Sometimes something happens that makes me think that perhaps there needs to be some reworking on the democratic process. Take for example the communications between government and big business. Should companies with millions of dollars be allowed to have unrecorded meetings with the heads of government? Take the recent Denmark story where it was said Microsoft threatened to move their software division out of the country if the software patent directive wasn’t adopted. Microsoft denied the report but apparently admitted that both items were in the discussion. If the discussion was recorded on tape for public record, we’d all be able to decide for ourselves if it was a threat or not.
The latest news is that approximately a week after the EC denied the request to restart the patent directive discussion even though they no longer had a majority in favour of it, the EC Council presidency has denied a request from Poland, Denmark, Portugal and others (not specified) who asked for a B item (discussion point) instead of just voting though an A item. ” The Luxembourg presidency claimed this was not possible due to procedural reasons” and as a result the software patent directive was voted though without further discussion.

Once this goes though, the EU courts will likely fill up with stupid software cases like the SCO/IBM saga where anyone that see’s the potential for money will sue on the off chance for a payout. Worse, big companies can use their big budgets to haul little companies into court and drive them out of business. There is the possibility that this directive will get voted down at it’s second reading to the EU parliament, but it’s apparently much harder to change something at second reading then it was the first time around. The problem is that the EC don’t realise that this will cost them far more money in the long run then any big software companies could invest in their countries. Look at the number of software patent cases going on in the US system if you’re looking for proof. Read the details of the EC story at the FFII.

If you’ve ever felt yourself drooling over a soon to be expired domain name, and you are not sure what the best method to acquire this domain is, then you should read Mike Davidson’s recent article detailing how he was able to work the system and win. With the thousands of domain squatters and collectors out there, this will become a bigger issue in the future as most of the good domains are now taken. For those of you that can’t wait to read the article yourself, the answer is to use pool.com to fetch the domain for you. It costs money, but if you really must have your domain, they are apparently the best service out there.

Professor Lawrence Lessig has posted a link to his blog, basically daring O’Reilly to come after him. As usual, his article leaves out the details and assumes everyone coming along understands what he means to say and the background that surrounds it.

Lessig writes about another blog, Newshounds, that watches the happenings on Fox Television and provides reports. That blog made the unprofessional mistake of quoting an entire article about Buster the Bunny that appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s website in one of it’s posts. Now, re-publishing the works or another is certainly the wrong thing to do if it exceeds the fair use doctrine, and the “O’Reilly people” called them on it — as they should. But according to Lessig, the site corrected it’s error and instead posted a link to the article.

Lessig claims that this link also offended the folks who syndicate O’Reilly. Now, unlike Lessig, I have no interest in dragging this site into litigation — even if we are proper in our usage. Matters such as this are resolved simply in most cases, the David caves to the Goliath. Who wants to defend, let alone fund the defense however just, of a lawsuit over what is primarily a hobby in the exercise of free speech? Not us!

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The suit continued Friday with arguments before the judge on a case in which Apple demands that several web sites disclose the sources from whence they obtained allegedly protected information. The three sites that were sued supposedly released information about upcoming Apple products that could only have been obtained by some person breaking a confidentiality agreement. The sites seek to use California laws that permit established media to protect confidential sources. Of course the main stream media would also seek in most cases not to leak protected information … or would they? A decision is expected this week or next to our understanding. There is a pretty good write up about Friday’s arguments on Mercury News.

Ebay is reported to have a problem on it’s site that permits a phishing scammer to link directly to Ebay and in turn Ebay redirects to the phished site. According to C|Net, that hole may soon dry up. Seems like it could be done in several hours, what is taking days? The big boys (and girls) can join all the anti-phishing initiatives they want, but when they are allowing their own sites to be used to further the illegal activity, they need to act faster than days to shut it down, especially when as like this one, the word is out that the exploit exists.

Ebay completed it’s purchase of Rent.com this past month. Imagine the possibilities, you find your next apartment, furnish it on Ebay and pay for it with Paypal. What is next, a plumbing service?

Gmail is an aggressive free email service that has been tested for quite some time by Google. To date, the only way to get a Gmail address is to be invited by another user. When we were first invited to join, we were given seven invitations. Interesting, because the spread of Gmail is similarly like the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon, where players try to figure out how one actor/actress played in a movie with another who played in another with a different actor and within six steps have reached a movie in which Kevin Bacon appeared. If I have only seven invitations, and I give them out, how long before every web user has one? What makes it more interesting is that every time you use one, you get another soon. Now, they have increase the number of available invites to FIFTY and they continue to replenish.

So what does this mean? It means if you want one, you got one, just use our contact form and we will get one out to you. And some think it means a move towards taking the experiment out of the beta phase and into production. Maybe. The concept is simple, give lots and lots of storage, allow you to search your email easily (have you ever wondered which of your various accounts you used for something and had to go looking? I have), and bring you relevant advertisements which are not overly obtrusive. I hope it is financially viable for them because it works quite well.