online sales taxes

A number of large online retailers are beginning to collect sales taxes online from people located in states which have sales taxes in their laws.

The companies are among the first in the nation to collect sales taxes from online shoppers across the country, not just shoppers who live in the states where the companies maintain actual stores or distribution centers.

While that won't affect us in Delaware (billboards on highways on the State's border herald Delaware as the "Home of Tax-Free Shopping"), it will be a bit of a change to many.

hijacking .gov

The Access One Network Northwest (AONN) is a cyberwarfare unit that employs 2,000 people and has the support of the Department of Defense. It says so right on their website "aonn.gov." Or, it used to, until it was pulled by the General Services Administration which oversees the .gov domain. As far as anyone can tell, the agency doesn't exist.

frauds and scams inc

Here is an informative "museum" of scams and frauds. Cool!

I know Bill is gonna like their spam policy. :-)

Although, from an attorney's perspective, I think "death to spammers" could be a problem. Although I understand and to some degree share in the underlying sentiment, I cannot condone the suggestion of violence as an appropriate response to junk mail.

likenesses and rights

Imagine that someone took an image that resembles you, and created an cartoon character based upon it. What would you do? Is it libel? Is it parody?

Findlaw's Julie Hilden looks at the flap over an animated elf from Harry Potter, a President from Russia, and a potential "right of publicity" lawsuit in California.

how safe is your data?

A class action lawsuit in Canada illustrates the potentially fragile nature of data protection. A laptop which contained confidential information about possibly a million or so people, was apparantly stolen, and the data is now presumed to be in unknown hands. What steps do you take to protect your personal or business information?

the digital counterculture needs a name

Motherjones.com has a thoughtful interview with John Perry Barlow, who discusses a number of issues, including:

• the Total Information Awareness Project
• Whether Google has too much power
• how he feels, as a songwriter, about file sharing
• online activism

The former Grateful Dead songwriter and cattle rancher, and present day co-founder and representative of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a knack for being colorful, entertaining, opinionated, and educational. This interview is no exception.

columbia

May our thoughts and prayers be with the families of the crew. We appreciate the sacrifices of those in the pursuit of the exploration and utilization of space. It is costly. Those who have died believed that it is worth it. As do I.