Google’s Arrogance in North Carolina: Learning from AT&T?

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Ed Cone:

But it turns out that there was a lot more to the story. Google leaned hard on North Carolina lawmakers and officials, not just to get the fattest deal possible but to choke off the flow of information along the way.


According to documents obtained by The News & Observer of Raleigh, the company went beyond reasonable expectations of confidentiality to demand absolute secrecy while negotiations were under way, even asking participants to sign nondisclosure agreements; some legislators and local officials did so, but Department of Commerce officials did not. Google executive Rhett Weiss badgered Commerce Secretary Jim Fain about the state’s adherence to process, complaining, for example, when lawmakers wanted an estimate of the cost to North Carolina in lost tax revenue, and threatening to kill the whole thing if Google didn’t get its way.


Businesses need some measure of confidentiality when putting together this kind of transaction. Fair enough. But this is the people’s business, and Google’s high-handedness is an affront to the people of this state.


And then there’s that whole “Don’t be evil” thing. Google spokesman Barry Schnitt told me that the company’s negotiations with the state were “very standard.” If that’s the case, and this is standard operating procedure for the company, then something has gone wrong in Silicon Valley.

Barry Orton keeps up with AT&T’s Wisconsin Lobbying.

Yet another reason to use the excellent Clusty search engine.

Cheeseheads’ Taste of Chester

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Frank Fitzpatrick pens a Philly view of UW basketball coach Bo Ryan (Ryan is from Philadelphia):

Ryan peddled the cards until he got the camera. Forty-nine years later, the big picture hasn’t changed much. He’s still fighting and selling relentlessly.

“You’ve got to sell,” he said, “because a lot of times you’re a perfect stranger trying to convince somebody to do something they might not want to do. If I wasn’t a coach, I’d probably be a salesman. I’ve got to have that competition.”

Now Ryan sells Badger basketball – to recruits, to his players, to boosters, to the media, to the nation. With that slick exterior abetted by street smarts, he has transformed Wisconsin, once an off-the-rack program, into one of the hottest items on college basketball’s shelf.

GPS Spying Case

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Tom Foremski:

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that police can place a GPS tracking unit on a suspect’s car without obtaining a search warrant. In US v Garcia (2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 2272), decided Feb. 2, Judge Richard Posner found that such a device was a mere “augmentation” of police officers’ natural ability to follow a car.

In the Garcia case, an information alerted police that Garcia used meth with her, said he intended to resume producing meth, and was taped on a security camera buying chemicals to make meth. The police found his car and attached a GPS tracking device. When they retrieved the device, they discovered that he had visited a large tract of land. They obtained consent from the owner to search the land and found a meth lab. As they were searching, Garcia drove up. They searched his car and found additional evidence against him.

RENEW Wisconsin’s newsletter online

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This winter’s edition of the Wisconsin Renewable Quarterly, now posted online, includes the following articles:
RENEW and Clean Wisconsin Defend Wind Power Project;
We Energies Cops National Honors;
Don Wichert: RENEW Founder and Tireless Advocate;
How I Fell in Love with My Solar Dryer;
PSC Approves WE Wind Project;
Doyle Sets Plans to Expand Renewables.

Missouri Telecom Bill Tunes Out Customer Needs

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J. Scott Christianson:

The Missouri Senate is considering one of the best-written pieces of legislation to come before it in some time: Senate Bill 284, the Missouri Video Franchise Bill. It should be a good bill, considering how much money AT&T spent to write it.
The video franchise bill has something in it for every large telecommunications company: reducing public oversight, eliminating local control, cherry-picking high-profit customers and protection from prying public auditors. It would be wonderful – if it weren’t such a complete betrayal of the public trust.
SB 284’s most important feature is to strip local government of its authority to regulate companies that offer video services. Right now, local cable television companies receive their licenses to operate from the municipalities they serve. Cable TV companies get to use a city’s rights of way for running their lines. In return, local municipalities receive a franchise fee and are provided a few channels for local citizens and government to use, so-called PEG – for public, education and government access – channels. Until now, this arrangement seemed like a reasonable exchange for the huge benefit of accessing city rights of way.

Advocating DRM-Less Music

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Steve Jobs:

With this background, let’s now explore three different alternatives for the future.

The first alternative is to continue on the current course, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music. It is a very competitive market, with major global companies making large investments to develop new music players and online music stores. Apple, Microsoft and Sony all compete with proprietary systems. Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods. This is the current state of affairs in the industry, and customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

I hope the Hollywood types listen. Music should be very inexpensive ($0.05/track) and widely, widely used.

“Rights Managed Copy Machines”

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John Landwehr:

Ricoh and Adobe are offering users the ability to manage risk at the point-of-capture. Paper documents are scanned at the Ricoh MFP where the security policy is applied. To ensure the information remains safe, the security policy remains with the document through its lifetime, whether it is transferred inside or outside the corporate firewall.

Wow. The Soviets denied ordinary citizens access to duplicating and copy machines….

Antarctica Photos

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Duff Johnson:

In January of 2007, I travelled to Antarctica (specifically, the tip of the Antarctica Peninsula and environs) with my wife and stepfather.


This page is intended to offer a few stills, some movies and a thought or two on the experience. Nothing heavy, I assure you.


It is not my habit to promote my latest vacation. Antarctica is so extraordinary, and the tools for recording memories are (nowadays) so capable that I decided to “give it a go”.

Kirkwood Jumps the Shark?

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Kathryn Reed:

Those who skied Kirkwood 20 or more years ago found a typical day lodge with a cafeteria and slow lifts. It was the mountain people came for. They still come for it, only now they don’t have to make the 40-mile trek into South Lake Tahoe to spend the night.

Off Highway 88 where Alpine, Amador and El Dorado counties meet, the Kirkwood Valley is growing up. Whether it grows with grace will be decided in the next few years.

Even with all the hammering and sawing, Kirkwood remains laid-back — and growth has come relatively slowly. Ten years ago, the first phase of the village opened with 19 condominiums. The resort installed its first high-speed quad chairlift in 2001, with its second in operation last ski season. Dining choices are still sparse, but more diverse. Pretentiousness is unheard of. The 2000 Census tallies Kirkwood’s population at 96 and Tim Cohee, president of Kirkwood Mountain Realty, says full-time residents still number fewer than 100.

I was one of those people who skied Kirkwood years ago. A Squaw Valley ski visit always included Jaguars and Mercedes-Benz (Oh Lord, Won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz), while a fun outing to Kirkwood found the Jeep / 4-Runner crowd enjoying the mountain. It is nice to stay on the mountain, but miles of condos in the valley certainly changes the alpine views.

TIVO Selling User Data

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David Lazarus:

TiVo revealed the other day that it’s offering TV networks and ad agencies a chance to receive second-by- second data about which programs the company’s 4.5 million subscribers are watching and, more importantly, which commercials people are skipping.

This raises a pair of troubling questions: Is TiVo, which revolutionized TV viewing with its digital video recording technology, now watching what people watch? And is it selling that sensitive info to advertisers and others?

The answers, apparently, are no and no.

“I promise with my hand on a Bible that your data is not being archived and sold,” said Todd Juenger, TiVo’s vice president and general manager of audience research and measurement.