No, this isn’t humor. Apparently one of the numerous taxes on our cell phone bills here in the states, which I complained about a couple years ago on this blog — the Federal Excise Tax — actually originates from the Spanish-American War some 107 years ago:

This tax, imposed by President William McKinley in 1898 to help fund the Spanish American War, was originally a luxury tax, at a time when only wealthy Americans had phones. The war lasted only four months, but the “Tax on Talk” is still around more than 100 years later. Today, every person who makes a phone call pays 3% on every monthly phone bill for this outdated tax.

Cell phone companies would like this repealed but the IRS needs to tell them to stop collecting the tax, which they haven’t yet done, writes newsnet5.com:

According to the Web site www.mywireless.org, you can ask the IRS for a refund of up to three years of past taxes. You can also contact members of Congress to ask them to repeal the tax altogether.

We’re going to check into this and see if we can get any money back for this utterly pointless tax. Some of taxes sure seem like a one way door. Just how often do we hear about taxes being repealed and/or decreased?

The refund claim form required is available via the following PDF file which mywireless.org describes: “The process is lengthy and confusing, not to mention time-consuming.” Apparently a form is required to be filled out for each calendar quarter that the bogus 107 year old Federal Excise tax was paid. Why am I not surprised that the refund process isn’t simple? Red tape alert!

Anybody else tried getting their money back on this one yet? Let me know how it goes for you. My wife is on the case for us.

This data mining 101 article by Tom Owad shows just how much information is available and easily accessible online. He takes a few lines of custom code, a bunch of free scripts, a Mac and his home DSL line to do the mining and then closes with an unsettling thought:

… imagine if one had access to Amazon’s entire database - which still contains every sale dating back to 1999 by the way. Under Section 251 of the Patriot Act, the FBI can require Amazon to turn over its records, without probable cause, for an “authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” Amazon is forbidden to disclose that they have turned over any records, so that you would never know that the government is keeping records of your book purchases. And obviously it is quite simple to crossreference this info with data available in other databases.

Privacy — or the lack thereof — is one of the reasons I try my best to not follow patterns online. I’ve bought some books at Amazon, but I tend to spread purchases around. I’m a firm believer in avoiding predictability and patterns with buying habits, schedules and road travels. Structure is unavoidable with some things, but adding some unpredictable activity is wise. Eventually everything becomes a pattern, I suppose with a large enough data set — or wide enough popularlity — there is a point at which it becomes futile to try and protect your privacy but along the way if you try and do the following the leaks will at least be minimized:

1. spread online purchases around and be careful about what’s shared publically, specifically purchase history
2. if you blog it or share it with someone else who blogs it, then it’s no longer personal, always keep that in mind. Since I blog a lot of my new purchases here (they often become detailed reviews), I’m already making a lot of my purchase data well known. At least I know what I’m doing with this information and how it’s archived instead of wondering what Company ABC is doing with it.
3. watch out for public RSS feeds of your own data. Share only what you want to share when you fully realize the ramifications of sharing. Assume the FBI, your best client, parents and grandparents will be able to find and read anything you share and/or publish on the web.
4. do include privacy message in your emails if you don’t want this information shared. Yes, it should be obvious that email information is inherently private and personal, but some folks need it in their face next to your names to drive this home
5. robots.txt and .htaccess can be useful for helping to prevent third party access to data but they are not fullproof solutions.
6. always edit your profile — if you have one — after you register online. Sometimes information you fill out during registration is made public by default. Don’t be caught in this privacy trap.
7. do not use mother’s maiden name or other personally identifiable information for password retrieval. Choose vague options like favorite food or create your own unique and vague fact that only you and people very close to you would ever know.
8. don’t auto-save credit card information unless there’s no other way. It’s not that big of a hassle to retype a credit card number but it’s a big hassle if the company’s card database is breached.
9. always, always, always ensure sensitive information is being transferred over an https:// secure connection. Look for the lock in the browser. If you don’t see it, don’t shop there.
10. don’t link to your email address unencrypted in profiles, web pages, blog entries or otherwise.
11. use your nick/handle, not your legal name whenever possible online
12. read, yes, really read the privacy and terms of service (TOS) policy of sites you sign up. I’m guilty of not doing this sometimes and those are usually the sites that end up whoring out my information

Got other online privacy tips/tricks to share?

Just yesterday I was writing about China and their actions against adult websites, cell phone text messaging and blogging. Today, one of the stories is about Chinese blogger, Zhao Jink AKA Michael Anti having his MSN Spaces China blog removed. What some are finding sizzling is that this doesn’t appear to be the handiwork of China but of MSN Spaces China. This might seem reminiscent of when Yahoo handed over IP addresses at China, but it sounds different.

Scoble is fired up and extending an invitation to Michael Anti to use his blog instead (Anti has since changed to a different third-party hosted blog service — why doesn’t this guy buy his own domain and host this himself?):

OK, this one is depressing to me. It’s one thing to pull a list of words out of blogs using an algorithm. It’s another thing to become an agent of a government and censor an entire blogger’s work.

Scoble’s post dragged an acidic comment response (”this post seriously makes you come off as a jack ass”) from another Microsoft employee, Dare Obasanjo who works on the MSN Spaces team:

Given that you work at Microsoft and know folks on the Spaces team, isn’t the intelligent thing to do to get the facts straight first before faning the flames of speculation and making inflammatory comments (e.g. “state run thug”)?

Dare’s blog, however, remains silent on the issue. He’s currently not at CES at CES though (Update: looks like I may have been wrong on this one, but Scoble is there [?], my apologies, Dare), so I wonder how much of his feelings will be delivered to others face to face and never be blogged?

Mike Torres, MSN Spaces PM for here in the US, last blog post was about King Kong (which he liked).

I sat next to Mike at Seattle Mind and he seemed like a cool guy. Though I never met Dare, I can see why Dare (and Mike too?) might be miffed at Scoble who can’t seem to wait to hit the blog post button on some of these Microsoft-related hot issues, when it doesn’t seem like he always has all the facts. In his defense, sometimes he does, like the reporting/blogging he’s been doing on this WMF vulnerability mess.

Perhaps somebody needs to reel Scoble in for a refresher course in teamwork. Of course he probably hears that often so who am I to ask for that, but being the lone gunman blogger doesn’t work so well unless you’re a company of one. These folks are supposed to be a team, aren’t they? I don’t work for Microsoft, just go up there and beta test once in awhile, but man, Robert, it sounds like you screwed this one up.

More facts needed first. Details. Quotes from people working there. Tell us what you’ve done to follow up on the story rather than wait until the rest of the blogosphere — myself include — pontificates on what we think are the facts, Scoble is in the unique position of being able to deliver the actual non-filtered facts. That type of information is well worth waiting to see. I get the impression Scoble and some other prominent bloggers out there think getting the story first is more important than getting the story right.

Now from what I know about this story — and it’s no more than you can read from what’s out there on the blogs at this point — I think MSN Spaces China took the right action considering where they are doing business. If/when more information comes out that shows this blogger didn’t violate the TOS I reserve the right to change my opinion.

In the meantime, I’ll say this again, despite how distasteful this might sound: their country, their ballgame.

If MSN, Yahoo, Google, you or I want to do business in China we need to operate by Chinese rules, regulatations and beliefs. We have democracy here in America and so it’s only natural not to understand or like the fact that Communism exists but we do have a choice: don’t do business there.

And if not doing business there costs billions … well, there is still a decision not to business there, isn’t it?

The minute you open up a business in somebody else’s country, you have to abide by their rules and regulations. This isn’t about freedom of speech for this blogger. Look, he doesn’t have the First Amendment, he lives in China. Like, dislike, whatever, that’s just the way it is in his country.

(cue Bruce Hornsby piano)

Seriously, I just don’t like it when people try to change other countries beliefs, rules and regulations. Yes, we have to be alert and concerned that some radical country (I’m speaking generally now, not of China) isn’t building nuclear or biological weapons that will threaten all of mankind so don’t anybody get derailed thinking I’m all giddy about Communism. We must find some way as a society to stop trying to jam our beliefs down others throats. Tolerance for others, instead of intolerance. If China doesn’t want to allow bloggers in their country to say certain words or speak out against the establishment, that’s their decision, their soil.

Too bad Mr. Anti had his blog taken down, but he doesn’t get four outs when the rules say it’s a three out ballgame. Readers know I try to steer clear of most political topics but this one crosses into technology boundaries and has me annoyed. Not that MSN Spaces China took this blogger down, but the most popular response I’m reading so far is how MSN Spaces in China are cold-hearted bastards for enforcing their TOS.

They aren’t evil, they are acting within the rules and regulations in that country. Also, Mr. Anti agreed to the Terms of Service when he setup an MSN Spaces blog, yes? What did he violate there? My guess is at the end of the day, when facts come out that there were several TOS violations and MSN Spaces China was well within their rights to take down his blog. I believe the MSN Spaces China team will be vindicated from a business and legal standpoint.

The court of public opinion might deal them harshly for another business cycle or two, at least until Bill Gates announces something tomorrow night (he is is going to announce something new, isn’t he?).

Time for Gates to pull a joker out of his sleeve. Microsoft could really use one of them right about now. Really.

China is taking its fight against “obscene” internet content, according to ars technica. But it’s not just adult entertainment that China is cracking down on, also blogging and cell phone text messages:

The Chinese government also recently increased surveillance of mobile phone text messaging, a popular method of communication in China where 383 million individuals use mobile phones. According to Wu Heping, vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security, Chinese law enforcement agents have found 107,000 illegal text messages since the start of November, and have consequently pulled the plug on approximately 9,700 cell phone accounts. The police say that 44 percent of the illegal messages intercepted by police were attempts at banking fraud, but many of the other illegal messages were advertisements for prostitution and pornography services

The next time you hear someone say America sucks, just point them to this post. Now who outside China is up to some real virtual red light style living? Text message cyber orgy, everybody!

(rimshot)

Yes, I voted today. Did you?

Our local mayor race is pretty close with only a few votes separating the candidates currently.

Reference
November 8, 2005 Pierce County General Election results (refresh)

Earlier today on the weekly web radio show I host, I had more than a few angry words about the announcement that Exxon Mobil posted record third quarter earnings of nearly $10 billion. I’m not begrudging them — or any corporation — for making record profits, but if they are having record earnings why is the price of gas soaring? Why is the price of natural gas going up this winter? What the hell is going on here?

Fortunately a few politicans in Washington are asking the same question:

Those results led Democrats in Congress to demand a new windfall profits tax. Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is getting killed by high gas prices, and soon-to-be record heating oil prices,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said President Bush opposes such a move and is instead considering a wide range of proposals to help cushion consumers, including the creation of an emergency reserve of gasoline and other refined products.

Why does President Bush not opposing anything to push back these oil tycoons not surprise me? Lord, can 2008 get here quickly enough? This has been the worst times in America in recent memory, all under Bush watch. A vicious 9/11 terrorist attack, a war propogated on lies and generating over 2,000 soldiers KIA in Iraq, catastrophic hurricanes (not the President’s fault, btw) and now the oil companies making insane profits. Good for them, good for the shareholders, so why can’t there be a way to make this good for the consumers too?

Why is gas higher at the pump under these conditions? Why are some of these record earnings not going back to the price at the pump?

What am I missing here?

RFID in new passports? My initial thought: good idea. This is bound to further stir the pot of privacy advocates and fearful Orwellian believers who don’t read the fine print which clearly indicates that physical touch is required to unlock the information embedded in the chip.

As a result of tougher post-Sept. 11 security requirements, all new U.S. passports issued by the end of this year are supposed to have a microchip containing the holders’ name, nationality, sex, birth date, place of birth, issuing office and a biometric identifier - a digital photograph. A tiny antenna embedded in the passport cover will allow remote reading devices to capture the data on the chip.

Predictably some privacy advocates are already playing the “we don’t know how this will be used” card. Stop, please. Who is going to need a passport? People who enter or leave the country. When these same people are travelling most likely they are carrying a cell phone with a GPS beacon built-in. Doh! They are already carrying technology that can be tracked. If you don’t want to be tracked, then don’t take a cell phone with you (VoIP is a good alternative).

Until we start talking RFID chips that are proven to be used for tracking purposes in driver’s licenses, credit cards or other forms of IDs that we carry on our person every day out of necessity and that can be tracked, I’m not going to go all Oliver Stone on this one.

I really didn’t want to blog about this in more detail because I don’t like splogs and any detailed post by me shooting down ideas against them makes me sound somewhat like a splogapologist. Unfortunately, Mitch Ratcliffe really seems to be sticking by his guns that encouraging people to click on Adsense ads in splogs that they have no interest in is not, in fact, click fraud:

Here’s the thing, most of the comments about this did not read my follow-up posting about information pollution. I’m not suggesting fraud. I am suggesting political action. If we don’t make some noise about this and create significant discussion about what constitutes legitimate contributions to the information economy, we’re surrendering our role in defining the Net. At no point do I suggest click fraud, what I suggested is that when bloggers receive spam postings they go to the sources of those sites and click the ads there.

Mitch also calls this “political action” in his recent comments left on this blog:

TDavid—I think you’re wrong, it is not dishonesty to follow links on a site to discover what advertisers are supporting sploggers and send them, along with Google, a message by driving conversion rates down. That’s a political action.

First of all, you can see the target URL of the sponsor in the Adsense ad and therefore can type that into any browser window. You can then petition that sponsor via email or other electronic means without ever clicking a single Adsense ad. It is not a requirement to click the ad to “discover what advertisers are supporting sploggers.”

Secondly, sorry Mitch, dressing this dog idea up as “political action” is being political, not taking any sort of honorable, ethical action as a responsible business owner. You say this is not a business decision, but that’s wrong. The problem here are innocent bystanders (the advertisers) are being wronged financially. Advertisers are not signing up with Adwords to advertise on splogs and even if some small percentage of them are, is it really our place to try and disrupt their business model under the guise of it being for the greater good? Robin Hoodism doesn’t apply here.

If you have no interest or intention of possibly buying from those ads, you are defrauding the advertisers because they paid for legitimately interested eyeballs from somewhere. They buy into the concept that their ads will show up where it is contextually relevant and are expecting to receive interested eyeballs. People who are encouraged to click ads just for the sake of sending some message about splogs, even if it is targeted clicks on splogs only are still committing click fraud.

It is sort of like some of these people who Adsense (rightly) booted out of their program saying: “yeah, but I only clicked my ads a couple times.” If they click any of their own ads and therefore profit from that action even one time, one penny, that is still click fraud and a violation of Adsense TOS. There is no couple times and that’s ok rule. No gray area, no political action, it’s click fraud.

Click fraud. Click fraud. Click fraud.

There are other better ways of dealing with this splog problem and some folks are already out there hard at work on them. I look forward to the upcoming Seattle Mind where we can talk about these ideas in more depth and create some real world action plans to reduce the splog infestation.

And you should do some more research (read the Adsense Terms of Service and Program Policies carefully). Google does not have to prove you committed click fraud to eject you from their program. They can kick you out for just thinking you committed click fraud based on their own data, which likely they won’t show anybody unless forced by a court of law. Sure, you could sue them and subpoena their evidence which will most assuredly confuse any court of law when they actually try and sift through Google’s evidence of alleged wrongdoing. They have billions in the bank and none of us should forget those billions will buy plenty of court time with highly skilled and very expensive attorneys.

Frankly, Mitch, the fact that you have already made this click fraud idea a public spectacle is enough evidence for them to cancel your Adsense account now. You are encouraging something that their program policy specifically prohibits. You are breaking their TOS.

Most affiliate programs have the deck stacked way against the affiliate so the best we can do as affiliates — always — is to tell others only when asked, not promote, only clicking ads people are interested in and never promoting or encouraging people to click Adsense ads they aren’t legitimately interested in. That is the business deal we signed into when we signed up for their program. If we don’t like those terms, we walk, we don’t use our blog for political action to try and void those terms. We just cancel the program and use somebody else. There are plenty of affiliate programs out there, so if you don’t like Google’s program then don’t use it.

I happen to like Google’s Adsense program and do use it. I try my best to comply with their program policies and TOS and hope that we will continue to have a business relationship into the future. Is their program perfect? No. Is their program being abused by sploggers? Yes. Do I think they can be motivated to fix it? Yes, but not by conducting click fraud.

Those even remotely considering Mitch’s idea please realize that it is against Adsense program policies to encourage people to click ads for any reason. Here is the specific passage:

Web pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers’ sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the ads. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as “click here,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language that could apply to any ad, regardless of content. In addition, publishers may not bring unnatural attention to sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites. These activities are strictly prohibited in order to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.

And now check item #5 on the Adsense TOS (additional bolding mine):

Prohibited Uses. You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) directly or indirectly generate queries, impressions of or clicks on any Search Results, Links and/or Ad(s) through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks

And the only time to click these Adsense ads legitimately are:

1) if they aren’t your own Adsense code ads
2) you are legitimately interested in what the ad says
3) you haven’t been coerced to click the ad by some third party as some sort of incentive

Mitch’s example clearly violates #3. The incentive being that if people click Adsense ads, especially if they use “repeated manual clicks” then they will someday possibly, maybe, hopefully, politically reduce the splog problem. Sorry, Mitch, but this activity is completely and thoroughly wrong.

If 1-3 above aren’t correct then it can’t be excused as some political action or splog vengeance, it is quite simply and correctly click fraud.

There are better ways. Let’s explore, find and use them together to combat this problem. I believe that Google will help. I see from Mitch’s post that he is setting up a site called memepeace.org but honestly I can’t see joining a group like that if the foundation is based upon click fraud. That isn’t the kind of peace I know nor is it ethically viable. I sincerely hope that’s not the charter and there will be more to this organization and this click fraud idea was merely the spark to ignite a reasonable, honorable, ethical call to action.

Unlike others who think Google’s billions have darkened their soul, I believe at the end of the day they still want to do the right thing. Sure, I don’t like everything they do and complain here loudly when they do something I think is ill-advised.

You’ll know when I feel otherwise: when I stop using their products and services and sell their stock. That is the ultimate message that doesn’t require any click fraud to execute.

The splog problem requires strong action, but please let’s not lose our ethics, honor and minds in the solution. I can’t — and won’t — get or stay aboard that train.

Guess it sucks to have the word “blog” in your URL if you want your content getting through to some workplaces that are going as far as banning the word at the company firewall.

Filtering out every blog isn’t a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company’s filter doesn’t catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion’s share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available.

I can see filtering objectionable material at work, but let’s be real: filtering blogs? I’m not sure how effective this would be anyway, because of RSS and the employee could get the RSS through another site that doesn’t have “blog” in it. Somebody is probably already programming an RSS proxy that will replace any instance of “blog” in content with some other user-defined word.

A company anti-blog policy makes little sense to actually curb content getting blogged after work or off premises. It might actually encourage it from disgruntled employees. Conversely, an open blogging policy which clearly defines the type of material that cannot be blogged might actually give the company some extra exposure and good will.

If an employee really wants to blog something they can blog it after hours or use their cellphone to get the word out, so there is no technology that can stop that.

Some employers really need to learn to trust their employees more. Yes, there are employees who abuse internet access at work but I’ve yet to see one compelling study that shows that these same employees aren’t using the internet to get work done off the clock. The internet at work is sort of like the telephone and most employers don’t block who employees can call, do they? They may have policies about personal calls at work and internet usage should be defined in a company policy as well. That’s wiser than going all keyword ninja on the firewall.

Wait, none of these employers who block the use of the word blog will be able to see this? Doh!

Unrelated but I was glad to see the local Y finally has open WiFi. Too bad it only works in the lobby and toward the front of the building. They need to get some repeaters and then I’ll literally be able to blog from the treadmill. Scary, huh?

The Official Google Blog posts a detailed explanation for why they keep wanting to pursue Google Print, despite the fact it is so unpopular, and is generating legal action against them:

The answer is that this program, which will make millions of books easier for everyone in the world to find, is crucial to our company’s mission. We’re dedicated to helping the world find information, and there’s too much information in books that cannot yet be found online. We think you should be able to search through every word of every book ever written, and come away with a list of relevant books to buy or find at your local library. We aim to make that happen, but to do so we’ll need to build and maintain an index containing all this information.

The problem I see with Google’s aspirations, no matter how altruistic they might seem or actually be, is that they aren’t asking permission in advance, they are forging ahead with a strategy of if you don’t want to be listed, just contact us and we’ll remove you. This isn’t an opt-in approach, this is opt-out. Admittedly, as I write this, I can’t think of a single good reason why any copyright holder would not want to make it easier for readers to find and buy his/her book. So should this grant Google the ability to steamroll in and copy and index their content?

Others are blogging with their thoughts on Google Print.

The PC Doctor writes:

I hope that Google now finally take this as an indication of how the publishing industry feel about this gross violation of intellectual property. The motto of “Do no evil” is starting to wear thin. You’ve gone too far with this and starting to look suss.

I support Google’s goals in trying to index the world’s information, but should they do it at the expense of making assumptions about the copyright owner’s wishes as to how their material will be used?

And will they share this information with others just as freely?

John Battelle talked to Allan Alder, counsel for the AAP, and found that this issue is more than meets the eye:

First, who is making the money? Second, who owns the rights to leverage this new innovation - the public, the publisher, or … Google? Will Google make the books it scans available for all comers to crawl and index? Certainly the answer seems to be no. Google is doing this so as to make its own index superior, and to gain competitive advantage over others. That leaves a bad taste in the publisher’s mouths - they sense they are being disintermediated, and further, that Google is reinterpreting copyright law as they do it.

Ask the copyright owner’s permission first. Get permission to use the content the way you want to use it. Oodle ran afoul with Craigslist recently over scraping their classifieds ads without permission. Other mashup operations have similarly been denied access that they never appeared to have asked permission to access.

This opt-out usage trend on the web is becoming more disturbing. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s there for the taking. It’s copyrighted, not copyrapeit.

If Google gets permission first, then they don’t have to worry about these legal challenges giving them a ton of bad PR and flak. There will be plenty of copyright holders who do want Google to index their work.