By now you no doubt are aware of the massive (and probably unprecedented in terms of Internet scope) international seizure by the U.S. of the Megaupload file sharing service and many of its principal characters. Word is that famed attorney Robert Bennett will be representing the Megaupload defendants.

The scale of the operation -- with agents swooping in like ninjas -- and the way the various governments involved are touting the results, seem more in line with the plot for the James Bond film Goldfinger than a copyright enforcement action. But as far as I know, there weren't nuclear bombs ticking away in the Megaupload data centers, set to explode and make everyone's data radioactive.

But for innocent users of Megaupload, including vast numbers of paying users who have been using the site for completely legitimate file transfer purposes, their data might as well be radioactive now, or simply "blown to bits" in a mushroom cloud.

Because despite the fact that Megaupload seems to now be in "Whac-A-Mole" mode, popping up and vanishing under various IP addresses, for most users their data has effectively been sucked into the Roach Motel, past the event horizon into a black hole of government evidence and assets forfeitures.

Let's be clear -- there does appear to be plenty of evidence that the operators of Megaupload were indeed engaged in a criminal enterprise at some level, that made a lot of money based on copyright infringements.

To the extent that this is true, they and any users who knowingly participated in their scheme deserve to be punished, but with all due process rigorously observed.

But what of the innocent users of Megaupload? Where is their due process in this game of international data seizures?

There is something extremely disquieting in this picture of governments (especially when reaching into other countries) preemptively shutting down Internet services on which law-abiding persons depend.

The U.S. government in particular has become extremely enamored of seizing assets prior to trial, and in some cases not returning them intact to users in the case of their being found innocent. Auctioning off such seizures has become a tidy little profit center.

This behavior can be viewed as problematic on its face when innocents are involved, but the extension of this sort of logic to the Internet world and cloud-based data storage services could be catastrophic.

One analogy is the safe deposit boxes in a bank. There are certainly cases where the government seizes specific boxes, or states sell off the content of "abandoned" boxes (both controversial issues, I should add).

But the Megaupload case is more akin to the government seizing every safe deposit box in a bank because the bank owners (and possibly some percentage of the safe deposit box users) were simply accused -- not yet convicted -- of engaging in a crime.

What of the little old lady with her life savings in her box, or the person who needs to access important documents, all legitimate, all honest, no crimes of any sort involved.

They are -- to use the vernacular -- screwed.

Whether or not the legitimate users of Megaupload ever get their data back (possibly after it has all been rifled for goodies by various governments), it's clear that honest users who have depended on Megaupload are being seriously injured right now by this sort of government action, which seemingly equates impounding a stolen car with shutting off access to vast quantities of non-infringing users' data, without obvious recourse for those users.

While acknowledging the government's legitimate interest in taking action against specific large-scale copyright violations, the requirements of due process and in particular the protection of innocent parties must have priority.

You don't arrest everyone at a football game because a wanted criminal may be among the crowd. At least, not unless you're attempting to channel the old East German "Stasi" secret police sensibilities.

Our ability to confidently use the ever expanding array of important and useful cloud-based data services of all kinds rests on the assumption that our data will be safe from government overreaching and intrusions into the affairs of law-abiding citizens and their property -- including their data stored on remote Internet servers.

Otherwise, we may find ourselves figuratively in much the same position as 007, strapped to a table with a laser beam moving inexorably up between our legs, wondering if our next data transfer may be our last.

"Do you expect me to talk?"

"No, Mr. Bond. I expect your data to DIE!"

As Shakespeare wrote, "the most unkindest cut of all."

We must do better than that.

--Lauren--

I spend a great deal of my time dealing with issues that reside within the intersection of technology policy with social and public policy concerns. Privacy, security, and a host of other issues fall squarely into this zone. They're complex enough by themselves, but are made all the more complicated by the toxic political atmosphere with which so many important matters are now intertwined.

One particularly crucial aspect of these issues revolves around how we can responsibly handle and use of the vast amounts of data now being generated by Web activities, sensor arrays, and so many other aspects of our lives.

Powerful new analytical systems and techniques -- the whole area now popularly referred to as "Big Data" -- offer the promise of solving a vast array of critical problems in health, climate, and many other areas.

But responsibly using such data also requires dealing appropriately with related vexing issues in the realms of privacy, anonymity, user choice, and associated concerns. As usual, our public policies have lagged dramatically behind our technological capabilities.

It is with all this in mind, and in the hope of encouraging a rational approach toward this entire spectrum of issues, that I'm very pleased to announce "DWEL" - the Data Wisdom Explorers League -- founded in association with Google, which is providing funding support for this effort.

The goal of DWEL is to serve as a global resource for discussions, educational outreach, and a range of other relevant services in this essential sphere. Our efforts will focus on helping us all move toward the best possible uses of data in responsible manners for solving problems, providing services, and improving our lives and planet.

I hope that you'll consider participating.

More information is available at this posting in the Google Policy by the Numbers Blog and at the DWEL site itself:

http://www.dwel.org

See you there!

--Lauren--

There's a lot of understandable enthusiasm about today's array of anti-SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), anti-PIPA (Protect IP Act) demonstrations and protests.

But there's a real risk as well. When the big home page banners come down, and the site "blackouts" are lifted, the urge for the vast majority of Internet users to return to "business as usual" will be very strong.

Perhaps you've signed an online petition or tried to call your Congressman or Senator today, and you've probably already heard that DNS blocking provisions (at least for the moment, pending "further study") were announced as being pulled from SOPA and PIPA several days ago.

So you might be tempted to assume that the battle is over, the war is won, and that -- as Maxwell Smart used to say -- "Once again the forces of niceness and goodness have triumphed over the forces of evil and rottenness."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the forces arrayed in favor of Internet censorship are not only powerful and well funded, but are in this game for the very long haul indeed. A day of demonstrations to them, as annoying as they may be to these censorship proponents in the very short run, are in the final analysis more like a single human lifetime compared against the centuries.

PIPA is coming up for an important vote shortly, and word is that SOPA will likely reemerge (with its horrific search engine censorship provisions intact) next month.

Even if there are further delays and changes, it is inconceivable that pro-censorship forces, given the depths of their economic beliefs and disdain for Internet free speech, will ever give up.

Like zombies rising repeatedly in an old horror movie, they will keep pouring money into Congress and be continually working on strategies to remake the Internet in their own images.

This may involve SOPA and PIPA. It will likely also involve new legislation down the line that hasn't even yet been introduced, some standalone, some possibly buried in other bills. Censorship arguments will expand to include law enforcement wish lists, "protect the children" arguments, and every other pro-censorship stakeholder wish list that you can imagine.

The battle against Internet censorship is literally a war without end. Pro-censorship alliances will shift and change over time, the names of involved legislation may be different, but the overall thrust will stay essentially the same, and the trend will always be toward more censorship, not less.

All of this is true even if we ignore the possibility of a horrific triggering event like a terrorist attack that enables vast new knee-jerk civil liberties crackdowns.

We must be prepared to battle censorship on the Internet as a matter of our everyday lives. That means a continual presence in Washington and other capitals around the world, not just collectively but in terms of constant long-term campaigns of individually written letters and direct phone calls to our own elected officials -- both among the most effective techniques -- short of suitcases full of cash. Educational campaigns explaining why the battles against Internet censorship are so crucial must continue on our sites, and in our other personal and professional communications as well, every single day.

We cannot be complacent. These efforts to preserve free speech on the Net can never end, or we will all lose one of the Internet's most important wonders, and our civil rights -- both off and on the Internet -- will be snuffed out like a candle in the darkness, with only a waft of digital smoke left behind as a memory of what might have been.

Today's anti-censorship demonstrations were but the first sounding of the bugle, the first loud call to arms.

The war to protect free speech and fight censorship on the Internet is guaranteed to long outlive us all.

--Lauren--

A number of major Internet sites have announced plans to "blackout" this coming Wednesday -- that is, block users from most or all access to their normal site resources -- to protest against SOPA/PIPA for up to 24 hours.

Since it is widely known how strongly I oppose these legislative nightmares, a number of site owners have asked if I would recommend that they join in this form of protest.

I have told them that I definitely advise against this protest method.

Most widely used Internet sites in particular have spent a great deal of time and effort to create reliable destinations on which users can depend -- for applications related to communications, work, school, and all manner of queries, concerns, and discussions.

As much as I abhor SOPA and PIPA, I do not feel that voluntarily cutting the Internet community off from important resources for significant periods of time is an appropriate course of action. It penalizes vast numbers of Internet users around the globe, not specifically the proponents of SOPA and PIPA.

Rather than "blacking out" a site (and presumably only displaying information about how to fight SOPA/PIPA. with access to normal functions unavailable), a far more logical, sensible, and prudent approach, that would likely be even more effective in this battle, would be for protesting sites to display a "splash page" with information explaining how to contact your Congressional representatives and express your displeasure with these legislative efforts.

Splash pages could either time out automatically and continue through to the normal site after some number of seconds, and/or permit users to click through to the regular site resources after some specified period of time (again, some number of seconds).

It's possible to present an "in your face" protest of SOPA/PIPA, with meaningful links and information for battling these abominations, without cutting off users from the site resources themselves.

The website resources blackout approach is misguided and -- even with the most laudable of motives -- essentially irresponsible.

That's my opinion, anyway.

All the best to you and yours on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

--Lauren--

Addendum (2:25pm): I might add that apart from the discussion above, history suggests that this type of protest -- likely to flood Congressional phone lines for a day or two -- is among the least effective, almost certainly to be relegated to the category of mass mailings and other directed protests. Personal letters and other unscripted communications with Congressional representatives can most definitely have a positive impact, but politicians have learned over the decades that the high volume, organized, "call your congressman" protests tend to be the least meaningful.

--LW--

Regular readers know that I am not a fan of Facebook. I've long been (and continue to be) a critic of their privacy practices and related implementations. I don't actively participate in Facebook, other than with an essentially empty account providing me with access to inspect the various user interfaces and interactions.

So it's with a bit of irony that I find myself in the position of having to come out in support of Facebook, in response to a torrent of complaints about their initiative to analyze the political sentiments of Facebook users in conjunction with Politico.

The project involves an automated system to scan Facebook posts and comments for politically-related text, analyze the resulting data, and derive an overall look at Facebook users' sentiments on this topic, which given the size of Facebook's user community could potentially provide important new insights.

But I've been inundated with people upset that Facebook is "reading their private messages" and so supposedly horribly violating their privacy.

I'm sorry, I just don't see it that way.

I have a maxim that I've used as a guide for many, many years. It's very simple.

"Choose your battles carefully."

I don't claim to have the military insight of Sun Tzu, but this simple idea has served me fairly well.

And in this particular Facebook case, we shouldn't even be thinking of a battle at all, because there is no demonstrable vector for damage to any Facebook users through the anonymous, automated statistical process as described, and there is the potential for significant knowledge benefits to society from the results.

We're at a crossroads where it is now obvious that simply throwing away the vast and rapidly increasing amount of data being generated by our lives, without first considering the responsible derivation of useful knowledge from that data, is like flushing a natural resource down the toilet.

Obviously, there is much data that shouldn't be kept in its raw form forever, to help protect against the possibility of retroactive abuse by governments or others. That's why I've applauded the now fairly standard practice of scheduled data anonymization and deletion by major search engines and other services for user search query and other data, for example.

On the other hand, to argue that it should be forbidden to derive useful knowledge from data in ways that protect individual users' privacy but still allow for aggregate analysis, would be incredibly wasteful.

A classic example is health care. We all want our individual health-related activities to be kept private. But without some mechanism for the aggregate sharing and analysis of healthcare data, it would be impossible to reasonably recognize and understand trends in disease, diagnostics, and treatment. Epidemics and pandemics would be far harder to spot early on, and to potentially control. Real lives are at stake.

In our everyday world, all manner of activity data is subjected to various forms of aggregated analysis and often publication. Phone companies and ISPs watch calling and traffic. Credit card companies and banks explore transaction patterns in great detail, as do stores with "loyalty card" systems.

Internet messages are scanned by automated systems for anti-spam, anti-phishing purposes, and for ad displays. Search trends are derived from user search queries.

And so on. There is usually nothing nightmarish about these systems, so long as individual users' data is protected. And the benefits of the knowledge derived from such data can be very important. Not only do they serve to keep even incredibly sophisticated Internet services free to most users, but the health, safety, and other realms of aggregate statistical information can serve critical public needs.

So like I said, choose your battles carefully. There are enough true privacy problems to keep us busy into the dim future. Wasting time, effort, and emotion on useful anonymous data analysis like Facebook's Politico project just doesn't make sense.

Even if you don't like Facebook.

--Lauren--

Wow. I haven't seen such a flurry of consternation and complaints since Coca-Cola replaced their original formula with "New Coke" decades go.

The Net's abuzz with the sound of SPYW (Search, plus Your World - perhaps an unfortunate acronym) -- Google's new effort to significantly integrate Google+ (G+) with Google Search.

The sense of panic in geekdom over this change can only have been amplified by word that the manufacturer of Twinkies is filing for bankruptcy protection again.

Oh, the horrors! Agony. Agony.

[cue sound of needle scratching across vinyl record]

OK gang. Settle down. Even if real Twinkies vanish, there are plenty of similarly delectable knockoffs, and no matter what you've heard about SPYW, the sky isn't falling.

There are piles of places where you can read about the details of what Search, plus Your World is and how it works.

I'm not going to review or rehash those here.

But a lot of people have been asking me to comment, and I've been playing with SPYW for a couple of days to get a feel for its user experience, so here are a few preliminary thoughts regarding how SPYW works and the controversy surrounding it.

First some facts we can stipulate.

We all know that Google is dominant in search, and some observers seem to feel that this means they should be regulated as if they were a public utility.

Of course they're not a public utility, and there have never been reputable arguments asserting that their current dominance in search was achieved through subterfuge -- which immediately differentiates them from the most commonly quoted comparison of Microsoft, who indeed did use underhanded means to force Windows on the world.

And frankly, one of the aspects that makes legislation like SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) so nightmarish is the thought of the U.S. Congress -- perhaps the best example of dysfunctional government in the western world -- essentially dictating search results.

Anyway, the public utility argument is used to try assert that certain actions that would be OK for a non-dominant search engine (like Microsoft's Bing, which is deploying a deep integration with Facebook), are supposedly not OK for Google to do, even with its own services like Google+.

On the other hand, there are critics of SPYW who suggest that if Google had given equal preference to (for example) deep data from Twitter, as they are doing now for G+, there wouldn't be such an outcry. This despite the fact that Google no longer has access to Twitter data at that level, after contract renewal negotiations that would have continued real-time access to tweet streams failed.

So we're faced with a question. Does the fact that Google has far better access to its own G+ postings data than to Twitter postings data mean that Google should be prohibited from optionally featuring G+ postings data to G+ users in Google Search results?

It seems to me that the answer to this question should primarily revolve around user choice.

If you're not a G+ user, or you're not logged-in to Google, your natural (organic) search results are not going to include "personalized from your G+ circles" G+ listings (though public G+ postings, which have long been indexed, may continue to be present in results as usual). If you are logged-in and you are a G+ user, by default you'll see the G+ related listings. These can be enabled or disabled on a search by search basis by controls on the search page, or completely disabled (along with other personalization features such as Web history, though I'm told localization features will still be present) through search settings.

Now, as a heavy G+ user (though with a fairly limited number of people in my G+ circles, just to keep the stream readable for me given the time available) I sometimes am definitely very interested in what my G+ universe of folks has to say about various topics. Seeing these in my Google Search results can be very useful -- sometimes.

I say "sometimes" because in the current implementation, I'm finding that those personal results often aren't terribly useful, mainly because I've already seen most of them over on G+ previously. So I find myself frequently turning off SPYW on a results page to restore the non-personalized listings.

And frankly, I'm experimenting with turning SPYW off entirely (though I'm reluctant to do this long-term yet, since i know that as Google iterates the feature it will certainly improve in relevance).

For other persons, who don't keep track of their G+ stream as closely I do, having those G+ related listings in their search results may routinely be a really big win.

But it's a choice matter. I choose to use Google+, and I appreciate the option of including those listings -- or not -- in my search results. Search is after all just one part of the Google ecosystem that I'm logged into. Keeping these various services completely distinct just wouldn't make sense, either from a business or user experience standpoint.

Critics of the new "circles suggestions" aspect of SPYW, which apparently appears whether or not you're a G+ user, and even if you're not logged in or have disabled personalized results, seem to be on firmer ground with their criticisms.

These suggestions are now appearing in the prime top of page real estate for key searches on the right-hand side above the paid ads (not in the organic, natural search results, it's important to note).

I'm finding these fairly irritating right now, and there's no way I know of to suppress them.

If I search for "music" (logged in or not), I'm presented with circle invites for
Britney Spears and Snoop Dog. Every time. Over and over. I have no interest in
adding either of these persons to my circles, and I would prefer waterboarding to adding Britney. But they keep popping up, and there's not even a way to dismiss them and say "I don't want to see these people again!"

Down below those two display elements are the ads, which I've noticed frequently include Bing. In fact, when I tested this just now, the paid ad above the organic search results in fact was for Bing. So Microsoft shouldn't have anything to complain about in that respect.

But I still want Britney and Snoop suggestions to leave my search results pages, permanently.

Is that level of Google+ promotion in the right-hand results pane -- to non-logged in users in particular -- problematic from a competition standpoint?

I'm not sure. I'm not an antitrust lawyer. Dedicated Google haters will always find something to latch onto, but my gut feeling is that this seems to be pushing the envelope significantly, and in effect perhaps unnecessarily providing red meat to critics at a very sensitive time.

So while I appreciate the desire to promote G+, it's quite possible that this aspect of the services integration is at least ill-advised now, in the current implementation.

A couple of other notes.

Turning off personalization in the search settings disables all personalization except localization, so if you're a user of Web History those signals are also disabled. Being able to more selectively control this would be desirable.

We also need to face the old opt-in, opt-out dilemma. SPYW is enabled by default for logged-in G+ users. Some observers are arguing that it should have been opt-in, though since G+ users have already chosen to use G+, an argument can really be made either way, and as always the ramifications of opt-in vs. opt-out choices can be significantly more complex than they may appear at first glance.

An alternative would have been to default in the G+ users, but to make it even clearer how to turn off personalization through search settings if they wish.

So here's where we end up for the present.

As a G+ user, I appreciate the ability to have G+ related listings optionally in my search results. It's unclear how useful these really are to me, but like the saying goes, "your mileage may vary." There should be a way to turn off the G+ results without disabling Web History personalization. I understand why these are linked, but I don't think it provides the best user experience and control.

I believe the rather aggressive "circle suggestions" to non-logged in users is potentially a real problem. I'm not saying Google shouldn't be able to do this,
but I'm not convinced that it's a good choice, considering the overall environment in which Google finds itself right now. There are times when discretion is indeed the better part of valor.

Finally, I want Britney and Snoop suggestions to get off my results pages, permanently, before I'm forced to throw a boot into a display. As a G+ user, I like getting suggestions about other G+ users to follow within the context of my G+ usage -- but those can be dismissed at my option.

While I certainly do understand the desire to promote G+, those right-hand pane circle suggestions accompanying key Google Search results (again, especially for users who are not logged in) can be annoying, can't be dismissed, and are probably providing antitrust ammunition for Google's adversaries.

So overall, while I believe that most of the loud criticism of Search, plus Your World has been overblown, and that there are most definitely important benefits for users with the integration of Google services, there are relevant aspects of this rollout that could have been handled considerably better.

And Britney, best of luck to ya', but please ... go ... away.

--Lauren--

In Thinking the Unthinkable About SOPA a couple of days ago, I touched on the concept of splash pages, banners, and other "in your face" mechanisms to help get the word out -- beyond our usual "preaching to the choir" -- about the evils of SOPA - The Stop Online Piracy Act.

My sense is that problems with SOPA and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are now very well known in the technical community. The question is, how to get people outside of this community to see what they stand to lose through such legislation. This means trying to go beyond our usual "social community" of correspondents and followers.

As I noted in that earlier posting, it's important that we provide specific information that includes action items people can consider to reach out to their Congressional officials and others as appropriate about this issue.

Over on Twitter yesterday, a campaign began for people to overlay "STOP SOPA" banners on their avatar images. This is a great idea as far as it goes, but unfortunately does not provide any information at all about where to find more information about why anyone should want to stop SOPA. Obviously they can conduct a search, but there's really no telling where they'll end up from day to day, and some anti-SOPA approaches are decidedly less likely to have an impact than others.

In light of all this, I've done two things. First, I've created the domain KILLSOPA.ORG as a proposed destination landing place for various banner, splash page, and other anti-SOPA campaigns.

I've also now overlaid this domain name on my standard avatars for Twitter, Google+, and other sites, which appear on postings, profile pages, and so on.

Right now, killsopa.org redirects to an EFF page discussing how to take action against SOPA, but this will change as time and resources permit.

Since we're going to be putting messages out in front of people, it seems logical that these messages should include a destination for more info, not just the protest statement. Using a domain name in this situation helps to solve this problem.

If you have any interest in helping with this effort, in particular with the killsopa.org website itself, please let me know. Of course your other thoughts and any questions are welcome as always.

Kill SOPA.

--Lauren--

Blog Update (January 10, 2012): Banners, Splashes, and KILLSOPA.ORG

With key votes on SOPA -- the Stop Online Piracy Act -- likely to occur in the very near future, we now find ourselves forced into at least considering courses of action if SOPA (and companion legislation like PIPA -- the Protect IP Act) should pass and be signed into law.

The tea leaves on this are particularly difficult to interpret, but they're emitting a pretty bad odor already.

Entertainment industry supporters of SOPA immediately blasted a much more sensible proposed alternative. Odds are that this alternate timeline will be pinched off in short order.

There has been little change among SOPA supporters as a whole. We can discount disingenuous alterations of position by sleazy operations like Go Daddy simply as the debased pandering that they are.

There had been signs that at least some Congressmen pushing SOPA were starting to have at least a few second thoughts about the technical ramifications. But with SOPA's chief sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) now figuratively giving the finger to SOPA opponents, saying that we are a "vocal minority" -- "because they’re strident doesn’t mean they’re either legitimate or large in number" -- I would not want to bet the farm on substantive changes of the magnitude needed to prevent SOPA from being a total disaster for the Internet and its users.

The outcome of PIPA in the Senate also can't be known with certainty, but signs are increasing that there is sufficient support to move the legislation fairly shortly.

And I would not count on a presidential veto regarding Internet censorship in an election year, given that the resulting legislation may quite possibly arrive with veto-proof majorities. The pro-SOPA entertainment behemoths have spent their money on Congress with great precision.

I will admit that I find Lamar Smith's comments and attitude particularly infuriating.

Most of these SOPA-supporting politicians probably wouldn't know where to put a USB plug if their lives depended on it (though I'd be tempted to offer a suggestion about a possible worthy destination).

And now they're talking down to us from Mt. Olympus on high, proclaiming to the technical world that our concerns don't matter, don't exist, aren't real, and that we should just shut up and let them and their "sugar daddies" run the Internet their way.

Of course, they can't run the Net without us. And unless there's a secret plan to shackle system administrators to consoles with armed guards pointing loaded weapons at our heads, the good will of the technical community will remain essential to the health and continued operation of the Net and its resources.

SOPA contains language that makes "circumvention" systems illegal (though the associated penalties' reach outside the U.S. seems highly debatable).

But again, unless the politicians and MPAA/RIAA bigwigs are skilled at Linux server debugging, IPv6, and the rest of our talents that they apparently view with such little regard, throwing us all in cells will probably result in an, uh, considerable drop in the overall Internet user experience -- like the worst cable and telephone outage you've ever heard of, multiplied by several orders of magnitude at least.

There have been calls from some quarters for demonstrations to help make it clear to Congress that their ability to operate the Internet without our kind assistance is severely limited (i.e. nonexistent).

Some suggested attention grabbers have been concepts such as special anti-SOPA "splash" pages that would appear when users accessed sites, before the actually requested pages would display. There have also been calls for actual shutdowns of major sites for limited periods of time as a dramatic reminder of who actually makes the Internet work.

I'm not particularly enthusiastic about this latter option, unless the period involved was extremely brief. Actually cutting off access, even for relatively short periods of time, could potentially backfire if important information or services were not available in a critical situation that might just happen to occur during the planned outage.

The idea of anti-SOPA banners and splash pages (linking to detailed, plain language explanations of what people will lose under SOPA/PIPA regimes) seems far more attractive.

As technologists we have not been particularly effective in getting word out to the non-technical community about how incredibly dangerous such legislation is to ordinary Internet users. We do a lot of "preaching to the choir" -- but it's everyone else who really needs to be informed.

Splash pages, banners, and other "in your face" techniques do run the risk of becoming annoying if prolonged, but if we explain our case clearly I suspect that most Internet users will understand why these methods are being employed and why the risks of SOPA/PIPA had made this approach necessary.

It is extremely unfortunate that we have come to this state of affairs, where we need to be thinking about circumvention measures simply to ensure freedom of Internet communications, and are considering vast campaigns to explain what crucial aspects of the Internet have now become enormously at risk -- at the hands of a selfish SOPA cadre that desperately wishes to remake the Internet in their own image.

If Lemar Smith is correct, if those of us opposing SOPA are really just few in number and of no real significant consequence, the proponents of SOPA have nothing to worry about.

Then again, if Smith is wrong, the SOPA push could be opening up a Pandora's box the like of which the tech world has never seen before.

We shall see.

--Lauren--

Blog Update (January 10, 2012): Banners, Splashes, and KILLSOPA.ORG

A number of people have been asking me about the Google Chrome "paid links" controversy that seems to have erupted. A bit of thought would have revealed what was likely going on -- without all the drama -- but let's review.

Yesterday, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land posted a rather breathless and extensive "expose" titled Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome suggesting that Google was purposely violating its own prohibitions and guidelines regarding paid links (sponsored posts).

I immediately suspected that some important piece of information was missing. It simply didn't make sense for Google to be doing this purposely, not only because it would indeed seem to violate their guidelines, but also because it was so utterly obvious and was certain to be instantly noticed!

What would be the upside of such an action that would so quickly draw criticisms and scrutiny? There would be no upside, it would be utterly stupid. And Google isn't perfect, but they're also not stupid. It seemed logical to assume that some third-party confusion was involved.

Of course this hit during the holiday weekend when people were difficult to reach, but today the conspiracy theories blew apart when an outside agency noted that Google didn't authorize such activities and that outside bloggers had created those links inappropriately.

Despite the fact that those links were not Google's fault, Google has now announced that since technically the Google Chrome home page was in essence pulled into violation by those outside links, Google will (to enforce the letter of the rules the same way they would do with other sites) reduce that page's search PageRank for 60 days.

So ends another ersatz Internet drama. As Spock might have said, a bit of logic in the initial analysis -- it just didn't make sense for Google to be purposely violating its own rules as accused -- could have saved a whole bunch of typing.

But then, you know how those emotional humans behave!

--Lauren--

As 2011 closes out, and 2012 enters the spotlight for its ephemeral closeup, we can all probably agree that an enormous number of pressing issues continue to await reasonable resolution, and in many cases even rational consideration.

One explanation for this sorry state of affairs (though not the only one, to be sure) is the continuing rush, particularly in the political realm, to impose simplistic, often ineffective, and frequently counterproductive "knee-jerk solutions" onto complex problems.

We have understandable angst about security at airports. But rather than use available information in a responsible and logical manner, authorities resort to needlessly irradiating millions of travelers, create the spectacle of young children being manhandled by poorly trained personnel, and permit elderly passengers in wheelchairs to be humiliated by what amount to strip-searches.

Concerns about Internet "piracy" of copyrighted intellectual materials are sometimes valid, but the false promises of the horrendous SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) legislation would broadly put free speech at risk globally, and seriously damage fundamental Internet security and reliability -- while not actually solving piracy problems.

Meanwhile, alternative approaches that could target truly criminal piracy in particular, such as carefully implemented payment processing controls, are de-emphasized in favor of much more heavy-handed and ultimately fruitless enforcement regimes favored by traditional entertainment industry conglomerates, despite the massive collateral damage to innocent parties that these latter methods would trigger.

In an even broader context, we’re now entering an era where truly remarkable new analytical and visualization technologies offer the promise of helping solve some of the world’s most critical problems in health, resources, and many other areas -- via the conversion of data to knowledge, and of knowledge to wisdom.

Yet all too often, legitimate concerns about privacy and personal choice are being leveraged by some in the political and commercial realms in manners often grossly simplistic, and sometimes wholly disingenuous, that could easily undermine society’s ultimate well-being by unnecessarily decimating the availability and utility of these potentially invaluable techniques.

The problems we face, as individuals, communities, nations, and as an ultimately resources-limited global ecosystem, are far too important for us to squander opportunities to employ every possible useful tool in rational and responsible ways toward finding the best answers for moving forward.

Political posturing and "business as usual" gamesmanship are especially unacceptable in this realm of critical issues. We need to be working toward policies based on facts, not mainly upon politically biased opportunism.

Very shortly, within the first weeks of the coming year, I’ll be announcing a new project aimed at usefully contributing toward this goal, and I hope that you’ll join in the associated discussions, education outreach, and related efforts, as we work together for a better future.

Thank you, and all the best to you and yours for 2012!

--Lauren--

Happy Holidays, all! This is especially the time of year when we should take stock of what we have to be thankful for.

And perhaps it's also a time to consider how much worse things could be if we don't take appropriate actions. And when thinking about terrible outcomes, the horrendous and dangerous SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act - H.R. 3261) legislation comes immediately to mind.

You already know why this legislation has the potential to destroy the Internet as we know it. But something has been missing from these explanations.

Ah yes! Of course. A song!

So once more throwing my dignity to the winds, I again apologize to Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan, as I offer:

SOPA Lad (The SOPA Song) - to the tune of When I Was a Lad from H.M.S. Pinafore (1878).

The song lyrics are below and on the Closed Captions (CC) track of the YouTube video version (you may want to adjust the CC Settings for optimum display).

Again, all my best to you and yours. Please take care, everyone.

SOPA Lad (The SOPA Song): MP3 Audio (2:44 minutes / ~4.8 MB)

SOPA Lad (The SOPA Song): YouTube version (audio only)

SOPA Lad (The SOPA Song)

Lyrics Copyright © 2011 Lauren Weinstein. All rights reserved.

When I was a lad I'd get such a thrill,
Out of crushing bugs and making people ill.
I snitched and I tattled and I spied like sin,
And I really loved to turn the other kids right in.

(He really loved to turn all of the kids right in.)

I turned in all the kids with such a gruesome sway,
That now I am in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(He turned in everyone in such a gruesome way,
That now he is charge of the S-O-P-A.)

As a lawyer new I was put right in charge,
Of the trolling of patents that were small and large.
I'd send out all the letters, that were threats quite smart,
And I never worried at all about prior art.

(He never had to worry about prior art.)

I was oh so efficient getting snooks to pay,
That now I am in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(He was oh so adept at getting snooks to pay,
That now he is in charge of the S-O-P-A.)

My skills at extortion had become so very grand,
That I turned all my attention to In-ter-net land.
If I could censor the whole Net successfully,
All the money would come rolling right in straight to me.

(And the money would all roll in direct straight to he.)

I planned my whole attack so that without delay,
I'd be sure to be in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(He planned his full attack and yes with no delay,
He was sure he'd be in charge of the S-O-P-A.)

Word got out everywhere through all of Washington,
That I was the right guy to get their evil done.
All the politicians felt Net speech was way too free,
So for quick solutions they were calling me.

(And in search of quick solutions they were calling he.)

I filed content takedowns every old which way,
So that now I am in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(He filed so many takedowns on most every day,
That now he is in charge of the S-O-P-A.)

I knew that if free speech were just called piracy,
We could lock up all complainers, throw away the key
Google search results I could all then control,
And bury awkward info in a deep, dark, hole.

(He could bury all the info in a deep, dark hole.)

I would bury all the info so far from the fray,
That I knew I'd be in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(He would bury all the info so far and away,
That he'd happily be in charge of S-O-P-A.)

So all of you future rich powers that would be,
If you want to kill Net content that is out there free.
Buy some politicians, tell your lies with lots of glee,
And never worry about acting ethically.

(And never worry about acting ethically.)

Screw the whole DNS ... throw security away,
And you all may be in charge of the S-O-P-A.

(Damn the DNS, toss security away,
And you may get even richer from S-O-P-A!)

- - -

--Lauren--

Update: Not supporting SOPA is very different than opposing SOPA!

Don't be fooled by Go Daddy's public reversal on SOPA!

As the old TV character Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

Faced with an Internet revolt and boycott over their strong support of SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act - H.R. 3261), the sleazeballs at registrar Go Daddy have announced that they are no longer supporting the measure -- and have apparently pulled down their blog postings that had so enthusiastically promoted the terrible pro-censorship legislation.

Do not be fooled. Make no mistake about their motives. They're not suddenly against the censorship principles of SOPA: "Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it." There is no indication whatsoever that they have had a fundamental change of heart.

In other words, this is a reversal of convenience for their bottom line, showing all the backbone of a bevy of jellyfish.

As I noted yesterday in A Guide to Slamming SOPA Supporters - Starting With "Go Daddy" Slime, there are many reasons other than their support of SOPA to abandon and ostracize Go Daddy.

Some folks whom I greatly respect are publicly thanking Go Daddy for their ostensible reversal on SOPA.

If I felt that Go Daddy had genuinely changed their attitude, I would thank them as well.

But reading their statement, and considering their strong pro-SOPA testimony to Congress, as far as I'm concerned they're the same ethically vacuous firm as always, with their public facade changing like a chameleon, blowing in the wind of Internet public opinion. I can only imagine what they're saying to the pro-SOPA community behind the scenes. I don't believe that they've fundamentally changed their opinions on this by one iota.

With all of this in mind, I continue to urge that you find alternatives to the use of Go Daddy services.

Have a Merry Christmas weekend!

--Lauren--

Update: Not supporting SOPA is very different than opposing SOPA!

Blog Update (December 23, 2011): Don't be fooled by Go Daddy's public reversal on SOPA!

Please Take the No-Go Daddy Pledge!

Unless you've been living under a massive pile of ancient floppy disks, by now you're pretty well cognizant of the immense dangers in the proposed U.S. House of Representatives SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act - H.R. 3261) and its similarly evil twin --- PIPA -- over on the Senate side of Congress (Protect IP Act - S. 968).

You're also probably at least in general terms familiar with the battle lines in this war for Internet freedom -- with the massive entertainment conglomerates leading the charge for passage, and essentially the entire free speech and Internet engineering/operations community opposed.

But you may not have seen the detailed, official list of SOPA supporters -- and it makes for very interesting and highly recommended reading.

Whenever a list like this appears, it's very tempting to rush into plans for attacks
on the various proponents, hoping to change their minds about their support of
such legislation.

Such attacks can take various forms.

Never to be countenanced are illicit maneuvers -- email floods, denial of service attacks, personal information disclosures, and the like. Not only are these usually illegal and unethical, but in the long run, serve mainly to create sympathy for the targeted organizations, and ultimately play into their dirty hands.

The existence of a SOPA supporters list also immediately suggests the use of legal boycott techniques against the listed parties, and in this respect the calculus is considerably more subtle and complex.

Generally speaking, boycotts have not proven to be a particularly effective mechanism for affecting pending legislation, and many targeted firms -- with an eye toward the perceived financial benefits of such legislation to their bottom lines -- can easily let boycotts roll off their backs. All too often these boycotts make the participants feel like they're accomplishing something useful, but the real world positive effects are minimal or nil.

The situations where consumer boycotts hold the kind of leverage necessary to really affect these firms and other organizations in an effective manner are relatively rare.

And it's also the case that there are usually more powerful ways to impact the politicians who support legislation like SOPA.

Obviously most of us cannot match the big bucks donations that drive the corruption of many politicos in these regards, but they're still always concerned about the next election.

While this may seem surprising in the Internet age, two of the most effective ways to affect lawmakers are through personal, physical letters -- and direct phone calls to their main offices. These sorts of communications, especially coming from their own constituents, are almost inevitably tabulated and closely studied, as politicians keep their fingers to the wind in hopes of predicting any coming electoral storms.

Mass petitions and form letters (whether physical or online) have much less impact, as do email communications in general. Politicians have learned how easily all of these can be faked and gamed, and generally discount or ignore them.

But personal, physical communications and phone calls still matter a great deal to Congress -- and those are areas where I feel a great deal of energy could be most usefully deployed against SOPA and PIPA.

Having said that, I still would not assert that boycotts -- in this case of SOPA supporters -- are necessarily always useless, at least when targeted at firms who might actually feel the impact in a negative way affecting their bottom lines significantly.

And in this context, it's hard to think of a more "deserving" candidate for a SOPA supporter "action" than the sleazeballs at the Go Daddy domain registry.

Go Daddy is the poster child for much that is wrong with the domain-industrial complex.

They've been in the forefront of pushing the .xxx TLD, which exists primarily to capture expensive defensive domain registrations from entities who have nothing to do with the adult entertainment industry, since by and large that industry, along with free speech advocates and anti-pornography campaigners -- all sides of the spectrum -- have condemned the .xxx concept.

Go Daddy actively supports the "gold rush" mentality of the "domainers" pushing the extortionist generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) expansion nightmare, and is explicitly trying to profit through this nightmarish protection racket -- which will only serve to suck billions of dollars out of the weak world economy, to the enrichment of a relative few who have turned the Domain Name System (DNS) into their personal piggy bank.

There are other reasons to abhor Go Daddy. Their array of seamy practices form -- to borrow from Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol -- "a ponderous chain." Go Daddy's commercials have always been disgraceful, but that's perhaps the least of concerns given that they're not alone in that dimension.

On the other hand, it's easy to despise Go Daddy's CEO, whose idea of fun is going to Africa, shooting an elephant in cold blood, then posting a bizarre and disgusting video of the results (and issuing takedown notices for any related copies that critics attempted to post).

But if all of this wasn't enough to make anyone with their domains associated with Go Daddy rethink their decision, Go Daddy's strong and enthusiastic support of SOPA should really be the last straw.

There do exist domain registrars who are ethical, oppose SOPA, and don't kill animals for fun. I won't make specific recommendations since I don't want to show favoritism toward one or another -- and I appreciate that moving domains can sometimes be a hassle.

But if you have domains with Go Daddy -- one or a thousand of them -- I strongly urge you to transfer them to a more ethical, anti-SOPA home.

If observers want to call that a boycott, so be it.

The future of SOPA and PIPA are impossible to clearly predict. There are some signs that the wise protestations of the Internet engineering community in particular have finally started to make some inroads with SOPA-supporting politicians, who largely seem not to know the difference between free speech and waterboarding, much less the technical realities of keeping the wonders of the global Internet from being diverted into a technological and political hell.

The current round of SOPA hearings in the House Judiciary Committee have now been delayed. However, the odds -- right now -- are that some sort of SOPA/PIPA legislation is still likely to be passed in both chambers of Congress, and even if somewhat watered down will still represent the censorship camel's nose under the Internet tent -- and in short order you can be sure that the entire camel will be trampling speech with abandon.

Forces allied in favor of SOPA -- as illustrated by that list of infamy -- are formidable indeed.

So those of use who wish to prevent the Internet from becoming a censorship machine rather than a beacon of free speech, must be prepared to deploy all legal means to battle SOPA. These especially include those direct communications with lawmakers as I noted above, but also can encompass carefully focused "mass consumer actions" as well, including (but not necessarily limited to) the Go Daddy case.

Most of all, we do not have the luxury of wasted efforts and squandered time.

If we blow this now, if we fail to stem the tide of what is essentially an attempt to undermine the basic principles that make the Internet great, it will likely be a long time -- if ever -- before an opportunity to undo the escalating damage will emerge.

Choose your battles carefully. Choose your battles well. But choose. And take action.

Now.

--Lauren--

Blog Update (December 23, 2011): Don't be fooled by Go Daddy's public reversal on SOPA!

It's not exactly headline news that there's a lot of hate on the Internet. But have you ever stopped to consider the different kinds -- the different types -- of hateful sites, and the vastly different sorts of impacts that they have on our lives?

Ironically, the types of sites that politicians love to rail against and demand be somehow censored (technical realities be damned!) probably have among the least real-world negative impacts.

Whether they promote international terrorism or white supremacy, war against Iran, war against Israel, or war against the poor, these misguided lovers of hate appeal mainly to persons already predisposed to such foolhardy ventures, who would find their hate fix in other ways even if those sites did not exist. And as we've seen in the case of many would-be terrorists -- these sites tend to attract incompetent amateurs who would usually never even get past the daydreaming stage without elaborate law enforcement entrapment assistance.

But there are other forms of Internet hate that are less obvious, but often far more effective at enacting their agendas.

Foreign governments demand that Google remove search results and YouTube videos that those countries find offensive. The U.S. attempts to impose its view of economic priorities on the entire globe via SOPA/PIPA-based censorship of search and the outrageously U.S.-leveraged Domain Name System (DNS). These sorts of attacks tend to impact the availability of information, knowledge, and speech around the world, affecting billions of people.

And there's yet another kind of Internet hate -- perhaps more insidious than all the others I've mentioned up to now. These are the province of bigoted, racist, hate-engorged monsters parading under banners of religious purity, and using tactics of economic and propagandistic blackmail in systematic attempts to destroy the lives of innocent parties.

An example of these kinds of horrific parasites is the FFA - the Florida Family Association (I refuse to provide them with "search juice" -- so I'm not providing a direct link).

A visit to this group's website quickly reveals their agenda -- a vast program of blackmailing enormous numbers of companies and advertisers -- via threats of economic boycotts -- into pulling support from any programs or events that FFA doesn't approve.

The most recent example of their success in this approach (loudly trumpeted on their site) is the announcement by the Lowe's chain that they were pulling their ads from the Discovery Channel/TLC's All-American Muslim series.

All-American Muslim features programs following the lives of ordinary people in Dearborn, Michigan, and showing that they're just ordinary folks living ordinary lives, not the caricatures that FFA and other anti-Muslim fetishists divisively want us to falsely believe.

This comes as no surprise to me. My corner of suburban L.A. is deeply multicultural, and includes a large mosque and Muslim community, among virtually every other ethnic group and nationality on the planet, from Iranian to Australian to Nigerian. To actually know people as individuals is to realize that our similarities vastly outweigh our relatively trivial differences.

But it's in the interests of groups like FFA to keep such knowledge suppressed, and to encourage the promulgation of lying stereotypes that undermine individuals actually meeting and understanding each other. We can also stipulate here that there are many governments that are similarly engaged in trying to make sure that their populations are constrained in the interests of promoting hate.

It would be a terrible mistake to assume that organizations like FFA are not extremely Internet savvy. A look at their domain information reveals that they originally registered back in 1997 -- quite long ago in Internet time.

Of course it always takes two to tango. FFA and its ilk spew hate and threats, but their partners in these abominations are the firms -- like Lowe's and many others -- who humiliate themselves (and anger the vast majority of their customers) by slavishly kowtowing to the demands of these disgusting hatemongers, who represent only a small and putrid percentage of the population.

Since I oppose censorship, I would never call for such repulsive and repugnant hate sites to be shuttered, even if it were technically possible.

But I can call for such sites and the groups behind them to be scorned and shunned, to be ignored by the Internet community and the commercial targets of these groups' economic threats alike.

We cannot -- indeed should not -- have the ability to control speech by banning sites from the Net.

Yet we do have the ability, both individually and collectively, to control how we react to sites and the messages that they broadcast for good or ill.

Therein resides our power, our prerogative, our right to loudly and firmly say NO to the purveyors of hate who would malevolently cleave the world asunder.

If we choose not to wield this power appropriately against hate, both on and off the Internet, we'll indeed have nobody to blame but ourselves.

--Lauren--

I am not a fan of game applications aimed at children that include in-app "game enhancement" purchasing features. Even with password protections and controls, trying to entice kids into spending their parents' money on silly digital animals or other similar doodads strikes me as fundamentally exploitative and unethical.

On the other hand, I am a fan of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Comedy Central. It frequently makes important points in humorous ways, and I probably laugh out loud at segments from that show more than pretty much anything else I see online.

What's the connection between these two seemingly separate topics?

A couple of days ago, The Daily Show ran an interview segment featuring Gameview Studios co-founder Rizwan Virk, regarding their "Tap Fish" game and its in-app purchasing features that indeed are aimed at children. It was a hilarious and devastating interview, accusing Gameview of behaving like a drug dealer, among other disreputable attributes.

Yesterday Virk responded on his own blog, accusing The Daily Show of an "ambush interview" that was orchestrated and edited to misrepresent the facts of the situation.

Much as I dislike Gameview's business model when it comes to children, I have to admit that I do have some sympathy for Virk, because back in 2004, Comedy Central tried to screw me with a somewhat similar ambush.

In my case, I got a call from a producer who identified themselves as being with MTV Networks. I was invited to discuss problems associated with Internet spam, on a program she called "The Debate Show."

This turned out to be a fraudulent description. The show was actually a Comedy Central production called Crossballs, and the details of the seamy way the show operated, and how I barely avoided the trap by hours, are in this contemporaneous write-up that I posted at the time. USA Today also discussed my story in an article about ambush TV.

While the situations are not exactly parallel -- I was told I'd be appearing on a serious program on MTV, while it is widely known that The Daily Show is a humorous show on Comedy Central, interviews that have been unfairly manipulated in shooting or editing are still unjustifiable, particularly when guests agree to appear in good faith.

This all again spotlights the complex pitfalls that can occur when entertainment and serious news subjects are intermingled. There were plenty of ways to dig at the Tap Fish story without the kind of interview misrepresentation that appears to have taken place in this instance.

Comedy Central has some great programs, definitely including The Daily Show. But I would argue that these programs can be successfully and entertainingly produced without abusing interview guests -- even ones who may in some respects definitely deserve degrees of disdain.

--Lauren--

Update (December 10, 2011): YouMail Returns to the Android Market

When Google's first Android phone -- the G1 -- was introduced several years ago, I jumped over to T-Mobile to gain access to the device. I had twice before been "sucked back" to AT&T as a result of wireless mergers, and leaving them again was a no-brainer.

Since then, I've been generally satisfied with T-Mobile USA. Their coverage is generally OK at least where I need it, their HSPA+ data network is good, and their support for Wi-Fi Calling (UMA) is excellent -- even completely free in many cases.

Where T-Mobile has really sucked was in the voicemail department. You may recall my posting from three years ago, Official T-Mobile Policy: Tough Luck If You Lose Messages and the explanatory materials linked from that posting.

So early on, I was looking for voicemail alternatives, and settled on the excellent free YouMail service, not only for its basic call handling functionality, but also for its Web and really superb Android visual voicemail app.

While I now also make extensive use of Google Voice's great services, for various situations I've preferred YouMail, and it still is at the core of my telecom setup.

So I was stunned today to hear that T-Mobile had apparently "arranged" for YouMail's Android app to be dropped from the Google Android Market, claiming some sort of network disruption by YouMail's over two million users.

Yet according to YouMail's detailed blog posting (which I urge you to read in its entirety), T-Mobile never even bothered to contact YouMail about any supposed issues.

I have to agree with YouMail: "This is crazy."

Millions of people depend on YouMail every day. Their Android app (I've also run many of their betas) has been uniformly excellent. For T-Mobile to pull a stunt like this, reportedly without even discussing the matter with YouMail first, stinks all the way to Alpha Centauri.

T-Mobile needs to explain -- right now, publicly, no excuses -- what the hell they're doing in this regard. Otherwise, my patience with watching them still dirty dancing with AT&T (whose wireless embrace I will not willingly suffer again) shall come to an abrupt end, contract or no contract. Maybe T-Mobile is just trying to drive away their remaining USA customers at that! If so, they've picked a dandy technique.

And while we're at it, I'd like to better understand how T-Mobile was able to get Google to pull the YouMail app without having even demonstrated that they had tried to reach out to YouMail in the first place. This app isn't a game used by a few people, but a crucial communications tool employed by millions.

In the meantime, the app is still available from the Amazon Android store (which I consider inferior to the Google Android Market for various reasons, including Amazon's insistence that you unnecessarily provide them with credit card data), and the app can also be downloaded as a direct APK from YouMail.

More info as it becomes available.

--Lauren--

Update (December 10, 2011): YouMail Returns to the Android Market

There was a time when I was a semi-regular viewer of MythBusters. Especially early on, it had some fine segments. But as the series progressed, many of their experiments became more self-referential and often silly, and the team (increasingly "full of themselves" -- one might observe) seemed to be playing fast and loose with the relevant science in many cases. Most of all, the shows seemed to more often than not to have become basically an excuse for blowing things up -- which has a certain appeal in some circumstances, but carries significant risks if anyone messes up. A friend of mine who worked years ago on major demolition projects once noted to me regarding MythBusters, "It's only a matter of time before somebody is likely to get really seriously hurt or killed during the taping of that show."

That day very nearly came yesterday, when a MythBusters cannon misfire sent a cannonball careening into a Dublin, California residential neighborhood, where the projectile plowed through one occupied house, damaged others, and ended up smashing into a parked car that had been occupied only minutes before. (Video)

MythBusters is extremely fortunate that nobody was injured or killed, and that insurance payouts and Discovery Channel moola should be able to render repairs and compensation -- this time.

And one suspects that the authorities who have (up to now) permitted MythBusters to use various facilities for such experiments may be rethinking those decisions.

But what's of particular interest from the Internet standpoint is MythBusters' reaction to the accident. A relevant Tweet from team member Grant Imahara about "working with heavy artillery today" (which was retweeted on the main MythBusters Twitter account) was reportedly quickly deleted from both Twitter timelines.

Of course, the Tweet itself was still preserved by various systems and users, along with referenced "hanging around the cannons" photos that were still available with a bit of digging.

For the supposedly Web-savvy MythBusters to forget one of the basic technology truths of the 21st century -- "The Internet Doesn't Forget!" -- is puzzling indeed.

If the Tweet and photos had been left in full view, they would have been noted to be sure, but there would have been no implication of someone trying to cover-up those postings after the fact by "disappearing" them.

Panic? "CYA"? Something else?

We don't know at this point. But by their actions in this regard, MythBusters has elevated the attempted removal of publicly posted information, into a significant part of the story.

MythBusters lucked out yesterday when their errant experiment -- by sheer chance -- barely missed causing a disaster that money couldn't fix.

Perhaps in a future episode they might wish to consider busting the myth that it's possible to effectively delete widely viewed public Internet postings after a royal screw-up. But we already know what the finale of that experiment would reveal.

--Lauren--

The story of a lawsuit relating to IMDb (part of Amazon.com) "outing" the age of an actress (the plaintiff in this case, who wanted to keep that information private) has been bouncing around for a bit now, but recent developments are starting to suggest that Amazon has now "jumped the shark" toward the dark side of this controversy.

While many observers have made light of this (so far anonymous) actress' concerns (after all, your age isn't "protected" data in most circumstances, and it's normally impossible to "unring" a bell in data disclosure situations), the details of this case are actually quite intriguing.

A core issue -- and what should be a point of primary focus -- is how IMDb obtained the actress' age data before publishing it publicly. The actress asserts (and Amazon appears to confirm) that this data was obtained from the sign-up form the actress used to gain access to (fee-based) IMDbPro services.

She claims that her age was requested as part of the routine sign-up sequence along with credit card, address, and other related data, and that it was not made clear that IMDb claimed the right to then use this information in their public database. When she asked them to remove this data from public view, IMDb reportedly declined.

Digging through the rather voluminous IMDb user agreements and privacy policy documents as they exist today at least, it's difficult for me to determine whether IMDb's data usage policy in this respect was definitively spelled out or not.

My own view is that there should always be an extremely clear demarcation between personal information used to sign up for a service, vs. the information that will be used by the service beyond the purposes of signing up (e.g., posting in their publicly accessible database). Such a notice should not just be buried in policies on other pages either -- it should be right up front on the sign-up page, as in "Please note that your age information as entered on this form will become part of your publicly viewable profile on IMDb."

The plaintiff in the case under discussion asserts that no such notice was clearly provided. Obviously this will be an issue for the court to determine, both in terms of the type of notice (if any) provided, and whether Amazon's use of the provided data was in keeping with their legal obligations under their Terms of Service and in all other relevant aspects.

But now this case has taken a rather creepy turn, with Amazon loudly proclaiming to the court that not only should the actress not be concerned about her age being revealed, but that she shouldn't be able to remain anonymous during the case.

For me at least, these assertions leave a bad taste, indeed.

Reasonable persons can argue about whether an actor, actress, or anyone else should be concerned about their age being publicly known (age discrimination is a fact of life both inside and outside of Hollywood). But for Amazon to take the "it's not a big deal" stance when they specifically are accused of being the entity that publicly published data that had previously apparently been carefully kept private, seems highly disingenuous at best.

Where Amazon really joins with Vader and company is their push to have the actress' name (which they obviously already know) be publicly revealed. Their motive seems clear -- essentially, revenge. If her identity is exposed now, Amazon would have created a fait accompli that would serve no purpose other than to create further distress on the part of the plaintiff.

Since public linkage of identity and age are at the center of this case, there is no convincing reason I can see why this actress' identity should be revealed at this stage. We constantly condemn firms that inappropriately attempt to unmask whistleblowers in court. As far as I'm concerned, the plaintiff in this case falls into the same "protected identity" status as those whistleblowers, at this time.

Ultimately, the case should revolve around a single set of issues -- did Amazon/IMDb inappropriately use personal information for their public database? Were their Terms of Service clear regarding their use of IMDbPro signup data? Did the signup forms appropriately and clearly warn potential subscribers how that signup data would be used by Amazon?

If IMDb was honest and clear on these points, with obvious notices on the forms to warn users how submitted data could become public, then Amazon should win this case. If IMDb misused the signup data, or did not in a clear and direct way warn users how signup information could go public, then Amazon should lose.

The rest of Amazon's arguments regarding the case at this point appear to be largely irrelevant and diversionary, and I hope that the court seems through them, and concentrates on the question of Amazon's handling of personal information and related notification disclosures.

So far, Amazon seems to be largely "blowing off" concerns about their behavior in this matter, and worse, is attempting to preemptively shift blame to the plaintiff.

Amazon's stance on this -- regardless of the underlying facts regarding their notifications and Terms of Service -- seems arrogant at best. This isn't the first time we've seen this from Amazon. It is not becoming to them, and it is certainly not in the best interests of the Internet community at large.

--Lauren--

With considerable justified fanfare, Google has launched a major redesign of YouTube, that emphasizes user "channels" and social features, positioning the service to be an ever more formidable (and as far as I'm concerned, very welcome) competitor to traditional television. Much has been written elsewhere about these definitely positive changes.

But there is one aspect of the redesign that caught my eye -- literally -- and had me initially scrambling to determine if I was suddenly having browser configuration problems or other browser-based issues.

While it's common to think of YouTube mainly in terms of the videos themselves, there's a lot of text on YouTube as well. This includes various descriptive materials, comments, user video dashboard controls, and so on.

For example, user comments on videos are an important social feature of YouTube. I read and moderate large numbers of them submitted every day on my own YouTube video uploads.

So I was startled to see that the YouTube redesign has currently switched from a crisp, black on white design for most detailed texts, to an extremely low contrast black on gray (and for some pages gray on gray!) that frankly are a bona fide pain in the eyeballs for anyone with less than perfect vision, and that category includes vast numbers of us with naturally "aging" eyes that are an inescapable fact of life.

Here is how the text now appears for a chunk of comments on my Deleting Your Facebook Account video.

You can zoom up the text in standard browsers of course, and that helps a bit, but the lack of contrast is still a big problem, and much zooming tends to degrade from the overall page view experience on many Web pages in general. (As an aside, tiny fonts in smartphone apps that can't be easily enlarged are another constant struggle for many of us in these same cohorts!)

To be sure, black on gray text in particular isn't always a problem, and it can be argued that backgrounds a bit darker than bright white may result in less eyestrain overall in various situations. I've used black on gray myself, but with relatively thick-stroke fonts. However, when the chosen fonts have relatively thin strokes as in the new YouTube case, the contrast goes south fast, and the result is something of a gift to opticians.

User interface design is at least as much an art as a science, and Google doesn't make capricious changes. So I'm puzzled as to how this particular text display aspect was vetted, which seems to clearly (no pun intended) degrade from a primary functionality, at least for a significant percentage of users.

I'm all for artistic embellishments in user interfaces -- when they don't interfere with the actual use of those interfaces themselves.

As it stands, an overall wonderful new YouTube redesign has been made less comfortably accessible to many users, and that can't help but discourage its use.

And that "looks" like an outcome that would be a real shame.

--Lauren--

Update (December 3, 2011): : In reaction to the posting above, a bunch of people have pointed me at the Contrast Rebellion site, which is definitely worth a look. And just to (hopefully!) demonstrate that I'm not being dogmatic about this, I'll note that my standard, everyday terminal window is actually a black on gray configuration, but crucially, with a carefully chosen thick-stroked font that works well this way.