SmartDownload Users Have No Class

A four-year class action lawsuit over privacy violations in Netscape SmartDownload has ended with a thud.

For several years, Netscape transmitted user cookies and file URLs to its servers whenever a user downloaded a file with SmartDownload. Because some people would be uncomfortable sharing how many times they downloaded pam-anderson-home-movie.avi, several suits were filed over violations of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, including one by Christopher Specht, a legal photographer in New York who offered files for download on LawPhoto.Com (now defunct).

Members of the class action included anyone who offered a file for download on the Web or used Netscape SmartDownload versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. Millions of Web publishers and SmartDownload users could have been looking forward to a payday like the CD price-fixing settlement that netted $12.63 checks for 3.5 million music buyers (myself included).

Unfortunately, Netscape screwed up the plan by removing the feature and neglecting to do anything with the data it collected. As explained in the proposed settlement, the company can avoid paying any money with a simple promise to never to do it again:

Discovery disclosed no evidence that Netscape had ever analyzed, sold, traded, or otherwise in any way used or derived any benefit from any of the URL or Key Code information that it received from the Covered Versions of SmartDownload.

Absent such use, Plaintiffs believe that there would be no legal "actual damages" that could be compensated.

Bummer.

2004/11/17 · Comment · Link

Sign of the times: "although there were metal detectors at the door, performers aren't typically searched when they enter an awards show."

2004/11/17 · Comment · Link

Hersh Bhasin: "If I could be so distressed just by reading the book, I can imagine what mental suffering the author must have gone through in writing it."

Publishing · 2004/11/16 · Comment · Link

Best Buy: Customers Wreak Havoc

In a comment on Workbench, Jon Dobson describes a series of miserable experiences shopping at Best Buy and another retail chain:

I never had high expectations for either organization; however, after they lied to me (and yes I mean lied to me) I finally decided that I should find another place to spend my money.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a plan by Best Buy to drive off 20 percent of its customers, who the company CEO describes as "devils":

The devils are its worst customers. They buy products, apply for rebates, return the purchases, then buy them back at returned-merchandise discounts. They load up on "loss leaders," severely discounted merchandise designed to boost store traffic, then flip the goods at a profit on eBay. They slap down rock-bottom price quotes from Web sites and demand that Best Buy make good on its lowest-price pledge. "They can wreak enormous economic havoc," says [CEO Brad] Anderson.

Best Buy's the same company that embraced the concept of the door stormtrooper, chasing down and illegally detaining customers who refuse to show a receipt as they exit, a procedure that's supposed to be voluntary.

I'm amazed they still have any customers left to alienate.

2004/11/15 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Get Up to Speed with Velocity

Trygve Isaacson is dumping some of his own Java code in favor of Apache Velocity, a terrific open source template publishing engine.

In the process, he found a solution to a thorny configuration problem that prevented his Web server from finding templates.

I wrote an introduction to Velocity for the December 2002 Linux Magazine. Using its own scripting language, Velocity Template Language, the class library prevents template creators from making the biggest mistake of JavaServer Pages -- mixing code used to present data with code to modify it, producing an unholy mess that's easy for everyone involved to screw up. A Velocity template only presents data; it may not contain Java statements or create objects.

Like Log4j, Velocity's so easy to learn Java programmers will be kicking themselves for not exploring it sooner.

Java · 2004/11/12 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

The Trouble with Harry

With one week to go, there's no sign that any liberal group will mount a challenge to the selection of Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader.

E-mailing all 45 Democrats in the Senate got me a handful of pleasant form letters. I'm thinking about calling them next, since being a cog in the machinery of republic provides comfort in dark times.

Molly Ivins panned the selection of Reid this morning:

... let's get a battler from a safe blue state who doesn't have to worry about re-election all the time. I like Harry Reid, but Nevada is not blue and he's a little charismatically challenged.

Reid sounds like a solid red-state Democrat, but anyone who thinks he'll be a liberal bulwark against the Bush juggernaut should read his offical biography, which begins with admiring quotes from Trent Lott and Orrin Hatch and a photo of Reid gladhanding President Reagan.

A lot of people think that Reid's ability to dish out a parliamentary ass-kicking is all that matters. But if you share the view of James Carville and other mopey Democrats that the party needs a stronger message, the Minority Leader should be an articulate, unequivocal, and loud voice for our views.

Politics · 2004/11/09 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Internet Bites CBS Journalist

CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg comes out of retirement to lay an old-school hurting on webloggers for releasing exit poll numbers, causing John Kerry's seven-hour presidency (sniffle):

While out on the campaign trail covering candidates, my own network's political unit would not even give me exit poll information on election days because it was thought to be too tricky for a common reporter to comprehend. If you are standing in the main election night studio when your network's polling experts start discussing the significance of a particular state poll, you the reporter will hear about three words out of one hundred that you will understand. These polls occur in the realm of statistics and probability. They require PhD-style expertise to understand. ...

When you the humble reporter are writing a story based on the polls you need one of these gurus standing over your shoulder interpreting what they mean or you almost certainly will screw it up. There is a word for this kind of teamwork and expertise. It's called "journalism."

Engberg believes webloggers should be more like, well, him, judicious in the information we share.

He doesn't understand that thousands of webloggers working independently of each other could never function as gatekeepers. Exit polls, privately spread by chatty cathy reporters for years, had as much chance of staying secret in 2004 as the name of Kobe Bryant's accuser.

From their perch at West 57th, Engberg and his CBS colleagues could guard the public from news that couldn't be reported for reasons of propriety, accuracy, or editorial timidity (FDR's wheelchair, JFK's bimbo eruptions, Queen Elizabeth's control of the international drug trade).

Like Engberg, I think that webloggers should behave ethically, whether we're journalists or humans. When information must not be set free, I'd love to man the gate.

But when you combine the teeming multitude of webloggers with the instant ability of any Matt, Markos, or Glenn to reach a global audience, I can't find a gate left to guard.

Journalism · 2004/11/08 · Comment · Link

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