Back in 1998 we developed a system to manage the vehicle and drivers license database for Mexico City, all done with Perl, TK and PostgreSQL. We faced the problem with the 2GB limit size of tables, can't remember the solution.

So. They still need a court order to actually authorize that 'authority' (unless you're silly enough to let them just waltz in the door), and they only get that court order if your lawyers don't earn their retainer by convincing the judge that (for example) allowing such a clause means violating medical record privacy laws (or whatever your industry ' jurisdictional equivalent is) and hence that particular clause of the contract is invalid. If auditors appear, do as other posters have suggested - ask for their court order then throw them out, and call your lawyers. If you're a tiny nonprofit or similar without lawyers a) why the hell weren't you using FOSS in the first place since you have no money, and b) call your local bar association or equivalent and find out who does pro bono for non-profits locally.

I was referring to the practice of Google datamining your search and Internet history through the various methods they have in place.

Last time I checked, MS didn't upload the contents of your hard drive and CDROMs to their servers in order to sell you similar things. Throw up a packet analyzer on your network - do you see GBs of data going to MS? I don't think so...

"Hello?"

"Hi, It's MS calling, we noticed you put in a CDROM of Adobe Flash yesterday evening...we figured you might be interested in Silverlight instead?"

Because this is the equivalent of Google's practice with Adwords, Adsense, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Search History, Google Toolbar, Gmail, etc...AND THEY TELL YOU THEY ARE DOING IT...

MS has some tricky things about them, yes, but the whole premise of the parent article is that Bing doesn't collect as much data, and use it against you (or for your own good!) like Google does.

Dude - did you live under a rock or something?

We chatted up girls on the internet and texted friends before you had a double digit age! Scoring a phone number when you're 9 might be cool, but you don't know what to do with it.

More FuckUSA-ll, It is just politics as usual. I am ~60yo (USMC 1969...71), I know that the USA has gone from wise and strong to too damn dumb to know wrong. Macro economics are a 20+Year model, not a damn over-night fad, or one-night stand. Applauding Bush or Obama today is absurd. Bush is a past FU. Obama has some chance. The members of congress and senate are lost (out of thouch with the public) or corrupt (in touch with a personal agenda). The USA Constitution I still have faith in, but religion/idiot nepotism is ready to change the laws of the land to protect their interest and FuckUS The People [AKA: The Public].

In the 60's they said love it or leave it. By the 70's I had earned the right to say love US and make it all better. After the last 40 years of political crap that provides ever increasing FuckUS, I now say it is part two.

The world was crap in the dark ages, because of religion. The separation of church and state ended the birth-rights aristocracy with merchant meritocracy seeking equality in democracy.

Merchant-class nepotism is no more a democracy any more than birth-entitled dogmatist is capitalism. The Powers-That-Be (PTB) religious/economic intend to retain ruling power over the feudal public.

After forty years years of ever decreasing social value economics (Health, Education...), I expect less tomorrow, and I do not expect a champion to arrive or survive the entitled nepotism-class of the modern USA. Politicians and pundits can point the finger of blame for personal gain and never consider the loss for US (I call it treason).

Separation of church and state happened to end the aristocracy (church leaders were dissatisfied with subservience).
Separation of plutocrats and state must happen to end nepotist-entitlement, return to democracy and capitalism.

It ain't about capitalism, communism, democrats, republicans, gods, devils... it is about BIG-FUCKING-FAT-LIARS and US the Public being oppressed serfs of an entitled-class of FuckUps. Not much has changed since the fall of kings and queens.

Less taxes for the nepotism-class and more taxes to pay for pseudo-capitalist failures.

Bush and cronies did start the most recent pseudo-capitalist bailouts, and tried to stave it off until they were out of office by accelerating money printing, getting social security payments put into an insolvent wall-street stock market....

The difference between real time strategy and turn based strategy is the amount of time you are given to take your turn before it is skipped.

A turn based strategy gives you large or infinite time to plot each turn, while a real time strategy game may give you a fraction of a second. However they are, fundamentally the same at their core.

As a Canadian I say...

If it is not true... wonderful climate change is not that bad.
If it is true... wonderful... no more snow in winter!

Sorry to any part of the world negatively affected by global warming. Where I live (away from the ocean, in a cold climate), a degree warming can only be a good thing.