drew | Kris Smith has read these articles about "drew" | www.croncast.com Kris Smith http://www.croncast.com/keyg/drew This is the keyword feed for "drew" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php en-us Copyright for these items belong to their original publishers. No Croncast, Kris, Betsy, Comedy, Parenting, Funny, Palegroove, Croncast, eBay, Goodwill This is the keyword feed for "drew" from my read items in Google Reader. This is the keyword feed for "drew" from my read items in Google Reader. http://www.croncast.com/images/croncast_itunes.jpg drew | Kris Smith has read these articles about "drew" | www.croncast.com http://www.croncast.com/keyg/drew This is the keyword feed for "drew" from my read items in Google Reader. If you would like to search or subscribe to category/keyword rss feeds for items that I have shared with Google Reader visit http://www.croncast.com/c4_reading.php Croncast - Kris and Betsy Smith info@palegroove.com http://www.croncast.com Palegroove Citing Plain Language of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Ninth Circuit Rules Employee's Disloyal Act Does Not Terminate Authorization to Access Employer's Computer http://feeds.lexblog.com/~r/NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw/~3/WBZNx89sdFI/ Shared item The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030, criminalizes access to a computer that is either "without authorization" or that "exceed[s] authorized access," and provides a civil right of action for violations as well. In the last several years, a split has developed in the federal courts on the question of whether an employee's access to an employer's computer, even if it was authorized in the ordinary course of business, ceases to be authorized if the purpose if the access is to further an act that is disloyal to the employer. The Ninth Circuit has now weighed in on the issue in an opinion rendered today in LVRC Holdings, LLC v Brekka, No. 07-17116 (9th Cir. Sept. 15, 2009), and has taken a position diametrically opposed to that of an influential Seventh Circuit opinion, International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, 440 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 2006).

The question of what effect an employee's disloyalty has on authorization to access an employer's computer has arisen in numerous cases in which employers have added civil claims under the CFAA in actions brought against employees alleged to have misappropriated of trade secrets. A typical scenario in which such a claim would be made is where, before departing for a new job, the employee is alleged to have copied or transmitted an employer's computer files for the benefit of a new employer.

Often, what is at stake in such cases is the employer's ability to maintain an action in federal court. A dispute over misappropriation of trade secrets is likely to involve only state law issues, and unless there is diversity of the parties, there is no basis for jurisdiction in a federal court. But, of course, federal courts have jurisdiction over a CFAA claim, and the trade secret misappropriation claims are then swept into federal court along with the CFAA claim as pendent state law claims.

The Seventh Circuit opinion in International Airport Centers v. Citrin is the ruling that is cited by employers seeking to press CFAA claims in such cases. In that case the circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Posner, ruled that under common law agency principles, an employee who breaches the duty of loyalty to an employer thereby becomes unauthorized to access the employer's computer, at least for the purpose of furthering an act of disloyalty to the employer. In LVRC Holdings, LLC v Brekka, the Ninth Circuit ruled to the contrary, finding that under the plain meaning of the language of the CFAA, acts of disloyalty on the part of an employee do not render the employee's access to the employer's computer unauthorized within the meaning of the statute.

In LVRC, the Ninth Circuit panel concluded that under the ordinary, contemporary, common meaning of the statutory terms, an employer gives an employee 'authorization' to access a computer when the employer gives the employee permission to use it. The court found that there is no statutory language to support the contention that authorization terminates when an employee determines to act contrary to the interest of an employer. The court looked to the term "exceeds authorized access," and concluded that the definition of that term made it clear that Congress had no intent to include in the statute any implicit, rather than explicit, limitation on the term authorization. It is an employer's act of allowing or terminating an employer's authorization to access a computer that determines whether the employee's access is authorized within the meaning of the statute, not the employee's disloyal act. The court reasoned:

Section 1030(e)(6) provides: the term exceeds authorized access' means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter. 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(6). As this definition makes clear, an individual who is authorized to use a computer for certain purposes but goes beyond those limitations is considered by the CFAA as someone who has exceed[ed] authorized access. On the other hand, a person who uses a computer without authorization has no rights, limited or otherwise, to access the computer in question. In other words, for purposes of the CFAA, when an employer authorizes an employee to use a company computer subject to certain limitations, the employee remains authorized to use the computer even if the employee violates those limitations. It is the employer's decision to allow or to terminate an employee's authorization to access a computer that determines whether the employee is with or without authorization.


The Ninth Circuit rejected the Seventh Circuit's reasoning in International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, concluding that relying on whether an employee's mental state changed from loyal employee to disloyal competitor to determine whether the statute had been violated would be problematic in the criminal law context. The statute should be interpreted consistently in civil and criminal contexts, the court reasoned. Relying on the employee's mental state with respect to disloyalty to determine whether the statute had been violated would run afoul of the proscription against interpreting criminal statutes in surprising and novel ways that impose unexpected burdens on defendants.

In this respect, the ruling echoes (but does not cite) the recent district court opinion in United States v. Drew, No. CR 08-0582-GW (C.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2009) (the MySpace "cyberbullying" criminal prosecution). There, the court dismissed a misdemeanor charge of violating the CFAA that was predicated on a user's alleged violation of the MySpace Terms of Service, finding that it would run afoul of the void for vagueness doctrine because individuals of 'common intelligence' arguably would not be on notice that a breach of the terms of a service contract could become a crime under the CFAA.

And conversely, the Ninth Circuit ruling appears to contradict the recent opinion in United States v. Nosal, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31423 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2009), in which the district court declined to dismiss an indictment charging a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4). The indictment alleged that the statute was violated when a former employee accessed an employer''s computer network to copy proprietary information for use in a competitive enterprise. The court found that the statutory element of intent to defraud in subsection 1030(a)(4) could be found in the employee''s knowing access of electronic records for uses outside their intended purpose. The court in Nosal also rejected the defendant''s argument that because subsection 1030(a)(4) had never been addressed in the criminal context the indictment should be dismissed under the rule of lenity. Citing International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin and a number of opinions following it, the court found that there was ample authority in civil cases construing this section to conclude that the CFAA was violated by the 'access to the employer's confidential and proprietary information to advance his own competitive enterprise.

No doubt more will be heard on this issue in the Ninth Circuit, and other courts as well. And eventually, perhaps, the U.S. Supreme Court.



Tags: employee computer access employer court ]]>The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030, criminalizes access to a computer that is either "without authorization" or that "exceed[s] authorized access," and provides a civil right of action for violations as well. In the last several years, a split has developed in the federal courts on the question of whether an employee's access to an employer's computer, even if it was authorized in the ordinary course of business, ceases to be authorized if the purpose if the access is to further an act that is disloyal to the employer. The Ninth Circuit has now weighed in on the issue in an opinion rendered today in LVRC Holdings, LLC v Brekka, No. 07-17116 (9th Cir. Sept. 15, 2009), and has taken a position diametrically opposed to that of an influential Seventh Circuit opinion, International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, 440 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 2006).

The question of what effect an employee's disloyalty has on authorization to access an employer's computer has arisen in numerous cases in which employers have added civil claims under the CFAA in actions brought against employees alleged to have misappropriated of trade secrets. A typical scenario in which such a claim would be made is where, before departing for a new job, the employee is alleged to have copied or transmitted an employer's computer files for the benefit of a new employer.

Often, what is at stake in such cases is the employer's ability to maintain an action in federal court. A dispute over misappropriation of trade secrets is likely to involve only state law issues, and unless there is diversity of the parties, there is no basis for jurisdiction in a federal court. But, of course, federal courts have jurisdiction over a CFAA claim, and the trade secret misappropriation claims are then swept into federal court along with the CFAA claim as pendent state law claims.

The Seventh Circuit opinion in International Airport Centers v. Citrin is the ruling that is cited by employers seeking to press CFAA claims in such cases. In that case the circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Posner, ruled that under common law agency principles, an employee who breaches the duty of loyalty to an employer thereby becomes unauthorized to access the employer's computer, at least for the purpose of furthering an act of disloyalty to the employer. In LVRC Holdings, LLC v Brekka, the Ninth Circuit ruled to the contrary, finding that under the plain meaning of the language of the CFAA, acts of disloyalty on the part of an employee do not render the employee's access to the employer's computer unauthorized within the meaning of the statute.

In LVRC, the Ninth Circuit panel concluded that under the ordinary, contemporary, common meaning of the statutory terms, an employer gives an employee 'authorization' to access a computer when the employer gives the employee permission to use it. The court found that there is no statutory language to support the contention that authorization terminates when an employee determines to act contrary to the interest of an employer. The court looked to the term "exceeds authorized access," and concluded that the definition of that term made it clear that Congress had no intent to include in the statute any implicit, rather than explicit, limitation on the term authorization. It is an employer's act of allowing or terminating an employer's authorization to access a computer that determines whether the employee's access is authorized within the meaning of the statute, not the employee's disloyal act. The court reasoned:

Section 1030(e)(6) provides: the term exceeds authorized access' means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter. 18 U.S.C. 1030(e)(6). As this definition makes clear, an individual who is authorized to use a computer for certain purposes but goes beyond those limitations is considered by the CFAA as someone who has exceed[ed] authorized access. On the other hand, a person who uses a computer without authorization has no rights, limited or otherwise, to access the computer in question. In other words, for purposes of the CFAA, when an employer authorizes an employee to use a company computer subject to certain limitations, the employee remains authorized to use the computer even if the employee violates those limitations. It is the employer's decision to allow or to terminate an employee's authorization to access a computer that determines whether the employee is with or without authorization.


The Ninth Circuit rejected the Seventh Circuit's reasoning in International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, concluding that relying on whether an employee's mental state changed from loyal employee to disloyal competitor to determine whether the statute had been violated would be problematic in the criminal law context. The statute should be interpreted consistently in civil and criminal contexts, the court reasoned. Relying on the employee's mental state with respect to disloyalty to determine whether the statute had been violated would run afoul of the proscription against interpreting criminal statutes in surprising and novel ways that impose unexpected burdens on defendants.

In this respect, the ruling echoes (but does not cite) the recent district court opinion in United States v. Drew, No. CR 08-0582-GW (C.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2009) (the MySpace "cyberbullying" criminal prosecution). There, the court dismissed a misdemeanor charge of violating the CFAA that was predicated on a user's alleged violation of the MySpace Terms of Service, finding that it would run afoul of the void for vagueness doctrine because individuals of 'common intelligence' arguably would not be on notice that a breach of the terms of a service contract could become a crime under the CFAA.

And conversely, the Ninth Circuit ruling appears to contradict the recent opinion in United States v. Nosal, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31423 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2009), in which the district court declined to dismiss an indictment charging a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(4). The indictment alleged that the statute was violated when a former employee accessed an employer''s computer network to copy proprietary information for use in a competitive enterprise. The court found that the statutory element of intent to defraud in subsection 1030(a)(4) could be found in the employee''s knowing access of electronic records for uses outside their intended purpose. The court in Nosal also rejected the defendant''s argument that because subsection 1030(a)(4) had never been addressed in the criminal context the indictment should be dismissed under the rule of lenity. Citing International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin and a number of opinions following it, the court found that there was ample authority in civil cases construing this section to conclude that the CFAA was violated by the 'access to the employer's confidential and proprietary information to advance his own competitive enterprise.

No doubt more will be heard on this issue in the Ninth Circuit, and other courts as well. And eventually, perhaps, the U.S. Supreme Court.



Tags: employee computer access employer court ]]> Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:32:24 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5542 Kurt Vonnegut explains drama http://sivers.org/drama Shared item

I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything.

He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life.

He said, People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let's look at a few examples.

He drew an empty grid on the board, like this:

empty grid

Time moves from left to right. Happiness from bottom to top.

He said, Let's look at a very common story arc. The story of Cinderella.

Cinderella story

It starts with her awful life with evil stepsisters, scrubbing the fireplace. Then she get an invitation to the ball! Things look up. Then the fairy godmother makes her a dress and a coach. Even better! Then she goes to the ball, and dances with the prince! This is great! But then it's midnight. She has to go. Oh no. Sadness. Back to her humdrum life scrubbing the fireplace. But it's not as bad as before, because she's had this encouraging experience. Then, the prince finds her, and the happiness factor is off the chart! Happily ever after.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

He wiped the board clean and said, Now let's look at another popular story arc: the disaster.

disaster story

It's an ordinary day in an ordinary town. But something horrible happens! A child falls down a well! The whole town gathers to save her. Old grudges surface, but are belittled in the light of this tragedy. Rifts are bonded as people work together. The child is saved, and all is well. But notice it's a little better than it was before, now that this incident has brought them all closer together.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

But the problem is, life is really like this...

real life

Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it'll be told for a thousand years.

But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think are lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

That's why people invent fights. That's why we're drawn to sports. That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.

We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.



Tags: story life thousand lives think ]]>

I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything.

He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life.

He said, People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let's look at a few examples.

He drew an empty grid on the board, like this:

empty grid

Time moves from left to right. Happiness from bottom to top.

He said, Let's look at a very common story arc. The story of Cinderella.

Cinderella story

It starts with her awful life with evil stepsisters, scrubbing the fireplace. Then she get an invitation to the ball! Things look up. Then the fairy godmother makes her a dress and a coach. Even better! Then she goes to the ball, and dances with the prince! This is great! But then it's midnight. She has to go. Oh no. Sadness. Back to her humdrum life scrubbing the fireplace. But it's not as bad as before, because she's had this encouraging experience. Then, the prince finds her, and the happiness factor is off the chart! Happily ever after.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

He wiped the board clean and said, Now let's look at another popular story arc: the disaster.

disaster story

It's an ordinary day in an ordinary town. But something horrible happens! A child falls down a well! The whole town gathers to save her. Old grudges surface, but are belittled in the light of this tragedy. Rifts are bonded as people work together. The child is saved, and all is well. But notice it's a little better than it was before, now that this incident has brought them all closer together.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

But the problem is, life is really like this...

real life

Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it'll be told for a thousand years.

But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think are lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

That's why people invent fights. That's why we're drawn to sports. That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.

We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.



Tags: story life thousand lives think ]]> Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5508 Lori Drew Criminal Case Ends With a Whimper http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/08/lori_drew_crimi.htm Shared item By Eric Goldman

United States v. Drew, 2:08-cr-00582-GW (C.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2009)

Almost 2 months ago, the judge presiding over the Lori Drew trial orally announced that he intended to rule in favor of Drew, but it was a little hard to decipher his statements without a written ruling. On Friday, the judge issued his written ruling, which indicates that he granted Drew's FRCP 29(c) motion for a post-verdict acquittal. I haven't seen any announcement of the prosecution's response and whether they plan to appeal. This ruling also has no direct bearing on any civil claims against Drew. Nevertheless, for now, Lori Drew has been fully acquitted of the criminal charges brought against her.

The Holding

While the written opinion clears up the judge's exact disposition of Drew's status, it is hardly a clear prcis on the legal issues. The judge ultimately grants the acquittal because a Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA) prosecution based on negative behavioral restrictions in an online user agreement is void-for-vagueness. I think this makes a lot of sense because the negative behavioral restrictions are effectively incorporated into the criminal statute but lack the degree of drafting precision we require from criminal prohibitions. The judge gives a good example of such an imprecise restriction by citing a MySpace user agreement prohibition against posting in band and filmmaker profiles...sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair...[c]ontent intended to draw traffic to the profile. The judge rightly asks what the terms "sexually suggestive imagery" and "unfair content" mean when incorporated into a criminal CFAA prosecution. If we aren't sure, that sounds like a valid basis for a void-for-vagueness dismissal.

Having said that, given this ruling, I still can't understand why the judge let this case go to the jury in the first place. I believe the judge's ruling was independent of the jury verdict and does not rely on any of the jury findings, so why did he wait until after the jury verdict to make a ruling that he could have made pre-trial? His delay was not costless. The jury verdict against Drew remains a public rebuke of Drew even though it's been wiped away, and the judge could have saved everyone a lot of time and money by cutting to the chase earlier.

The Dicta

The judge's actual void-for-vagueness discussion of Drew's situation starts on page 25 of a 32 page opinion. What's going on in the previous 25 pages? The remainder of the opinion apparently explains how the government may have successfully proven the elements of its case, but I found the discussion gratuitous, meandering and confusing. Some of it could also be pernicious. For example, consider this oh-no quote from FN 22:

As a visitor to the MySpace website and being initially limited to the public areas of the site, one is bound by MySpace's browsewrap agreement. If one wishes further access into the site for purposes of creating a profile and contacting MySpace members (as Drew and the co-conspirators did), one would have to affirmatively acknowledge and assent to the terms of service by checking the designated box, thereby triggering the clickwrap agreement.

Read that first sentence again. WHAT??? Did the court just say that every visitor is bound to MySpace's browsewrap just by visiting the website? Uh, I don't think so, or at least I hope not. Whoa.

Another oddity: on page 9, the opinion says "According to Sung, MySpace owns the data contained in the profiles and the other content on the website." (Sung is MySpace's VP of Customer Care). The court slyly quotes the applicable provision in the user agreement which clearly points out that MySpace only takes a non-exclusive license to user data, not ownership. So what could this reference to ownership possibly mean?

Implications of the Ruling

Although I wish the judge had been more careful and laconic in his drafting, this opinion is still a good jurisprudential development. This opinion erects a significant hurdle for future CFAA criminal prosecutions for breaches of user agreements because they will face the same void-for-vagueness challenge that was dispositive here.

I'm less clear how this opinion might affect civil CFAA lawsuits for using third party servers in excess of a user agreement. As the case recounts, a number of cases already accept those claims, and I think this judge's dicta simply adds to those cases. So, for example, if MySpace wanted to sue Drew civilly under a CFAA theory for the behavior at issue with her criminal prosecution, I don't think this opinion would stand in the way. In fact, I think MySpace would cite it favorably. Then again, I doubt MySpace will be suing Drew; MySpace has been conspicuously low-profile about a crime purportedly committed against it.

I do not expect this ruling will defuse any debates over cyberbullying and how to deter it using legal means. If anything, the fact that Lori Drew walks is more likely to pour gasoline on the fire of state legislators who think they can solve the problem through their brilliant statutory drafting. They are wrong, of course, and they can do plenty of harm by trying (see, e.g., the broad and dangerous law that Texas just passed). Unfortunately, I expect more anti-cyberbullying legislative efforts, for better or (mostly) for worse.

Even though the judge corrected a judicial system error, I continue to believe that we as cyberlawyers need to mitigate the problems we create by putting extensive and ambiguous negative behavioral restrictions into our online user agreements. As I've explained before, I think best practices now move most negative behavioral restrictions into a non-binding statement of community norms and expectations.



Tags: drew judge myspace opinion ruling ]]>By Eric Goldman

United States v. Drew, 2:08-cr-00582-GW (C.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2009)

Almost 2 months ago, the judge presiding over the Lori Drew trial orally announced that he intended to rule in favor of Drew, but it was a little hard to decipher his statements without a written ruling. On Friday, the judge issued his written ruling, which indicates that he granted Drew's FRCP 29(c) motion for a post-verdict acquittal. I haven't seen any announcement of the prosecution's response and whether they plan to appeal. This ruling also has no direct bearing on any civil claims against Drew. Nevertheless, for now, Lori Drew has been fully acquitted of the criminal charges brought against her.

The Holding

While the written opinion clears up the judge's exact disposition of Drew's status, it is hardly a clear prcis on the legal issues. The judge ultimately grants the acquittal because a Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA) prosecution based on negative behavioral restrictions in an online user agreement is void-for-vagueness. I think this makes a lot of sense because the negative behavioral restrictions are effectively incorporated into the criminal statute but lack the degree of drafting precision we require from criminal prohibitions. The judge gives a good example of such an imprecise restriction by citing a MySpace user agreement prohibition against posting in band and filmmaker profiles...sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair...[c]ontent intended to draw traffic to the profile. The judge rightly asks what the terms "sexually suggestive imagery" and "unfair content" mean when incorporated into a criminal CFAA prosecution. If we aren't sure, that sounds like a valid basis for a void-for-vagueness dismissal.

Having said that, given this ruling, I still can't understand why the judge let this case go to the jury in the first place. I believe the judge's ruling was independent of the jury verdict and does not rely on any of the jury findings, so why did he wait until after the jury verdict to make a ruling that he could have made pre-trial? His delay was not costless. The jury verdict against Drew remains a public rebuke of Drew even though it's been wiped away, and the judge could have saved everyone a lot of time and money by cutting to the chase earlier.

The Dicta

The judge's actual void-for-vagueness discussion of Drew's situation starts on page 25 of a 32 page opinion. What's going on in the previous 25 pages? The remainder of the opinion apparently explains how the government may have successfully proven the elements of its case, but I found the discussion gratuitous, meandering and confusing. Some of it could also be pernicious. For example, consider this oh-no quote from FN 22:

As a visitor to the MySpace website and being initially limited to the public areas of the site, one is bound by MySpace's browsewrap agreement. If one wishes further access into the site for purposes of creating a profile and contacting MySpace members (as Drew and the co-conspirators did), one would have to affirmatively acknowledge and assent to the terms of service by checking the designated box, thereby triggering the clickwrap agreement.

Read that first sentence again. WHAT??? Did the court just say that every visitor is bound to MySpace's browsewrap just by visiting the website? Uh, I don't think so, or at least I hope not. Whoa.

Another oddity: on page 9, the opinion says "According to Sung, MySpace owns the data contained in the profiles and the other content on the website." (Sung is MySpace's VP of Customer Care). The court slyly quotes the applicable provision in the user agreement which clearly points out that MySpace only takes a non-exclusive license to user data, not ownership. So what could this reference to ownership possibly mean?

Implications of the Ruling

Although I wish the judge had been more careful and laconic in his drafting, this opinion is still a good jurisprudential development. This opinion erects a significant hurdle for future CFAA criminal prosecutions for breaches of user agreements because they will face the same void-for-vagueness challenge that was dispositive here.

I'm less clear how this opinion might affect civil CFAA lawsuits for using third party servers in excess of a user agreement. As the case recounts, a number of cases already accept those claims, and I think this judge's dicta simply adds to those cases. So, for example, if MySpace wanted to sue Drew civilly under a CFAA theory for the behavior at issue with her criminal prosecution, I don't think this opinion would stand in the way. In fact, I think MySpace would cite it favorably. Then again, I doubt MySpace will be suing Drew; MySpace has been conspicuously low-profile about a crime purportedly committed against it.

I do not expect this ruling will defuse any debates over cyberbullying and how to deter it using legal means. If anything, the fact that Lori Drew walks is more likely to pour gasoline on the fire of state legislators who think they can solve the problem through their brilliant statutory drafting. They are wrong, of course, and they can do plenty of harm by trying (see, e.g., the broad and dangerous law that Texas just passed). Unfortunately, I expect more anti-cyberbullying legislative efforts, for better or (mostly) for worse.

Even though the judge corrected a judicial system error, I continue to believe that we as cyberlawyers need to mitigate the problems we create by putting extensive and ambiguous negative behavioral restrictions into our online user agreements. As I've explained before, I think best practices now move most negative behavioral restrictions into a non-binding statement of community norms and expectations.



Tags: drew judge myspace opinion ruling ]]> Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:16:26 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5498 Common Sense Wins: Social Media to Be Allowed at SEC Games http://mashable.com/2009/08/18/sec-social-media-policy/ Shared item

secYesterday, we reported on the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) ban of social media at sporting events. The policy, which mandated that fans not disseminate any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event, drew sharp criticism from our commenters and around the blogosphere.

It appears that the SEC has come around, at least somewhat, and issued revisions to their guidelines for fans. While video will still be off-limits, it looks like tweets, Facebook status updates, and even pictures will be acceptable, so long as they are for non-commercial use.

The new policy reads:

No Bearer may produce or disseminate in any form a real-time description or transmission of the Event (i) for commercial or business use, or (ii) in any manner that constitutes, or is intended to provide or is promoted or marketed as, a substitute for radio, television or video coverage of such Event. Personal messages and updates of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event are acceptable. If the SEC deems that a Bearer is producing a commercial or real-time description of the Event, the SEC reserves the right to pursue all available remedies against the Bearer.

Absent the prior written permission of the Southeastern Conference, game action videos of the Event may not be taken by Bearer. Photos of the Event may be taken by Bearer and distributed solely for personal use (and such photographs shall not be licensed, used, or sold commercially, or used for any commercial or business purpose).

In other words, the SEC is intent on protecting the broadcasting rights of CBS, but casual, not-for-profit social media use by fans will be permitted. This is also what SEC Associate Commissioner of Media Relations Charles Bloom told The Buzz Manager Blog today for the most part, it's all about video.

Is that the right stance? As I said in my previous post and again today on CNN Live (embedded below), it's hard to see today's camera phones competing with the quality and scale of broadcast coverage. That said, the SEC has a point in wanting to protect what's currently an enormous source of revenue. But so long as complimentary forms of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and photo services are allowed, at least the conference is moving in the right direction for both the fans and itself.

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

Tags: college sports, SEC, social media



Tags: sec event media social bearer ]]>

secYesterday, we reported on the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) ban of social media at sporting events. The policy, which mandated that fans not disseminate any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event, drew sharp criticism from our commenters and around the blogosphere.

It appears that the SEC has come around, at least somewhat, and issued revisions to their guidelines for fans. While video will still be off-limits, it looks like tweets, Facebook status updates, and even pictures will be acceptable, so long as they are for non-commercial use.

The new policy reads:

No Bearer may produce or disseminate in any form a real-time description or transmission of the Event (i) for commercial or business use, or (ii) in any manner that constitutes, or is intended to provide or is promoted or marketed as, a substitute for radio, television or video coverage of such Event. Personal messages and updates of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event are acceptable. If the SEC deems that a Bearer is producing a commercial or real-time description of the Event, the SEC reserves the right to pursue all available remedies against the Bearer.

Absent the prior written permission of the Southeastern Conference, game action videos of the Event may not be taken by Bearer. Photos of the Event may be taken by Bearer and distributed solely for personal use (and such photographs shall not be licensed, used, or sold commercially, or used for any commercial or business purpose).

In other words, the SEC is intent on protecting the broadcasting rights of CBS, but casual, not-for-profit social media use by fans will be permitted. This is also what SEC Associate Commissioner of Media Relations Charles Bloom told The Buzz Manager Blog today for the most part, it's all about video.

Is that the right stance? As I said in my previous post and again today on CNN Live (embedded below), it's hard to see today's camera phones competing with the quality and scale of broadcast coverage. That said, the SEC has a point in wanting to protect what's currently an enormous source of revenue. But so long as complimentary forms of social media like Twitter, Facebook, and photo services are allowed, at least the conference is moving in the right direction for both the fans and itself.

Reviews: Facebook, Twitter

Tags: college sports, SEC, social media



Tags: sec event media social bearer ]]> Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:10:42 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5464 Is It Criminal for Minors to Use Google? Could Be. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Usefulartsus/~3/mw_AnRY1VEs/ Shared item There is a growing disconnect between the legal staff who write terms of use for websites, those who operate the site, and site visitors. I've come to believe that each level of disconnection introduces new sets of legal risks, which this story only start to illustrate.

Chris Soghoian observed in CNET that

Google's terms of service, thick with legalese, state that:

You may not use Google's products, software, services and web sites and may not accept the Terms if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.

Of course if you're in the US that means that anyone under 18 is accessing Google's computer system in violation of its terms of service. And this applies to all Google services, YouTube, Gmail, and Image Search.

Ignoring Legal Risks Leads to Selective Prosecution
Federal prosecutors recently used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to selectively prosecute Lori Drew as a hacker for violating MySpace's terms of service. She lied about her identity, and harassed a troubled minor who was also using the system under a false identity. After the child committed suicide, a media and political frenzy resulted in federal prosecutors turning a breach of the site's terms, which might not have even been civilly enforcable, in to a federal criminal case.

Ignoring the Disconnect Between Terms and Practice May Partly Void the Agreement
Obviously, online services retain the right to modify their own terms of use. You may begin a user experience with a minimal grant of rights and a maximum of restrictions when reflexively accepting terms. However, when site staff clearly operate to the contrary to those terms, and in some instances assure users that terms in the TOS won't be enforced, isn't the contract being modified within the user experience?

Smoking Gun: Google for Kids
Google in fact provides safe-search resources just for kids. There's no easily accessible link to terms of service, so arriving new users aren't even exposed to them.

Question 1: By creating this site and its other practices, doesn't Google by their own practice modify their terms?

Question 2: Could any reasonable person believe that a new visitor to the Google Directory for Kids and Teens should be bound by these unseen terms, which even Google seems to disregard?

Question 3: What risk is created by the gap between the lawyers who wrote the TOU, site management who follows their own drummer, and visitors who ignore the terms are entirely disconnected.

Are such TOU's unenforcable sharades posing as contracts?



Tags: terms google site legal service ]]>There is a growing disconnect between the legal staff who write terms of use for websites, those who operate the site, and site visitors. I've come to believe that each level of disconnection introduces new sets of legal risks, which this story only start to illustrate.

Chris Soghoian observed in CNET that

Google's terms of service, thick with legalese, state that:

You may not use Google's products, software, services and web sites and may not accept the Terms if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.

Of course if you're in the US that means that anyone under 18 is accessing Google's computer system in violation of its terms of service. And this applies to all Google services, YouTube, Gmail, and Image Search.

Ignoring Legal Risks Leads to Selective Prosecution
Federal prosecutors recently used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to selectively prosecute Lori Drew as a hacker for violating MySpace's terms of service. She lied about her identity, and harassed a troubled minor who was also using the system under a false identity. After the child committed suicide, a media and political frenzy resulted in federal prosecutors turning a breach of the site's terms, which might not have even been civilly enforcable, in to a federal criminal case.

Ignoring the Disconnect Between Terms and Practice May Partly Void the Agreement
Obviously, online services retain the right to modify their own terms of use. You may begin a user experience with a minimal grant of rights and a maximum of restrictions when reflexively accepting terms. However, when site staff clearly operate to the contrary to those terms, and in some instances assure users that terms in the TOS won't be enforced, isn't the contract being modified within the user experience?

Smoking Gun: Google for Kids
Google in fact provides safe-search resources just for kids. There's no easily accessible link to terms of service, so arriving new users aren't even exposed to them.

Question 1: By creating this site and its other practices, doesn't Google by their own practice modify their terms?

Question 2: Could any reasonable person believe that a new visitor to the Google Directory for Kids and Teens should be bound by these unseen terms, which even Google seems to disregard?

Question 3: What risk is created by the gap between the lawyers who wrote the TOU, site management who follows their own drummer, and visitors who ignore the terms are entirely disconnected.

Are such TOU's unenforcable sharades posing as contracts?



Tags: terms google site legal service ]]> Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:40:37 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5189 ReadWriteWeb Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 1: Linked Data http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/tfrA2FvvWtU/interview_with_tim_berners-lee_part_1.php Shared item During my recent trip to Boston, I had the opportunity to visit MIT. At the end of a long day of meetings with various MIT tech masterminds, I made my way to the funny shaped building (see photo right-below) where the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its director Tim Berners-Lee work. Berners-Lee is of course the man who invented the World Wide Web 20 years ago.

This was my first meeting with the Web's creator, whose work and philosophy was a direct inspiration for me when I launched ReadWriteWeb back in 2003.1

Sponsor

After shaking hands, I told Tim Berners-Lee that this blog's name was in part inspired by the first browser, which he developed, called "WorldWideWeb". That was a read/write browser; meaning you could not only browse and read content, but create and edit content too. It was a shame then when Mosaic, a read-only browser, became the first mainstream web browser in the mid-90s. It wasn't until the rise of Web 2.0 that the read/write philosophy gained widespread acceptance.2 On that note, we launched into the interview...

Note: the interview will be published in two parts, with Part 1 today on the topic of Linked Data. Part 2 will explore other topics and will run tomorrow.

How Linked Data Relates to The Semantic Web

RWW: Earlier this year you gave an inspiring talk at TED about Linked Data. You described Linked Data as a sea change akin to the invention of the WWW itself - i.e. we've gone from a Web of documents to a Web of data. Can you please explain though how Linked Data relates to the Semantic Web, is it a subset of it?

TBL: They fit in completely, in that the linked data actually uses a small slice of all the various technologies that people have put together and standardized for the Semantic Web.

Linked Data uses a small slice of the technologies that make up the Semantic Web.

We started off with the Semantic Web roadmap, which had lots of languages that we wanted to create. [However] the community as a whole got a bit distracted from the idea that actually the most important piece is the interoperability of the data. The fact that things are identified with URIs is the key thing.

The Semantic Web and Linked Data connect because when we've got this web of linked data, there are already lots of technologies which exist to do fancy things with it. But it's time now to concentrate on getting the web of linked data out there.


Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and ReadWriteWeb founder Richard MacManus

How Linked Data Has Evolved via Grassroots

RWW: Linked Data has had a lot of grassroots support, which you mentioned in your TED speech. This is something Semantic Web technologies, such as RDF, have struggled to get over the years. Has the W3C been pushing the more bottom-up Linked Data world, because of the frustration over lack of take-up of top-down Semantic Web?

TBL: A lot of the initial RDF and OWL projects came out of the academic world; and some of them were projects to show what you could do in a closed world. And the files were zipped up and left on a disc. While they were interesting projects, and while the systems were useful systems, the semantic web community maybe missed the point of the 'web' bit and focused too much on the 'semantic'. However the work that's been done in the Semantic Web, the standards, was really valuable. It's relatively recently for example that SPARQL [an RDF query language] has been developed.

"It's time now to concentrate on getting the web of linked data out there."

Somebody drew an analogy the other day: can you imagine trying to promote a world of databases without SQL? Even though it's not an interoperable protocol, it's just a query language. So similarly, all that's been put into RDF, rdfs and OWL is very valuable to the linked data community.

The Linked Data community tend to use a subset of that [Semantic Web technologies], of OWL for example. But they certainly use SPARQL. So you could argue that really it wasn't ready to be deployed widely.

Linked Data started as a very informal Design Issues note that I put in; it was a grassroots movement from very early on. So yes W3C has been emphasizing the importance of Linked Data. It's been the Semantic Web Interest Group of course, and various [other Semantic Web] activities, which has been pushing it. But also Linked Data has been seized on - a group of people for example put together DBpedia.3 That wasn't commissioned, that was that they just thought it would be a really cool idea.


Graph of Linked Data sets on the Web, as at March 2009

Linked Data and Governments

RWW: In a recent Design Issues note, you urge governments to put their data online as Linked Data (although you'd also be happy for governments to just make available the raw data - presumably so that others can then structure it). What do you realistically expect, for example, the U.S. or U.K. governments to do over the next year? And in the near future, do you foresee different governments interconnecting their Linked Data sets?

TBL: One can't generalize, governments are (like most big organizations) fascinatingly diverse inside them. So you'll find that there are places inside governments where you get a champion who gets linked data and who's just written a script and produced some linked data. So in the UK government for example, you'll find there's RDFa [in the code of its website] for civil service jobs. So if somebody wants to make a database of all the jobs, they can do that very easily.

"The first step of actually putting the data out there is the one that nobody else can do."

There are other cases where the easiest thing for somebody to do is to just put data up in whatever form it's available. Comma separated values (CSV) files are remarkably popular. They're exported sometimes from spreadsheets. It's remarkable how much information is in spreadsheets. Or sometimes pulled out of a database and then put up on the web. It's not as good, not as useful to the community, as if Linked Data had been put up there and linked. But the first step of actually putting the data out there is the one that nobody else can do.


Data.gov, a catalog of public data, was launched in May by the U.S. government

The way to go is for government departments to go the extra step and convert [their data] into Linked Data. One of the nice things about Linked Data, when they have a pile of it, is that they could run a SPARQL server on it. SPARQL servers are a commodity product, a solution for all of the people who say 'but actually I wanted to have XML.' A SPARQL server will generate an XML file [and] allow somebody to write out, effectively, a URL for the XML file.

"Linked Data is the backplane, it's the thing that you connect to in both directions."

In fact, I don't see why SPARQL servers shouldn't provide CSV files, something which as far as I know isn't in the standards. But I'd recommend it, certainly in government context, because CSV files are what people have and what people want.

So the message [for government] is to use RDF. Linked Data is the backplane, it's the thing that you connect to in both directions. As a [web] producer your job is to make sure that you produce Linked Data one way or another. And as a consumer, there are lots of ways to consume that data once it's out there as Linked Data.

Part 2 of ReadWriteWeb's interview with Tim Berners-Lee will be published tomorrow...

Footnotes:

1. The very first sentence written on this blog, on 20 April, 2003, was: "The World Wide Web in 2003 is beginning to fulfill the hopes that Tim Berners-Lee had for it over 10 years ago when he created it."

2. For more on read/write browsers, you can read another early RWW post entitled What became of the Browser/Editor.

3. DBpedia is a community project to extract structured information from Wikipedia; see ReadWriteWeb's profile of this and similar resources.

Discuss



Tags: data linked web semantic world ]]>During my recent trip to Boston, I had the opportunity to visit MIT. At the end of a long day of meetings with various MIT tech masterminds, I made my way to the funny shaped building (see photo right-below) where the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its director Tim Berners-Lee work. Berners-Lee is of course the man who invented the World Wide Web 20 years ago.

This was my first meeting with the Web's creator, whose work and philosophy was a direct inspiration for me when I launched ReadWriteWeb back in 2003.1

Sponsor

After shaking hands, I told Tim Berners-Lee that this blog's name was in part inspired by the first browser, which he developed, called "WorldWideWeb". That was a read/write browser; meaning you could not only browse and read content, but create and edit content too. It was a shame then when Mosaic, a read-only browser, became the first mainstream web browser in the mid-90s. It wasn't until the rise of Web 2.0 that the read/write philosophy gained widespread acceptance.2 On that note, we launched into the interview...

Note: the interview will be published in two parts, with Part 1 today on the topic of Linked Data. Part 2 will explore other topics and will run tomorrow.

How Linked Data Relates to The Semantic Web

RWW: Earlier this year you gave an inspiring talk at TED about Linked Data. You described Linked Data as a sea change akin to the invention of the WWW itself - i.e. we've gone from a Web of documents to a Web of data. Can you please explain though how Linked Data relates to the Semantic Web, is it a subset of it?

TBL: They fit in completely, in that the linked data actually uses a small slice of all the various technologies that people have put together and standardized for the Semantic Web.

Linked Data uses a small slice of the technologies that make up the Semantic Web.

We started off with the Semantic Web roadmap, which had lots of languages that we wanted to create. [However] the community as a whole got a bit distracted from the idea that actually the most important piece is the interoperability of the data. The fact that things are identified with URIs is the key thing.

The Semantic Web and Linked Data connect because when we've got this web of linked data, there are already lots of technologies which exist to do fancy things with it. But it's time now to concentrate on getting the web of linked data out there.


Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and ReadWriteWeb founder Richard MacManus

How Linked Data Has Evolved via Grassroots

RWW: Linked Data has had a lot of grassroots support, which you mentioned in your TED speech. This is something Semantic Web technologies, such as RDF, have struggled to get over the years. Has the W3C been pushing the more bottom-up Linked Data world, because of the frustration over lack of take-up of top-down Semantic Web?

TBL: A lot of the initial RDF and OWL projects came out of the academic world; and some of them were projects to show what you could do in a closed world. And the files were zipped up and left on a disc. While they were interesting projects, and while the systems were useful systems, the semantic web community maybe missed the point of the 'web' bit and focused too much on the 'semantic'. However the work that's been done in the Semantic Web, the standards, was really valuable. It's relatively recently for example that SPARQL [an RDF query language] has been developed.

"It's time now to concentrate on getting the web of linked data out there."

Somebody drew an analogy the other day: can you imagine trying to promote a world of databases without SQL? Even though it's not an interoperable protocol, it's just a query language. So similarly, all that's been put into RDF, rdfs and OWL is very valuable to the linked data community.

The Linked Data community tend to use a subset of that [Semantic Web technologies], of OWL for example. But they certainly use SPARQL. So you could argue that really it wasn't ready to be deployed widely.

Linked Data started as a very informal Design Issues note that I put in; it was a grassroots movement from very early on. So yes W3C has been emphasizing the importance of Linked Data. It's been the Semantic Web Interest Group of course, and various [other Semantic Web] activities, which has been pushing it. But also Linked Data has been seized on - a group of people for example put together DBpedia.3 That wasn't commissioned, that was that they just thought it would be a really cool idea.


Graph of Linked Data sets on the Web, as at March 2009

Linked Data and Governments

RWW: In a recent Design Issues note, you urge governments to put their data online as Linked Data (although you'd also be happy for governments to just make available the raw data - presumably so that others can then structure it). What do you realistically expect, for example, the U.S. or U.K. governments to do over the next year? And in the near future, do you foresee different governments interconnecting their Linked Data sets?

TBL: One can't generalize, governments are (like most big organizations) fascinatingly diverse inside them. So you'll find that there are places inside governments where you get a champion who gets linked data and who's just written a script and produced some linked data. So in the UK government for example, you'll find there's RDFa [in the code of its website] for civil service jobs. So if somebody wants to make a database of all the jobs, they can do that very easily.

"The first step of actually putting the data out there is the one that nobody else can do."

There are other cases where the easiest thing for somebody to do is to just put data up in whatever form it's available. Comma separated values (CSV) files are remarkably popular. They're exported sometimes from spreadsheets. It's remarkable how much information is in spreadsheets. Or sometimes pulled out of a database and then put up on the web. It's not as good, not as useful to the community, as if Linked Data had been put up there and linked. But the first step of actually putting the data out there is the one that nobody else can do.


Data.gov, a catalog of public data, was launched in May by the U.S. government

The way to go is for government departments to go the extra step and convert [their data] into Linked Data. One of the nice things about Linked Data, when they have a pile of it, is that they could run a SPARQL server on it. SPARQL servers are a commodity product, a solution for all of the people who say 'but actually I wanted to have XML.' A SPARQL server will generate an XML file [and] allow somebody to write out, effectively, a URL for the XML file.

"Linked Data is the backplane, it's the thing that you connect to in both directions."

In fact, I don't see why SPARQL servers shouldn't provide CSV files, something which as far as I know isn't in the standards. But I'd recommend it, certainly in government context, because CSV files are what people have and what people want.

So the message [for government] is to use RDF. Linked Data is the backplane, it's the thing that you connect to in both directions. As a [web] producer your job is to make sure that you produce Linked Data one way or another. And as a consumer, there are lots of ways to consume that data once it's out there as Linked Data.

Part 2 of ReadWriteWeb's interview with Tim Berners-Lee will be published tomorrow...

Footnotes:

1. The very first sentence written on this blog, on 20 April, 2003, was: "The World Wide Web in 2003 is beginning to fulfill the hopes that Tim Berners-Lee had for it over 10 years ago when he created it."

2. For more on read/write browsers, you can read another early RWW post entitled What became of the Browser/Editor.

3. DBpedia is a community project to extract structured information from Wikipedia; see ReadWriteWeb's profile of this and similar resources.

Discuss



Tags: data linked web semantic world ]]> Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:00:00 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5110 Judge Acquits Lori Drew in Cyberbullying Case, Overrules Jury http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wired27b/~3/9ou7QqZhmpY/ Shared item lori_drew_500px

LOS ANGELES A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, and issued a directed acquittal on the three misdemeanor charges.

U.S. District Judge George Wu granted a defense motion to overturn the jury verdict in the case after reviewing transcripts from last year's trial, in which 50-year-old Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges of unauthorized computer access.

Drew had faced a maximum sentence of three years and a $300,000 fine. Although prosecutors sought the maximum, probation authorities, in a pre-sentencing report sent to the court, had recommended probation and a $5,000 fine.

Drew was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government's novel argument that violating MySpace's terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.

In September 2006, prosecutors said, Drew conspired to create a fake MySpace account for Josh Evans with her then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a then-18-year-old employee and family friend named Ashley Grills.

Prosecutors alleged that Drew and the two others used the profile to lure Megan Meier, a 13-year-old neighbor, into an online relationship with Josh to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter online. But in October, one of the group, writing as Josh, turned against Megan, and told her that the world would be a better place without her. Shortly afterward, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom.

MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors claimed.

But testimony in the case offered by prosecution witness Ashley Grills under a grant of immunity showed that nobody involved in the hoax actually read the terms of service. Grills also said that the hoax was her idea, not Drew's, and that it was Grills who created the Josh Evans profile, and later sent the cruel message that tipped the emotionally vulnerable 13-year-old girl into her final, tragic act.

Drew was cleared of the felony computer-hacking charges by a jury, but convicted of three misdemeanors for unauthorized computer access. The jury deadlocked on the felony charge of conspiracy.

More details to come.

Photo: AP

See also:



Tags: drew year lori old myspace ]]>lori_drew_500px

LOS ANGELES A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, and issued a directed acquittal on the three misdemeanor charges.

U.S. District Judge George Wu granted a defense motion to overturn the jury verdict in the case after reviewing transcripts from last year's trial, in which 50-year-old Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor charges of unauthorized computer access.

Drew had faced a maximum sentence of three years and a $300,000 fine. Although prosecutors sought the maximum, probation authorities, in a pre-sentencing report sent to the court, had recommended probation and a $5,000 fine.

Drew was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government's novel argument that violating MySpace's terms of service for the purpose of harming another was the legal equivalent of computer hacking.

In September 2006, prosecutors said, Drew conspired to create a fake MySpace account for Josh Evans with her then 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, and a then-18-year-old employee and family friend named Ashley Grills.

Prosecutors alleged that Drew and the two others used the profile to lure Megan Meier, a 13-year-old neighbor, into an online relationship with Josh to find out what Megan was saying about Drew's daughter online. But in October, one of the group, writing as Josh, turned against Megan, and told her that the world would be a better place without her. Shortly afterward, Megan hanged herself in her bedroom.

MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors claimed.

But testimony in the case offered by prosecution witness Ashley Grills under a grant of immunity showed that nobody involved in the hoax actually read the terms of service. Grills also said that the hoax was her idea, not Drew's, and that it was Grills who created the Josh Evans profile, and later sent the cruel message that tipped the emotionally vulnerable 13-year-old girl into her final, tragic act.

Drew was cleared of the felony computer-hacking charges by a jury, but convicted of three misdemeanors for unauthorized computer access. The jury deadlocked on the felony charge of conspiracy.

More details to come.

Photo: AP

See also:



Tags: drew year lori old myspace ]]> Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:04:28 -0400 tag:croncast.com,5087 Facebook Sued Over Private Facebook Group--Finkel v. Facebook http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/03/facebook_sued_o.htm Shared item By Eric Goldman

Finkel v. Facebook, Inc., 102578-09 (N.Y. Supreme Ct. complaint filed Feb. 24, 2009).

A New York teenager has sued Facebook and four Facebook users (plus their parents) for allegedly defamatory content posted in a private Facebook group called "90 Cents Short of a Dollar."

This case fits neatly with other legal battles over "cyber-bullying" (whatever that means), such as the AutoAdmit lawsuits, the Sandler case and the Lori Drew case. (For another recent and troubling example of cyber-bullying that I read just this morning, see Wolfe v. Fayetteville, Arkansas School Dist., 2009 WL 485400 (W.D. Ark. Feb. 26, 2009)).

In this case, the plaintiff's school peers said some not-nice things about her in a private Facebook page. The Newsday article has some more color about the sour relationships between Finkel and the defendants. The plaintiff claims that the posts meant that "the plaintiff was a woman of dubious morals, dubious sexual character, having engaged in bestiality, an 'I V drug user' as well as having contracted the H.I.V. virus and AIDS."

With respect to the claim against Facebook, this lawsuit is unquestionably DOA. Frankly, I'm not sure why the plaintiff bothered to sue Facebook. Facebook is completely immunized per 47 USC 230, and this should be an easy dismissal. The complaint didn't even try to do anything fancy to get around 230; in fact, the complaint alleges that Facebook "published" the content, the absolutely wrong allegation to make if you're trying to bypass 230. I think it significantly detracts from the sympathy we might otherwise feel for plaintiff for her to have futilely dragged Facebook into the lawsuit. And, it ensures there will be at least one aggressive defendant in the lawsuit.

With respect to the school peers' liability, this case raises some interesting and complex questions. First, and most obviously, how did the plaintiff get a copy of the private group's postings? This reminds me a little of the Washingtonienne case, although access to Cutler's blog wasn't technologically restricted like it was in Facebook.

Side note: the republication of the private group's posts in this complaint reminds us once again that we always have to be prepared for our digital words to show up on the front page of a national newspaper. In particular, including the transcript to the complaint without a protective order was an aggressive move; I suspect other people reading the transcript for the first time will not be happy.

Second, there were only 6 group members listed on the exhibit, which means the total universe of listeners for any defamatory statement was 5 other folks (the person posting the statement doesn't count). This may severely circumscribe any damages. Third, given that this group of 6 presumably represented a social clique with its own norms and mores, it's entirely possible that the small universe of readers completely understood that superficially factual statement weren't really factual and were never intended to be. In this respect, I'm reminded a little of the DiMeo v. Max case, where the judge adjusted the evaluative standards to reflect the fact that message boards fostered a laxer conversation, and readers understood that. A quick perusal of the posts suggests that all of them clearly were utter nonsense and, I suspect, fully understood by all readers to be inane and meaningless chatter. Finally, the posts apparently never referred to the plaintiff by name, although this may be irrelevant if everyone knew who was being discussed.

The lawsuit also goes after the students' parents. Among other things, to try to establish liability, the complaint alleges that the parents negligently supervised their children. I'd gladly write a $100 check today if the plaintiff or her lawyers could articulate a foolproof way that parents can use to prevent high schoolers from doing stupid things on Facebook (without denying them access to Facebook altogether).

From my perspective, going to court over this matter was not a good decision. Nevertheless, I remain troubled by the examples of mean behavior among students that I'm seeing in the alerts I'm getting. For example, the Wolfe and Sandler cases I mention above are absolutely horrifying. Even though I graduated high school nearly 25 years ago, reading about meanness among high schoolers still gives me the shakes, reminding me how bad high school can be! And it weighs heavily on my mind as a parent. However, I can't imagine any legal solution that will make people be less mean to each other.



Tags: facebook plaintiff case complaint group ]]>By Eric Goldman

Finkel v. Facebook, Inc., 102578-09 (N.Y. Supreme Ct. complaint filed Feb. 24, 2009).

A New York teenager has sued Facebook and four Facebook users (plus their parents) for allegedly defamatory content posted in a private Facebook group called "90 Cents Short of a Dollar."

This case fits neatly with other legal battles over "cyber-bullying" (whatever that means), such as the AutoAdmit lawsuits, the Sandler case and the Lori Drew case. (For another recent and troubling example of cyber-bullying that I read just this morning, see Wolfe v. Fayetteville, Arkansas School Dist., 2009 WL 485400 (W.D. Ark. Feb. 26, 2009)).

In this case, the plaintiff's school peers said some not-nice things about her in a private Facebook page. The Newsday article has some more color about the sour relationships between Finkel and the defendants. The plaintiff claims that the posts meant that "the plaintiff was a woman of dubious morals, dubious sexual character, having engaged in bestiality, an 'I V drug user' as well as having contracted the H.I.V. virus and AIDS."

With respect to the claim against Facebook, this lawsuit is unquestionably DOA. Frankly, I'm not sure why the plaintiff bothered to sue Facebook. Facebook is completely immunized per 47 USC 230, and this should be an easy dismissal. The complaint didn't even try to do anything fancy to get around 230; in fact, the complaint alleges that Facebook "published" the content, the absolutely wrong allegation to make if you're trying to bypass 230. I think it significantly detracts from the sympathy we might otherwise feel for plaintiff for her to have futilely dragged Facebook into the lawsuit. And, it ensures there will be at least one aggressive defendant in the lawsuit.

With respect to the school peers' liability, this case raises some interesting and complex questions. First, and most obviously, how did the plaintiff get a copy of the private group's postings? This reminds me a little of the Washingtonienne case, although access to Cutler's blog wasn't technologically restricted like it was in Facebook.

Side note: the republication of the private group's posts in this complaint reminds us once again that we always have to be prepared for our digital words to show up on the front page of a national newspaper. In particular, including the transcript to the complaint without a protective order was an aggressive move; I suspect other people reading the transcript for the first time will not be happy.

Second, there were only 6 group members listed on the exhibit, which means the total universe of listeners for any defamatory statement was 5 other folks (the person posting the statement doesn't count). This may severely circumscribe any damages. Third, given that this group of 6 presumably represented a social clique with its own norms and mores, it's entirely possible that the small universe of readers completely understood that superficially factual statement weren't really factual and were never intended to be. In this respect, I'm reminded a little of the DiMeo v. Max case, where the judge adjusted the evaluative standards to reflect the fact that message boards fostered a laxer conversation, and readers understood that. A quick perusal of the posts suggests that all of them clearly were utter nonsense and, I suspect, fully understood by all readers to be inane and meaningless chatter. Finally, the posts apparently never referred to the plaintiff by name, although this may be irrelevant if everyone knew who was being discussed.

The lawsuit also goes after the students' parents. Among other things, to try to establish liability, the complaint alleges that the parents negligently supervised their children. I'd gladly write a $100 check today if the plaintiff or her lawyers could articulate a foolproof way that parents can use to prevent high schoolers from doing stupid things on Facebook (without denying them access to Facebook altogether).

From my perspective, going to court over this matter was not a good decision. Nevertheless, I remain troubled by the examples of mean behavior among students that I'm seeing in the alerts I'm getting. For example, the Wolfe and Sandler cases I mention above are absolutely horrifying. Even though I graduated high school nearly 25 years ago, reading about meanness among high schoolers still gives me the shakes, reminding me how bad high school can be! And it weighs heavily on my mind as a parent. However, I can't imagine any legal solution that will make people be less mean to each other.



Tags: facebook plaintiff case complaint group ]]> Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:34:54 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4916 "The Tropicana Effect" http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChurchOfTheCustomer/~3/TiXrIZdFEf4/tropicana-learns-hard-lesson-of-not-talking-to-evangelists.html Shared item Tropicana-packagingTropicana spent $35 million learning that their customer evangelists matter.

The orange juice brand was in the midst of launching redesigned packaging when a loud bus of vocal fans who liked the old packaging, thank you very much, raised hell. They liked the iconic picture of a large orange with a straw, making the juice easy to find in the crowded OJ aisle. After their protests drew a flurry of unexpected calls, letters and email complaints, Tropicana announced it would revert to the original packaging.

In an apologia, Tropicana president Neil Campbell said the disconnect was research: What we didn't get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn't something that came out in the research.

When traditional marketing research doesn't include input from passionate fans who love the brand and tell others about it, it risks creating a Tropicana effect.

Tropicana's research may have expertly divided its customers into demographics and "heavy users" vs. "light users," but it probably did not account for vocal, connected and passionate customers who know how to create a Facebook protest group in less than a minute or spread buzz via Twitter hashtags. Had Tropicana had a way to reach out to evangelists, this might not have been a story.

So what does Tropicana have now? Actually, it's pretty good: a second chance. A gift to convert that passion into something tangible. But Tropicana has work to do. There's no blog on their website, which still touts the "fresh new package." There's no official Facebook page. There's no Twitter account. (No, a brief Twitter campaign shirt-tailed to the old presidential campaign doesn't count.) It's a great opportunity to start a network or community for that busload of fans.

Of course, customer evangelists needn't decide everything (that's always the straw-man argument), but you can't ask for their opinion and improve the odds of a $35 million bet if you don't know who they are.



Tags: tropicana research packaging fans twitter ]]>Tropicana-packagingTropicana spent $35 million learning that their customer evangelists matter.

The orange juice brand was in the midst of launching redesigned packaging when a loud bus of vocal fans who liked the old packaging, thank you very much, raised hell. They liked the iconic picture of a large orange with a straw, making the juice easy to find in the crowded OJ aisle. After their protests drew a flurry of unexpected calls, letters and email complaints, Tropicana announced it would revert to the original packaging.

In an apologia, Tropicana president Neil Campbell said the disconnect was research: What we didn't get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn't something that came out in the research.

When traditional marketing research doesn't include input from passionate fans who love the brand and tell others about it, it risks creating a Tropicana effect.

Tropicana's research may have expertly divided its customers into demographics and "heavy users" vs. "light users," but it probably did not account for vocal, connected and passionate customers who know how to create a Facebook protest group in less than a minute or spread buzz via Twitter hashtags. Had Tropicana had a way to reach out to evangelists, this might not have been a story.

So what does Tropicana have now? Actually, it's pretty good: a second chance. A gift to convert that passion into something tangible. But Tropicana has work to do. There's no blog on their website, which still touts the "fresh new package." There's no official Facebook page. There's no Twitter account. (No, a brief Twitter campaign shirt-tailed to the old presidential campaign doesn't count.) It's a great opportunity to start a network or community for that busload of fans.

Of course, customer evangelists needn't decide everything (that's always the straw-man argument), but you can't ask for their opinion and improve the odds of a $35 million bet if you don't know who they are.



Tags: tropicana research packaging fans twitter ]]> Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:18:19 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4906 Google Street View Case Dismissed--Boring v. Google http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/02/google_street_v.htm Shared item By Eric Goldman

Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009)

You may recall the Boring case from last Spring. A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google's camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were posted to Google's Street View. I thought the whole lawsuit was such a silly publicity stunt that I didn't think it was blog-worthy at the time. Apparently I'm not the only person who wasn't impressed with the suit, because the court didn't give the plaintiffs any benefit of the doubt and dismissed the lawsuit handily (without leave to amend).

Some highlights from the discussion:

Intrusion Into Seclusion. The court says that the plaintiffs did not allege facts supporting that the intrusion was substantial and highly offensive. To reinforce the point that perhaps the plaintiffs didn't experience much harm, the court points out that the plaintiffs didn't take advantage of Google's opt out procedure, plus they drew public attention to themselves by suing and by not redacting or suppressing their contact info in the court filings. I was a little troubled by the latter point, which seemed circular to me--plaintiffs bringing intrusion into seclusion lawsuits unavoidably thrust themselves into the public eye, whether they want to do so or not. This is especially true for anyone suing Google. As a result, it's not fair to hold that consequence against plaintiffs. (As an example of the unwanted publicity faced by privacy rights plaintiffs, consider Robert Steinbuch's experience as a plaintiff against Jessica Cutler). The court also skips over the legal nuances regarding why Google should get a free legal pass when it offers an opt out.

Public Disclosure of Private Facts. As with the intrusion into seclusion claim, the court says that the plaintiffs have not shown the disclosures were highly offensive to reasonable people, as evidenced by the fact that other people haven't opted out of Google's Street View. (An interesting argument on a 12b6).

Common Law Negligence. The court says Google didn't have a duty to the Borings, and it isn't willing to manufacture one.

Trespass. The court says that the plaintiffs' emotional damages were not proximately caused by the trespass.

Unjust Enrichment. The court (correctly, IMO) says that this is not an independent cause of action but is just a quasi-contract remedy.

Injunctive Relief. The court says that the plaintiffs failed to plead "a plausible claim for entitlement to injunctive relief." Which, I think, is one way of saying "not interested."

A clean sweep for Google, and the end (absent an appeal) of a silly lawsuit.



Tags: google plaintiffs court intrusion lawsuit ]]>By Eric Goldman

Boring v. Google, Inc., 2:08-cv-00694-ARH (W.D. Pa. Feb. 17, 2009)

You may recall the Boring case from last Spring. A Pennsylvania couple sued because Google's camera car drove up their private driveway and the resulting pictures were posted to Google's Street View. I thought the whole lawsuit was such a silly publicity stunt that I didn't think it was blog-worthy at the time. Apparently I'm not the only person who wasn't impressed with the suit, because the court didn't give the plaintiffs any benefit of the doubt and dismissed the lawsuit handily (without leave to amend).

Some highlights from the discussion:

Intrusion Into Seclusion. The court says that the plaintiffs did not allege facts supporting that the intrusion was substantial and highly offensive. To reinforce the point that perhaps the plaintiffs didn't experience much harm, the court points out that the plaintiffs didn't take advantage of Google's opt out procedure, plus they drew public attention to themselves by suing and by not redacting or suppressing their contact info in the court filings. I was a little troubled by the latter point, which seemed circular to me--plaintiffs bringing intrusion into seclusion lawsuits unavoidably thrust themselves into the public eye, whether they want to do so or not. This is especially true for anyone suing Google. As a result, it's not fair to hold that consequence against plaintiffs. (As an example of the unwanted publicity faced by privacy rights plaintiffs, consider Robert Steinbuch's experience as a plaintiff against Jessica Cutler). The court also skips over the legal nuances regarding why Google should get a free legal pass when it offers an opt out.

Public Disclosure of Private Facts. As with the intrusion into seclusion claim, the court says that the plaintiffs have not shown the disclosures were highly offensive to reasonable people, as evidenced by the fact that other people haven't opted out of Google's Street View. (An interesting argument on a 12b6).

Common Law Negligence. The court says Google didn't have a duty to the Borings, and it isn't willing to manufacture one.

Trespass. The court says that the plaintiffs' emotional damages were not proximately caused by the trespass.

Unjust Enrichment. The court (correctly, IMO) says that this is not an independent cause of action but is just a quasi-contract remedy.

Injunctive Relief. The court says that the plaintiffs failed to plead "a plausible claim for entitlement to injunctive relief." Which, I think, is one way of saying "not interested."

A clean sweep for Google, and the end (absent an appeal) of a silly lawsuit.



Tags: google plaintiffs court intrusion lawsuit ]]> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:41:39 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4862 Facebook v. Power.com - Battling Social Networks http://spamnotes.com/2009/01/22/facebook-v-powercom--battling-social-networks.aspx?ref=rss Shared item Facebook recently filed a lawsuit against Power.com (NYT coverage here ("Facebook is no Friend of Power.com")). At its root, the lawsuit is about Facebook's attempt to force third party developers to go through the channels made available by Facebook in integrating Facebook on to a third party website or application. The law is not settled on this issue and given the efforts of various networks to regulate access by third party applications, this may be litigated more often. (Access a copy of the complaint here [pdf].)

The lawsuit is at the complaint stage and the allegations in the complaint cannot be taken as fact. For context, Power.com's user interface looks approximately like this:



Summary of Allegations: Power.com developed an application which allows people to access their social profiles in one place. This requires Power.com to access third party networks such as Facebook on behalf of Facebook users. After Power.com rolled out its product, Facebook brought a variety of claims alleging Power.com violated Facebook's rights in testing and deploying the application. Facebook's claims included claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, CAN-SPAM, and copyright and trademark law.

CAN-SPAM Claims: Facebook's CAN-SPAM claims were centered around Power.com's promotion efforts. Power.com launched a promotion which encouraged users to refer third party users to the Power.com website and promised these users the chance to win $100 if they referred the most users. Apparently Power.com allowed users to input their log-in/password on the Power.com website and generate a list of their Facebook friends. Power.com then gave these users the ability to select which of their Facebook friends would receive an invitation (sent though Facebook) to join Power.com. The CAN-SPAM claims are peripheral to the lawsuit, and Power.com could have avoided the CAN-SPAM claims by steering clear of the promotion and structuring the "invite your friends" function a bit differently.

Computer Fraud Claims: Facebook's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims are the core of the lawsuit. First, in designing Power.com's interface, Power.com signed up for a Facebook account and agreed to Facebook's terms of service. Second, (Facebook argues) in accessing Facebook's servers at the request of Power.com's users, Power.com is violating the Facebook terms of service (by effecting automated queries and accessing the network for commercial purposes?). Whether a terms of service violation in this context supports a claim under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is fairly unsettled (as illustrated by the recent Lori Drew prosecution she was prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for creating a fake profile and using MySpace's network contrary to MySpace terms of service; commentators uniformly condemned the prosecution as resting on legally flimsy grounds). Facebook will have a tough time proving that it was damaged by this conduct. Facebook alleges damages in that the password/log-in information of the Facebook users are exposed to Power.com's website which is allegedly less secure than Facebook's website. Absent a demonstration that Power.com's security practices are lax, it is unclear how much mileage Facebook will get at the end of the day on this allegation. In any event, it's likely that the password/log-in information is exposed to far less secure environments in the hands of the users themselves. Also, Facebook engages in a practice very similar that Power.com - with respect to third party applications. Facebook allows its users to integrate data from third party applications, sometimes with permission and sometimes without. Notwithstanding the niceties of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, courts have, in other contexts (e.g., scraping) respected the right of a website owner to fully dictate the terms of access of a website. For example, websites whose competitors have repeatedly accessed the website's servers have obtained injunctions. (See, e.g., Bidder's Edge; Verio.)

Copyright Claims: Facebook's copyright claims allege that Power.com reproduced portions of Facebook's website. The Complaint does not detail how and where exactly Power.com reproduced portions of Facebook's website. Facebook's claims are fairly weak to the extent that Power.com merely reproduced information (such as friend lists) in a different format on Power.com's website in response to Power.com user requests. Facebook will have a difficult time establishing that content such as friend lists (which Facebook doesn't necessarily own in the first place) are entitled to copyright protection. (There's a tweak here and this may be a stretch, but what if the information on the Facebook network is owned by the individual users . . . don't they have the right to access the information through any application or method which they desire?)

Trademark Claims: It's unclear exactly what facts support Facebook's trademark claims. Facebook alleges generally that Power.com used Facebook's mark in a manner that implied affiliation . . . or association with Facebook's product. Facebook may be able to bolster facts in support of its claims if Power.com was careless in using Facebook's marks or logos or in failing to make clear to Power.com users that Facebook and Power.com are not related (and Facebook does not endorse Power.com's product in anyway).

Commentary: Mike Masnick from Techdirt was not terribly impressed with Facebook's claims [link]. His comments epitomize how many in the technology community reacted to the Facebook lawsuit:
I'm having trouble seeing how Power.com violates any of these things. Power.com, like plenty of other aggregator services, lets you bring together all your different social networking profiles in one spot. That seems like it could be valuable if you use a lot of those services. It doesn't do anything fraudulently, and it does not appear to misrepresent that it is a separate service. Users have to decide whether it's worth providing their username and password to Power.com, but it's not as if Power.com tricks anyone into doing so or does so in a misleading way. There's no confusion, so it's difficult to see what the trademark problem is about. It seems like a pretty big stretch for Facebook to also claim that showing the content from a user's profile is copyright infringement as well. Computer fraud? Please. Unlawful competition? Again, it may be (slightly) competitive, but it appears to actually improve the value of Facebook, rather than diminish it.

This is a pretty weak response from Facebook. Basically, it looks like Facebook trying to exert undue control over what other websites and services can do, and it's not clear that it has any real legal basis for doing so. It's a shame that a company like Facebook is becoming a legal bully at such a young age. I would have expected better. In the end, though, if Facebook keeps up actions like this, it will only hasten the shift to other social networks that don't try to limit what their users can do. Facebook might want to take a lesson from the eventual flop of Friendster after that social network was accused of being too controlling.
Intuitively, I agree with Masnick, but courts seem to be much more solicitous to claims asserted by owners of websites and networks who try to "keep people out". This lawsuit will probably settle (it was rumored to have settled a couple of times) but if it moved forward, I wouldn't be surprised if a court said that Power.com improperly accessed Facebook's networks in this context. (Often these lawsuits are resolved at the injunction level so the facts aren't as fleshed out as they otherwise would be.)

It's also interesting to note the different approaches taken by various networks. The two are completely different, but Twitter has been fairly open in allowing third parties to build apps which use Twitter data. Then again, there's news that Twitter is clamping down [link] ("Twitter Puts New Limits on API Callls").

More: forgot to add the link to cNet which discusses the story. I added a link to the complaint as well.



Tags: facebook power claims users website ]]>Facebook recently filed a lawsuit against Power.com (NYT coverage here ("Facebook is no Friend of Power.com")). At its root, the lawsuit is about Facebook's attempt to force third party developers to go through the channels made available by Facebook in integrating Facebook on to a third party website or application. The law is not settled on this issue and given the efforts of various networks to regulate access by third party applications, this may be litigated more often. (Access a copy of the complaint here [pdf].)

The lawsuit is at the complaint stage and the allegations in the complaint cannot be taken as fact. For context, Power.com's user interface looks approximately like this:



Summary of Allegations: Power.com developed an application which allows people to access their social profiles in one place. This requires Power.com to access third party networks such as Facebook on behalf of Facebook users. After Power.com rolled out its product, Facebook brought a variety of claims alleging Power.com violated Facebook's rights in testing and deploying the application. Facebook's claims included claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, CAN-SPAM, and copyright and trademark law.

CAN-SPAM Claims: Facebook's CAN-SPAM claims were centered around Power.com's promotion efforts. Power.com launched a promotion which encouraged users to refer third party users to the Power.com website and promised these users the chance to win $100 if they referred the most users. Apparently Power.com allowed users to input their log-in/password on the Power.com website and generate a list of their Facebook friends. Power.com then gave these users the ability to select which of their Facebook friends would receive an invitation (sent though Facebook) to join Power.com. The CAN-SPAM claims are peripheral to the lawsuit, and Power.com could have avoided the CAN-SPAM claims by steering clear of the promotion and structuring the "invite your friends" function a bit differently.

Computer Fraud Claims: Facebook's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims are the core of the lawsuit. First, in designing Power.com's interface, Power.com signed up for a Facebook account and agreed to Facebook's terms of service. Second, (Facebook argues) in accessing Facebook's servers at the request of Power.com's users, Power.com is violating the Facebook terms of service (by effecting automated queries and accessing the network for commercial purposes?). Whether a terms of service violation in this context supports a claim under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is fairly unsettled (as illustrated by the recent Lori Drew prosecution she was prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for creating a fake profile and using MySpace's network contrary to MySpace terms of service; commentators uniformly condemned the prosecution as resting on legally flimsy grounds). Facebook will have a tough time proving that it was damaged by this conduct. Facebook alleges damages in that the password/log-in information of the Facebook users are exposed to Power.com's website which is allegedly less secure than Facebook's website. Absent a demonstration that Power.com's security practices are lax, it is unclear how much mileage Facebook will get at the end of the day on this allegation. In any event, it's likely that the password/log-in information is exposed to far less secure environments in the hands of the users themselves. Also, Facebook engages in a practice very similar that Power.com - with respect to third party applications. Facebook allows its users to integrate data from third party applications, sometimes with permission and sometimes without. Notwithstanding the niceties of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, courts have, in other contexts (e.g., scraping) respected the right of a website owner to fully dictate the terms of access of a website. For example, websites whose competitors have repeatedly accessed the website's servers have obtained injunctions. (See, e.g., Bidder's Edge; Verio.)

Copyright Claims: Facebook's copyright claims allege that Power.com reproduced portions of Facebook's website. The Complaint does not detail how and where exactly Power.com reproduced portions of Facebook's website. Facebook's claims are fairly weak to the extent that Power.com merely reproduced information (such as friend lists) in a different format on Power.com's website in response to Power.com user requests. Facebook will have a difficult time establishing that content such as friend lists (which Facebook doesn't necessarily own in the first place) are entitled to copyright protection. (There's a tweak here and this may be a stretch, but what if the information on the Facebook network is owned by the individual users . . . don't they have the right to access the information through any application or method which they desire?)

Trademark Claims: It's unclear exactly what facts support Facebook's trademark claims. Facebook alleges generally that Power.com used Facebook's mark in a manner that implied affiliation . . . or association with Facebook's product. Facebook may be able to bolster facts in support of its claims if Power.com was careless in using Facebook's marks or logos or in failing to make clear to Power.com users that Facebook and Power.com are not related (and Facebook does not endorse Power.com's product in anyway).

Commentary: Mike Masnick from Techdirt was not terribly impressed with Facebook's claims [link]. His comments epitomize how many in the technology community reacted to the Facebook lawsuit:
I'm having trouble seeing how Power.com violates any of these things. Power.com, like plenty of other aggregator services, lets you bring together all your different social networking profiles in one spot. That seems like it could be valuable if you use a lot of those services. It doesn't do anything fraudulently, and it does not appear to misrepresent that it is a separate service. Users have to decide whether it's worth providing their username and password to Power.com, but it's not as if Power.com tricks anyone into doing so or does so in a misleading way. There's no confusion, so it's difficult to see what the trademark problem is about. It seems like a pretty big stretch for Facebook to also claim that showing the content from a user's profile is copyright infringement as well. Computer fraud? Please. Unlawful competition? Again, it may be (slightly) competitive, but it appears to actually improve the value of Facebook, rather than diminish it.

This is a pretty weak response from Facebook. Basically, it looks like Facebook trying to exert undue control over what other websites and services can do, and it's not clear that it has any real legal basis for doing so. It's a shame that a company like Facebook is becoming a legal bully at such a young age. I would have expected better. In the end, though, if Facebook keeps up actions like this, it will only hasten the shift to other social networks that don't try to limit what their users can do. Facebook might want to take a lesson from the eventual flop of Friendster after that social network was accused of being too controlling.
Intuitively, I agree with Masnick, but courts seem to be much more solicitous to claims asserted by owners of websites and networks who try to "keep people out". This lawsuit will probably settle (it was rumored to have settled a couple of times) but if it moved forward, I wouldn't be surprised if a court said that Power.com improperly accessed Facebook's networks in this context. (Often these lawsuits are resolved at the injunction level so the facts aren't as fleshed out as they otherwise would be.)

It's also interesting to note the different approaches taken by various networks. The two are completely different, but Twitter has been fairly open in allowing third parties to build apps which use Twitter data. Then again, there's news that Twitter is clamping down [link] ("Twitter Puts New Limits on API Callls").

More: forgot to add the link to cNet which discusses the story. I added a link to the complaint as well.



Tags: facebook power claims users website ]]> Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:05:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4801 Report: Citigroup Cancels Plans to Buy $50M Jet http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483584,00.html Shared item
Tags: jet buy plans citigroup news ]]>
Tags: jet buy plans citigroup news ]]> Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:33:02 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4793 Blago Hires Same PR Firm as Drew Peterson http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/24/blago-hires-drew-petersons-pr-firm-media-blitz Shared item
Tags: drew peterson firm pr hires ]]>
Tags: drew peterson firm pr hires ]]> Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:58:34 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4778 Lori Drew Guilty of 3 Misdemeanor Violations of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/11/lori_drew_guilt.htm Shared item By Eric Goldman

According to news reports (WSJ Law Blog, LA Times, AP), the jury has declared Lori Drew guilty of "three misdemeanor counts of accessing a computer without authorization." I would like to parse the actual jury verdict form to make sure we understand what the jury actually said. For now, some preliminary observations.

First, the jury verdict is not the last step in the process. For example, the judge could still dismiss the case notwithstanding the jury verdict. Personally, I think it was a mistake for the judge to let this case go to the jury; overturning a jury ruling is always a dangerous move for a trial judge, and it would be especially awkward here for the judge to kick the case out now given the high emotions and heavy press coverage for this case. There could be a retrial (especially on the fourth charge, which resulted in a hung jury). It is also possible the jury verdict could be reversed on appeal. Finally, if none of those occur, a sentence that didn't include jail time would still be a travesty but would still have let the people have their vengeance while reducing the injustice to Drew. So it's hard to assess the meaning of the jury verdict because it's only 1 chapter in a longer story.

Second, I am even more convinced that it was a travesty of justice for the government to bring this case at all. The facts elicited at trial demonstrated the illogic of the government's argument that Lori Drew made unauthorized uses of MySpace's servers, including the facts that:

* Lori Drew did not create the MySpace account at issue (Grills, the babysitter, did--but she got government immunity for testifying against Drew)
* Lori Drew did not click OK to the MySpace user agreement (Grills did)
* Lori Drew did not send the final fateful message (Grills did)
* some of the messages at issue were not even sent through the MySpace network (they were sent through AOL)

These facts severely undercut the government's theories about the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act. They should also frighten each of us who may have broken an online user agreement, intentionally or not, at some point in our lives, by showing how easy it could be to violate the CFAA. The tenuousness of the law's application to the facts reinforced that the real trial was over Lori Drew's moral culpability for Meier's death...though that wasn't supposed to be on trial.

Third, regardless of how this case turns out, I remain frustrated by how pro-regulatory forces are using Meier's death--a tragic but highly anomalous situation--as grist for their pro-regulatory agendas. In particular, the push to legally prohibit "cyberbullying" baffles me. I don't even understand the term, but I do know that we cannot legislate people being nice to each other, online or off, and we don't even try in most offline circumstances. Further, as the expansive interpretation of the CFAA highlights, restrictions against "cyberbullying" could chill many socially beneficial and protected activities. So, I hope we can resist the pro-regulatory temptations. Ironically, a guilty verdict for Lori Drew might have that salutary effect by showing that existing laws can punish "bad" actors, even if legal justice is being denied to Lori Drew in the process.

UPDATES: More coverage: NYT; NYT #2 (news analysis), Christopher Soghoian (pointing out examples of egregious user agreements that convert many site users into criminals).

Private investigators are stressing about this ruling.



Tags: drew jury lori case verdict ]]>By Eric Goldman

According to news reports (WSJ Law Blog, LA Times, AP), the jury has declared Lori Drew guilty of "three misdemeanor counts of accessing a computer without authorization." I would like to parse the actual jury verdict form to make sure we understand what the jury actually said. For now, some preliminary observations.

First, the jury verdict is not the last step in the process. For example, the judge could still dismiss the case notwithstanding the jury verdict. Personally, I think it was a mistake for the judge to let this case go to the jury; overturning a jury ruling is always a dangerous move for a trial judge, and it would be especially awkward here for the judge to kick the case out now given the high emotions and heavy press coverage for this case. There could be a retrial (especially on the fourth charge, which resulted in a hung jury). It is also possible the jury verdict could be reversed on appeal. Finally, if none of those occur, a sentence that didn't include jail time would still be a travesty but would still have let the people have their vengeance while reducing the injustice to Drew. So it's hard to assess the meaning of the jury verdict because it's only 1 chapter in a longer story.

Second, I am even more convinced that it was a travesty of justice for the government to bring this case at all. The facts elicited at trial demonstrated the illogic of the government's argument that Lori Drew made unauthorized uses of MySpace's servers, including the facts that:

* Lori Drew did not create the MySpace account at issue (Grills, the babysitter, did--but she got government immunity for testifying against Drew)
* Lori Drew did not click OK to the MySpace user agreement (Grills did)
* Lori Drew did not send the final fateful message (Grills did)
* some of the messages at issue were not even sent through the MySpace network (they were sent through AOL)

These facts severely undercut the government's theories about the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act. They should also frighten each of us who may have broken an online user agreement, intentionally or not, at some point in our lives, by showing how easy it could be to violate the CFAA. The tenuousness of the law's application to the facts reinforced that the real trial was over Lori Drew's moral culpability for Meier's death...though that wasn't supposed to be on trial.

Third, regardless of how this case turns out, I remain frustrated by how pro-regulatory forces are using Meier's death--a tragic but highly anomalous situation--as grist for their pro-regulatory agendas. In particular, the push to legally prohibit "cyberbullying" baffles me. I don't even understand the term, but I do know that we cannot legislate people being nice to each other, online or off, and we don't even try in most offline circumstances. Further, as the expansive interpretation of the CFAA highlights, restrictions against "cyberbullying" could chill many socially beneficial and protected activities. So, I hope we can resist the pro-regulatory temptations. Ironically, a guilty verdict for Lori Drew might have that salutary effect by showing that existing laws can punish "bad" actors, even if legal justice is being denied to Lori Drew in the process.

UPDATES: More coverage: NYT; NYT #2 (news analysis), Christopher Soghoian (pointing out examples of egregious user agreements that convert many site users into criminals).

Private investigators are stressing about this ruling.



Tags: drew jury lori case verdict ]]> Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:44:06 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4686 MySpace Sucide Trial Explores Cyberlaw Issues http://www.gigalaw.com/news/2008/11/myspace-sucide-trial-explores-cyberlaw.html Shared item
  • Read the article: E-Commerce Times


    • Tags: myspace mother trial foundation legal ]]>
  • Read the article: E-Commerce Times


    • Tags: myspace mother trial foundation legal ]]>     Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:10:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4672     Jury in MySpace Cyberbullying Trial Might Not Be Told Of Teen's Suicide http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wired27b/~3/450020808/suicide-evidenc.html Shared item Myspace_case A federal judge in Los Angeles is considering whether to prohibit evidence of a Missouri teen's suicide from being introduced in the trial of a woman charged with creating a MySpace account that was allegedly used to harass the teen.

    U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said on Monday that he believed the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier was irrelevant to charges that 49-year-old Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Missouri, violated MySpace's terms of service in allegedly conspiring with two accomplices to set up an account that was used to bully Meier. Wu said he thought a discussion of Meier's suicide would unfairly prejudice the jury, according to an Associated Press report.

    Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized access to computers after allegedly creating a MySpace account for a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans."

    Drew and two co-conspirators allegedly provided fake information to MySpace to set up and maintain the account in 2006. The Evans account was used to flirt with and befriend Meier, who'd had a falling-out with Drew's daughter.

    The fake "Josh" ultimately turned on Meier and told the girl that the world would be a better place without her. Meier already suffered from clinical depression, and shortly after that final message she hanged herself in her bedroom.

    Drew has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has maintained that she didn't write the messages that were sent to Meier. A 19-year-old employee of Drew has admitted that she sent the final message that Meier receivedbefore killing herself.

    Lori_drew_3
    Lori Drew is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

    MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors maintain.

    The use of the anti-hacking law to charge Drew was criticized by experts who said it set a dangerous precedentthat could potentially make a felon out of anyone who violated the terms of service of any website -- a prospect that is particularly troubling, they said, because terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, are often arbitrarily and unilaterally changed by companies, and are rarely read by users.

    Judge Hu told prosecutors on Monday that he was leaning toward excluding evidence of Meier's suicide but would rule on Friday.

    Drew's defense attorney attempted last week to have the case decided by a judge rather than have his client face a jury, but prosecutors blocked that move. Jury selection will begin next week.

    (Top image: Tina Meier holds two pictures of her daughter Megan. AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

    See Also:




    Tags: meier drew myspace suicide case ]]>     Myspace_case A federal judge in Los Angeles is considering whether to prohibit evidence of a Missouri teen's suicide from being introduced in the trial of a woman charged with creating a MySpace account that was allegedly used to harass the teen.

    U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said on Monday that he believed the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier was irrelevant to charges that 49-year-old Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Missouri, violated MySpace's terms of service in allegedly conspiring with two accomplices to set up an account that was used to bully Meier. Wu said he thought a discussion of Meier's suicide would unfairly prejudice the jury, according to an Associated Press report.

    Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized access to computers after allegedly creating a MySpace account for a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans."

    Drew and two co-conspirators allegedly provided fake information to MySpace to set up and maintain the account in 2006. The Evans account was used to flirt with and befriend Meier, who'd had a falling-out with Drew's daughter.

    The fake "Josh" ultimately turned on Meier and told the girl that the world would be a better place without her. Meier already suffered from clinical depression, and shortly after that final message she hanged herself in her bedroom.

    Drew has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and has maintained that she didn't write the messages that were sent to Meier. A 19-year-old employee of Drew has admitted that she sent the final message that Meier receivedbefore killing herself.

    Lori_drew_3
    Lori Drew is charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

    MySpace's user agreement requires registrants, among other things, to provide factual information about themselves and to refrain from soliciting personal information from minors or using information obtained from MySpace services to harass or harm other people. By allegedly violating that click-to-agree contract, Drew committed the same crime as any hacker, prosecutors maintain.

    The use of the anti-hacking law to charge Drew was criticized by experts who said it set a dangerous precedentthat could potentially make a felon out of anyone who violated the terms of service of any website -- a prospect that is particularly troubling, they said, because terms-of-service agreements sometimes contain onerous provisions, are often arbitrarily and unilaterally changed by companies, and are rarely read by users.

    Judge Hu told prosecutors on Monday that he was leaning toward excluding evidence of Meier's suicide but would rule on Friday.

    Drew's defense attorney attempted last week to have the case decided by a judge rather than have his client face a jury, but prosecutors blocked that move. Jury selection will begin next week.

    (Top image: Tina Meier holds two pictures of her daughter Megan. AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

    See Also:




    Tags: meier drew myspace suicide case ]]>     Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:51:04 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4658     Linking is Not Defamation in Canada http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Usefulartsus/~3/445267171/ Shared item Last week, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher delivered a landmark decision affirming the use of links in online speech in Canada. It was distinguished in its absolute sensibility.

    Vancouver businessmen Wayne Crookes, once an important federal Green Party of Canada official, sued Jon Newton, the operator of p2p.net, for linking to four articles that Crookes alleged were defamatory.

    In Crookes v Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 2008 BCSC 1424, Justice Kelleher ruled that a simple link to a defamatory article this does not amount to republication. The defamation was contained in the article, not in the simple act of pointing to it.

    Justice Kelleher's ruling drew a parellel between links and footnotes in printed articles.

    Although a hyperlink provides immediate access to material published on another website, this does not amount to republication of the content on the originating site. This is especially so as a reader may or may not follow the hyperlinks provided.

    Further, he recognized that link text could support defamation, but that simple linking does not.

    It is not my decision that hyperlinking can never make a person liable for the contents of the remote site. For example, if Mr. Newton had written the truth about Wayne Crookes is found here and here is hyperlinked to the specific defamatory words, this might lead to a different conclusion.

    Linking is a footnote; it is a signpost pointing to a viewable object. I'm glad to see it supported as part of Canadian free speech. I'm also glad to see that the few websites with policies asserting they can prevent other sites from referencing them through links receive ridicule for their attempts to govern references to them.

    As Mr. Newton noted, They're links, the genius of the Net. Allowing the public to refer to publically posted materials with links affirms a rudimentary function of the web.

    ShareThis



    Tags: links linking crookes simple defamatory ]]>    Last week, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kelleher delivered a landmark decision affirming the use of links in online speech in Canada. It was distinguished in its absolute sensibility.

    Vancouver businessmen Wayne Crookes, once an important federal Green Party of Canada official, sued Jon Newton, the operator of p2p.net, for linking to four articles that Crookes alleged were defamatory.

    In Crookes v Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 2008 BCSC 1424, Justice Kelleher ruled that a simple link to a defamatory article this does not amount to republication. The defamation was contained in the article, not in the simple act of pointing to it.

    Justice Kelleher's ruling drew a parellel between links and footnotes in printed articles.

    Although a hyperlink provides immediate access to material published on another website, this does not amount to republication of the content on the originating site. This is especially so as a reader may or may not follow the hyperlinks provided.

    Further, he recognized that link text could support defamation, but that simple linking does not.

    It is not my decision that hyperlinking can never make a person liable for the contents of the remote site. For example, if Mr. Newton had written the truth about Wayne Crookes is found here and here is hyperlinked to the specific defamatory words, this might lead to a different conclusion.

    Linking is a footnote; it is a signpost pointing to a viewable object. I'm glad to see it supported as part of Canadian free speech. I'm also glad to see that the few websites with policies asserting they can prevent other sites from referencing them through links receive ridicule for their attempts to govern references to them.

    As Mr. Newton noted, They're links, the genius of the Net. Allowing the public to refer to publically posted materials with links affirms a rudimentary function of the web.

    ShareThis



    Tags: links linking crookes simple defamatory ]]>     Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:52:50 -0500 tag:croncast.com,4632     September 2008 Quick Links, Part 2 http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/10/september_2008_1.htm Shared item By Eric Goldman

    Copyrights

    * In the Harry Potter fair use case, the court declared that the Lexicon encyclopedia isn't fair use.

    * The judge declared a mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case.

    * Designer Skin v. S&L Vitamins has reached its denouement. Previous blog coverage of the case (1, 2). In the prior ruling, the judge denied the plaintiff damages for the copyright infringement. In the final ruling, the court enjoins cutting and pasting product shots but allows the defendant to recreate the product shots. Ronald Coleman has more here and here (noting that the court says that, per MercExchange, an injunction does not automatically follow from a finding of copyright infringement).

    * Wired's 5 year retrospective on the RIAA's litigation campaign against file sharing.

    Social Networking Sites, Blogs and Online Publishing

    * J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain School Dist., 2008 WL 4279517 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2008). Upholding student discipline for creating a fake MySpace page of principal. The school initially based the discipline on the student infringing copyright (by cutting and pasting the principal's photo) but this aspect of the case wasn't mentioned at all in the court's reasoning.

    * O.Z. v. Board of Trustees of Long Beach Unified School Dist., 2008 WL 4396895 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 9, 2008). Two seventh graders make a video about killing their teacher, described as:

    The slide show is essentially a dramatization of the murder of Mrs. Rosenlof. The first slide photo states, "Mrs. Rosenlof dies." Throughout the slide show there are photos of Plaintiff dressed up in a costume, depicting a woman meant to resemble Mrs. Rosenlof. There is red text on each slide photo that describes the scene. One slide says, "Jelly Donut's knife: haha fat bastard. here i come!" In this same photo, the viewer can see a butcher knife lunging at Mrs. Rosenlof's character from the camera's point of view. The butcher knife is then laid on the fallen victim while the text reads, "hehehe. i'm a shank yoooooooooo!" At the end of the slide show, it reads, "your [sic] dead, BITCH! :D".

    I think they thought it was funny, but no one else did. One of them posted the video to YouTube. It's unclear what happens to the poster, but the co-content creator was suspended and forced to transfer to another school for her eighth grade. In this case, her TRO request is denied, even if she didn't intend the video to be publicly distributed and even if the video was not a "true threat."

    * Spanierman v. Hughes, 2008 WL 4224483 (D. Conn. Sept 16, 2008). Teacher who was fired for inappropriate MySpace communications with students can't sue the school.

    * An encouraging update on the Lori Drew prosecution.

    * Bill McGeveran on Facebook Beacon and legal liability.

    * Good NYT article on the sociology of Facebook and Twitter.

    * Sam Bayard on an interesting but confusing ruling from Montana on its shield law applied to anonymous online posters.

    * Verdana Partners v. Giles. Online newspaper wins anti-SLAPP claim.

    * Jardin v. Datallegro, Inc., 2008 WL 4104473 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 3, 2008). A litigant's taking down a blog post and its comments is not destruction of evidence.

    * Nemet Chevrolet has appealed its 230 loss. Previous blog coverage.

    * Do Facebook's anti-spam policies overregulate Facebook's power users?



    Tags: slide school case court facebook ]]>    By Eric Goldman

    Copyrights

    * In the Harry Potter fair use case, the court declared that the Lexicon encyclopedia isn't fair use.

    * The judge declared a mistrial in the Jammie Thomas case.

    * Designer Skin v. S&L Vitamins has reached its denouement. Previous blog coverage of the case (1, 2). In the prior ruling, the judge denied the plaintiff damages for the copyright infringement. In the final ruling, the court enjoins cutting and pasting product shots but allows the defendant to recreate the product shots. Ronald Coleman has more here and here (noting that the court says that, per MercExchange, an injunction does not automatically follow from a finding of copyright infringement).

    * Wired's 5 year retrospective on the RIAA's litigation campaign against file sharing.

    Social Networking Sites, Blogs and Online Publishing

    * J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain School Dist., 2008 WL 4279517 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2008). Upholding student discipline for creating a fake MySpace page of principal. The school initially based the discipline on the student infringing copyright (by cutting and pasting the principal's photo) but this aspect of the case wasn't mentioned at all in the court's reasoning.

    * O.Z. v. Board of Trustees of Long Beach Unified School Dist., 2008 WL 4396895 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 9, 2008). Two seventh graders make a video about killing their teacher, described as:

    The slide show is essentially a dramatization of the murder of Mrs. Rosenlof. The first slide photo states, "Mrs. Rosenlof dies." Throughout the slide show there are photos of Plaintiff dressed up in a costume, depicting a woman meant to resemble Mrs. Rosenlof. There is red text on each slide photo that describes the scene. One slide says, "Jelly Donut's knife: haha fat bastard. here i come!" In this same photo, the viewer can see a butcher knife lunging at Mrs. Rosenlof's character from the camera's point of view. The butcher knife is then laid on the fallen victim while the text reads, "hehehe. i'm a shank yoooooooooo!" At the end of the slide show, it reads, "your [sic] dead, BITCH! :D".

    I think they thought it was funny, but no one else did. One of them posted the video to YouTube. It's unclear what happens to the poster, but the co-content creator was suspended and forced to transfer to another school for her eighth grade. In this case, her TRO request is denied, even if she didn't intend the video to be publicly distributed and even if the video was not a "true threat."

    * Spanierman v. Hughes, 2008 WL 4224483 (D. Conn. Sept 16, 2008). Teacher who was fired for inappropriate MySpace communications with students can't sue the school.

    * An encouraging update on the Lori Drew prosecution.

    * Bill McGeveran on Facebook Beacon and legal liability.

    * Good NYT article on the sociology of Facebook and Twitter.

    * Sam Bayard on an interesting but confusing ruling from Montana on its shield law applied to anonymous online posters.

    * Verdana Partners v. Giles. Online newspaper wins anti-SLAPP claim.

    * Jardin v. Datallegro, Inc., 2008 WL 4104473 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 3, 2008). A litigant's taking down a blog post and its comments is not destruction of evidence.

    * Nemet Chevrolet has appealed its 230 loss. Previous blog coverage.

    * Do Facebook's anti-spam policies overregulate Facebook's power users?



    Tags: slide school case court facebook ]]>     Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:49:14 -0400 tag:croncast.com,4521     The Declining Value Of Redundant News Content On The Web http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Media20Workgroup/~3/284477305/ Shared item Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it's a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I've reproduced about ten percent of them below just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:

    UPDATE: The Google News example is reproduced here instead. You're reading this in RSS or email a day after I posted it because this post was so large it broke my Feedburner feed. Too much content breaks the web there you have it. Keep reading for my original argument.

    If you've made it this far, you may have noticed the absence of blogs from the sources. So this is far from a representative sample of all of the websites that published a version of this news story.

    Let's check out Techmeme, again reproduced in its entirety, because seeing is disbelieving:

    Yahoo!:
    Yahoo! Issues Statement in Response to Microsoft SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company issued the following statement today in response to Microsoft Corporation's announcement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    RELATED:

    Microsoft:
    Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo! Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
    MicroHoo: The Odd Couple Meetings Led Nowhere After today's events, I guess you could say Yahoo and Microsoft tried, holding a series of meetings about a possible takeover that ended up proving exactly how incompatible the companies were. Kind of like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but not funny in any way at all.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
    OK, so what's Microsoft's plan B? With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like. Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    DealBook:
    Guessing Yahoo's Opening Stock Price Well, Yahoo seems to have gotten what it wanted. The company managed to fend off Microsoft's unwanted advances, even after the software giant sweetened its bid by $5 billion an amount Yahoo felt still wasn't enough.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Wall Street Journal:
    Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Offer After Attempt to Bridge Gap in Price Microsoft Corp. said it abandoned its offer for Yahoo Inc., as the two companies failed to bridge a gap between them on price. Microsoft Saturday released a letter from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:
    Report: A peek behind the Yahoo-Microsoft meltdown Curious how Microsoft's multi-multi-multi-billion dollar buyout bid for Yahoo sputtered, then crashed? Kara Swisher's BoomTown column in All Things Digital has an interesting account of the missteps, sidesteps

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
    Yahoo's Nightmare Scenario: I'm From Google and I'm Here to Help! Here's what a top-notch source at Yahoo joked to me tonight, after Microsoft walked away from its unsolicited takeover bid to acquire the long-troubled Internet giant. Google is now officially our best friend. Oh no.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: Groundswell

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Yahoo's Tough Week Ahead At around 4:30 California time today news broke that Microsoft has formally withdrawn its offer to acquire Yahoo (see Ballmer's email to Microsoft employees here). Among other things, that ends a three month stock party where the market value of Yahoo jumped

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Yi-Wyn Yen / Fortune:
    Blame it on Google Microsoft CEO Ballmer said the software giant decided to walk away from a bid because Yahoo would become undesirable' if it formed an alliance with Google. (Fortune) Google proved to be the final straw that broke Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's back.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: MacDailyNews and CNNMoney.com

    Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
    Analysis of the Microsoft Decision, Plus Yahoo's Hari-Kari Here is my first-cut analysis of what has happened here: On the friendly front, Yahoo drew a hard line at $37 per share, well above the $33 that Microsoft now says it told Yahoo this week it was willing to go

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: broadstuff

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Email From Steve Ballmer To All Microsoft Employees The following email was sent to all Microsoft employees from CEO Steve Ballmer at 5:17 pm PDT (see Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal): To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal (Updated)
    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten / The Next Web: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo deal

    Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
    Microsoft pulls its Yahoo offer
    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Kara Swisher / BoomTo

    Tags:     microsoft yahoo news google discussion ]]>Microsoft withdrawing its offer to buy Yahoo is a sufficiently large story to demonstrate the problem of redundant news content on the web. Google News is currently tracking about 2,000 versions of this story. To get a better sense of why it's a problem to have 2,000 stories about the SAME THING, I've reproduced about ten percent of them below just the headlines and ledes. If you have the stomach to scroll through them all to see what else I have to say about it, check out the sources as you scroll:

    UPDATE: The Google News example is reproduced here instead. You're reading this in RSS or email a day after I posted it because this post was so large it broke my Feedburner feed. Too much content breaks the web there you have it. Keep reading for my original argument.

    If you've made it this far, you may have noticed the absence of blogs from the sources. So this is far from a representative sample of all of the websites that published a version of this news story.

    Let's check out Techmeme, again reproduced in its entirety, because seeing is disbelieving:

    Yahoo!:
    Yahoo! Issues Statement in Response to Microsoft SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company issued the following statement today in response to Microsoft Corporation's announcement that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo!:

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    RELATED:

    Microsoft:
    Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo! Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
    MicroHoo: The Odd Couple Meetings Led Nowhere After today's events, I guess you could say Yahoo and Microsoft tried, holding a series of meetings about a possible takeover that ended up proving exactly how incompatible the companies were. Kind of like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but not funny in any way at all.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
    OK, so what's Microsoft's plan B? With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like. Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    DealBook:
    Guessing Yahoo's Opening Stock Price Well, Yahoo seems to have gotten what it wanted. The company managed to fend off Microsoft's unwanted advances, even after the software giant sweetened its bid by $5 billion an amount Yahoo felt still wasn't enough.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Wall Street Journal:
    Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Offer After Attempt to Bridge Gap in Price Microsoft Corp. said it abandoned its offer for Yahoo Inc., as the two companies failed to bridge a gap between them on price. Microsoft Saturday released a letter from Chief Executive Steve Ballmer

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:
    Report: A peek behind the Yahoo-Microsoft meltdown Curious how Microsoft's multi-multi-multi-billion dollar buyout bid for Yahoo sputtered, then crashed? Kara Swisher's BoomTown column in All Things Digital has an interesting account of the missteps, sidesteps

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
    Yahoo's Nightmare Scenario: I'm From Google and I'm Here to Help! Here's what a top-notch source at Yahoo joked to me tonight, after Microsoft walked away from its unsolicited takeover bid to acquire the long-troubled Internet giant. Google is now officially our best friend. Oh no.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: Groundswell

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Yahoo's Tough Week Ahead At around 4:30 California time today news broke that Microsoft has formally withdrawn its offer to acquire Yahoo (see Ballmer's email to Microsoft employees here). Among other things, that ends a three month stock party where the market value of Yahoo jumped

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Yi-Wyn Yen / Fortune:
    Blame it on Google Microsoft CEO Ballmer said the software giant decided to walk away from a bid because Yahoo would become undesirable' if it formed an alliance with Google. (Fortune) Google proved to be the final straw that broke Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's back.

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: MacDailyNews and CNNMoney.com

    Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
    Analysis of the Microsoft Decision, Plus Yahoo's Hari-Kari Here is my first-cut analysis of what has happened here: On the friendly front, Yahoo drew a hard line at $37 per share, well above the $33 that Microsoft now says it told Yahoo this week it was willing to go

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion: broadstuff

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Email From Steve Ballmer To All Microsoft Employees The following email was sent to all Microsoft employees from CEO Steve Ballmer at 5:17 pm PDT (see Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal): To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)

    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
    Breaking: Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid; Walks Away From Deal (Updated)
    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten / The Next Web: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo deal

    Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
    Microsoft pulls its Yahoo offer
    Link Search: Ask, Technorati, Sphere, Google, and IceRocket

    Discussion:

    Kara Swisher / BoomTo

    Tags:     microsoft yahoo news google discussion ]]> Mon, 05 May 2008 04:21:15 -0400 tag:croncast.com,3967 New Digg algorithm angers the social masses [Digg] http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/valleywag/full/~3/222086001/new-digg-algorithm-angers-the-social-masses Shared item digg-logo.jpgYesterday, Digg went down for an hour in the middle of the day. Initially we thought it was an unplanned outage, but it turns out that a number of changes were made to the algorithm that controls what stories are "promoted" to the front page. The changes have started a mini-revolt among the top submitters that is reminiscent of the community uprising over the HD-DVD unlock code last year. We talked to several top diggers to find out what changed, why they're upset, and we have our own theory for why the changes were made.

    The main change affects "top diggers," the few submitters who contribute a huge percentage of the stories that make the Digg front page. These users, who have all submitted thousands of stories each, submit more than 10 percent of stories that make the front page of Digg. Muhammad Saleem -- known as msaleem on Digg -- has submitted 1,201 articles that eventually made the front page. He tells Valleywag that prior to the algorithm change, it would take him between 110 and 130 Diggs for a submitted story to make the front page. Now, it can take more than 200.

    A top digger submits a story, it gets 100 diggs and then sits there in upcoming queue for 8 to 10 hours getting 180-190 votes and not being promoted to the front page. Other stories with 40 votes (from newbie users) get promoted from under you. Everyone loses. Good content submitted by top users is doomed to fail.
    highdiggnopromoteedit.pngAnother top digger, MrBabyMan is frustrated as well.
    It seems a fairly transparent strategy to clean house of the submitters who have been dominating the front page for a while now. Essentially [they] adjusted the diversity factor to skew against popular submitters. Digg-critical stories are frequently buried before they ever reach the front page.
    The lack of transparency at Digg has been criticized before. Diggs (votes for a story) are public, but buries (votes against a story) are not. Rumors abound of "bury brigades" which mass bury articles they disagree with -- stories about a particular political candidate or written by a particular website, for example. The constantly changing Digg algorithm has never been made public, though guesses have been made as to what it contains.

    Our theory? Digg is attempting to throttle the number of stories that make the front page. As more and more stories get promoted to the front page of Digg -- FP'd, in Digg-lingo -- stories spend less time in the spotlight. By increasing the number of votes it takes for a story to make the front page, turnover should decrease.

    I also spoke to Drew Curtis, proprietor of Fark.com, a semi-competitor of Digg's, about the changes.

    Fark is a benevolent dictatorship or as I like to call it, a house party. You can come in and have a good time with the rest of us but if you shit on the floors and tell me my sense of decor sucks and the beer is awful, you're gone.

    Digg is like Student Government on any given campus. It's a full-blown governmental institution completely ignored by the administrators, created for the appearance of having a say in what's going on. No wonder there is chaos. Or maybe it's more like Soviet Russia, where you're told you've got freedom and a voice and can make a difference, but you really can't do shit.

    Digg's trying to do one of two things, either improve the quality of submissions or drive the pageviews up. I would suspect the latter, once VC gets involved it's all about the money.Digg founder Kevin Rose posted on the Digg Blog about the recent changes, saying "as we point out in our FAQ, occasionally you will see stories in the upcoming section with 100+ Diggs - this is evidence of our promotion algorithm hard at work. One of the keys to getting a story promoted is diversity in Digging activity. When the algorithm gets the diversity it needs, it will promote a story form the Upcoming section to the home page."

    But Kevin, why won't you make these algorithm changes transparent? Why won't you make public who buries the stories? Why do you refuse to acknowledge the existence of moderators manipulating stories behind the scenes? Isn't "social media" about openness and transparency? Fark has never pretended to be open. There is editorial control behind every story that makes it to the front page.

    If there continues to be manipulation and big brother-esque control behind the iron curtain of Digg, the users may soon give up and look for social news elsewhere, taking their page views with them.

    I attempted to reach Digg CEO Jay Adelson and founder Kevin Rose via email. Rose was in a meeting at the time, and has not gotten back to me yet.




    Tags: digg page stories front story ]]>digg-logo.jpgYesterday, Digg went down for an hour in the middle of the day. Initially we thought it was an unplanned outage, but it turns out that a number of changes were made to the algorithm that controls what stories are "promoted" to the front page. The changes have started a mini-revolt among the top submitters that is reminiscent of the community uprising over the HD-DVD unlock code last year. We talked to several top diggers to find out what changed, why they're upset, and we have our own theory for why the changes were made.

    The main change affects "top diggers," the few submitters who contribute a huge percentage of the stories that make the Digg front page. These users, who have all submitted thousands of stories each, submit more than 10 percent of stories that make the front page of Digg. Muhammad Saleem -- known as msaleem on Digg -- has submitted 1,201 articles that eventually made the front page. He tells Valleywag that prior to the algorithm change, it would take him between 110 and 130 Diggs for a submitted story to make the front page. Now, it can take more than 200.

    A top digger submits a story, it gets 100 diggs and then sits there in upcoming queue for 8 to 10 hours getting 180-190 votes and not being promoted to the front page. Other stories with 40 votes (from newbie users) get promoted from under you. Everyone loses. Good content submitted by top users is doomed to fail.
    highdiggnopromoteedit.pngAnother top digger, MrBabyMan is frustrated as well.
    It seems a fairly transparent strategy to clean house of the submitters who have been dominating the front page for a while now. Essentially [they] adjusted the diversity factor to skew against popular submitters. Digg-critical stories are frequently buried before they ever reach the front page.
    The lack of transparency at Digg has been criticized before. Diggs (votes for a story) are public, but buries (votes against a story) are not. Rumors abound of "bury brigades" which mass bury articles they disagree with -- stories about a particular political candidate or written by a particular website, for example. The constantly changing Digg algorithm has never been made public, though guesses have been made as to what it contains.

    Our theory? Digg is attempting to throttle the number of stories that make the front page. As more and more stories get promoted to the front page of Digg -- FP'd, in Digg-lingo -- stories spend less time in the spotlight. By increasing the number of votes it takes for a story to make the front page, turnover should decrease.

    I also spoke to Drew Curtis, proprietor of Fark.com, a semi-competitor of Digg's, about the changes.

    Fark is a benevolent dictatorship or as I like to call it, a house party. You can come in and have a good time with the rest of us but if you shit on the floors and tell me my sense of decor sucks and the beer is awful, you're gone.

    Digg is like Student Government on any given campus. It's a full-blown governmental institution completely ignored by the administrators, created for the appearance of having a say in what's going on. No wonder there is chaos. Or maybe it's more like Soviet Russia, where you're told you've got freedom and a voice and can make a difference, but you really can't do shit.

    Digg's trying to do one of two things, either improve the quality of submissions or drive the pageviews up. I would suspect the latter, once VC gets involved it's all about the money.Digg founder Kevin Rose posted on the Digg Blog about the recent changes, saying "as we point out in our FAQ, occasionally you will see stories in the upcoming section with 100+ Diggs - this is evidence of our promotion algorithm hard at work. One of the keys to getting a story promoted is diversity in Digging activity. When the algorithm gets the diversity it needs, it will promote a story form the Upcoming section to the home page."

    But Kevin, why won't you make these algorithm changes transparent? Why won't you make public who buries the stories? Why do you refuse to acknowledge the existence of moderators manipulating stories behind the scenes? Isn't "social media" about openness and transparency? Fark has never pretended to be open. There is editorial control behind every story that makes it to the front page.

    If there continues to be manipulation and big brother-esque control behind the iron curtain of Digg, the users may soon give up and look for social news elsewhere, taking their page views with them.

    I attempted to reach Digg CEO Jay Adelson and founder Kevin Rose via email. Rose was in a meeting at the time, and has not gotten back to me yet.




    Tags: digg page stories front story ]]>     Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:47:37 -0500 tag:croncast.com,3211 Drew's 'normal life' http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/739552,4_1_JO14_PETERSON_S1.article Shared item


    Tags: drew frenzy hinted front recently ]]>


    Tags: drew frenzy hinted front recently ]]>     Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:00:35 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2955     Big Executive Shakeup at Conde Nast http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/mixedmedia/~3/212764475/big-executive-shakeup-at-conde-nast Shared item There's a big shakeup underway at Conde Nast Publications, home to Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and -- hi there! -- Portfolio.

    Mitch Fox, group president overseeing the Golf and Fairchild Fashion groups, is out. The only real surprise is that it didn't happen sooner: A year ago, I heard, and reported, overwhelming chatter that Fox would be removed before the end of January 2007. (For some reason, Conde Nast always seems to do this sort of thing in January.) But he reached some sort of accommodation, involving visits to a career coach, that allowed him to keep his job.

    Well, so much for the coach. Now Fox's fiefdom is being divvied up. The Golf Publications will henceforth report to Portfolio's publisher and president, David Carey, according to WWD. I haven't seen any explanation of what happens to the Fashion group (whose flagship property is WWD), but Jon Fine says Vogue publisher Tom Florio is in line for "additional responsibilities," so I'm guessing that will be added to his slate. (UPDATE: No, as you see below, Florio's promotion is the addition of Teen Vogue to his portfolio; the Fashion group will now report directly to CEO Chuck Townsend.)

    Accompanying all this is a flurry of moves at the publisher level, including the departure of Lucky's Sandy Golinkin.


    UPDATE, 2:36 p.m.: Here's the internal announcement from Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend:

    I am pleased to announce the appointments of three new Senior Vice Presidents and several important executive changes. This is an exciting time for our organization and these changes in the management structure will serve to position us for many years of continued growth.

    Tom Florio, currently Publishing Director of Vogue, Men's Vogue and Vogue Living is named Senior Vice President and will now lead the Teen Vogue publishing business in addition to his current responsibilities. Tom has done an extraordinary job building the Vogue franchise in the marketplace, and it makes sense that his group should evolve to include Teen Vogue.


    Bill Wackermann, currently Vice President and Publisher of Glamour, will now add the oversight of the Bridal Group to his responsibilities and is being promoted to Senior Vice President, Publishing Director. Under Bill's direction Glamour magazine has resonated in the ad community as an important vehicle to reach American women, and we look forward to him leveraging his talent and experience at Brides, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, Brides.com and the regional and special issue bridal publications.

    Lou Cona has been named Senior Vice President of the Conde Nast Media Group. Reporting to Richard Beckman, Lou will now oversee all of the Media Group's sales and marketing teams. Given Lou's success at two of our high profile magazines--Vanity Fair and The New Yorker --we anticipate great results as he expands his expertise to the CNMG, where he can influence all of our titles.

    It also gives me great pleasure to announce the following:

    Drew Schutte has been named V.P. and Publishing Director of The New Yorker. In his eight-year run as Publisher and Publishing Director of Wired and Wired Media, Drew has presided over the franchise's advertising growth, as well as the effective integration of Wired magazine and WiredNews.com. We have great confidence that he will take The New Yorker and TNY.com to new heights.

    Gina Sanders has been named V.P. and Publisher of Lucky. We applaud Gina's efforts in leading Teen Vogue from launch to profitability and look forward to her stewardship of Lucky as it grows in both financial and editorial significance to our Company. Tom Florio will name a Publisher of Teen Vogue in the coming weeks.

    David Carey, Group President & Publishing Director will now oversee Wired Media and The Golf Digest Group in addition to CN Portfolio. We recognize the natural synergy that exists among these brands in the advertising community, and David has established himself as an accomplished executive in this arena.

    As part of the restructuring, Mitch Fox, Amy Churgin and Sandy Golinkin will be leaving the Company. We are grateful to them for the numerous contributions they have made to our magazines and to our Company over the course of their tenure.

    Please join me in congratulating Tom, Bill, Lou, Drew, Gina, and David on their new positions and in wishing Mitch, Amy and Sandy all the best in their future endeavors.


    Related Links
    Conde Nast Mercy-Kills 'House & Garden'
    Fashion Breakfast
    The Takeaway: 'House & Garden' Folds



    Tags: vogue group publisher president publishing ]]>    There's a big shakeup underway at Conde Nast Publications, home to Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and -- hi there! -- Portfolio.

    Mitch Fox, group president overseeing the Golf and Fairchild Fashion groups, is out. The only real surprise is that it didn't happen sooner: A year ago, I heard, and reported, overwhelming chatter that Fox would be removed before the end of January 2007. (For some reason, Conde Nast always seems to do this sort of thing in January.) But he reached some sort of accommodation, involving visits to a career coach, that allowed him to keep his job.

    Well, so much for the coach. Now Fox's fiefdom is being divvied up. The Golf Publications will henceforth report to Portfolio's publisher and president, David Carey, according to WWD. I haven't seen any explanation of what happens to the Fashion group (whose flagship property is WWD), but Jon Fine says Vogue publisher Tom Florio is in line for "additional responsibilities," so I'm guessing that will be added to his slate. (UPDATE: No, as you see below, Florio's promotion is the addition of Teen Vogue to his portfolio; the Fashion group will now report directly to CEO Chuck Townsend.)

    Accompanying all this is a flurry of moves at the publisher level, including the departure of Lucky's Sandy Golinkin.


    UPDATE, 2:36 p.m.: Here's the internal announcement from Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend:

    I am pleased to announce the appointments of three new Senior Vice Presidents and several important executive changes. This is an exciting time for our organization and these changes in the management structure will serve to position us for many years of continued growth.

    Tom Florio, currently Publishing Director of Vogue, Men's Vogue and Vogue Living is named Senior Vice President and will now lead the Teen Vogue publishing business in addition to his current responsibilities. Tom has done an extraordinary job building the Vogue franchise in the marketplace, and it makes sense that his group should evolve to include Teen Vogue.


    Bill Wackermann, currently Vice President and Publisher of Glamour, will now add the oversight of the Bridal Group to his responsibilities and is being promoted to Senior Vice President, Publishing Director. Under Bill's direction Glamour magazine has resonated in the ad community as an important vehicle to reach American women, and we look forward to him leveraging his talent and experience at Brides, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride, Brides.com and the regional and special issue bridal publications.

    Lou Cona has been named Senior Vice President of the Conde Nast Media Group. Reporting to Richard Beckman, Lou will now oversee all of the Media Group's sales and marketing teams. Given Lou's success at two of our high profile magazines--Vanity Fair and The New Yorker --we anticipate great results as he expands his expertise to the CNMG, where he can influence all of our titles.

    It also gives me great pleasure to announce the following:

    Drew Schutte has been named V.P. and Publishing Director of The New Yorker. In his eight-year run as Publisher and Publishing Director of Wired and Wired Media, Drew has presided over the franchise's advertising growth, as well as the effective integration of Wired magazine and WiredNews.com. We have great confidence that he will take The New Yorker and TNY.com to new heights.

    Gina Sanders has been named V.P. and Publisher of Lucky. We applaud Gina's efforts in leading Teen Vogue from launch to profitability and look forward to her stewardship of Lucky as it grows in both financial and editorial significance to our Company. Tom Florio will name a Publisher of Teen Vogue in the coming weeks.

    David Carey, Group President & Publishing Director will now oversee Wired Media and The Golf Digest Group in addition to CN Portfolio. We recognize the natural synergy that exists among these brands in the advertising community, and David has established himself as an accomplished executive in this arena.

    As part of the restructuring, Mitch Fox, Amy Churgin and Sandy Golinkin will be leaving the Company. We are grateful to them for the numerous contributions they have made to our magazines and to our Company over the course of their tenure.

    Please join me in congratulating Tom, Bill, Lou, Drew, Gina, and David on their new positions and in wishing Mitch, Amy and Sandy all the best in their future endeavors.


    Related Links
    Conde Nast Mercy-Kills 'House & Garden'
    Fashion Breakfast
    The Takeaway: 'House & Garden' Folds



    Tags: vogue group publisher president publishing ]]>     Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:44:57 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2748     The Best Equity is Sweat Equity http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/01/02/the-best-equity-is-sweat-equity/ Shared item Sweat Equity is the best equity!


    The Rules of Success

    As MicroSolutions became more and more successful, and as I paid attention to the common traits of businesses that I saw succeed and those I saw fail, I came to realize that there are "Rules of Success" that I saw in companies that excelled. Where companies failed to follow those rules, inevitably, they failed. I found myself checking with "My Rules" before I made decisions. When I traded stocks or considered investments in companies, I applied The Rules to their business before I made a decision.

    The Rules are not infallible. They have their limits. I'm an entrepreneur. My businesses have had hundreds and now more than a thousand employees. My world has been limited to starting, building, growing and running businesses that are never going to make the Fortune 500. My dreams were never to build the biggest corporation in the world. So, if you are a middle level manager in a Fortune 500 company, these rules may not help you manage your department. If you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company with tens of thousands of employees, some rules will apply, some won't, but where they will help you is to know how little guys coming out of nowhere are going to disrupt your business.

    Where The Rules will help you is if you are considering starting, or currently run your own business. There are always exceptions to any rules, but I can assure you that those exceptions will be rare. Entrepreneurs that don't follow the rules are far more likely to fail. There is no doubt about it.

    So let's start at the beginning.

    Rule #1: Sweat Equity is the best start up capital.

    The best businesses in recent entrepreneurial history are those that have been started with little or no money. Dell Computer, MicroSoft, Apple, HP and tens of thousands of others started in dorm rooms, tiny offices or garages. There weren't 100 page long business plans. In all of my businesses, I started by putting together spreadsheets of my expenses, which allowed me to calculate how much revenue I needed to break even and keep the lights on in my office and my apartment. I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition and why my product and/or service would be important to my customers, and why they should buy or use it. All of it on a piece of yellow paper or in a word processing file, and none of it cost me more than the diet soda I was drinking while I was writing it up.

    I remember the foundation for each of my businesses. MicroSolutions was very simple. To use microcomputers and software to help our customers become more productive, profitable and gain a competitive advantage. AudioNet, which became broadcast.com was simple as well: use the internet to enable real-time, worldwide communications of entertainment and business applications. HDNet is to create great entertainment, originated in High Definition format to allow our distributors to compete for the highest margin customers.

    Once I could put the idea on paper, I gave the company a name. From there, I took the most important steps: I tried to find people to shoot holes in it. When we started AudioNet, I remember getting an appointment with Drew Marcus of Alex Brown (it could have been Larry, but I think it was drew :), an investment banking company. Drew followed the radio industry and I wanted to see if there was anything he saw from his experience that would blow up the concept. He loved the idea. We took it to Dan Halliburton of Susquehanna Radio. He was an executive in charge of several Dallas area radio stations. We discussed how he could broadcast his stations over the Internet using AudioNet and reach the in office market where there weren't many radios on desks, and few of those could pick up the AM signal of his stations. He loved it. I took it to Tim and Eric Crown, who ran a newly public company called Insight Enterprises. I asked them if it made sense to broadcast their quarterly earning conference calls over the internet so their investors and the research analysts who followed them could easily listen to the calls and get up to date information, or listen to an archive of the call if they missed it. They thought it would help them reach their Investor Relation goals less expensively.

    Each step cost me next to nothing to get great feedback. Each enabled me to check the foundation of my business idea to see if it was easy to shoot holes in it, and most importantly, they all served as sales calls. Each company eventually became a customer of ours.

    I went through this in each of my businesses. The step gave me confidence that my business idea was valid. That there was a chance of success. At this point, many entrepreneurs think the next step is to take all this feedback, update their 100 page business plans and go out and raise money. It's as if the missing link for success in a business is cash to get started. It's not. Far more often than not, raising cash is the biggest mistake you can make.

    Most entrepreneurs tend to think in terms of what raising money means to them. How it can get them started? How many people they can hire? How much they can spend on office space? How much they can pay themselves? They forget to put themselves in the position of the person or company they are asking for money from. They think they are considering that person's position by making up numbers and calling them expected returns for the investor. If you only give me X dollars, you will get X pct back in X years. You will double or triple your money in X years. Any investor worth anything knows you are just making these numbers up. They are meaningless. Worse, if you tell a savvy investor that the market is X billions of dollars and you just need one or some low percent to make zillions, you are immediately kicked to the curb.

    These investors, including myself, know what you don't, and they are not telling you. The minute you ask for money, you are playing in their game, they aren't playing in yours. You are at a huge disadvantage, and it's only going to get worse if you take their money. The minute you take money, the leverage completely flips to the investor. They control the destiny of your dreams, not you.

    Investors don't care about your dreams and goals. They love that you have them. They love that they motivate you. Investors care about how they are going to get their money back and then some. Family cares about your dreams. Investors care about money. There is a reason why venture capitalists are often referred to as Vulture Capitalists. The minute you slide off course from the promises you made to get the money, your dreams fall in jeopardy. You will find yourself making promises to keep investors at bay. You will find yourself avoiding your investors. Then you will find yourself on the outside looking in. The reality of taking money from non family members is that they are doing it for only one reason, to make more money. If you can't deliver on that promise, you are out. You will be removed from the company you started. You will find someone else running your dream company. If this sounds like a scene out of the Sopranos or an episode you would watch on TV about a loan shark, you are right. The only difference is that it's all legal.

    There are only two reasonable sources of capital for startup entrepreneurs, your own pocket and your customers pockets. I personally would never even take money from a family member. Could you imagine the eternal grief and guilt from your mom, dad, uncle or aunt because you blew your nephews college money or the money for grandmas last vacation... I cant.

    You shouldn't have to take money from anyone. Businesses don't have to start big. The best ones start small enough to suit the circumstances of their founders. I started MicroSolutions by getting an advance from my first customer of $500. The business didn't grow quickly in the first couple years. We didn't grow past 4 people in the first couple years, and we all worked dirt cheap.

    So what's wrong with that? It's OK to start slow. It's ok to grow slow. As much as you want to think that all things would change if you only had more cash available, they probably won't.

    The reality is that for most businesses, they don't need more cash, they need more brains.


    Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments


    Tags: money rules business company businesses ]]>     Sweat Equity is the best equity!


    The Rules of Success

    As MicroSolutions became more and more successful, and as I paid attention to the common traits of businesses that I saw succeed and those I saw fail, I came to realize that there are "Rules of Success" that I saw in companies that excelled. Where companies failed to follow those rules, inevitably, they failed. I found myself checking with "My Rules" before I made decisions. When I traded stocks or considered investments in companies, I applied The Rules to their business before I made a decision.

    The Rules are not infallible. They have their limits. I'm an entrepreneur. My businesses have had hundreds and now more than a thousand employees. My world has been limited to starting, building, growing and running businesses that are never going to make the Fortune 500. My dreams were never to build the biggest corporation in the world. So, if you are a middle level manager in a Fortune 500 company, these rules may not help you manage your department. If you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company with tens of thousands of employees, some rules will apply, some won't, but where they will help you is to know how little guys coming out of nowhere are going to disrupt your business.

    Where The Rules will help you is if you are considering starting, or currently run your own business. There are always exceptions to any rules, but I can assure you that those exceptions will be rare. Entrepreneurs that don't follow the rules are far more likely to fail. There is no doubt about it.

    So let's start at the beginning.

    Rule #1: Sweat Equity is the best start up capital.

    The best businesses in recent entrepreneurial history are those that have been started with little or no money. Dell Computer, MicroSoft, Apple, HP and tens of thousands of others started in dorm rooms, tiny offices or garages. There weren't 100 page long business plans. In all of my businesses, I started by putting together spreadsheets of my expenses, which allowed me to calculate how much revenue I needed to break even and keep the lights on in my office and my apartment. I wrote overviews of what I was selling, why I thought the business made sense, an overview of my competition and why my product and/or service would be important to my customers, and why they should buy or use it. All of it on a piece of yellow paper or in a word processing file, and none of it cost me more than the diet soda I was drinking while I was writing it up.

    I remember the foundation for each of my businesses. MicroSolutions was very simple. To use microcomputers and software to help our customers become more productive, profitable and gain a competitive advantage. AudioNet, which became broadcast.com was simple as well: use the internet to enable real-time, worldwide communications of entertainment and business applications. HDNet is to create great entertainment, originated in High Definition format to allow our distributors to compete for the highest margin customers.

    Once I could put the idea on paper, I gave the company a name. From there, I took the most important steps: I tried to find people to shoot holes in it. When we started AudioNet, I remember getting an appointment with Drew Marcus of Alex Brown (it could have been Larry, but I think it was drew :), an investment banking company. Drew followed the radio industry and I wanted to see if there was anything he saw from his experience that would blow up the concept. He loved the idea. We took it to Dan Halliburton of Susquehanna Radio. He was an executive in charge of several Dallas area radio stations. We discussed how he could broadcast his stations over the Internet using AudioNet and reach the in office market where there weren't many radios on desks, and few of those could pick up the AM signal of his stations. He loved it. I took it to Tim and Eric Crown, who ran a newly public company called Insight Enterprises. I asked them if it made sense to broadcast their quarterly earning conference calls over the internet so their investors and the research analysts who followed them could easily listen to the calls and get up to date information, or listen to an archive of the call if they missed it. They thought it would help them reach their Investor Relation goals less expensively.

    Each step cost me next to nothing to get great feedback. Each enabled me to check the foundation of my business idea to see if it was easy to shoot holes in it, and most importantly, they all served as sales calls. Each company eventually became a customer of ours.

    I went through this in each of my businesses. The step gave me confidence that my business idea was valid. That there was a chance of success. At this point, many entrepreneurs think the next step is to take all this feedback, update their 100 page business plans and go out and raise money. It's as if the missing link for success in a business is cash to get started. It's not. Far more often than not, raising cash is the biggest mistake you can make.

    Most entrepreneurs tend to think in terms of what raising money means to them. How it can get them started? How many people they can hire? How much they can spend on office space? How much they can pay themselves? They forget to put themselves in the position of the person or company they are asking for money from. They think they are considering that person's position by making up numbers and calling them expected returns for the investor. If you only give me X dollars, you will get X pct back in X years. You will double or triple your money in X years. Any investor worth anything knows you are just making these numbers up. They are meaningless. Worse, if you tell a savvy investor that the market is X billions of dollars and you just need one or some low percent to make zillions, you are immediately kicked to the curb.

    These investors, including myself, know what you don't, and they are not telling you. The minute you ask for money, you are playing in their game, they aren't playing in yours. You are at a huge disadvantage, and it's only going to get worse if you take their money. The minute you take money, the leverage completely flips to the investor. They control the destiny of your dreams, not you.

    Investors don't care about your dreams and goals. They love that you have them. They love that they motivate you. Investors care about how they are going to get their money back and then some. Family cares about your dreams. Investors care about money. There is a reason why venture capitalists are often referred to as Vulture Capitalists. The minute you slide off course from the promises you made to get the money, your dreams fall in jeopardy. You will find yourself making promises to keep investors at bay. You will find yourself avoiding your investors. Then you will find yourself on the outside looking in. The reality of taking money from non family members is that they are doing it for only one reason, to make more money. If you can't deliver on that promise, you are out. You will be removed from the company you started. You will find someone else running your dream company. If this sounds like a scene out of the Sopranos or an episode you would watch on TV about a loan shark, you are right. The only difference is that it's all legal.

    There are only two reasonable sources of capital for startup entrepreneurs, your own pocket and your customers pockets. I personally would never even take money from a family member. Could you imagine the eternal grief and guilt from your mom, dad, uncle or aunt because you blew your nephews college money or the money for grandmas last vacation... I cant.

    You shouldn't have to take money from anyone. Businesses don't have to start big. The best ones start small enough to suit the circumstances of their founders. I started MicroSolutions by getting an advance from my first customer of $500. The business didn't grow quickly in the first couple years. We didn't grow past 4 people in the first couple years, and we all worked dirt cheap.

    So what's wrong with that? It's OK to start slow. It's ok to grow slow. As much as you want to think that all things would change if you only had more cash available, they probably won't.

    The reality is that for most businesses, they don't need more cash, they need more brains.


    Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments


    Tags: money rules business company businesses ]]>     Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:59:00 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2418     People Make the Difference, not Technology http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/helpdesk/?p=153 Shared item
    Tags: cover difference calls work days ]]>
    Tags: cover difference calls work days ]]>     Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:56:05 -0500 tag:croncast.com,2265     "It's almost like her vagina is trying to eat her clothes. Can they do that? If so, has NASA..." http://yourmonkeycalled.com/post/20923145 Shared item
    - The Superficial is pulling me,
    kicking and screaming, into
    Hollywood gossip, just to
    read his commentary on it.

    Tags: nasa almost eat clothes vagina ]]>
    - The Superficial is pulling me,
    kicking and screaming, into
    Hollywood gossip, just to
    read his commentary on it.

    Tags: nasa almost eat clothes vagina ]]>     Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:02:07 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1787     Source: Man was paid to move container http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/675061,na30_stacy_s1.article Shared item
    Tags: peterson said container friend paid ]]>
    Tags: peterson said container friend paid ]]>     Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:46:54 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1642     Edwards Shows Up for the <b>WGA</b> http://nyarticles.com/2007/edwards-shows-up-for-the-wga/ Shared item WGA rally drew nearly a thousand people, one presidential candidate among them. That presidential candidate was John Edwards, making his second appearance at a strike event - he'd previously joined a picket line in Los ...

    Tags: candidate edwards wga presidential appearance ]]>    WGA rally drew nearly a thousand people, one presidential candidate among them. That presidential candidate was John Edwards, making his second appearance at a strike event - he'd previously joined a picket line in Los ...

    Tags: candidate edwards wga presidential appearance ]]>     Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:29:35 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1569     Is disappearance dja vu for family? http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/667001,6_1_NA26_PETERSON_S1.article Shared item


    Tags: family peterson years stacy cales ]]>


    Tags: family peterson years stacy cales ]]>     Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:05:39 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1481     Illinois Police Appeals for Help to Locate Missing Mom's Car http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/latest/~3/190394179/0,2933,312792,00.html Shared item

    Tags: police illinois cars sightings belong ]]>

    Tags: police illinois cars sightings belong ]]>     Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:03:30 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1475     The real cost of the Iraq War http://www.kottke.org/07/11/the-real-cost-of-the-iraq-war Shared item This wasn't meant to be Tyler Cowen day on kottke.org, but you need to check out this concise barnburner of an article written by Cowen for the Washington Post on the cost of the war in Iraq. Taking the form of a letter to President Bush, the article explores the opportunity costs of the war and then offers the real reason why the war has been disastrous:

    In fact, Mr. President, your initial pro-war arguments offer the best path toward understanding why the conflict has been such a disaster for U.S. interests and global security.

    Following your lead, Iraq hawks argued that, in a post-9/11 world, we needed to take out rogue regimes lest they give nuclear or biological weapons to al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. But each time the United States tries to do so and fails to restore order, it incurs a high -- albeit unseen -- opportunity cost in the future. Falling short makes it harder to take out, threaten or pressure a dangerous regime next time around.

    Foreign governments, of course, drew the obvious lesson from our debacle -- and from our choice of target. The United States invaded hapless Iraq, not nuclear-armed North Korea. To the real rogues, the fall of Baghdad was proof positive that it's more important than ever to acquire nuclear weapons -- and if the last superpower is bogged down in Iraq while its foes slink toward getting the bomb, so much the better. Iran, among others, has taken this lesson to heart. The ironic legacy of the war to end all proliferation will be more proliferation.

    As a refreshing mint, check out the length of the y-axis on this graph comparing the cost of the war and the amount spent by the US govt on energy R&D. (thx, ivan)



    Tags: war iraq cost real nuclear ]]>    This wasn't meant to be Tyler Cowen day on kottke.org, but you need to check out this concise barnburner of an article written by Cowen for the Washington Post on the cost of the war in Iraq. Taking the form of a letter to President Bush, the article explores the opportunity costs of the war and then offers the real reason why the war has been disastrous:

    In fact, Mr. President, your initial pro-war arguments offer the best path toward understanding why the conflict has been such a disaster for U.S. interests and global security.

    Following your lead, Iraq hawks argued that, in a post-9/11 world, we needed to take out rogue regimes lest they give nuclear or biological weapons to al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. But each time the United States tries to do so and fails to restore order, it incurs a high -- albeit unseen -- opportunity cost in the future. Falling short makes it harder to take out, threaten or pressure a dangerous regime next time around.

    Foreign governments, of course, drew the obvious lesson from our debacle -- and from our choice of target. The United States invaded hapless Iraq, not nuclear-armed North Korea. To the real rogues, the fall of Baghdad was proof positive that it's more important than ever to acquire nuclear weapons -- and if the last superpower is bogged down in Iraq while its foes slink toward getting the bomb, so much the better. Iran, among others, has taken this lesson to heart. The ironic legacy of the war to end all proliferation will be more proliferation.

    As a refreshing mint, check out the length of the y-axis on this graph comparing the cost of the war and the amount spent by the US govt on energy R&D. (thx, ivan)



    Tags: war iraq cost real nuclear ]]>     Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:27:59 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1315     Man Who Found Drew Peterson's 3rd Wife Dead Called by Jury http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/latest/~3/185844910/0,2933,311937,00.html Shared item

    Tags: wife jury found summoned bathtub ]]>

    Tags: wife jury found summoned bathtub ]]>     Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:14:52 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1237     Media's Facebook frenzy a snoozer [Great Moments In Journalism] http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/valleywag/full/~3/183830319/medias-facebook-frenzy-a-snoozer-321778.php Shared item snoozer.gifMainstream media pros -- that's me -- climbed over each other to cover last week's overhyped Facebook event. Founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the social site's new ad models and proclaimed a stupefyingly conceited Zuckerberg's Law -- "Once every hundred years, media changes." But if the server logs at Slate are an indicator, no one cares but us hacks. My edgily-headlined report, "Why Facebook's Dinky New Ads Won't Topple Google," got prominent placement as Slate's No. 2 story of the day last Wednesday. The traffic report for last week shows it as one of my least-read Slate articles ever. It's well below the one about the talking pen, and far behind a primer on night-vision goggles that drew 20 times as many clicks (400,000 vs 20,000). No matter how good or bad the article itself was, readers didn't click to find out. Facebook vs Google? Yawn. The logs show they were much more interested in my editor's essay on how to fix Sports Illustrated.




    Tags: facebook slate media report logs ]]>    snoozer.gifMainstream media pros -- that's me -- climbed over each other to cover last week's overhyped Facebook event. Founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the social site's new ad models and proclaimed a stupefyingly conceited Zuckerberg's Law -- "Once every hundred years, media changes." But if the server logs at Slate are an indicator, no one cares but us hacks. My edgily-headlined report, "Why Facebook's Dinky New Ads Won't Topple Google," got prominent placement as Slate's No. 2 story of the day last Wednesday. The traffic report for last week shows it as one of my least-read Slate articles ever. It's well below the one about the talking pen, and far behind a primer on night-vision goggles that drew 20 times as many clicks (400,000 vs 20,000). No matter how good or bad the article itself was, readers didn't click to find out. Facebook vs Google? Yawn. The logs show they were much more interested in my editor's essay on how to fix Sports Illustrated.




    Tags: facebook slate media report logs ]]>     Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:13:10 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1197     Peterson now a suspect in wife's disappearance http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/643565,na10_petersonst_s1.article Shared item


    Tags: peterson wife suspect disappearance savio ]]>


    Tags: peterson wife suspect disappearance savio ]]>     Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:23:36 -0500 tag:croncast.com,1107     Help Patrick Moberg Find The NY Girl Of His Dreams http://feeds.laughingsquid.com/~r/laughingsquid/~3/180217126/ Shared item
    Tags: patrick moberg dreams illustration amiot ]]>
    Tags: patrick moberg dreams illustration amiot ]]>     Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:05:12 -0500 tag:croncast.com,951     "The Chicago World's Fair was also the place where most Americans first saw postcards, fiberglass,..." http://yourmonkeycalled.com/post/17074213 Shared item
    - Chicago, 1892

    Tags: chicago fiberglass half saw postcards ]]>
    - Chicago, 1892

    Tags: chicago fiberglass half saw postcards ]]>     Thu, 25 Oct 2007 08:37:06 -0400 tag:croncast.com,724     Celeb Sites Done For? Not So Fast http://feeds.portfolio.com/~r/portfolio/mixedmedia/~3/173990499/celeb-sites-done-for-not-so-fast Shared item The Observer's Doree Shafrir wonders if "audience fatigue" has set in among consumers of online celebrity news -- a development which, if genuine, would be very bad news for the New York Post and its soon-to-relaunch PageSix.com. I know that I'm sick to death of celebrity news, but I'm not convinced about everyone else, for reasons I'll explain below.

    Shafrir writes:

    A quick glance at the Nielsen/NetRatings stats for the past three months shows that the only site that's shown growth is People.com, which had 6.5 million unique U.S. visitors in September, up by more than 1.5 million since July. TMZ's growth appears to have stagnated in the same time period, though that site's traffic still dwarves People's: In July, TMZ recorded nearly 10.3 million visitors, which dipped to 9.4 million in August and jumped back up to July levels in September. By contrast, UsMagazine.com's traffic has stagnated at around the 1 million mark since July, and Perez Hilton's uniques have gone from 2.4 million in July to 2.2 million in September.

    But she leaves out the second-biggest entertainment site: Yahoo's OMG!, which drew 6.7 million uniques in September, according to Nielsen Online -- despite having launched only four months earlier. (That little nugget of info is buried in this New York Times story.) That's powerful evidence that there's still some room left in this market, at least for players who have sufficient cross-promotional muscle -- which I'm thinking the Post and its parent company, News Corp., probably do.

    Another confounding factor here is the calendar. Celebrity-news sites weren't the only ones to experience a slow September; traffic to MySpace, Facebook and YouTube was down as well. AdWeek attributed the drop-off to the start of the school year.

    I'm not saying the Post has the next TMZ on its hands. But it's too early to rule it out.

    Related Links
    News Corp: My MySpace for Your Yahoo!
    Murdoch's Digital Agenda
    Vuguru? Hulu? Who Knew?


    Tags: million july september news site ]]>    The Observer's Doree Shafrir wonders if "audience fatigue" has set in among consumers of online celebrity news -- a development which, if genuine, would be very bad news for the New York Post and its soon-to-relaunch PageSix.com. I know that I'm sick to death of celebrity news, but I'm not convinced about everyone else, for reasons I'll explain below.

    Shafrir writes:

    A quick glance at the Nielsen/NetRatings stats for the past three months shows that the only site that's shown growth is People.com, which had 6.5 million unique U.S. visitors in September, up by more than 1.5 million since July. TMZ's growth appears to have stagnated in the same time period, though that site's traffic still dwarves People's: In July, TMZ recorded nearly 10.3 million visitors, which dipped to 9.4 million in August and jumped back up to July levels in September. By contrast, UsMagazine.com's traffic has stagnated at around the 1 million mark since July, and Perez Hilton's uniques have gone from 2.4 million in July to 2.2 million in September.

    But she leaves out the second-biggest entertainment site: Yahoo's OMG!, which drew 6.7 million uniques in September, according to Nielsen Online -- despite having launched only four months earlier. (That little nugget of info is buried in this New York Times story.) That's powerful evidence that there's still some room left in this market, at least for players who have sufficient cross-promotional muscle -- which I'm thinking the Post and its parent company, News Corp., probably do.

    Another confounding factor here is the calendar. Celebrity-news sites weren't the only ones to experience a slow September; traffic to MySpace, Facebook and YouTube was down as well. AdWeek attributed the drop-off to the start of the school year.

    I'm not saying the Post has the next TMZ on its hands. But it's too early to rule it out.

    Related Links
    News Corp: My MySpace for Your Yahoo!
    Murdoch's Digital Agenda
    Vuguru? Hulu? Who Knew?


    Tags: million july september news site ]]>     Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:13:07 -0400 tag:croncast.com,637