Grand pronouncements can define an era, or at least crystallize provocative sentiment. In 1966, a New York Times headline proclaimed, “God is Dead.” In the early 90s Bill Gates infamously said, “banks are dinosaurs.” Neither of these really panned out, but here’s one that might: in June, Tower Group’s George Tubin declared banks have “lost…
Ads get much more personal
For all the concern and uproar over online privacy, marketers and data companies have always known much more about consumers’ offline lives, like income, credit score, home ownership, even what car they drive and whether they have a hunting license. Recently, some of these companies have started connecting this mountain of information to consumers’ browsers….
P2P ban plan for govt gets mixed response
A proposal to introduce a bill seeking to formally ban the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications on government and contractor networks is evoking a mixed response. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) yesterday announced his intention to introduce such a bill, after he, and other members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard…
The Pirate Bay ordered to close in the Netherlands
The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has won its court case against The Pirate Bay. The Amsterdam court today ruled that the site must cease all operations in The Netherlands within 10 days, or else pay penalties of 30,000 euros ($42,300) a person, per day. In an Amsterdam court last week, BREIN’s lawyer argued that The…