...no match for Natural Stupidity.

I mean, just look around you.

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BMO

The most intriguing thing in this to me... ...is that they were able to identify 140 ISPs, presumably 130 or so of which were not owned by a regional monopoly phone company or a cable company.

The problem was the API let people write clients that removed the value to Google of running the service (i.e. the advertisements).

Google was willing to give the code over to any third party who wanted to commit to supporting it, and even host it on Google's infrastructure, if they were paid to do so, but there wasn't any way to monetize it, given the API split and the ad stripping by the clients of the API. Apparently stream bookmarking and privacy weren't worth sitting through the ads to anyone, as no one was able to come up with a viable business model that kept the good stuff, but was still able to be monetized enough to at least break even.

But hey, I'll happily join you to complain about stuff I no longer get free, too, if that will make you feel better, like those game cards you could get at Chick-fil-a in the mall, go down to the Walden Books, look up the answers in the almanac, and then go back to Chick-fil-a for the free food item because you got the right answer, and get the next game card.

But stale content /does/ get taken down. It's a concept called "bit rot" which not only describes bits on media physically rotting, but it's also "link rot" where a link goes to something that no longer exists. Link rot is such a problem that efforts are always being made to automagically check links through scripting to make sure they're "live" on a periodic basis.

Well, smart people do that. Other people check manually.

"B...but the Waback Machine" you say. The Wayback Machine doesn't archive everything, and unless you know the specific URL you're looking for, searching it can be a bear.

There are many ways that content disappears from public view. In some ways it's /worse/ than what we had with microfilm, because the "microfilm" archives simply aren't there for this stuff.

"The Right To Be Forgotten" is founded on three false beliefs:

1. It's a right.
2. It can be enforced
3. It's necessary because data doesn't rot in a digital world.

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BMOa

So's Ketchup...

For the love of God, can we at least do something about ketchup?

Actually, you are erasing the index to the old newspapers, which is tantamount to erasing the old newspaper articles.

I'm glad to see that Europe has achieves a 0% recidivism rate, and look forward to the speedy rehabilitation ad release of SS-Obersturmführer Søren Kam, among others.

Does not exist.

It didn't exist before the Internet, and it doesn't exist now. It's a complete fiction. I don't even know why we're discussing this as if it exists. It doesn't. I can't go back and tell people to forget things or destroy newspaper clippings about what I did any more than I can stop the tide from coming in.

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BMO

>right to be forgotten

Does not exist. Anywhere.

It didn't exist before the Internet, and it doesn't exist now. It's a complete fiction. People remember things. People save newspaper clippings. Friends/family remember that time you got drunk and hit on the waitress who thought you were disgusting and rude and put you in your place.

For example:

Michael Kent, of Saunderstown, RI pissed all of us off in the neighborhood 20 years ago because he bought an illegally subdivided lot and threw a temper tantrum, cut down the trees and painted the tree stumps bright pink. He doesn't get to erase that from "history" and my right to look that up in the Providence Journal and repost it shall not be infringed.

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BMO

Does it matter what the source is, so long as it presents a testable claim?

Yes. If Natual News told me that the sun will come up tomorrow, I would assume it's false until I check the astronomical tables.

Because some people are just so full of shit. Because they've made a life/career out of spouting bullshit, like Natural News, Robert Enderle, and this guy.

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BMO

On the other side of the pond...

"Furthermore, all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position."

Bollocks.
To both.

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BMO

nearly 30% of Americans either aren't digitally literate or don't trust the Internet.

I have been out here in e-space for decades.

You are a fool if you trust any kind of technology blindly, especially a technology that gives every moron with free access to a terminal somewhere. This goes for the POTS too.

Because I'm sure going to trust that guy with the east-Indian accent telling me over the phone to install a remote access tool to my computer. Which actually happened to me 3 something weeks ago.

You are digitally illiterate if you "trust the Internet."

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BMO

This is a troll, sortof, but it is exactly the slope this is going down.

$CORPORATE_RELIGION can discriminate against $YOUR_RELIGION or lack thereof.

This is a can o' worms that I don't think Hobby Lobby and their directors has completely thought through.

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BMO

My point exactly.

Instead of pointing to another study that is peer reviewed and has less of a payback to compare, or to an economist's or even an accountant's numerical analysis, he linked to someone with an axe to grind and wasted everyone's time who bothered to read it.

Like me.

I prefer to not be intellectually insulted.

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BMO

The rebuttal is from a climate-change denial site?

What the fuck is this, Fox News? What's next, Free Republic?

Fuck you, Timothy. Seriously, just fuck off.

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BMO

>No, they are likely exempt.

No, they *are* exempt as per the plain wording of the law. Go read it where it says "exceptions". It's astonishingly plain.

>easy for me to blame Microsoft

Microsoft has more lawyers than God (but possibly not IBM). They were able to use the internet back when the NSF's AUP was "No commercial activity at all" - to the extent that posting a "classified ad" to get rid of a file cabinet taking up space in your office would get your account suspended. Microsoft has competent individuals that can read. They have competent people who know what the difference is between a CERT-like security bulletin is, and an email that is selling something.

To say that Microsoft is incapable of figuring out what is commercial activity and what isn't is a worse criticism of Microsoft than me saying that Microsoft is throwing a temper tantrum.

Because you're calling them idiots.

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BMO