That's because Google almost always finds the result they're looking for, and does it better than the competition. If Google's results start sucking people will go use another search engine that provides better results.

It's telling that nearly every company complaining about Google excluding them from search results are the type of things that people don't want. They're, to be polite, middlemen, trying to milk you for ad views before you get to the actual destination you were really wanting. Adding another step between search -> result doesn't benefit the people searching. If Google's forced to leave them in it it'll destroy the value of their search engine almost overnight.

But the truth of the matter is this is congress sending Google a warning message. The real message is "You're not donating enough money to our campaigns, fix that or we'll destroy your business.

It is, COPPA's requirements are beyond onerous, COPPA is entirely responsible for the whole 13+ or go away divide on the Internet. If someone's 13+ then you don't have to do anything special. Under 13 you need special parental permission with proof of the parent's age (that's the whole reason they have to have a scan of an ID to reinstate the account, along with the parent's statement that they're the actual account holder allowing their child to use it under their supervision) to collect any data on the child. The penalties for not complying are pretty steep too.

In short, this isn't a Google problem, this is a COPPA problem. COPPA is a bad law, it's just starting to actual impact more and more kids nowadays because of social networking. People need to stop bitching about Google and go bitch at Congress to change the law. Going elsewhere won't help, the law's the same for any US company, they're going to disable (or delete) your kid's account if they discover they're under 13 too.

If you really think that's in question, you should read the article more carefully. This guy didn't just create this blog, he then went on to: "Under pseudonyms, Arlotta then promoted the blog to Johnson's family, friends, contacts and employer as well as some unaffiliated parties, like the local media." It's rather abundantly clear he created the blog simply as a means to harass her. It was simply there so he had something to pseudonymously point friends/family/employers/coworkers/etc. to so he could humiliate and embarrass her. The fact he was doing this with pseudonyms is the real nail in the coffin, he obviously knew he'd get in serious trouble quickly if his used his real name to do so. He was quite willfully violating the restraining order against him. Frankly he sounds really, really obsessed, and potentially dangerous.

Did I expect them to suddenly agree? No. Did I expect them to disagree in a way that wouldn't antagonize the FCC? Yes. And it's gotten noticed already, as Ars Technica's article points out in an update:

This is likely to cause AT&T trouble down the line. Pissing off the officials who oversee your business is never a good move. Congress is unlikely to be impressed either.

On top of that, I dare say that if a potential student is stupid enough to think that schoolname.xxx is the school's official website when it's obviously a porn site that the university doesn't need that student. They'd just flunk out in short order.

It's not the immigrants, it's the businesses. Many (perhaps not all, but a rather large percentage of them) use the H1B system to basically legalize indentured servitude in the 21st century. Job requirements are deliberately written up so there's as close to zero chance of finding anyone qualified other than the immigrant the company wants to hire. When that fails they'll bring them in under an H1B visa, but then often abuse them by paying them less than they would have to pay a US citizen, and/or make them work obscenely long hours that are nearly inhumane. They don't worry about the immigrant complaining to anyone or quitting because then they'd have to go back to their home country. (There is a grace period to find another job I believe, but H1B visa holders tend to be overworked so badly that there's no chance they can job hunt while doing their current job, and the grace period's far too short to start a job hunt from scratch.)

So no, it's not about immigration, if the immigrants were being treated equally to US citizens then everyone would benefit, immigrants included. But that'd pad the pockets of the high level management less so they don't want it to happen. In the meanwhile, STEM fields are largely a waste of time for US citizens now.

And no, you largely can't get a job on merit any longer. A large percentage of jobs are posted with their requirements tailored to specific people. Of the others they generally want a combination of skills and/or experience that a very, very small percentage of people will have, if anyone. (And not for lack of people being skilled and working hard, but due to unreasonable demands by the business.)

I think the number of people willing to live at poverty levels for 20 years so they can get 4 years of partying at a university, and that will actually follow through on it willfully, are very, very low. 150% of poverty level isn't a lot of money, you can't live high on the hog with that kind of income, not even single. And the type of people who'd actually consider living it up on borrowed money and then reneging just aren't the type to then go 20 years of scraping by so they can do so. Yes, there probably will be a few idiots out there who'll try it, but I think most will end up tempted by life itself to change in ways that bump them up past the 150% of poverty income. (Deciding they're sick of living on so little money, falling in love and getting married and/or deciding to start a family, etc.)

Making it impossible for those who end up in bad situations through no fault of their own to get out from under their student loan debt just to prevent a few idiots from doing something like you suggested isn't a good solution. That's part of the reason we're having this mess now, we overreacted to the people who intentionally declared bankruptcy to get rid of student loans they never intended to pay and made it so people who were legitimately struggling could no longer get out from under them short of dying. Instead of being at either extreme, we need some middle ground.

How about the fact that any list they release is likely to contain innocents because no one is perfect. And everyone on that list will be the target of the rival drug gangs, most of them will probably end up dead. Does that help you understand why Anon's not the good guys yet? Personally I find it disgusting that even if that list somehow contains only non-innocents (people who are part of the Zetas cartel or work with them) that it will result in actual deaths in the real world. Getting people murdered isn't how the good guys act, that's how terrorists (and ironically, drug cartels) work.

From what I understand Anonymous just attacked Freedom Hosting and the various CP sites on Tor through Tor itself. That only takes knowing the site's .onion address, which were apparently all listed on the Hidden Wiki. It doesn't take much high-tech knowledge to read a URL then DDoS it.

And the disadvantage is that if Anonymous gets names of innocent people on the list by accident, they've given them a death sentence (also all the non-innocents as well). The Zetas' rival gangs will probably kill (or at least try to) everyone on the list. Anon better be damned certain about those names they release, or they're no better than the drug gangs themselves, and will have bloodshed of innocents directly attributable to their actions. (Which will make it easy for the US government, among others, to declare Anonymous a terrorist group and start a serious crackdown.)

Yes and no. If you want to have an account with a large national bank, pretty much all of them have jumped on the "charge a fee for using your debit card" bandwagon already. Regions did it recently, and in a very, very scummy way. They notified customers of the change with our statement for August, which arrived the first week of September, notifying us that the change would be effective in September, and first charged on the October statement. I had less than 2 weeks to get an account setup with another bank (I went with a local credit union, and am much, much happier, also charged much, much less for the privilege). As it was I barely got it done in time, needless to say I'm still pissed, even though I'm no longer a customer (nor will I ever be one again). Other banks have apparently given more of a 30 day notice of the changes, which is more reasonable, but still not exactly allowing for long-range planning. (Personally I think they should have given 90 days notice on the changes, that would give everyone time to change banks without causing problems.)

Given the short notice these banks have been giving on dropping this new charge on people I won't go that far. But anyone not already working on moving to a different bank is one. The only way BofA and the other big greedy banks will possibly learn anything is if customers abandon them in droves, and they lose money due to it.

Frankly it feels like banking is devolving into a pre-1990s state.

I think he was referring to the on-disc content part of Microsoft's policy with that remark. Requiring on-disc parity means that the PS3's Blu-Ray storage advantage is wiped out in favor of the inferior DVD discs the Xbox360 uses. Storage-wise there's a definite inferiority there, and MS appears to be using policies to try to negate this disadvantage. I doubt any of the big publishers are terribly amused by this.

Like the threat of violence stops them? They go out there no knowing they could get the death penalty and yet still do the crimes. The "real hardened criminals" are sociopaths and will not stop doing their crimes just because they may be beaten/shot/killed. Using them as a justification for police violence is akin to using the threat of terrorism to take away our civil liberties.

That's a bit different, California attempted to get really creative and define any California citizens that participate in Amazon's affiliate program as justification for Amazon needing to collect sales tax. The theory being that the person receiving affiliate payments being located in California means that Amazon had a physical presence in California. It's a rather bogus legal argument, once that's unlikely to withstand court challenge anyway and was done solely to target Amazon on behalf of (mainly) Wal-mart. (Wal-mart is leading the campaign to try and get states to pass these types of laws.) It was also a rather predictable outcome, Amazon has done the same thing in every state (except New York, where it's fighting the law) that's passed a similar "Amazon Tax" law. Hell, when Illinois passed their version some businesses and individuals left the state. California legislators should have known the end result would hurt the state, they passed it anyway, so California residents should be royally pissed off at them, not Amazon.

Amazon's stance on this is that for states where they have no physical presence whether the need to collect state taxes is something that should be decided at the federal level. I think that's a fair stance. Amazon does collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence (with some exceptions, for example Tennessee gave them a deal where they didn't have to in exchange for building some distribution centers there. The new governor's trying to renege on the deal however, which will probably end up hurting Tennessee badly (why would any business want to locate there if they won't honor their agreements?))

Personally I think the whole thing is stupid. Amazon's hurting brick and mortar sales because they're able to offer products much cheaper. Even if I had to pay sales tax when using Amazon I'd still buy stuff there because I'd save money.

There are still better ways to handle it from a PR standpoint. You can blame it on nebulous "increased costs of doing business" for example. Going around and channeling Marie Antoinette with that latte remark was remarkably stupid, and is going to haunt Netflix for some time. Raising prices will always upset your customers, but saying things like that infuriates them.