Tag Archives: yahoo

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Yahoo confirms, will lay off thousands of employees

“The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done…smaller, nimbler, more profitable…We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities.”-Yahoo memo to employees

On March 31, 2012, rumors hit the internet that Yahoo was in trouble and would fire thousands of employees.

April 4, 2012, Chief Executive Scott Thompson revealed they will indeed lay off 2,000 employees.

Thompson said he would reveal more details on April 17.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

Corporate Incompetence: Voting with your wallet works; Verizon reverses $2 fee, GoDaddy does one eighty on SOPA

A day after announcing a $2 one time bill payment credit/debit card fee, Verizon reversed course after being flooded with thousands of complaints, and threats to cancel service.

However, Verizon officials are keeping such a fee in mind for the future: “At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time.”– Dan Mead, Verizon CEO

GoDaddy has been losing domain names ever since it voiced support for SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).  According to one source, 32,000 websites, in 36 hours, were transferred away from GoDaddy’s service. Keep in mind GoDaddy lost thousands of domain names even after they publicly reversed course, now officially opposing SOPA!

One reason that GoDaddy is still losing customers is because it’s involved in rogue website/domain lawsuits, in which federal courts have been using GoDaddy to hold web sites that’re being challenged in court.  Most of those sites are being transferred, by court order, from Google and Yahoo to GoDaddy.  In many of these cases the accused never have their day in U.S. courts because they live in another country.

The lesson is that consumers, like voters, must never let their guard down.  Corporate America is not working for your best interest, they’re working for their best interest.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

NAZI-land: If you think SOPA is bad check out what is already happening in U.S. courts, it’s called ‘rogue website lawsuits’ and they can take all your money without you ever showing up in court! PayPal involved

“Wow!”-Venkat Balasubramani, internet tech lawyer

“…the court is ordering the full transfer not just of websites, but of any funds being sent to a website.”-Eric Goldman, associate professor of law at Santa Clara University

The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, has a lot of web users concerned, but what about what’s already taking place in U.S. Federal and State courts?  It can be called ‘rogue website/domain lawsuits’ and does not involve any true due process for those accused.  They can seize your domain name/website and any funds they claim is associated with it!

In most cases only the attorney’s for the accuser show up in court: “Nobody has showed up in any of these cases to contest his motions in court.”-Eric Goldman, associate professor of law at Santa Clara University

Attorney Eric Goldman has been following the big three cases, involving Chanel, True Religion clothing and Philip Morris.  They all claim that thousands of websites/domains are ripping them off by offering “counterfeit” products or services.  The problem is that the courts are hearing the cases without any response from those accused.

Something else that Goldman noticed is that in cases brought by Chanel and Philip Morris, only one attorney is being used; Stephen Gaffigan from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It appears True Religion is using a law firm called Greenberg Traurig.

In one Philip Morris case their only proof was a written statement from a private investigator saying he bought fake Philip Morris cigarettes off a such ‘n such website.

Many cases involve courts sealing documents, meaning the accused, or the public, can never see what’s in them: “For example; in the True Religion case, the entire action was sealed for a couple of weeks. Even without the seal, I don’t know how to find these ex parte rightsowner enforcement cases against foreign rogue websites other than laboriously reviewing every federal filing, having readers tip us off or serendipity.”-Eric Goldman, associate professor of law at Santa Clara University

The courts are ordering websites removed from Google and Yahoo, only to be ‘given’ to GoDaddy.  They also ordered Western Union to redirect customer payments to three individuals.  PayPal has also been forced to freeze at least 84 accounts.

These cases involve hundreds of websites/domains, and some of the cases specifically name Chinese individuals.  While they might have merit, the problem is that the courts have established the practice of rendering judgment without the accused having their day in court, or even allowing an appeal.

For more visit Eric Goldman’s Technology and Marketing Law Blog

 

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology

German police NAZIs work with Skype, Yahoo, Firefox, MSN to spy on you, the United States is involved

“We got our hands on it and found it is doing much more than it is legally allowed to do.”– Frank Rieger, Chaos Computer Club

The German government allows cell phone conversations to be spied on, but hackers discovered that the software used actually violates the government’s own legal limits.

It’s called Bundestrojan. Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court said it was legal as long as it screened only internet telephone calls. But, Bavarian police, and several other German states, are logging keystrokes, activating cameras, monitoring internet users’ activities and sending data to government officials.  All illegal.

Hackers also found out the United States is involved: “To avoid revealing the location of the command and control server, all data are redirected through a rented dedicated server in a data center in the U.S.”–Chaos Computer Club

A Finnish tech company, in Helsinki, also found that the Bundestrojan is intercepting data entered into web browser Firefox, as well as the instant messaging programs MSN and ICQ.

Antivirus vendor, Kaspersky Lab in Germany, investigated Bundestrojan’s capabilities:  “Amongst the new things we found in there are two rather interesting ones: Firstly, this version is not only capable of running on 32 bit systems; it also includes support for 64 bit versions of Windows.  Secondly, the list of target processes to monitor is longer than the one mentioned in the CCC report.  The number of applications infected by the various components is 15 in total.”– Tillmann Werner, Kaspersky Lab

Targeted applications includes Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera, programs with VoIP and data encryption functionality, including ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Low-Rate VoIP, CounterPath X-Lite and Paltalk.

German officials are calling for an investigation.  Hackers say this is a result of society putting security ahead of freedom: “Unfortunately, for too long the (government) has been guided by demands for technical surveillance, not by values like freedom or the question of how to protect our values in a digital world.”–Chaos Computer Club

 



Technology, U.S.

WikiLeaks founder says Facebook & Twitter are secret spy tools for governments

“Do not use Facebook and Twitter”-Egyptian revolution manual

WikiLeaks founder has told Russian media that he’s discovered that popular social networking tools are really tools for many governments to collect data on the users.

Julian Assange is talking about Facebook, Twitter, even Yahoo and Google.  He says an Egyptian revolution manual warns people not to use the social networking sites, because in past demonstrations, the demonstrators that used Facebook, or Twitter, were immediately targeted and arrested by government forces.  Assange says social networking sites provide governments with a cheap, almost free way to gather information.

“So Facebook in particular, is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been ever invented.”- Julian Assange, Russia Today interview

Assange points out that governments are not directly involved, but are taking advantage of the fact that people love to post even the most detrimental information about themselves, and others, on the internet.

He also says that the social media sites have “…built in interfaces…” with intelligence agencies.  This came as a result of legal pressure from the U.S. government.  Rather than deal with individual court orders for individual databases, media sites decided it would be easier to give government agencies blanket access.

“Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook they’re doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building these databases for them.”-Julian Assange, Russia Today interview

Assange’s interview is on RT web site. It is in two parts, totaling 41 minutes.  His comments about social media sites are at the end of the second part.