February 2009

Facebook: Lead, Follow or Gimme a Hug

February 27th 2009

Hot off the erm… screen: Another Facebook note concerning their change in the Terms of Service: they’re soliciting user input on how to shape it. So go ahead, all 175 million Facebook users. Flood Facebook central with your grocery list of demands, desires and dreams. That’ll work. Today we announced new opportunities for users to […]

ICANN’s Greed and Excess: Stock Losses and Staff Gains

February 26th 2009

Just a few months ago, an International Trademark Association (INTA) panel described ICANN’s gTLD policy as a “pending trainwreck” driven by greed and ambition. One member even discussed organizational ambitions for ICANN to relocate to Switzerland and build a substantial headquarters. The Non-Profit with Better-than-Commercial Pay It seems the trademark experts got it right.  The […]

The Land of Orwell: UK Gov’t Brings Surveillance Indoors

February 25th 2009

It’s bad enough that the UK seems hell-bent on placing surveillance cameras on every street corner, despite the fact that, according to a senior police official at Scotland Yard, they are an “utter fiasco.” But when the Orwellian UK government then mandates — secretly — that cameras spy on people in liquor stores and pubs, […]

Webinar: Kellogg’s James Conley on Getting Ahead by Protecting Brand Experience (Trade Dress)

February 23rd 2009

On March 4 (12:30 Eastern, 9:30 Pacific) you can participate in a free live webinar with the Kellogg Business School’s James Conley. Kellogg is arguably America’s top marketing school, and Conley is a clinical professor in technology who speaks and writes about intellectual property law and marketing. You may recall Conley’s Wall Street Journal article […]

Nexus, Schmexus…New York Wants Digital Download Tax

February 20th 2009

The Governor of the State of New York wants to address their $15 billion deficit by taxing, well, almost everything. Among the specifics is the taxing of digital downloads. The so-called “iPod Tax” would be 4 percent on all music and video downloads. For years, we’ve been waiting for the axe to drop on e-commerce […]

Optimizing for Blended Search: Additional Search Categories for Organic Listings

February 19th 2009

Have you heard of blended search? (That’s “search,” not “scotch.”) It’s when a search engine presents your search results from more than just webpages. It can include things like images, books, news and video. In 2007, Google released Universal Search, their flavor of blended search. On top of Google’s search engine results page, you’ll see […]

Facebook Reverses Its ToS Change

February 18th 2009

The folks over at Facebook seem overwhelmed by the response they have received since Sunday, when the website The Consumerist posted an article about a change in Facebook’s Terms of Service. About-Face (Book) Notice of their reversal was available on their service today: Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback […]

Facebook’s New ToS: We Own Your Stuff Forever

February 17th 2009

In 2007, Facebook was valued by Microsoft at about $15 billion. It garners substantially less financial enthusiasm these days, at about $3-$4 billion. Not too shabby. Of course, the big question is why. Has it actually made a profit, or is this 1999 again? The valuation may very well be based upon the data Facebook […]

Street Artist vs AP: Fair Use or Violation?

February 12th 2009

Street artist Shepard Fairey used an Associated Press (AP) photograph as the basis of his famous artistic treatment of then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama. That fact is not in dispute. The AP contacted Mr. Fairey in an attempt to secure credit and compensation. Although the AP has not started formal legal proceedings against Fairey, Fairey decided […]

It’s … Monty Python’s Big Score!

February 6th 2009

In what can be compared to finding the Holy Grail, the results are in for Monty Python’s efforts to encourage their legion of fans to refrain from supporting illegal uploading of their work onto the internet and buy Python DVDs. In a previous article, we described how Python was building their own YouTube channel, which will […]