Twitter cofounders Ev Williams and Biz Stone seem to spend a good deal of time dealing with fake celebrities on the service, which people use to broadcast short messages to their "followers" on the Internet and cell phones. The advice is always the same: Send an email to tos@twitter.com, or fill out a support form on Twitter's help website. Hardly an intimidating regulatory procedure which requires the advice of legal counsel.

But using email or the Web can be intimidating for old people, like Fayer's client, "Hour of Power" televangelist Robert Schuller, who successfully booted his Twitter imitator this week. So he'll probably have a booming business, despite the utter lack of need for the world's first celebrity Twitter lawyer. Here's his law firm's release:

The iTunes for Windows license (PDF) has no such restriction: "2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. This License allows you to install and use the Apple Software."

From: Rikki Tahta
To: Paul Boutin
Date: January 26, 2007 2:16:42 AM PST

hi paul :

i explain to people the imprtance of confidentiality to us as we're still in
stealth mode, and how our NDA is powered by Voodoo not any legal
jurisdiction - and that if they reveal our plans to anyone their face will
be covered in boils plain for anyone to see that they are not trustworthy.
I ask them to think hard before accepting it and not to enter into it
lightly. Once they accept, I say: 'ok for the voodoo to work i need you
take the secret oath, put one hand on your head and rub your stomach saying
to me "i swear the secret oath" '

Frankly NDAs are not really enforceable legally, their primary value is as a
reminder - a sort of statement of seriousness - you hope people, by the act
of signing a meaningless bit of paper, will take the duty of confidentiality
more seriously. But they sign them all day long and are either trustworthy
people anyway who, when they said they will keep something confidential,
they do - or they forget or ignore it as it has no teeth. But no one
forgets the secret oath. I have had people email me saying "i think you
should meet X and i want to tell him what you're working on - but that damn
curse is hanging over me - can i get an exemption?"

There is another value (paricularly important with the VC and funding
community) - it acts as a pomposity detector - if someone isn't prepared to
see the fun of taking the voodoo oath instead of a NDA - then they are
probably too self-important and won't be fun to work with. This is
particularly useful in London where success tends to breed pomposity. I
have had a board room full of bankers cheerfully take the voodoo oath prior
to a bus dev meeting and have had potential individual investors refuse to
take it in the privacy of a private meeting room.

hope it helps

feel free to use my name

Rikki Tahta
and the project is covestor.com

cheers Rikki

By Theo DP

Sonsini is one of Silicon Valley's most powerful lawyers, representing many high-profile firms (such as Sun Microsystems); the panelist is chastising him for not going after the leaking board member sooner. "I was aware," he says, in early 2005. He says he talked to each director, reminded them of their confidentiality agreements, and that now-confessed leaker George Keyworth denied leaking any information. "The way I dealt with [the leak] was in the board room," says Keyworth.

Watch the hearings live [C-SPAN]

H-P is now charting the right course, with Mark Hurd firmly at the helm. There is no better indication of his commitment to doing the right thing than the appointment of Bart Schwartz as counsel to review and revamp H-P's security processes. "Bart is an outstanding lawyer and investigator with excellent judgment and immense integrity," former FBI director Louie Freeh told me. "He will act independently and provide to H-P a 'best practices' architecture for investigations and procedures which is thorough, fair and sensitive to privacy requirements."

The lawyer, Viet D. Dinh, says Hurd's role in the scandal was mitigated, HP lawyer Larry Sonsini acted ethically in the protection of his client (though others accuse him of knowingly green-lighting an illegal investigation), and reveals that Perkins sent Hurd an e-mail blaming now-ex-chairwoman Patricia Dunn for the whole thing and fearing that she'd pack the board with supporters when he left. Looks like Dinh agrees with everyone else's take: Dunn's the bad guy, and as her replacement, Hurd can save HP.

Dunn and Dusted [Wall Street Journal, sub required]

Q. What does HP Ethics Chief Kevin Hunsaker have in common with the one-time king of San Diego's topless entertainment business and a City Councilman convicted over a strip club payoff?
A. The same professional poker-playing criminal defense attorney!

Ha! Ha! Ahhhhh, it's funny 'cause it's true.

But the musical talent of this Dr. Demento Show veteran must be showcased. So here, in a video unrelated to Sun Microsystems (customer service number: 1-800-786-0404, press 0, say "customer service" and "yes"), is "Loose Bruce" singing "Anal Vice." It is a song about his sphincter.

Loose Bruce Kerr [Podcast]
Anal Vice [Bruce Kerr on YouTube]

Ha ha, wasn't that amusing and harmless and mostly in good taste and not all psychologically damaging under various and sundry aspects of contemporary tort law, please don't sue us.

Google on someone else's April Fool's Day prank:

You have registered, without Google's permission or authorization, the domain name googlecircles.com (the 'Domain Name'). The Domain Name incorporates the famous GOOGLE mark in its entirety. Please note that your registration and use of the Domain Name incorporating the famous GOOGLE mark in its entirety constitutes trademark infringement, dilution, and bad faith registration under the UDRP.

404 Not Found [Google Romance]
Google Circles after takedown [googlecircles.com]
Google Circles before takedown [Google cache of googlecircles.com]