An interesting ruling in the Arizona Supreme Court found that the metadata on a public record should be public as well — so people could, conceivably, look at who created certain documents and when they were created. While that might not seem like a big deal, as the article link above describes, plenty of interesting data often can be found in the metadata — such as what lobbyist wrote up what documents for other organizations to send. While this only applies in Arizona right now, you have to imagine that lobbyists are quickly learning how to better scrub metadata off their astroturfing letters.

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Bing's touch-friendly mobile interface lets you browse movies with your finger.

(Credit:
CNET)

Microsoft on Friday released a refreshed version of its mobile search site (m.bing.com) that’s optimized for touch-screen devices. The new page includes finger-friendly buttons that are easier to both identify and to press, as well as a movie finder that lets users browse by what’s near them by time and theater.

So far, the only devices that work with it are the iPhone/iPod Touch, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Omnia, Verizon Imagio, and the Zune HD. Microsoft says support for other phones and portables is coming. In the meantime, phones that can’t access the touch-friendly interface get defaulted to a simpler version.

Also worth noting is that the touch interface is only available to users in the U.S. for the time being.

Along with touch, Microsoft also added two new search query types that pull from near real-time data sources. This includes a way for users to check on NFL football scores and flight status. Users looking to get an updated score or player stats just need type in the team or player name. As for flights, you’ll need the airline and flight number and it will cull the most recent information about arrivals, departures, or delays.

Now how about fitting some of that neato visual search action on the mobile site too?

Originally posted at Web Crawler

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Just days after we wrote about a study that showed more government funding of the press leads to less reporting on government corruption, along comes the Washington Post with an editorial saying it’s time to have the federal government fund more journalism. I wonder how Watergate would have turned out if the Washington Post was relying on Nixon for cash… The editorial piece claims that no one is “filling the gap” left by fewer newspaper reporters, but presents no evidence whatsoever to support that. The market is changing, absolutely, but we’re seeing all sorts of new, unique and innovative ways of covering the news — often allowing much greater coverage than in the past. Getting the government involved may sound good to the Washington Post, but it hardly seems like the right formula for an independent press.

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In the past, we’ve had a bunch of stories about TV shows being released on DVDs having to change their music to deal with the fact that it wasn’t licensed for DVD release originally (often because when the TV shows were on the air, there was no such thing as a DVR — or even a VCR — so it couldn’t even have been predicted). Then, of course, there have been a series of famous lawsuits over whether or not publications can “republish” their old magazines in electronic format, because freelancers who wrote the original articles only signed licenses for the single publication.

However, it looks like lawyers drafting such legal arrangements are beginning to recognize this as an issue and are trying to prepare for such eventual new media opportunities. Eric Goldman alerts us to a WSJ article, highlighting how phrases like “in all media, throughout the universe” are becoming increasingly common in licensing contract language. While some decry this as being imprecise and overly broad, I tend to fall on the other side of the fence. Not having those types of clauses in agreements in decades past have resulted in a lot of long and drawn out lawsuits (and old content that simply cannot be repurposed for modern media). Better to have the language seem ridiculously inclusive than lose culture to history because no one predicted the next popular format.

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In general, we’re big fans of the safe harbors found in the DMCA and the CDA, as they do what common sense should do instead: make sure that a third party is not held liable for actions of its users. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t always so common, and some people have trouble understanding this concept. In fact, it appears that a new bill may go in the other direction when it comes to investor information. A proposed bill that is supposedly designed to allow the SEC to better protect investors from bad info would potentially hold service providers liable for information posted by users if the service provider has “actual knowledge that the material contains a misrepresentation [or] in the absence of actual knowledge, is aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation [and] upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, fails to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.”

That would go against the basic Section 230 CDA safe harbors, so I’m not quite sure how you reconcile the two. In general, you can understand why it seems to make sense that service provider needs to remove such info, but it opens up all sorts of questions. Say someone in our comments posts some sort of misrepresentation. Are we now going to need to police that? If someone else tells us it’s a misrepresentation, will we now need to delete the comment? Are we expected to investigate whether or not some random comment on the site is a misrepresentation? Policing such things on forums all over the place would place an incredible burden on any website that allows user generated content. Why not keep the Section 230 safe harbors and focus on holding the actual parties (those who posted it) responsible, rather than the tools they use?

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Every so often, I get wrong number phone calls (one of my numbers is apparently listed in a LensCrafters book of other stores, so I get calls from LensCrafter stores asking if I’ve got things in stock). It’s not that difficult to say “you have a wrong number” and everyone goes on their merry way. Apparently, not for some. In Georgia, someone accidentally dialed a wrong number, and it resulted in someone getting shot. Apparently, following the wrong number, angry phone calls and texts were exchanged between the two guys, before they agreed to meet in a drug store parking lot, where one of them got shot (and the other got arrested). The story doesn’t indicate who dialed the wrong number first, but, seriously, would it have been that hard to have just said, “hey, wrong number” and left it at that?

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It looks like “print-on-demand/create your own t-shirt/mug/mouse pad store” company Zazzle has been sued for infringement by Summit Entertainment, who owns the licensing rights to the oh-so-popular Twilight movies. Apparently, all those excited tweens have been making their own Twilight merchandise. Now, basic common sense would tell you that Zazzle is the tool provider, and not the actual infringer here. But, Summit is claiming trademark violations, and (tragically and inexplicably) the official safe harbors cover things like copyright and defamation, but not trademark (hurray for legal loopholes). The only ones doing the actual infringement are the users, not Zazzle itself, but Zazzle has to hope that a court actually realizes this, and sometimes the courts get very, very confused on these sorts of things.

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With Peter Mandelson announcing this week (as everyone expected) that he’s going to introduce a proposal to kick file sharers off the internet under a “three strikes” plan, it’s been amusing watching defenders of this idea try and fail to answer the question “how will this make people buy more stuff.” Over and over again people explain to us why it’ll decrease file sharing (something I actually doubt for a variety of reasons that I’ll explore later), but no one has explained how it will make more people buy stuff.

But, perhaps an even bigger question is whether or not it will ever actually get implemented in the UK. TalkTalk, the ISP that has been fighting the proposal for a while (and even gave a nice demonstration to show why IP addresses are not accurate in figuring out who’s responsible for online activity) is now saying that it will take legal action to block such a proposal from being put in place, saying that it’s a violation of human rights to kick people offline based on accusations, rather than due process.

On top of that, the idea is already incredibly unpopular with the majority of people in the UK… and (most importantly) there’s an election coming up soon in the UK. Backing a massively disliked proposal to kick people off the internet based on accusations using weak evidence… probably isn’t a savvy political move at this moment. Given all of that, I’m wondering if the plan ever really moves forward in the UK, or if it just makes a lot of noise so that Mandelson and his colleagues can tell the entertainment industry how they tried, to make sure the political donations keep coming in.

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It's now easier to find unaffordable real estate in San Francisco's Mission District through Google Maps.

(Credit:
Google)

Another day, another improvement to Google Maps that increases time spent on the site.

A few days after sending shock waves throughout the portable navigation industry, Google’s back adding features to Google Maps that will once again draw the attention of the real-estate industry. Google Maps has been showing real estate listings since this summer, but the company added a few tweaks Thursday designed to make it easier to search for a new home with Google.

If you’re looking at a particular slice of the world through Google Maps, you now have the option to select “Real Estate” from a drop-down box in the “More…” section on the top of the map. And for those unable to afford real estate in San Francisco–or unwilling to pay the shockingly high prices offered in this town–Google Maps also now offers rental listings.

Google has always taken pride in the short amount of time users spend on its site, emphasizing that its goal is to get you the information you need as quickly as possible and get you on your way to that destination. But with features like these in Google Maps, you can spend almost the entire home-search process on Google, only clicking through to the real-estate company’s page, once you’ve found the four or five places that pass muster.

It’s possible that makes for a better search experience, but it also increases the amount of time spent within Google’s domain. Advertisers like that.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

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You have to wonder what the Brooklyn Law School is teaching its students about due process, since it recently sent an email to all students saying that after receiving complaints from copyright holders about file sharing movies and TV shows, it was going to associate the IP addresses with names and hand them over to the copyright holders. Of course, this is based solely on an IP address, which is not particularly accurate or reliable as a unique identifier of an individual, so what Brooklyn Law School is basically telling its students is that it doesn’t care if they falsely accuse them of file sharing, and the students should work it out with someone else. Not exactly the sort of lesson that you would think a law school wants to teach its students. Update: Ah, the power of a little attention. Apparently the school has already backed down and said that it will only do what is legally required by the DMCA, which does not include simply handing over names.

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