Colors All Mixed Up

It's improving.

Am I Electable?

I Surrender All ...

...but be careful who you surrender to.

I know, I know. I'm being legalistic. I need to gracefully bend over so we can all live in peace. (Peace only occurs when one side surrenders. Bet they never taught you that in public school.)

Terms of Enslavement: Web Sites' Outrageous Service Agreements

So, in view of the recent attempted censorship of this blog by the Googilligans, I revisited the Blogger TOS. You should do the same.

[n.b. : I am assuming it was the Googilligans that slipped that little piece of hypertext into my post to redirect the page to a null. If they didn't do it, somebody else over-rode security, hacked my blog, and then restored it.



"Although we may attempt to notify you when major changes are made to these Blogger Terms of Service, you should periodically review the most up-to-date version (http://www.blogger.com/terms.g). Google may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise these Terms of Service and policies at any time, and you agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions. If you do not accept and abide by this Agreement, you may not use the Blogger service."

When you do, you will realize that the Google TOS makes the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle look as solid as a rock. The Cheshire Cat could take lessons.

Within the TOS, you read that Google reserves the right to investigate your use of the Service, does not monitor the content of Blogger.com and Blogspot.com [giggle], and reserves the right to remove or refuse to distribute any content. You agree that you will not use any process to monitor or copy any content from the Service. [Ooops. Is that what I am doing by pointing these things out? Technically, can a link to a blog via an RSS feed be construed as monitoring? Lots of hanging rope in this bag, Bodangles.]

Lessee, now. "Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted..." -- what does everything preceding that statement mean? No control? Except investigation, removal, a "... worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish, and distribute such Content ..."

And in the Content Policy : "Users may not publish material that promotes hate toward groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity." "Users may not publish direct threats of violence against any person or group of people."

[Have you ever wondered why the terms "hate" and "violence" are never defined in that type of document? Do definitions limit subjectivity? Ha!!]

Now don't get me wrong. You voluntarily agree to these things when you open a Google account. Nobody forces you to agree. You did agree, didn't you?

Egg on Your Face, Book?

This just in :

Facebook Does About-Face on Privacy Change

As a side note, this blog was hacked after the last post. I have no confirmation (hint / hint : Google could apologize) , but I suspect that some dork was offended by what I posted and flagged it as objectionable, and Google pulled it to check it out. People coming directly to the page saw the title and sidebars, but a blank instead of the post.

I was able to view both, and grabbed the sources. I have a copy of the hypertext used to blank out the page (the feed was redirected to a null). Web censorship at its sneakiest.

Maybe I will switch my blog to Wordpress. I have already changed my Firefox default search engine to Yahoo, and I located the hack that allows changing Safari's default. Apple deserves a raspberry for hardcoding Google as Safari's default search engine.

You can't stop Google. It is everywhere, probably even under your bed. If I can get off my lazy streak, maybe I'll do something to slow down their drive for world domination.

In Your Face, Book.

Qool noos phrum thee eelectronik frunteer:

Facebook Membership May Be Forever

KWOTE

"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof."

In other words, while it doesn't actually own your photos, scribblings and status updates — you do — Facebook can do whatever it wants with it, whenever it wants, in order to promote itself or create or sell ads.

Theoretically, it can even "license" a picture of your kids for use in a third party's ad campaign.

Most of that has been part of the Facebook Terms of Service for a while. After all, without user-generated content, Facebook would be nothing.

What's been removed is this: "If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however (sic) you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."

And what's been added is this: "The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service" — after which follows a list of most of the sections on the Terms of Service page.

So even if you decide Facebook isn't for you, the site can still use anything you posted. It's all been archived.

ENDUVKWOTE

So, nauw yoo bee immortle.

Urine for a Treat

Almost pee-ed my pants reading this one. I can see PETA pushing this for inclusion in the Economic Stimulus Plan, as a Green Alternative. What would really be hillary-ous would be to see BO, Miss Nancy, and Mr. Harry drinking this at a press conference, with Algore speaking in the background about the ocean levels rising.

Go green. I may have to go buy some Depends.

India to launch cow urine as soft drink