consumer to do so it also results in things online costing more than they appear to and thus less money in their pocket.

Amazon also trusts the citizens aren't going to pay the use tax - their entire business model requires it and thus why they are fighting so hard against it. Without being able to avoid paying taxes the goods Amazon (and other online retailers) sell aren't particularly better priced than those you could buy at your local brick and mortar store - so instead of the purchase tradeoff being something like 20% cheaper on Amazon but more convenient at a local store it would become only a 5-10% price advantage at which point they start losing a lot of sales due to convenience. I'm sure brick and mortar stores would love to be able to use Amazons 'the customer is responsible for paying the sales tax' line and drop all their prices too. However we don't do that for two major reasons (1) It is completely rediculous and wasteful to force the customer to track and record all their purchases and once annually pay the accumulated tax amount rather than having the retailer collect it at the time of purchase with minimal cost or imposition and (2) People won't pay it and the cost of tracking purchases down and litigating non-payment would be prohibitive, just like doing it for online purchases is.

Amazon can not be nearly as profitable if they had to charge customers the real cost of items so their business model relies on encouraging widescale fraud in order to maintain a price disparity. It is unethical and immoral and probably illegal too. If it isn't actually illegal than it should be - something that these laws intend to address.

So in addition to outsourcing manufacturing and customer service, we can also start outsourcing retail jobs?

How exactly do you think the American economy is going to continue to function when there are no jobs on a permanent basis rather than just a temporary one? Already the wealthy avoid taxation on a vast scale, without the middle class and poor paying taxes (something that requires an income) how will the government avoid collapse?

That might make sense if we were talking about a single study but the data is consistently out, in the same manner, across hundreds of studies over several decades. You can't just accidentally miss the really promiscous women every single time (well you could but it is statistically improbable).

The only two viable explanations I've ever heard (and I use the term loosely for the second) is that either there is consistent incorrect self reporting or extremely promiscous women have such a higher rate of death that they are able to rack up huge numbers of partners and then throw the reporting off by dying and thus no longer being counted.

Personally I really wish there was a way to ensure routing so that my traffic would never enter or be processed by a particular jurisdiction to avoid legal problems and illegal (but commonplace) monitoring.

I would happily accept the potential for greater latency to keep anything that does not have an end destination in the US from passing through that country. The madcap laws and privacy invasions don't even recognize the token acknowledgement of the constitution that citizens get for us foreigners and I'd feel much better not being hostage to the American governments descent into totalistarianism.

I actually agree with you on governments having the right to control their own TLD and leverage that towards employment but lets be honest that this is not why Kazakhstan has made this law. Nazarbayev the (first and only) president, commander of the armed forces, and head of the political party which controls the 'democratic' legislature is a dictator in all but name. The reasoning for this law is to place Google's data where it is physically vulnerable to being seized, blackmail, or some similar tactic. The government there is interested solely in suppressing opposition and increasing personal wealth and power rather than high minded concepts like ensuring their populace has jobs except insomuch as it impacts their real interests.