It always amazes me how such an educated group of individuals as exists on /. always makes such irrational statements evertime an article like this comes around.

Full Disclosure: I've been in digital media for several years and am currently a fairly high-level individual on the more technical analytics/strategy side of things at a top digital media agency.

Now, despite my background, I want to preface this by saying that since I was very young, I've always been very paranoid about my privacy, and still remain paranoid to this day. I used to react to these sorts of things by spewing vitriol without knowing enough technical details to truly be qualified to comment. I would venture that is the case for the vast majority of people here. You know how to code, but I doubt you know how these systems actually work, what they actually collect, or how that data is actually used in the real world (not whatever scare story you are reading this week).

If you knew these things, you wouldn't be so disgusted by online advertising tracking practices. Do I dislike intrusive advertising? Yes. Do I think there is a lot of shitty advertising out there? The vast majority of it is. But just as there are bad coders who give the rest a negative reputation, the same is true for online advertising.

Beyond that, the end user of the tracking data does not give a shit about the special unique snowflake that you are. I know--I used to be one of those end users and now I managed a relatively large group of them. Do we have IP-level data? Technically, yes. Although to be honest, the only time I've actually looked at that was when trying to figure out a tracking bug with discrepancies between analytics platforms when I needed to compare timestamps.

Could the big bad evil government know what you are browsing? Yeah--but they could have done that anyway. Encrypt your traffic if you care.

The reality is, you guys are in the minority, and despite a lot of people being vocal about this, they are still in the minority. The reason this stuff keeps being made and actively pursued is BECAUSE IT WORKS AND PRODUCES BETTER RESULTS. Digital is all about the data, and I can tell you that retargeting, RTB inventory that uses audience data, etc. are all incredibly effective because they are SO well targeted that people click more, and more importantly, convert at higher rates. This means people find the ads more relevant, and are purchasing because of it. Period. End of story. They can think it is evil all they want--it still works and nobody forced them to click the fucking ad or make the purchase.

So get off your high horses and realize that this wouldn't exist if it weren't effective, and nobody is holding a gun to your head to click an ad. Don't like ads? Use ad block.

Now, with that rant out of the way, I will say that I am just as in favor of DoNotTrack measures as the rest of you. I think a user's data is theirs to own and do with as they please, and that if they don't want it collected, that is their right. I also think that sites have the right to withhold content from those who do not make their info available because the content is provided in exchange for it. Don't like it? Go elsewhere--maybe the impact will be such that the site will find another revenue source. But unless you are in the majority, that will likely not happen.

Bottom line...get educated about this topic if you want to have a real world discussion about it instead of just throwing out false statements and vague statements that anybody in the industry would laugh at because of how uneducated you sound. This is no different than when creationists attack science because they don't understand it and it scares them.

With PDAnet at least, the http only limitation is only for the free version of the app, not anything to do with the tethering functionality itself. drop $15 on the full versio of the app and have full functionality. I'm personally just fine with paying $15 to a dev then having free service, rather than nothing to the dev and $20 a month service.

i dont think you'd have a tough time at all. Drinkbox, as it relates to videogames would clearly be an arbitrary mark (unless the games themselves were actually drinkboxes) and therefore inherently distinctive and elegible for immediate registration. the period of time a mark must remain on the principle register before becoming incontestable is 5 not 3 years, but in the case of a registered mark, owned by a senior user (DB Studios) against a junior, if larger user (EA) incontestability would not really add much unless Drinkbox Studios fails to defend their mark. Registration confers national priority in use of the mark to the registrant. So even if EA starts trying to outmarket Drinkbox Studios, their larger market will be irrelevant because, all other things being equal (such as registration obtained through fraud, mark used to violate antitrust laws, and other things clearly outside this discussion) the junior user of a registered mark's only defense is not their own larger use - admitting infringement is a poor defense to alleged infringement - but rather to attack the validity of the registered mark. And given the basic prompt of Drinkbox Studios vs EA, EA would have no hope unless drinkbox seriously fucked up.

incontestability really only bars challenges to non-functionality and distinctiveness of a mark. this would of course be of central importance to the case of trade dress in a product, where distinctiveness comes only through secondary meaning, and therefore a larger firm out-marketing a smaller firm before such meaning could be attained would certainly be an issue. I think this is really a matter of when the lawsuits are filed. Trademark and dress are rights that exist only through their active defense. Asserting that right starts the clock on what facts will be considered and the smaller firm would have a much better chance of obtaining an order restraining the larger firm from further marketing.

well, yeah, that attorney kinda fucked up a bit. at the same time, it was at a distance. *shrug* my take on it is that if you put the two in a situation where the distinguishing features are minimized (home button vs android soft buttons, thickness, trim, the whole back) are minimized, then, yeah, they're going to look similar. but if that similarity is basically 'rectangular tablet with rounded corners,' then so what?

i understand your point as to the acquisition of secondary meaning favoring established products, but your analysis rather confuses trade dress, trade name, and trademark. Your example of corning insulation is on point because it is only trade dress in products that requires secondary meaning in order to establish distinctiveness. Drinkbox Studios doesn't strike me as being relevant. First, Drinkbox would be protectable under trademark. If Drinkbox Studios registered the name with their trademark, rather than simply the trade name with their state of incorporation, and used it in trade before EA tried to spin off a Drinkbox Games, then EA trying to use Drinkbox games could be nothing but confusingly similar. Second, most of the ip in a video game is copyright. The story, the artwork, the code - all copyright. characters, if they are sufficiently unique, too. Third, the visual aspect of trademarks, logos, are almost always inherently distinctive, in fact are much stronger when they are. that is why when we say 'logo' we think of some distinctive graphic, not just a block of text with a business name. While a mark is even stronger with secondary meaning, nothing is preventing Drinkbox Studios from having an ironclad mark simply by designing and registering an inherently distinctive logo with the USPTO.

but i do take your point with regards to product trade dress. if some small company spent a whole bunch of their budget making their product super cool, then a larger company came along and copied those non-functional design elements that made it cool, then sold it to a larger market, before the smaller company's product had time for those elements to become identified with it - that would indeed be unfair, and outside the protection of trade dress. but i really dont think that that translates into the need for an intellectual property right in creating a market for cool.

i was trying to explain this whole situation to some tech-savvy, but law-ignorant friends a couple weeks ago. to people with such a background, the very notion that designing hardware in such a manner that the public has clearly decided is cool should somehow be illegal just because someone else did it first is stupid. after explaining design patents, they decided it was actually 'fucking stupid.'

and really, i have to agree. trade dress exists explicitly to prevent design elements from being appropriated to such a degree that the public is confused. Apple has invested a lot of money in design, and creating a very particular sense of cool in their products. and they should be allowed to profit from that investment... by selling their products. And if people were buying samsung phones or tablets thinking they were iphones or ipads, that would be one thing, but i have trouble believing a reasonable person would make that mistake. Apple makes Cool Products, but i really have trouble with the notion that Coolness could be an invention deserving of patent protection

your first point is really the only important one. basically, the instructions of the judge only go so far, and the process takes that into consideration. that's what mistrials are for. the system knows that people have a threshold for following a judge's order to disregard something they heard. usually when there's the danger of information outside the court prejudicing jurors, they get sequestered, because, again, the system knows that information is going to leak if it can. usually, if a jury is not sequestered in a big trial, the judge will issue injunctions against both parties from discussing the pre-trial motion phase of the case publicly, to keep shit like this from happening. So really, the process isnt broken, but this judge hasn't handled things very well.

My take on this though, is that its not setting up for an appeal, but for avoiding one where they are appealing the decision to exclude the earlier phones evidence (which was pretty much rightfully excluded because they fucked up regarding the discovery period). Appeals are easier when the basis is that the lower made a mistake of law. So, wrongfully excluded evidence would be a good basis, but they have to know that that was their own fault. So they find a way to do something potentially prejudicial to the jury that isnt technically violating any of the court's instructions - complaining about excluded evidence and publishing it (which is more likely to be seen inadvertently by the jurors even if it was already public). samsung can't really move for a mistrial based on their own actions, which would prejudice, if at all, the jury towards their side. Basically what Samsung has done is created a situation where if they can make apple think that the case *might* not go their way, they'll have an easy out moving for a mistrial, which would result in a retrial - and a retrial would reset the discovery time period, and samsung would get all the excluded evidence in.

1. wasnt this on Top Gear last year? when james may drove around the lunar rover they're never going to actually use? pretty sure it was.

2. the phrase 'rear entry spacesuit' is fucking hiLARious.

I'm honestly not entirely clear what you think i'm "admitting" or how my second comment in any way "negate" my original comment. If i'm "admitting" that requiring emergency-only coverage would accomplish the same thing as the mandate as it stands, then you didn't really understand my argument. It would accomplish the same thing only insofar as when the emergency medical cost occurred it would be paid. But pointing out that the PPACA is meant to accomplish that same goal by also eliminating preventable emergencies through increased access to preventative care is, in fact, not irrelevant. More pervasive preventative care decreases later incidence of emergency costs, which decreases the overall cost of healthcare. I would also argue that those who could afford to absorb routine medical costs will actually receive more effective preventative care when paying for coverage rather than piecemeal. It is a simple question of human nature. Get an annual physical, which could catch any number of more serious conditions but would cost several hundred dollars without insurance, or spend that money on fun and go to the doctor when you're sick? I know people who dont do this simply because scheduling the appointment is a hassle, add a few hundred dollars on to that, and they'd never even consider it, despite the fact that they can objectively afford it. The existence of *some* people who could get by just fine paying their own way, or paying their own way with regard to routine care does not in any way remove the justification for the PPACA. Even if it is a sizable group. The individual mandate as it stands will do a more thorough job of accomplishing its goals, with a net positive effect on general health. If the greatest injustice here is that a bunch of people who can afford it anyways are given a tax-incentive to start carrying health coverage, i really couldnt care less about the 'but its MY money' complaints.

I think this is largely a result of trying to view medicine through a narrow legal lens. From strictly legal standpoint with no awareness of medical realities, of course, you're right. Not limiting the mandate to catastrophic coverage extends the government interference beyond that stated goals of it express intentions, and in the light of a more limited option (only requiring catastrophic coverage) the mandate is over inclusive, as regulating action it doesn't 'need' to in order to accomplish its goals.

I think this misses the point medically, however. Basically should the point of government regulation in this area be to ensure that when people do have expensive medical conditions that treatment is paid for, or should the point be that as many as possible of these expensive medical conditions are prevented from occurring in the first place *and* ensuring that those that do are paid for? Obviously things like car accidents are not responsive to preventative care, but it does seem silly that we should simply ensure that the person who cannot afford a routine physical or mole-check/removal is covered for a later massive cancer fight when an undetected at home skin cancer develops, rather than ensuring that he had access to the preventative medicine which would have spotted the problem before it became life-threatening and necessitating expensive and lengthy treatments.

In this case, a more narrowly-tailored mandate, one opting for catastrophic coverage only would accomplish the same economic goal, but only at a significantly larger human cost. allowing for consideration of those human costs, i am left unmoved by arguments of over-inclusiveness.

The problem with your friend's analysis of the cost of healthcare is that while he may be able to absorb the true cost of *any* health problem his family might encounter (I'm assuming based on what little info you have and what little of that you've stated, that he could, for example cover an extended cancer treatment or a series of major operations as the result of an auto accident or something) many people who vote republican and consider themselves in the same boat simply aren't. I wouldn't consider myself rich, but neither do i depend on my health coverage to be the difference between receiving routine care and not. I certainly did, a year ago, when i had emergency surgery that ended up running in the $100k range. Now, it sounds like your friend would have been able to absorb that type of cost without disrupting his finances. I couldnt have, and i highly doubt that the majority of people complaining about the individual mandate could either. the individual mandate is about preventing situations where people are unable to pay for emergency care. or unable to pay for it without defaulting on other debts or obligations. And to the person who can absorb such costs without problems, why is the penalty for not having coverage an issue? pragmatically speaking, i understand that 'being penalized for managing my own business properly' must be a terrible scourge. I just think that it is kindof silly when people who would cry communism at the idea of socialized medicine *also* cry communism at a very straight-forward market-incentive social policy.

This guy going straight to a DMCA takedown letter is a dbag move in the same way that a homeowner is a dbag for having you towed when you park blocking their driveway. Yeah, the hassle they caused you was probably disproportionately larger than the hassle you caused them, but you were needlessly an asshole to them, so suck it up. Also, ambulance chasing is illegal in the US. your argument is invalid.

I dunno, available bandwidth and content has always struck me as an armor/munitions sortof relationship when it comes to innovations. they drive each other. once the bandwidth is there, someone will have something just too big to fit down the pipe consistently. I remember the first time i used a dedicated T1 connection. on an internet designed by and large for 14.4 modem access, it was mindbogglingly fast. now my phone has a faster connection, and its never fast enough. incentive to improve? content creators will always be testing the limits of what can be done with their available means of distribution. give them 30 gigs a second peak, and someone will figure out what to do with 60 gigs a second. Maybe streaming will finally *actually* start matching quality with physical media.

With the difference being you will be able to retire in relatively short order. Likely in luxury.

i completely agree with all of your arguments as to how apple approaches the patent system in the general sense. I do have to wonder, however, how this is really an example of squashing innovation and new technologies when there is already a major implementation of this idea, google wallet, live in the wild. They haven't been awarded a monopoly on the Idea of an NFC smartphone payment system, just one implementation of it, and only time will tell how they actually use the patent.

at the same time, i would also invite you to step outside the techie distortion field into reality, where it is only a small percentage of the populace that gives a flying fuck. yes, there are demonstrably hordes of people displeased with apple, and particularly iOS devices. Android sales figures prove this. But "prefers Android" is by no means the same thing as "sick of Apple's shit."

i would also argue that you dont really understand patent law. or at least certainly not patent lawyers. patent lawyers are not normal, rational people as to seem to envision them. If there is something you are doing that can be construed as patentable, they're going to advise you to patent it. That's why Amazon patented 1-click. That's why Microsoft patented the Start menu. But beyond that, a mechanical sliding lock isn't prior art for a software sliding lock. it may not strike you as a practical distinction, but implementation matters, and software is different than mechanics. And expecting a large tech firm not to retain patent lawyers would be bordering on infantile.

Also, the AppStore dispute isnt about patents, its about trademark. I think this one is iffy. On its face, the words App Store are pretty generic, which would defeat the trademark. But generic terms can acquire secondary meaning and thus acquire protection as a mark. Given that android and blackberry have chosen to avoid this dispute and chosen distinctive names for their mobile software vending might actually strengthen apple's case for the distinctiveness of the mark.

lastly, of course its completely anticompetitive. patents are inherently anticompetitive. they are a temporary legally granted monopoly (mandated by the Constitution, in the US). There are several ways that patents can be used anticompetitively so as to run afoul of antitrust laws, but simply filing for a patent on a thing isnt one of them.

So, he did manage to recover the whole video but I admit to some skepticism as to his narration of it. From the video it looks to me like he just got a little too bold with his camera. There really didnt seem to be any protestors around, but the couple other photographers who were there were all basically being ignored as long as they stayed a few yards away from the line. The cops looked like they were staging a drill more than carrying out a dispersal order on a group of people, as there was no longer a group of people. So they pushed up a block. stopped, met with another group of cops, then formed a queue and started to walk back down the block. The photographer then immediately started back down with them. He was ignored as he started, then about 15 yards in, that officer stopped him, and you can hear the muffled, 'oh i was just going back to my car.' but he wasnt, he was just continuing to film the cops.

I'm of two minds about this. on the one hand, he was kindof obviously tempting fate. the cops had just 'cleared' the block, and he immediately tried to walk back up it. if he was really 'just heading back to his car to leave because everything was over,' it certainly didnt look like it. On the other hand, all of the other cops were ignoring him. at a couple points, he seemed to be in the midst of the line without any of them telling him to clear off. Going from totally ignoring him to arresting him and saying he'd been warned seems like bullshit. even if his claim that he was walking back to his car was bullshit, and i think it was rather a poor justification, zero to arrest seems over the top. 'Oh, your car is back there? well, you'll have to wait here until we've cleared the area' seems like a more rational first response than 'you're under arrest.'

As to the above discussion of whether one can or should refuse to do what the police tell you, well, even the ACLU will tell you that police misconduct cannot be challenged on the street. So, if, in the course of enforcing an eviction the police issue a dispersal order, yes you have to obey them. I think this discussion went off the rails a bit with hypotheticals, so try to keep in mind what was actually happening here. The police were evicting an Occupy camp. whatever you think about this, it was a court order. Unlike evicting a single family from a home, they cant just show up and change the locks. They really do have to cause everyone to physically leave the area. It would be rather silly if the occupy folk all just went across the street and got a cup of coffee and waited till the cops left. watch the video. its not like he was arrested because he was filming the cops breaking someone's rights. The police had to clear the area, and he was walking right back into it not 5 seconds after they cleared it. which was pretty stupid.

I, too, am concerned that they erased the video of the arrest. Because while the arrest itself seems valid as for cause (taking all the given context and video at face value) the manner in which it was conducted was less than above board. While the off-camera voice instructing the photographer to let go can probably be forgiven - as there was quite a clutch of officers surrounding him, and wearing the cameras might have easily appeared to be holding on to the camera - the first cop, smiling creepily and saying 'we dont want to have to hurt you' while the photographer seems to be standing perfectly still in the middle of a scrum of cops, cannot. That is wildly inappropriate behavior, outside what was necessary to accomplish the arrest, and, when it comes down to it, assault. If a cop menacing you while you are peacefully accepting arrest by saying 'we dont want to hurt you' in response to no provocation whatsoever doenst put one in fear of immanent bodily harm, i dont know what would. And the video would be evidence of this. That the police would take advantage of their custody of his equipment to erase possible evidence that might be used against them is, if not shocking, then at least offensive.