Thepoint is that this won't stop them from trying- and imposing more draconian measures. After all, it never has before.

Exactly. THEY invent the process. THEY license it. They do not buy up moribund (and often obvious) patents from other organisations and litigate as their main business.

An organisation that invents non-trivial things, and patents its own inventions, and only litigates against unlicensed use of its own patented inventions, is not a troll.

An organisation that buys up old patents for the purpose of litigating against alleged unlicensed users, without inventing the patented inventions itself, is a troll.

How about actually clicking "search anyway" when prompted with the popup? You'd see that it actually searched anyway and turned up the term in question.

Probably because in the US there's no Chinese government sitting between you and the loading of your search results -- unlike in China.

It was designed by the space devil.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/09/30

That's typical of visual media. Because they have no content they will forever repeat little snippets of what they have already told you to try to pad the whole thing and make it longer. Of course saving the actual reason you are watching the whole thing for for last is part of the "carrot and stick" model that's been used ever since communication media existed.

...is that it will attract the Eddorians.

That's ok, they have plenty of money to appeal where it will probably get overturned by some moron.

Of course the banks want this, especially when they are getting a cut of every single transaction in the form of comissions or service charges - a taxation privilege previously reserved for governments. And of course governments want this because it is much easier to keep track of who is making what and enforce income tax reporting better, not to mention the ease with which funds can be frozen or seized.

However I think the price both in service charges and loss of privacy are far too high. Unfortunately most people don't have much money, so they don't really care what form it takes so long as the monthly bills get paid, and I and others like me are a silent minority.

SpaceX has just announced the great success of its new heat shield technology. It turns out they were burning facebook shares to protect the craft.

Steam uses gifting, as does gamersgate. So prior art already exists.