May 28th 2008
The Federal Trade Commission has issued new provisions under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. These are additional definitions and adjustments to rules, and do not significantly extend these anti-spam regulations for most marketers. The new provisions address the following main themes:
May 24th 2008
I’m struck by the visible and creative use of the Internet by people in China responding to the Sichuan earthquake. Then again, so are Western technophiles, who seem overheated about how their favorite application was used in response to this disaster. Rather than attempt to synthesize something that’s as yet unfinished, I’d like to share […]
May 23rd 2008
Prosecutors in Los Angeles have brought criminal charges against Lori Drew, the 44-year-old woman who was the focus of outrage around the tragic death of Megan Meier. Since there is no law against cyberbullying, the prosecutors construed that when Drew registered under a false name, she was essentially making unauthorized use of MySpace’s computer system […]
May 22nd 2008
A U.S. District Judge in Los Angeles has ruled that “spam king” Sanford Wallace and his accomplice Walter Rines are liable to pay MySpace $230 million in damages. This is significant both for the verdict’s size, and because the spam happened entirely within MySpace rather than through traditional ISP based email.
May 21st 2008
ISP Charter Communications is about to start spying on its customers surfing habits in order to build profiles for advertisers. Charter is partnering with a company called NebuAd, which provides the packet-sniffing technology that knows which websites you’re visiting. And though Charter claims its customers can opt out, a review of NebuAd’s patent indicates otherwise. […]
May 20th 2008
Hello from Toronto, where its light until almost 10pm. The good people at ExactTarget invited me to join their 1:1 marketing conference as a speaker on email marketing best practices. I’ll be singing the praises of email newsletters as a means to personally address customers while generating and nurturing leads.
May 16th 2008
Who controls the software you use: you, or the software’s producer? That’s the question at the heart of a lawsuit by Blizzard, creator of World of Warcraft (WoW), against MDY Industries. Apparently, MDY has developed software called Glider that allows a WoW player to cheat by having their computer play for them in their stead. […]
May 13th 2008
It seems the RIAA is trying a surge of their own by increasing the number of take-down notices to universities, estimated to be up by a factor of 20. According to Wired.com: University of California at Berkeley’s chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he’d heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose […]
May 12th 2008
Are virtual worlds a technology distraction, or the next frontier for major brands? That’s the question I took on in Thomson CompuMark’s most recent client newsletter. If you’d like some concrete examples of how brands are experimenting in virtual worlds, and to find out about the array of legal issues being taken on by early […]
May 9th 2008
The way your competitors acquire, protect, and promote their intellectual assets can inadvertently signal their next moves. Increasingly savvy marketers are following how competitors manage their intellectual assets to get a sense of what they’re preparing to do next. The intellectual assets we’re discussing here include the rights conferred by intellectual property, human knowledge secured […]
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