gbasin - Slashdot User

IRS to Allow Tax Preparers to Sell Your Info? 289

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday March 21, 2006 @02:43PM from the personal-tax-software-sales-set-to-skyrocket dept.

merkel writes "The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the IRS has proposed rule changes allowing tax-return preparers, like H&R Block, to sell an individual's return information to marketers and data brokers. The proposed rule [PDF], which does contain some substantive protections for the processing of electronic returns, was published in the Federal Register on December 8, 2005. The official comment period has passed, but hearings will be held this month."

The Twists of History and DNA 337

Posted by Zonk on Sunday March 12, 2006 @09:35PM from the dna-certainly-is-curved dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has a piece today talking about the possible connection between genetic evolution and history." From the article: "Trying to explain cultural traits is, of course, a sensitive issue. The descriptions of national character common in the works of 19th-century historians were based on little more than prejudice. Together with unfounded notions of racial superiority they lent support to disastrous policies. But like phrenology, a wrong idea that held a basic truth (the brain's functions are indeed localized), the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless, at least when applied to societies shaped by specific evolutionary pressures."

Game Previews Just Game Marketing? 282

Posted by Zonk on Sunday March 12, 2006 @06:20PM from the unsurprising-but-sad dept.

Kotaku has a feature up today written by James Wagner Au, formerly embedded reporter in the world of Second Life. He's now doing his own thing, and he's got a fairly cynical discussion over at the Kotaku site about the real purpose behind game previews in industry rags. From the article: "For the thing of it is, game magazine previews are almost uniformly positive, even for the most undistinguished titles. So it unrolls thus: publisher makes mediocre game; press previews depict mediocre game as being good or at least worth a look; excited gamers read previews, foolishly believe them, start making pre-sale orders of mediocre game; driven by preview press and pre-sale numbers based on that press, retailers stock up on mediocre game; publisher makes money from mediocre game, keeps making more games like it."

Comment Text Ads over Radio (Score 1) 149

by gbasin on Tuesday January 17, 2006 @04:10PM (#14493140) Attached to: Google To Buy Radio Advertising Firm

People seem to be ignoring the fact that text ads are possible over the radio. A lot of local stations are not starting to pipe the name of the song/artist in addition to just the name of the radio, this gets displayed on the head unit of the car. As new cars start getting nicer head units with larger LED displays, what stops Google from using this space as a text ad? When people look down to see the name of the song, they get exposed to the name of a local pizza parlor. "Ah! Pizza! What a great idea! I want some now"

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