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story
tiffanydanica writes
"For a lot of us our browser history is something we consider private, or at least not something we want to expose to every website we visit. Web2.0collage is showing just how easy it is (with code!) for sites to determine what sites you visit. When you visit the site it sniffs your browser history, and creates a collage of the (safe for work) sites that you visit. It is an interesting application of potentially scary technology (imagine a job application site using this to screen candidates). You can jump right into having your history sniffed if you so desire. While the collages are cool on their own merit, they also serve as an illustration of the privacy implications of browser history sniffing."
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submission
bugnuts writes:
Blizzard announced a policy change to Addons for the popular game World of Warcraft which asserts requirements on UI programmers, such as charging for the program, obfuscation, soliciting donations, etc. Addons are voluntarily-installed UI programs that add functionality to the game, programmed in Lua, which can do various tasks that hook into the WoW engine.
The new policy has some obvious requirements such as not loading the servers or spamming users, and it looks like an attempt to make things more accessible and free for the end user. But unlike FOSS, it adds other requirements that assert control over these independently coded programs, such as distribution and fees.
Blizzard can already control the ultimate functionality of Addons by changing the hooks into the WoW engine. They have exercised this ability in the past, e.g. to disable addons that automate movement and "one-button" combat. Should they be able to make demands on independent programmers' copyrighted works, such as download fees or advertising, who are not under contract to code for Blizzard? Is this like Microsoft asserting control over what programmers may code for Windows?
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