Gawker: valleywag, poltiics

America's CTO does infomercial for Obama

Owen Thomas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:40:00 EDT

In exchange for his late-to-the-party endorsement of Barack Obama, Google CEO Eric Schmidt got a spot on Obama's prime-time infomercial last night. Note how Schmidt explains his decision, made only after Obama took a substantial lead in the polls: "When I read his economic plan and saw the people endorsing it, Warren Buffett, I thought, 'This is the right plan for America.'" In other words, Schmidt didn't endorse Obama until he saw it was popular with the right people, and might help Google get its search deal with Yahoo passed under an Obama administration. Brave! We still don't think you'll get that government job, Eric.

Q: Does Texas law now require PC repair techs to get a private investigator's license? A: Sometimes

Paul Boutin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Internet libertarians and Texas-haters are eagerly piling on a new Texas law that they claim requires all PC repair techs to obtain a private investigator's license. Infurating? Yes. True? Not really. The bill's author has spent the day sighing to reporters that the law amends existing occupations code by defining any vendor who performs investigate services on computer data to be a private investigator. Recovering your own hard drive data? No license required. Snooping your wife's email off her Mac? That's not tech support, it's private investigation. But don't let me stop you from railing against this Orwellian clusterfuck and its chilling effects and how goddammit, if we all carried firearms this never would have happened. The relevant section of the bill:

SECTION 4. Section 1702.104, Occupations Code, is amended to read as follows:

Sec. 1702.104. INVESTIGATIONS COMPANY. (a) A person acts as an investigations company for the purposes of this chapter if the person:

(1) engages in the business of obtaining or furnishing, or accepts employment to obtain or furnish, information related to:

(A) crime or wrongs done or threatened against a state or the United States;

(B) the identity, habits, business, occupation, knowledge, efficiency, loyalty, movement, location, affiliations, associations, transactions, acts, reputation, or character of a person;

(C) the location, disposition, or recovery of lost or stolen property; or

(D) the cause or responsibility for a fire, libel, loss, accident, damage, or injury to a person or to property;

(2) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, evidence for use before a court, board, officer, or investigating committee;

(3) engages in the business of securing, or accepts employment to secure, the electronic tracking of the location of an individual or motor vehicle other than for criminal justice purposes by or on behalf of a governmental entity; or

(4) engages in the business of protecting, or accepts employment to protect, an individual from bodily harm through the use of a personal protection officer.

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

American journalism student Twitters from Egyptian jail

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:40:00 EDT

After Egyptian police arrested UC Berkeley graduate student James Karl Buck for photographing a demonstration, he alerted his friends around the world with a Twitter message from his phone: "Arrested." Soon after, reports the Mercury News, the American embassy and an Egyptian lawyer hired by Berkeley contacted Buck and freed him from jail. Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka is skeptical of the notion of Twitter as a get-out-jail-free card. We, however, happily encourage the service's most active users to give it a try.

Is Europe a country? Don't ask Apple

Tim Faulkner — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:29:56 EST

Is Europe a country? The question puzzled gameshow contestant Kellie Pickler. And now even the European Commission seems confused. Apple has appeased the pangovernmental body by offering Britons the same price for iTunes downloads as the Continentals. But the original complaint remains unaddressed: Why can't Europeans shop at any national iTunes store, since the region is ostensibly one open market?

Jonathan Todd, the commission's antitrust spokesman, states:

Contrary to what we had been led to believe, the fact that the same content is not available in all EU countries is not the result of restricted business practices between Apple and the record companies, but of the restricting copyright legislation.

So it's the government's fault after all. Glad we cleared that up! The European Commission is eager to make companies do its bidding, but getting fractious nation-states to update their laws appears to be beyond its ken.

Some will view Apple's statement that it "will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the U.K. to the pan-European level within six months," as bullying. But this is the reality: If anyone has the clout to force changes in the music industry and its regulatory regime, it's not the European Commission. It's Steve Jobs, savior of iPod users everywhere.