“Two and a half years ago, EFF sued AT&T on behalf of its customers, seeking to hold the telecom giant responsible for its craven complicity in the White House’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

Since then, the phone companies and their allies in Washington have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress to grant them retroactive immunity. They ran ridiculous fear-mongering attack ads against any politician who dared to oppose them. President Bush threatened to veto any bill that allowed EFF’s lawsuit to continue.”

Our rights as Americans are being wiped off the slate by this administration and the Telecoms because of – MONEY and the smoke screen of FEAR!

Help EFF Continue the Fight Against Warrantless Wiretapping

“We need your help to take the fight to the next level. We’re going to challenge Congress’s unconstitutional grant of immunity in our case against AT&T. We’re going to fight for a congressional repeal of immunity in the next Congress. And we’re going to file a new lawsuit against the government, challenging its warrantless surveillance practices, past, present and future.”

I’d like to remind you that Internet Marketing is not immune to this type of eavesdropping. Think about that…

The Electronic Frontier Foundation cares about our rights. Click through and make your own determination. To make a direct contribution you can go here.

Post from: EveryJoe

On A Personal Level – I Agree

I found this article at the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Spying Telecoms Receive Billions in Government Contracts” and I believe this information ought to be passed along to as many folks as possible. Much thanks to the author, Kurt Opsahl.

“The telecoms who are being sued for their cooperation in the government’s illegal warrantless surveillance program have received billions in government contracts. According to Washington Technology magazine, Verizon received $1.3 billion, Sprint $839 million and AT&T $505 million in federal prime contract revenue for fiscal 2007, for a total of $2.6 billion. While the companies have been government contractors for a long time, it still represents a significant increase in revenue.

Telecom apologists like to suggest that the communications companies’ motivation was not financial. As Judge Walker noted when examining EFF’s allegations of dragnet surveillance: “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.” Yet, the prospect of $2.6 billion per year can go a long way to explaining why an industry might cooperate with a program far outside the limitations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), despite the difficulty of believing it was legal.”

Isn’t it amazing what the almighty dollar will wreak on humanity? Thank God for Judges with some sense!

“Note that the numbers represent publicly available information for prime contracting only and do not include subcontracting revenue. Any monies paid for the secret NSA surveillance program would be in addition to the public contracting numbers.”

This means they’ve been given more money that we can’t find…

“According to former Qwest chief executive Joseph Nacchio “the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.” In light of these allegations and the vast sums awarded to the participating telecoms, before Congress votes on the pending FISA legislation or considers any form of immunity for the telecoms, it should hold thorough hearings, and find out if there was any quid pro quo.”

Do you have enough faith that Congress will do that?

Post from: EveryJoe

Spying Telecoms Receive Billions in Government Contracts [What Did You Pay For Gas Today?]

Ina Steiner at Auctionbytes gives us the scoop;

OZtion Sees Sales Spike after eBay Plans PayPal-Only Policy

“OZtion, an online auction site based in Australia, issued a press release to announce it has seen a 50% increase in sales for the month of May compared to the month of March. The company has seen a significant increase in sales since eBay Australia announced in April that all items must be paid for using PayPal.”

Ouch – 50%??? Could statistics be misleading? It doesn’t look like it as Ina also tells us;

“It has experienced a 65% increase in Gross Merchandise Volume (the value of merchandise traded), and has 670,000 items listed for sale.”

That’ll work…

[image from OZtion itself]

Post from: EveryJoe

Dr. Phil Might Be Asking eBay…

It seems I was wrong.

I also thought one of them was probably telling the truth…

Seems I was right.

In Restless Pursuit of Craigslist’s Success

“The Kijiji unit of eBay, a free classified ads service covering 13 countries online, was introduced in the United States in late June, and has already achieved modest success in some important markets, including New York. Its vice president and general manager, Jacob Aqraou, said it would market itself far more aggressively in 2008, and was further refining its service in hopes of putting a dent in Craigslist’s huge market-share lead.”

Now I might consider that the San Francisco Superior Court ought to give this article a good read…

A tidbit or two;

• “Mr. Aqraou said Kijiji was meant to appeal to consumers who were uncomfortable with Craigslist’s laissez-faire approach, where ads for sofas and child care discussion boards are a click away from offers for sadomasochistic encounters and prostitutes.”

• “And although Mr. Aqraou said most of Kijiji’s visitors had come from word-of-mouth referrals, it has spent an undisclosed amount on ads, including some aimed at people who searched online for Craigslist-related terms like Craig Newmark, the company’s founder. Kijiji also leaned on its parent company for marketing help, sending 15 million to 20 million e-mail messages to eBay users who fit the ‘young family’ profile.”

Containing an obviously open reference is the following;

In mid-December, Kijiji introduced Spanish-language options for Miami and several Texas cities, and the company said it would probably introduce similar services for American cities with large populations of Polish, French and Chinese citizens, among others.

“It will pull in a lot of groups that have been marginalized by the mainstream Internet offerings,” said Colby Atwood, president of Borrell Associates, an advertising consultancy in Seattle.

“It’s a perfect example of why Kijiji will hurt Craigslist more than anybody else,” Mr. Atwood added. “It adds to what Craigslist does, without changing the underlying model of free classifieds.”

Why Kijiji will hurt Craigslist? Gosh, do you think that was the perception all along – or was it the fact?

Post from: EveryJoe

eBay, Kijiji, Craigslist and The Recent Past…

Save The Internet lets us know;

The Web’s Wannabe Gatekeepers: Comcast, Now Cox

“Comcast is not alone on the list of wannabe gatekeepers. Cox Communications has joined the ranks with news today that it is degrading and blocking customer file-sharing in the same deceptive manner.”

Just out of curiosity, how many Cox subscribers knew about this? But, what do you expect when the country has a lawless administration?

Harold Feld debunks the “reset packet faerie” theory and tells us;

“The Max Planck Institute for Software Development (MPI) has just released major study showing that Comcast and Cox Cable engage in major blocking of BitTorrent traffic regardless of network congestion levels.”

While simultaneously offering us;

“I eagerly await the whacky weasel words that will inevitably follow. Will it be hand-waving technobabble? Ad Hominem attacks, cheap rhetorical tricks, and endless hair-splitting about definitions or ‘what I actually said was blah blah blah’? An effort to brush past this by proclaiming ‘this was never really about whether there were WMBs (weapons of mass BitTorrent blockage), this was about freeing the good customers of Comcast from the oppression of Al Qaeda bandwidth hogs that use 90% of the capacity?’”

Harold tosses in a jab at “there’s plenty of competition Scott Cleland” and another at a certain “Decider-in-Chief.”

The WSJ produces an FCC quote (to be filed under “Oh… Yeah… Sure… I… Believe… This…);

“The FCC is always concerned about allegations that broadband consumers aren’t able to reach any legal content on the Internet they choose,” said Rob Kenny, an FCC spokesman. “If we receive any complaints of this nature, we will review them expeditiously.”

Like I said… trust your telco lately???

Post from: EveryJoe

Sure – Trust A Telco – Part “How Many?”

“You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Nowadays it seems that those who have a “feeling” of power have lost sight of this simple proclamation, especially politicians and executives in big business. More so today because those two are working hand in hand!

But this medium I have the absolute pleasure to be able to work in is increasingly putting the end to this crap these folks attempt to confuse us with! The playing field is getting leveled, and rightfully so!

How many of you noticed this?

Bush Administration Rules Limit Lawsuits

“Faced with an unfriendly Congress, the Bush administration has found another, quieter way to make it more difficult for consumers to sue businesses over faulty products. It’s rewriting the bureaucratic rulebook.

Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.

Decried by consumer advocates and embraced by industry, the agencies’ use of the government’s rule-making authority represents the administration’s final act in a long-standing drive to shield companies from lawsuits.”

And how many of you still favor immunity for telcos? Why? Did I hear anyone mention Net Neutrality lately?

Post from: EveryJoe

You Can Fool Some Of The People

H/T to IAB SmartBrief;

FTC on Watch Against Wireless Ripoffs

“An FTC commissioner warned cellphone content providers they need to do a better job of disclosing the costs consumers incur when clicking or downloading services for their mobile devices.

Speaking yesterday at the start of a two-day Federal Trade Commission forum on mobile devices, the commissioner, Jonathan Leibowitz, said the FTC intends to step in to take enforcement action against deceptive or unfair content offers.”

Sure… once again, we’ll be expecting to trust who?

“Marketers, analysts and media companies told the workshop that the mobile market is finally becoming a platform for commercial services, after a long delay, but the lack of research on what works still makes mobile’s effectiveness somewhat uncertain. They urged the FTC not to take action to regulate the developing market before problems emerged.”

I wouldn’t believe that anything is truly uncertain to these folks. Lack of research? Right…

Post from: EveryJoe

Cellphone Ripoff?

Despite the rules governing the 700 Mhz auction, Verizon has arrogantly decided that they are somehow not required to participate. Well, hell, that’s exactly what one ought to expect when there is a lawless administration, but that’s another story…

Google Accuses Verizon of Planning to Dodge 700 MHz Open Access Rules

Verizon has taken the public position that it may exclude its handsets from the open access condition. Verizon believes it may force customers who want to access the open platform using a device not purchased from Verizon to go through “Door No. 1,” while allowing customers who obtain their device from Verizon access through “Door No. 2.”

“When the FCC announced the open access requirements, Verizon asked the the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to find those conditions unlawful and only withdrew its appeal after that court denied Verizon’s request for an expedited review and after the wireless industry’s trade association, CTIA, filed a similar appeal”

Therefore, screw the court! Great attitude, and they somehow deserve credibility? Trust?

You may not like Google but, as in reality, thank God they exist!

“On Friday, Google urged the FCC to block Verizon Wireless’ $4.7 successful bid for the C Block band of spectrum in the recently completed 700 MHz auction unless Verizon is forced to agree that open access rules apply to handsets it provides its own customers. Specifically, Google claims that Verizon Wireless has no intention of abiding by the open access rules governing the C block spectrum for devices it gives to its own customers and that the FCC should condition Verizon’s grant upon a clear commitment that Verizon will not exclude these handsets from the requirement.”

Perhaps someone might want to check into how many Congressmen/lawyers/judges are in Verizon’s pocket? Oh, no, sorry, that sounds undemocratic…

Read more at Broadband Reports.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sure – Trust A Telco – Go Ahead…

Sellers say they’ll boycott eBay and now writers will be boycotting Amazon.

Funny, but I find the news about Amazon strange. On one hand some say they’re “Standing Tall” and on another hand others say their Stock is Losing Ground. Causing wonder and amazement :) Actually it appears that profit margins are suffering.

Meanwhile PowersellersUnite offers information and hope for the eBay sellers regarding the boycott there.

eBay may also be feeling some sense of loss on Wall Street but it doesn’t feel too strong from this report or from this article telling us only that “eBay’s core auction business continues to stagnate.”

eBay words of arrogance?

So what’s the deal folks? Can you put something together that either proves or disproves that these boycotts can or will diminish either of these companies in any way?

Post from: EveryJoe

How Successful Are Boycotts – Really?

Down under, they are concerned with eBay Australia’s requirement that sellers only offer PayPal as a payment processor for their auctions.

eBay Australia Sellers React to PayPal-Only Policy

“eBay Australia made a decision to remove direct deposit, money orders and checks as payment options”

Are eBay Australia’s New Payment Restrictions Fair Trade?

“eBay Australia’s decision to restrict payments for transactions to its own PayPal service has resulted in a hue and cry from buyers and sellers alike”

eBay asks permission from the governing body, the ACCC;

“One day after announcing the policy, eBay filed an exclusive dealing notification with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which administers Australia’s Trade Practices Act 1974 and other acts.”

Ina Steiner offers discussion at the AuctionBytes Blog and there are more than a couple of PO’d folks in the eBay forum.

Somehow, by simple reason, it just doesn’t seem equitable that the company providing the online space for your sales, posting quarterly revenue of $2.19 Billion, ought to reach for more while angering (and harming financially) so many. I would personally hope that the efforts to look into the anti-trust issues were successful. Seeking immunity from prosecution (where have we heard that before?) screams out loud that something is way wrong!

Oh, and make it clear that if this is successful there – it will be implemented here!!!

Post from: EveryJoe

So, You’re Hogtied To One Payment System?