The first search engine to ever challenge Google has finally arrived and it's from Microsoft. Once you quit laughing, you should really give it a try. Microsoft's Bing has a lot of potential and several features that are actually better than Google (here and there).

If you want to just compare the two side by side, try http://www.bingandgoogle.com/. Enter a search term and the site will submit it to both search engines for you and show you the first page of results side by side. Happy hunting!!

According to CNET, Firefox 3.5 is twice as fast as Firefox 3 which puts it above most of the browsers on the market (right behind Google's Chrome browser).

A mother of 4 who was hit with a massive fee for sharing music online a while back finally won a new trial, but somehow ended up with a fine almost 10 times as high!

Even though there was no proof of any harm done to the recording companies since there's no way for them to show that anyone actually downloaded any music from her, she was slapped with a nearly 2 million dollar fine for her immense crimes (which were never proven).

Even if 100,000 people had downloaded each of the 24 songs she supposedly shared online (which probably wasn't even intentional as filesharing software generally shares what you download by default), that JTAG ERROR: http://the-great-copyright-holder-lie-music doesn't appear to be a post_name, link_note, or url! This is a tragedy and I don't understand it. At best, it might be a judge's way of getting attention on the issue by pushing the verdict to absurd extremes.

This week, I'm attending the 2009 CFP conference at the George Washington University in DC. So far, I found out that there's still far too few people that understand privacy when it comes to social networking sites.

Even more interesting was the information about Cross site scripting and worse and just how easy attacks like that (and others) are to use. If I were to put a certain code on this page and you still had Facebook or your bank open in another window, just by viewing this page I could manipulate your accounts.

It's really interesting stuff, but the lesson for the day is to never stay logged into services when browsing around in other windows or tabs.

The RIAA has been suing people for filesharing for years, but a Harvard law professor is making the argument that not only is file-sharing not illegal, but that the RIAA should have to return ALL of it's legal winnings for the last many years.

This error is everywhere!

It's weird but suddenly I've been seeing this annoying Google error randomly whenever I'm browsing around. In some cases, it's even come up when I wasn't using a link from Google! If I try reloading the page or, worst case, opening the page in Internet Explorer, it works fine most times.

I don't know what it is, but I wish it would stop. It's clearly some kind of weird Google flaw and I hope they fix it soon. If anyone knows what this is and how to get rid of it, please let us know in the comments.

I swear, sometimes I think Google is suffering from a serious Jeckel and Hyde complex. In the previous post I was lamenting Google's very lame privacy policies, but then this comes along.

Google apparently has a new service that lets you broadcast to your friends where you are at any time (at which point Google will plot them on a map for you). The downsides to this technology is of course that people could theoretically monitor you or get the records to use against you.

But Google is promising that the information in their Latitude service is ephemeral and will disappear after use.

What Loopt — and now Google — are asserting is this: when you tell your friends where you are, you are using a public conveyance to communicate privately. And, just as it would if it wanted to record your phone call or read your e-mail, the government needs to get a wiretap order. That's even tougher to get than a search warrant.

They've always been good about not giving up their search records without a fight, but it would be nice if they didn't store them so long in the first place.

I only just learned about Google Voice and the staggeringly awesome features it offers for free. Though I'm not a huge fan of all the gimmicks companies attach to cell phones and phone services, this one has me interested.

The only problem is that with Google's historically abysmal privacy policies, will it be safe to use? Time will tell.

Whether or not the officer in question really did use excessive force, the main point here is that the things you write about online can come back to haunt you in the most unexpected ways.

Officer Ettienne said he is now being careful to mask his identity on the Web and that he has curbed his tongue because of the acquittal. “I feel it’s partially my fault,?? he said. “It paints a picture of a person who could be overly aggressive. You put that together, it’s reasonable doubt in anybody’s mind.??

Even your "private" Facebook or Myspace account isn't so private under the force of a subpeona.

Not every service out there is as hard to get rid of as AOL, but many are close. Here's a great guide to canceling your account at many major websites such as classmates.com, facebook.com, etc.

I can't believe it. After the issue with Reunion.com, I would have thought there'd be LESS sites asking for your e-mail password to "find your friends from you contact list", not more!

Today I found out that both Myspace AND Linkedin ask for your e-mail address passwords. Never NEVER give away your e-mail password to anyone for ANY reason, no matter how nicely they ask.

LinkedIn asking for e-mail passwords

I was sent a notice about a new search engine that maintains complete privacy by my acquaintance Katherine Albrecht, the worlds foremost authority on RFID privacy issues.

I've made no secret of my disdain for other search engines like Google or Yahoo who tell you they're doing a favor by only storing data for a little while. And then there was AOL who proved to the world how damaging even anonymized search data can be.

Technically, Ixquick is a meta search engine and doesn't do it's own work, but by acting as an intermediary, it can effectively shield you from the rotten privacy practices of those other guys. It will take some testing to see how well it works, but it's worth a shot until some of the other search services wise up.

I've complained before about how Google records your search records for no reason that I can find other than to profit off it. Yahoo is apparently no better (which is also no surprise).

There's been a lot of noise about (yet another) serious Internet Explorer flaw discovered recently that has Microsoft scrambling for cover.

People still use IE?

Related topic(s):

Firefox
Google Chrome

Lifehacker posted a new tip for easily downloading Youtube videos today. I've tried a few different options, but so far, this seems the easiest.

Though as one commenter points out:

As soon as youtube notices this, it is simply going to instantly break out of kickyoutube's frames.

We'll see how long this lasts.

Today I found a neat article about a website that displays an animation of how to do a google search so the next time someone asks you to find something on the Internet for them, you can use this to help them while mocking them at the same time

Related topic(s):

Let Me Google That For You

A while back, I blogged about how I was suddenly kicked without warning or reason from Yahoo Answers service even though I was a level 5 member with over 25% best answers. I thought that was a terrible way to treat your users and it seems I was far, far from being the only one.

Then comes this story which I felt deserved some attention. If you plan to involve Yahoo in any part of your business, you might want to think twice:

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Yahoo (which I used for hosting my business email, website, and blog). They told me I was violating their TOS (Terms of Service) but gave me no specifics whatsoever. After a bit of research, I found that my blog had been “hacked?? by someone who inserted hundreds of links back to their “drug related?? site among other things. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Yahoo, I “cleaned up?? the “hacked?? blog – this took me about 3 hours of work to do. Then 24 hours later, without any warning, Yahoo DEACTIVATED my account. I lost all my business email, my website, my blog, my Yahoo groups that I was managing, etc. etc.

When I contacted Yahoo customer service, they said there was nothing they could do and that I would have to “email?? the Yahoo Abuse team. (An interesting process, especially since they had just TERMINATED my EMAIL account!) Despite my efforts to contact Yahoo Corporate, Yahoo Abuse Department, etc. – I was NEVER able to reach ANYONE at Yahoo that was willing to even talk to me. All communication was via email.

The net result – Yahoo said they would not reactivate my account, and would not give me back any of my data files. They said I had violated their Terms of Service (TOS) and even though someone else “hacked?? my blog, it was MY RESPONSIBILITY. And even though I immediately “cleaned?? the hacked blog, they claimed there was still something wrong with the blog – but would not tell me ANY DETAILS as to specifically what was still wrong.

Also note that Yahoo provides its customers access to a version of WordPress for doing “blogs?? – but the version they provide is very outdated, and the version they provide has significant security holes in it!!

If I had been hosting my other business website on Yahoo I would have immediately been “out of business?? and it would have cost me literally tens of thousands of dollars.

From a legal perspective, I see a possible violation by Yahoo of the Federal Trade Commission Act prohibiting unfair acts in trade and commerce in that Section 15 [Termination] of the Terms of Use is unfair to impute that unexpected technical or security issues or problems that I did not cause is a “Cause?? for termination. In addition, there may also be a violation of the Yahoo Privacy Policy under its section on Confidentiality and Security. There could even be a possibility of a Sarbanes Oxley securities issue.

My questions to Yahoo which still has never been answered:
1. How did I violate the TOS?
2. What section did I violate?

If Yahoo fails to return valuable data to me, then I believe I can find sufficient legal bases to convince Yahoo to release the data to me – but at what cost? I can’t really afford to go up against their big corporate legal team!

I hope someone (hopefully you?) can publish my story to at least warn other small business owners to NEVER use Yahoo hosting services for their business. The risk is way too high!

What appalls me the most is that I have been a loyal small business customer of Yahoo for over FIVE YEARS! And this is how they treat a “good customer??? Seems like they’ve chosen to punish their good customers for the acts of unscrupulous hackers!

Is this the way Jerry Yang (Yahoo co-founder) is choosing to treat his customers? Perhaps he has more problems than just what the AllThingsDigital blog posted a few days ago:
“There are very real questions about whether Yang has the right talent and temperament for the job at hand … After all, the stock is in the basement, after Yahoo (YHOO) lost a lucrative bird in the hand in the form of a $31 per share offer from Microsoft (MSFT). Next, a weak economic environment is forcing it to cut deeply into the muscle of its many businesses, with slashing out 20 percent or more of costs, a worrisome trend if Yahoo hopes to grow when we all eventually emerge from the downturn. And, of course, more key executive departures, weak employee morale and an overall inability to clearly articulate the changes Yang has been trying to make at the company, such as its laudable open platform efforts.??

Maybe we should add “atrocious customer service?? to the list of Jerry’s problems/issues?

The kicker here is that they are essentially holding HIM responsible for THEIR poor security.

From the "well freaking duh!" department comes a news story that Washington state (and Microsoft) are suing companies that use those fake security alerts to trick people into downloading and using their products. You know the ones. They usually say something like "Warning! Your computer is infected with viruses and you must download a quick security update to stop it".

Your first warning should be when they ask for your credit card number, but I don't hold that mistake against anyone. The real problem is the scumbag companies who utilize this kind of manipulation. It makes you wonder how they've gotten away with it for so long in the first place.

(H/T to Schneier's Blog for the link)

So I know that to buy a website that either the name of a famous person or business in the hopes of making them pay you bunches of money when they get smart enough to want that site is Cybersquatting and is illegal. Simple enough.

I also know that buying a domain that similar to a major site in the hopes of getting traffic from people who make spelling mistakes is also illegal. For example, if I were to register Hotmial and I got lots of traffic from people who meant to go to Hotmail. Clearly bad.

But here's the important question: what about ad squatters? Ad squatters are what I call those people who buy up every possible domain that consists of words or letter combinations that people would likely buy, park annoying ads on them and leave them there for all time. For you to actually get that site, you would have to pay a lot more money than if the site weren't registered assuming the ad squatter decides to sell at all.

I say ad squatting should also be illegal because if someone like me wants to register a domain name for a new business or website, I'm screwed because every possible good name has been taken. If some real company or individual somewhere legitimately used the site for their own blog or store, I wouldn't mind, but these jerks only have worthless ads and no content and do nothing to add to the Internet as a whole. In fact they make it worse because search engines often list them as relevant due to the domain name alone when in fact they have nothing useful on their pages at all.

I've read the stories about how these people make millions a year on these annoying ad pages, and I say screw them. I don't begrudge someone from coming up with a brilliant idea and making a lot of money, but when you're choking the opportunities of everyone else to do it at the same time, that's not ok.

So question time: Is this already illegal and either way is there anything someone can do to get a domain name away from one of these weasels? If not, does anyone know a senator they can convince to introduce a new bill or modification to one of the existing cybersquatting laws?

The Thomas v. Captiol case was something we all watched with horror as some poor woman was slapped with a fine of $220,000 simply for having downloaded some music. However, that case has recently been overturned due to the fact that the RIAA's argument that merely having copyrighted music available for download is a crime.