January 23rd 2009
Yesterday, Google announced a limited time offer to bring its employees stock options back to par, by trading them for what their stock will be worth on March 2nd, 2009. About 85% of Google’s (remaining) employees have stock options with a value which is, well, below zero. That is, their exercise price is higher than […]
January 22nd 2009
Avatars may not be taxed directly yet, but their creators may soon be. China and Australia are already experimenting with taxation of sales in virtual worlds. Now, in the US, the IRS’s “taxpayer advocate” has encouraged the service to consider taxation in virtual worlds. The Washington Post suggests the IRS could improve voluntary tax compliance […]
January 20th 2009
It seems that only natural disasters happen suddenly. Man-made ones begin small. The EU is adopting policies that secretly allow the police to hack into personal computers anywhere, at any time, for any reason – all without any judicial oversight, which would be the start of a man-made disaster. According to the TimesOnline: The hacking […]
January 14th 2009
Lexus believes it’s a good thing to speak to its customers about certain things occasionally, and that’s usually an indicator of excellent marketing. But of course, choosing the right communication channel can make all the difference. USA Today reports: [Toyota] announced Wednesday that new Lexus vehicles will start being delivered later this year with a system […]
January 13th 2009
Tim Stanley, Carl Malamud, and the the team at Altlaw.org are tenacious, creative and on a mission. Individually, each is finding creative ways to make America’s vast quantity of legal documents available over the Internet at no charge to the public. Together, they are opening up America’s legal system to the public through the Internet. […]
January 12th 2009
Some time back, Usefularts reported on the failure of the RIAA’s “Making Available” Argument – which stated that simply having files that could be downloaded is the same as if they had been, ignoring any concept of intent. Well, the other shoe has fallen. The RIAA has filed for a voluntary dismissal for the first […]
January 8th 2009
Marketing Vox has a nearly day-by-day analysis of Firefox’s increasing popularity during the US election and holiday season. Microsoft’s share has eroded a bit, and other competitors such as Chrome and Safari just aren’t growing like Firefox. This puts Firefox on the right side of the 80/20 divide, which is how many developers assess what […]
January 7th 2009
The Consumer Law & Policy Blog describes a case of arguably false advertising, in which a “face lift” firm paid for keywords relevant to people complaining about their trademarked service, but connected them to a site singing its praises. Their apparent intent was to draw those seeking information for detractors to a forum which only […]
January 5th 2009
The sky is falling on ICANN’s ill-considered gTLD policy. I’ve been a skeptic of ICANN due to its incredibly slow response to fixing its own rules enable domain tasting.Also, last year its own domain was hacked, which didn’t increase anyone’s opinion of its chops as the world’s domain authority. I’ve read in disbelief as this […]
December 23rd 2008
Holiday cards are perhaps the purest opportunity for marketers to put brands on center stage without pesky offers or product data messing getting in the way. It lets us see pure branding and get some sense of how firms think of their clients and themselves. Here are three examples from internet marketing companies, the very people who […]
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