Siljaline's Blog

Online advertising regaining momentum

2009-10-21T16:16:00Z

After bogging down in the recession, internet advertising is regaining the momentum that has made it the decade's most disruptive marketing machine. The signs of an online revival are emerging even while advertising in print and broadcasts remains in a slump that has triggered mass layoffs, pay cuts and other upheaval. Internet advertising was just about the only bright spot in the third-quarter reports of two major U.S. newspaper publishers, Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co. Meanwhile, the companies...(read more)

Microsoft-tested browser prosecution snares tech giants

2009-10-10T00:26:00Z

Tiny Eolas Technologies is taking tech giants and major customers to court claiming they infringed its patents for working with online interactive content. Eolas has filed suit against Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, Sun Microsystems, YouTube, Blockbuster, JP Morgan Chase, JC Penny and Playboy Enterprises, among others. The company, which has chosen the litigant-friendly US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to fight the case, claimed the companies infringed on two of its patents. More...(read more)

Blogger payola getting a pass in Canada

2009-10-06T01:30:00Z

U.S. authorities are using the threat of big fines to force bloggers to disclose their relationships with the companies they write about, but jurisidictional confusion means no similar mechanisms exist or are under consideration in Canada. The Federal Trade Commission on Monday announced new rules that require bloggers in the United States to disclose "material connections" — or "connections that consumers would not expect" — with the subjects they write about. The...(read more)

Google results flog millions of compromised webpages

2009-10-02T01:52:00Z

Two ongoing scams are tricking Google and other search engines into prominently displaying millions of compromised webpages that attempt to hijack end users' computers or steal their credit card numbers, researchers said. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/01/mass_compromise_google_results/...(read more)

Judge in Pirate Bay Appeal Removed for Bias

2009-10-02T00:54:00Z

The Pirate Bay saga took another twist Tuesday as one of the appellate judges set to hear the appeal of the co-founders’ criminal copyright convictions was removed over concerns of bias. The Swedish judge in question, Fredrik Niemela, owns an unstated number of stock options in the music streaming service, Spotify, which has content deals with members of the Recording Industry Association of America. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/piratebaysaga/...(read more)

Facebook pulls Obama assassination poll

2009-09-30T01:35:00Z

Social website Facebook yanked a poll this week about assassinating President Barack Obama after being contacted by the U.S. Secret Service. On Monday, Facebook dropped a question that asked voters whether the U.S. president "should be killed." http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/29/obama-poll-secret-service-facebook.html...(read more)

Microsoft releases free antivirus software

2009-09-30T00:32:00Z

Microsoft's free antivirus program, Security Essentials, became available for download from the company's website Tuesday. Microsoft bills the software as providing "high-quality protection" against viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware and other malicious software. It updates and upgrades automatically. Microsoft said its free program is not meant to cut into the business of commercial antivirus programs, by companies such as McAfee and Symantec, but will appeal to people who...(read more)

Microsoft protests $290m Word judgment

2009-09-24T19:27:00Z

A federal judge fundamentally misinterpreted a patent asserted against Microsoft Word, an error that should require a $290m infringement penalty to be overturned, attorneys for the software giant argued Wednesday. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/23/microsoft_i4i_patent_hearing/...(read more)

Facebook shuts down Beacon marketing tool

2009-09-22T13:04:00Z

Facebook says it will shut down its controversial marketing feature Beacon, an application that broadcasts users' activities, including purchases, on other websites to their Facebook friends. The feature was adopted in November 2007 and immediately drew complaints from Facebook users who said it invaded their privacy. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/21/tech-internet-facebook-beacon.html...(read more)

New York Times Reforms Online Ad Sales After Malware Scam

2009-09-20T03:11:00Z

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/nyt-revamps-online-ad-sales-after-malware-scam/...(read more)

Google acquires ReCAPTCHA

2009-09-17T16:43:00Z

Google has acquired a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff that seeks to cut down on spam and fraud at websites while digitizing books. ReCAPTCHA offers simple word puzzles that users must solve when registering at a website or completing an online purchase. Computers can't decipher the twisted letters and numbers, ensuring that real people and not automated programs are using the site. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/17/tech-google-recaptcha-017.html...(read more)

Facebook 'cash flow positive,' signs 300M users

2009-09-16T18:19:00Z

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the social networking site has more than 300 million users, and earned more money than it spent last quarter. In a blog post on Facebook, Zuckerberg wrote that the company was "cash flow positive" in the last quarter. He had previously projected that Facebook would meet that goal in 2010. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/16/tech-facebook-300-million-users.html...(read more)

Tech giants to be rated on human rights

2009-07-23T23:38:00Z

A group of prominent Canadian researchers has launched an initiative to examine how closely companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo follow their own principles regarding freedom of expression and privacy. Citizen Lab, which runs out of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, has gained prominence this year after it uncovered an alleged internet spy network based mostly in China in March and last month aided Iranians in accessing blocked content on the web. Now the...(read more)

Pirate Bay copyright convicts lose retrial bid

2009-06-27T16:49:00Z

Four men found guilty of promoting copyright infringement through the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay will not get a retrial, the Swedish court of appeals has ruled. The court found Thursday that the judge who ruled in the original case in April, Tomas Norstroem, was not biased as the four men alleged. Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom had called for a retrial after Norstroem publicly admitted he was a member of the Swedish Association for Copyright and sat on...(read more)

Jackson's death slows web to a crawl

2009-06-26T20:13:00Z

In life, Michael Jackson once ruled the pop charts. With his death, he dominated the internet. As reports of Jackson's death on Thursday spread, celebrity gossip websites crashed, news sites slowed to a crawl and traffic on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook spiked. Few sites were spared. Jackson's sudden, unexpected death led so many people to search Google for information that the search engine's software believed it was under attack, sending searchers a message saying...(read more)

1st porn app on iTunes 'sold out'

2009-06-26T00:52:00Z

The first app featuring images of nude women to go up for sale on iTunes can no longer be downloaded because it was too popular, the developer reported Thursday. "The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out , " said a post signed by the "ATG dev team" on the website of developer Allen Leung. They added that the servers distributing the app were crashing due to high usage. However, they noted that those who have already downloaded the app will be able to use it, and assured customers...(read more)

Microsoft taking half-price pre-orders for Windows 7

2009-06-26T00:49:00Z

Microsoft is trying to lure Canadians to upgrade to its newest operating system by offering a half-price discount to people who pre-order. Windows 7 won't be released until Oct. 22, but Microsoft is taking pre-orders starting Friday, the company said in a news release Thursday. Until July 11, people running Windows XP or Vista can pre-order upgrades to the home version of Windows 7 at $64.99 instead of $129.95 and the professional version for $124.99 instead of $279.95 "while quantities...(read more)

Conficker worm sends new instructions: grow botnet, then die

2009-04-09T20:29:00Z

The Conficker worm has begun to update the machines it has infected with a new set of instructions to spread to other machines and then self-destruct, security experts say. Security researchers tracking the worm said some of the infected computers began receiving instructions on April 7 from other infected machines. Conficker is able to send updates to computers it has infected either by directing the computers to visit websites or through a peer-to-peer network of infected machines. Last week Conficker...(read more)

Conficker botnet remains dormant - for now

2009-04-01T16:04:00Z

Conficker changed the way parts of the botnet communicated overnight, but little else of note has happened so far. The malware is far from an April Fool's joke, but it's obviously a long way from the Skynet botnet, as depicted in Terminator 3, that some of the more fevered imaginings of the media hinted at. The main activity that accompanied the run-up to the activation date was the registration of dozens of new domain names designed to advertise rogue security packages in the guise of Conficker...(read more)

China rejects computer spy claims

2009-03-31T20:43:00Z

China's government on Tuesday dismissed a research report outlining an extensive spy network based mostly in China as "lies" designed to hurt the country's image abroad. Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the conclusions of the report by Canadian researchers were symptoms of a "Cold War virus" that causes people overseas to "occasionally be overcome by China-threat seizures." On Sunday, the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International...(read more)