Category: Policy

BitTorrent

Like many others, I find myself drawn to BitTorrent, but in my case, it's due to the implications of its distribution model on the rise of my video-as-grammar riff. (Quick refresher: I eagerly await the day our culture starts to cite and annotate video the way we do text.)…

Bittorrent LogoLike many others, I find myself drawn to BitTorrent, but in my case, it’s due to the implications of its distribution model on the rise of my video-as-grammar riff. (Quick refresher: I eagerly await the day our culture starts to cite and annotate video the way we do text.) A reader pointed me to his analysis of BitTorrent traffic given the whole SuprNova.com MPAA smackdown. His post is interesting – using data from a BitTorrent search engine (TowerSeek), he analyzed torrent file distribution across the web. The conclusions are not easily summarized, but two things jump out – one, there is a lot of centralization in torrents to date (hence the MPAA going after SuprNova and other large sites), but also, there is an *extremely* long tail – one that I would guess will only grow.

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Scraping Google To See What Happens

Daniel Brandt, Google's most relentless thorn, has released code which scrapes Google, sans ads. Techdirt covers it here. The Register (also a Google thorn) covers it here. Highlights: Brandt fully expects Google to throw legal and technical resources at him, but says he welcomes the challenge if only to…

Komatsu D575A Scraper Lg

Daniel Brandt, Google’s most relentless thorn, has released code which scrapes Google, sans ads. Techdirt covers it here. The Register (also a Google thorn) covers it here. Highlights:

Brandt fully expects Google to throw legal and technical resources at him, but says he welcomes the challenge if only to clarify copyright issues.

Google took people’s free stuff and made a $50 billion business from it, he argues.

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Google and MSFT in Open Source Smackdown

Threadwatch has a summary of an ongoing tempest between Adam Bosworth, eminence gris of Google and the man who most of the world seems to expect will lead-develop "The Google OS," and some folks at MSFT who clearly are itching for a fight. The topic: Google and Open Source….

GatesmsftThreadwatch has a summary of an ongoing tempest between Adam Bosworth, eminence gris of Google and the man who most of the world seems to expect will lead-develop “The Google OS,” and some folks at MSFT who clearly are itching for a fight. The topic: Google and Open Source. Late last month Bosworth posted a plea on his site for the Open Source community to finish the job with regard to robust databases, and the MSFT folks saw an opening: Google has taken a lot from the open source community, but what has it given back? Here are the MSFT response – this post is from Dare Obasanjo, this one is from Krzysztof Kowalczyk. Both are very entertaining reads (Dare’s is mostly a reposting of Krzysztof’s, but there are a few zingers and his has comments turned on.)

Highlight:

In those days of focus on corporate profits (where there any other days?), Google’s motto “Do no Evil” is refreshing. Or is it? It’s a nice soundbite, but when you think about it, it’s really a low requirement. There are very little things that deserve to be called Evil. If a senior citizen is taking a nap outside his house on a sunny day and you kick him in the groin – that’s Evil. Most other things are bad or neutral. Not doing Evil is easy. Doing Good is the hard thing.



To his credit, Adam Bosworth responds, in the comments. Keep in mind, Adam worked at Microsoft for a long time:

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Comment Spam and Search

Anyone with a blog has come across the bane of comment spam, recently it's gotten to near epidemic proportions for folks who use Moveable Type, as I do (I think this is because MT users tend to have high PageRank sites, but that's just a guess). Why do comment…

Anyone with a blog has come across the bane of comment spam, recently it’s gotten to near epidemic proportions for folks who use Moveable Type, as I do (I think this is because MT users tend to have high PageRank sites, but that’s just a guess).

Why do comment spammers do what they do? Simple: for the ranking juice. A spammer’s link inserted into the comment field confers this site’s authority, such that it is, to the spammer’s target site. Jeremy Zawodny, who is working with the Search team over at Yahoo, posts an interesting commentary on this problem, and suggests a solution.

If you assume the following:

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Google Wins Key Portion of Geico Case

Reuters just came out with this: ALEXANDRIA (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a key element of insurer GEICO's trademark infringement case against online search engine Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) . U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that there was not enough evidence of trademark…

Reuters just came out with this:

ALEXANDRIA (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a key element of insurer GEICO’s trademark infringement case against online search engine Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) .

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that there was not enough evidence of trademark violation to bar Google from displaying rival insurers when computer users search the word “GEICO.”

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Rosenberg Chimes In

Echoing other conversations I've seen around the web (wait for 12/14 to post)….Scott pings the Big Concept that while the folks building Google now are clearly well intentioned, we are creating an asset in Google together that someday may be out of our collective control. In Salon's blog, Scott…

Echoing other conversations I’ve seen around the web (wait for 12/14 to post)….Scott pings the Big Concept that while the folks building Google now are clearly well intentioned, we are creating an asset in Google together that someday may be out of our collective control. In Salon’s blog, Scott Rosenberg comments:

But Google is a public company. The people leading it today will not be leading it forever. It’s not inconceivable that in some future downturn Google will find itself under pressure to “monetize” its trove of books more ruthlessly.

Today’s Google represents an extremely benign face of capitalism, and it may be that the only way to get a project of this magnitude done efficiently is in the private sector. But capitalism has its own dynamic, and ad-supported businesses tend to move in one direction — towards more and more aggressive advertising.

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Google TM Trial Begins Today

Here's MediaPost's curtain raiser. For some reason I thought this would settle, but there you have it. For those (three) of you who share my fascination with trademark issues… Also, Gary has the court docket here……

Here’s MediaPost’s curtain raiser. For some reason I thought this would settle, but there you have it. For those (three) of you who share my fascination with trademark issues…

Also, Gary has the court docket here…

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TiVo It

I am the proud owner of two Tivos. But this news has me upset: the NYT notes that Tivo is sending bigfoot letters to media organizations telling them how to use the trademarked term "Tivo" in a sentence. In particular, they don't like folks using "Tivo" as a verb….

Kleexbox1

I am the proud owner of two Tivos. But this news has me upset: the NYT notes that Tivo is sending bigfoot letters to media organizations telling them how to use the trademarked term “Tivo” in a sentence. In particular, they don’t like folks using “Tivo” as a verb. (I wonder who Google would start with if they made up their mind to do the same? I know their trademark lawyers don’t like the dilution of the trademarked term, but it’s a lost cause!)

This smacks of desperation. Clearly their biggest issue is the use of “Tivo-like” which must just kill them – if I were running the company, that’s the one that would stick in my craw. But policing society’s use of Tivo as a verb? Crazy.

Attempts to muzzle society’s use of your trademark in what essentially is idiomatic conversation is doomed to failure. You can’t do it. And the process of trying will only make for bad will. I say, celebrate the fact that you’re a verb – it’s an honor! If you can’t, you’re in for a long cold winter. I, for one, would love to be bigfooted for saying I Tivo’d something last night. In fact, I *did* Tivo something last night. Yup, I Tivo’d a few things, in fact, including Desperate Housewives. But my attempt at Tivoing doesn’t always work – I missed the last few episodes due to a bad connection to my cable box. Which makes me sad. I think I need a kleenex.

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Google Sued Over Scholar

The American Chemical Society yesterday filed a complaint against Google, claiming the new Google Scholar infringes on its own product, called SciFinder Scholar. You kind of have to love a place that has a "molecule of the week" on its website (that's Nafion on the left, in case you're…

Chemical

The American Chemical Society yesterday filed a complaint against Google, claiming the new Google Scholar infringes on its own product, called SciFinder Scholar.

You kind of have to love a place that has a “molecule of the week” on its website (that’s Nafion on the left, in case you’re wondering…), and SciFinder is certainly in the same business, to a point…but is “Scholar” protected? Maybe. But I sense something else is going on. Reading the story, the “aha” was not hard to find:

ACS’s Chemical Abstracts Service estimates that about 1,000 colleges and universities have bought the service, which provides access to all of CAS’s databases, including information on journal and patent references, substance information, regulated chemicals, chemical reactions, and chemical supplier information.

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I Love….Jesus!

In a search for for "I love Jews" on Google, Gawker found that the spellchecker asks "did you mean 'I love Jesus?" Oops. Google corrected the error that day, again showing that hand rolling is necessary when algorithms turn a culturally deaf ear. Thanks, Jason….

In a search for for “I love Jews” on Google, Gawker found that the spellchecker asks “did you mean ‘I love Jesus?” Oops. Google corrected the error that day, again showing that hand rolling is necessary when algorithms turn a culturally deaf ear.

Thanks, Jason.

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