I can’t decide just how dumb this is. In an attempt to make his town more internet friendly, Topeka mayor, in a formal proclamation, has unofficially renamed the town Google for the month. He should have renamed it Mustache, Kansas and he would have had all the men grow mustaches for the month and made millions for prostate and testicular cancer research. Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time the town has done this. Dumb anyway, but for the internet craze, way too late. Should have been done back when Google was only worth in the millions.
Google is getting a little to personal with this one…
The next time you Google something, if the search results seem a little too good, a little too personal, it’s because they are.
While Google’s always delivered customized search results to people logged into their Google account—that is, search results tailored to you, based on your web history (yes, even outside of Google, like Gizmodo), past searches and previous results you’ve clicked on—it’s now going to be doing that for everybody. Even if you’re not logged in, you’re going to get personalized results and yes, more targeted ads, based on past searches, tracked by an anonymous cookie that stays on your computer for 180 days. (BTW, it’s not like Google’s just started keeping track of your searches, it’s just now Google’s using that info more directly, that’s all.)
You can turn it off here, though I’m guessing that won’t turn off the dirty feeling you’ve got right now.
After coming under increasing scrutiny from various state attorneys general for the open prostitution listings in its “erotic services” category, Craigslist is now folding in the face of criminal charges. The company said in a blog post that it will replace the erotic services category with a new “Adult services” category where each ad will be individually reviewed before posting.
Existing ads in the erotic services category will remain for seven days, but already new ads are not being accepted in that category. People trying to place an ad in the adult category are reminded: “Ads suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money are strictly prohibited” and “Ads including pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors are strictly prohibited.”
A quick glance at the erotic services section for New York City shows a lot of flesh with ads promising “IT’S NOTHING LIKE THE FIRST TIME!!” and “ASIAN HOTTIE . . . TO FULFUILL YOUR DREAM . . . WILLING AND READY.” Meanwhile, the adult services section for NYC is slightly less explicit. It has a lot more listings for “massages” and “sensual bodyrubs.” The first screenshot below is from an adult services ad, the second is the erotic services page. So much for truth in marketing.
Update: in a blog post about to go up entitled “Striking a Balance,” which Craigslist just sent us, the company states:
As of today for all US sites, postings to the “erotic services” category will no longer be accepted, and in 7 days the category will be removed.
Also effective today for all US sites, a new category entitled “adult services” will be opened for postings by legal adult service providers.
Each posting to this new category will be manually reviewed before appearing on the site, to ensure compliance with craigslist posting guidelines and terms of use. New postings will cost $10, but once approved, will be eligible for reposting at $5.
It also points out that its moderation system is “the most successful system ever conceived for eliminating inappropriate activity from a massive internet community,” whereas inappropriate listings in print classifieds can’t even be removed. Of course, there are also many more listings on Craigslist than in any single paper and up until now there has been no pre-posting review whatsoever, so I am not sure that is something to brag about.
The domain Ad.com sold for $1.4 million yesterday at domain name registration company Moniker’s TRAFFIC conference in Silicon Valley. The winning bidder was Divyank Turakhia of Directi.com and CEO of Skenzo, a domain parking company.
Moniker made more than $2 million in domain names at the TRAFFIC auction, with Ad.com taking the highest bid. Bottledwater.com took the no. 2 spot at $45,000 and Athletic.com received the third highest amount, selling for $40,000.
$1.4 million may sound like a lot to spend on a domain, especially given the current state of the economy. But Ad.com is a two-letter domain that is easily pronouncable and actually means something, so it’s definitely valuable in the domain market. And a recession doesn’t seem to be stopping companies from spending the big bucks for desirable domain names so Turakhia may be able to flip Ad.com for a profit. Travelzoo bought Fly.com for $1.8 million in January. Vibrators.com was sold for $1 million a back in November and A&T’s YellowPages.com paid $3.85 million for YP.com in December.
Early this morning, Peter Sunde, co-founder of the Pirate Bay, glumly tweeted a “leaked” verdict, indicating that things didn’t look good for the four Swedish shipmates. Shortly after came the official word: Guilty.
After a decidedly entertaining trial replete with posturing, theatrics and serious cockiness, the four co-founders of the torrent site were found to have been accessories to copyright infringement, each face a year in prison, and must pay $3.5m in damages to Sony, Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and others.
Although he could be going to jail soon, Sunde is still quick to make a joke:
Really, it’s a bit LOL. It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.
Ha? However, his casualness might be warranted, as the appeals process—which could bring the case all the way to the Swedish Supreme Court—is expected to stretch out for years. As for what will happen to the site? Sunde reassures:
Stay calm - Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing what so ever. This is just a theater for the media.
This hasn’t been the best week for pirates, really.
About two months after outraged users hammered Facebook Inc. for taking too much control over their content, the social networking site is now giving users a chance to vote over site governance issues.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post yesterday that users can vote to choose one of two Terms of Service options - the current terms of use rules and a new set of rules called the Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The new set of rights and responsibilities went through a 30-day user comment period, while the original terms of use were created and implemented without input.
Texas may be great, but it could not contain Time Warner’s HD video-killing monthly broadband data caps, which have now spread beyond its borders.
Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, NY, and Greensboro, North Carolina are the next cities to suffer Time Warner’s comparatively draconian 40GB caps at the high-end—Comcast’s is 250GB, AT&T’s is 150GB, and all of them suck.
Every gig you overshoot your cap costs a dollar, meaning an HD movie download from iTunes could end up costing another $5 on top the $20 you’re paying for the movie. Just four HD movies (assuming a conservative 5GB per flick) would swallow half of your allowed data for the month. You might wanna lay off the high def YouTube and Hulu too. Oh yes, the squeeze on high def video that doesn’t come direct from your cable box is here. Actually, can I just say the internet is dead? OK. The internet is dead.
The all-too-easy-to-crack iTunes gift code has led to a flooded market, making the codes essentially unprofitable. So they’ve now turned their attention to the App Store to find new, underhanded ways to screw Apple.
Because iTunes’ gift codes are so easy to crack, hackers can often only get 1% of the supposed value of their codes (so a $200 gift code could only sell for $2). In an effort to increase that percentage, some pirates have started contacting iPhone app developers, offering to “purchase” their app as many times as desired in exchange for a 50-50 cut of Apple’s per-purchase pay.
This kind of tactic undermines what’s so cool about the App Store— a nobody can make something hundreds of thousands of people will love, and make money doing it, just on the merits of the creation. That’s rare in the software industry, where software is pirated almost on principle, and it’d be a shame to see the App Store corrupted.
According to TechCrunch, Actor Kevin Pollak has become a social media slut. Besides being an active Twitterer, Pollak also has a streaming online show.
You can watch and interact with Kevin on his new show, which airs Sundays at 5pm (PST). Kevin responds to questions from his viewers and gabs with the who’s who of Hollywood and the comedy circuit.
Upcoming guests include:
Joe Mantegna and Jim Gaffigan (3/29)
Doug Benson and Bobby Slayton (4/12)
Christopher McQuarrie, Academy Award winning writer of The Usual Suspects (4/19)
Don’t fret if you missed an episode of Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show. Experience all the laughs and thrills and tune into Kevin’s YouTube channel now.
Here is Kevin Pollak doing Christopher Walken doing The Aristocrats:
Disney’s talks with Hulu are wrapping up and a deal could come any day now, according to All Things D. Three of the four major networks will be on Hulu. So what’s Disney bringing to Hulu?
Peter Kafka hears that all of ABC’s big shows, like Lost, will be available on Hulu—what’s up in the air now is which Disney shows will be, and which, if any, Pixar films will show up. Sadly not making the crossover are ESPN or ABC News.
What’s interesting is who’s fighting the deal: CBS, Comcast and Google are whispering in Disney CEO Bob Iger’s ear that he shouldn’t go exclusive with Hulu. CBS has a different online strategy—making their video available in lots of places and selling the ads themselves—which is why they’re not keen on going exclusively Hulu. Kafka’s sources say that CBS is committed to going that route, so even if they do wind up on Hulu—possible, with the pressure of being the last man standing, they won’t go exclusive, at least not anytime soon.
For those of you who are still using limewire to get your media, here is a guide to BitTorrent. This was taken from Life Hacker.
What is it?
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and by some estimates it accounts for about 35% of all traffic on the entire Internet.
In efficient, socialist, and thoroughly entertaining Sweden, a political party based on copyright activism has a legitimate shot at a seat in the European Parliament. Remember: A vote for them is a vote for piracy.
The Pirate Party, staffed entirely by volunteers, may have only gotten about 35,000 votes (0.63%) in Sweden’s 2006 elections, but with the current uproar over the Swedish goverment’s restrictive laws and the media sensation of our torrenting buddies the Pirate Bay, registration has swelled. With 12,000 contributing members, the Pirate Party is now larger than both the Swedish Green Party and the Swedish Left Party, and they’re staking the future of their organization on a run for a seat in the European Union Parliament this June.
The Pirate Party doesn’t have a lock on a seat; they’ll need about 100,000 votes, which would require a huge jump from their previous total. But given the atmosphere, they’ve certainly got a shot at it. Check out their website for more information on their aims, which include not only copyright law but Internet privacy as well.
The domain Ad.com sold for $1.4 million yesterday at domain name registration company Moniker’s TRAFFIC conference in Silicon Valley. The winning bidder was Divyank Turakhia of Directi.com and CEO of Skenzo, a domain parking company.
Early this morning, Peter Sunde, co-founder of 
Texas may be great, but it could not contain Time Warner’s HD video-killing monthly broadband data caps, which have now spread beyond its borders.
This was taken from 
What is it?
In efficient, socialist, and thoroughly entertaining Sweden, a political party based on copyright activism has a legitimate shot at a seat in the European Parliament. Remember: A vote for them is a vote for piracy.