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Submission + - Yahoo Settles Advertiser Class Action (rustconsulting.com)

Submitted by gateur
gateur writes: After years of fighting, Yahoo has finally agreed to settle a class action suit filed for their resale of click advertising to disreputable sites. As expected, Yahoo claims they have settled only to move past the matter and refuses to admit to their unsavory past actions. As one of those members of the class who lost thousands of dollars to click fraud promoted by Yahoo through their partner sites, I wonder whether the $4 million they must pay the law firm will cause them to mend their ways. After all, the loss of a sufficient number of advertisers to make their ad platform financially viable didn't seem to do the trick.

Comment Get a REAL Media Center (Score 0, Redundant) 416

by panoptical2 (#29676909) Attached to: What To Do With a Free Xbox 360 Pro?
Dude... If you really want to, sell the thing for something like $150 and put that money toward getting an actual media center PC if you really want it that much.

A modded Xbox is no good to anyone but yourself, and even so, you'll spend hours tinkering with it before it even remotely does what you want it to do. Also, if it does RROD, your out of luck getting it replaced if you mod it in any way.

Submission + - Amazon settles lawsuit over deleted "1984" copies (slashgear.com)

Submitted by panoptical2
panoptical2 writes: Amazon's attempt to placate the braying crowds with a $30 kiss-and-make-up check and a grovelling apology after the deleted 1984 ebook fiasco worked with most Kindle customers, but it wasn't enough to dissuade suing student Justin Gawronski from his court case. Amazon have now settled with the Michigan teen, to the amount of $150,000 in fact, which he will share with his legal team and a co-plaintiff; meanwhile, the retailer has taken steps to make its deletion policy clearer.

Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).

The new policy leaves Amazon with the capability — and agreed right — to remove consumers' ebooks from their Kindle devices (and the iPod touch/iPhone client), though only in certain circumstances. Those include failure of payment (or if a refund is sought), "judicial or regulatory order" or should the ebook have harmful code or otherwise threaten either the device or the Whispernet network.

Comment Re:Self Contradictory (Score 1) 440

by panoptical2 (#29396025) Attached to: Indie Game Dev On the Positive Side To DRM
That's largely because the high price of console games help subsidize the discounted cost of the console itself (with the exception of the Wii, which makes a profit with each console sold). Both Sony and Microsoft accept a slight loss with every console they sell, largely because they know they'll earn it back and then some with the boosted game sales. It's the cell phone conundrum. (Also the printer ink conundrum.)

With PC games, no subsidizing is necessary, as you already paid full price for the computer. At that point you're just paying for the content.
Announcements

Submission + - French minister uses 2 ISPs to avoid 3-strikes law (numerama.com)

Submitted by
panoptical2
panoptical2 writes: "France's new culture minister, Fredic Mitterand has said that he wished he downloaded more unauthorized content, and that he got two internet connections, just in case he got cut off by a three strikes law. He also admitted that his son downloads unauthorized content often. That's probably not what the entertainment industry wanted to hear."

Comment Mod parent down (Score 1) 101

by panoptical2 (#28702859) Attached to: Australia Considering P2P 'Three Strikes' Law

Therefore we aren't sharing files. We are sharing temporal garbage as far as either of us knows. If you want to make sharing garbage packets illegal, I think you'd find a lot of people wanting to tell you to mind your own business.

So, if I somehow sent you the source code to Windows, you would just say that it was only a stream of "garbage packets"? I'm sorry, but data can be extremely valuable, whether it's in the form of code, movies, or music. Packets by themselves are only packets, but it's what they carry that counts.

Comment Wikipedia has these debates all the time (Score 2, Interesting) 635

by panoptical2 (#28696153) Attached to: Wikipedia Debates Rorschach Censorship
I used to edit Wikipedia a lot, and during that time, I saw a lot of these debates. This is nothing new, just a heated debate over whether to include an image (in this case the Rorschach test images) based upon ethics and Wikipedia policy (which there is actually very little).

Essentially what will happen (or has already happened, I didn't read the whole debate), is that the definition of "consensus" will be called into question, as that's what runs Wikipedia, and is what decides these debates. However, the Wikipedia policy of consensus is so vague and non-standardized that many debates like this end without consensus, and can even escalate into an edit war, followed by admins having to step in. (which is one of the reasons why I no longer edit it)

I really don't see why this specific debate made it on the /. index, there have been many other and similar debates like it, many having much larger implications concerning censorship on Wikipedia by recommendation of a 3rd party organization.
Privacy

Submission + - Phone hack inquiry ruled out (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
panoptical2
panoptical2 writes: "Metropolitan Police say there will be no further investigation of claims that a huge mobile phone-hacking operation was launched by the UK tabloid News of the World. The Guardian alleged the tabloid's reporters paid private investigators to hack into thousands of phones, many owned by politicians and celebrities. But the Metropolitan Police said no new evidence had emerged since an original inquiry saw two men jailed in 2007. The Crown Prosecution Service said it would carry out a review of the evidence presented to it. But Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC said: "I have no reason to consider that there was anything inappropriate in the prosecutions that were undertaken in this case." The original phone hacking investigation resulted in News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glen Mulcaire being jailed for four and six months respectively in January 2007."

Comment $25,000 is not much for small businesses (Score 0) 270

by panoptical2 (#28631487) Attached to: Experimental Fees Settle Royalty War For Internet Radio
Guys... It's not that hard to get a small business loan of $25,000, if you present to the bank that you have the know-how (and a business degree would help). Plus from the TFA of a related story...

All webcasters would pay a minimum fee of $25,000 for legal access to the music they stream, but that money could be applied to what they owe in royalties, making it more of a down payment.

In other words, this is $25,000 that they would be normally paying anyway.
Security

Submission + - Governments hit by cyber attack (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
panoptical2
panoptical2 writes: "The BBC reports that a widespread computer attack has hit several US government agencies while some South Korean government websites also appear to be affected. The US Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department were all hit by the attack that started on July 4. In South Korea, the presidential Blue House and Defence Ministry, National Assembly appear to have been hit. US officials have not released details of the attack. Ben Rushlo, head of internet technologies at web performance firm Keynote Systems described it as a "massive outage". Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said the body's US Computer Emergency Readiness Team told federal departments about the issue and of steps "to mitigate against such attacks". Recently the US homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano told the BBC that protecting against virtual attacks was a matter of "great concern" and something the US was "moving forward on with great alacrity". The attacks in South Korea seemed to be connected to the attack of US government services, said Ahn Jeong-eun, a spokesperson at Korea's Information Security Agency. South Korea's Yonhap News Agency is reporting that North Korea may be behind Tuesday's cyber attack. The country's National Intelligence Service (NIS) suspects North Korea or its sympathisers may have been behind the attack, according to sources who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity. It will present a report to the parliamentary intelligence committee on Thursday. The attack slowed down and, in some cases, shut government websites, including the site of the presidential office, for several hours."

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