A Donkey on the Edge

I think the nice man who went in search of my Identity theft woes last week would have liked me to update my previous post.

So here goes: according to his findings there is nothing wrong with either his payment-processing software or hardware and a review of staff at the branch revealed nothing untoward.

So just to confirm: all is well at Eat. You can pick up your soup and sandwiches safe in the knowledge that these guys pay attention to detail, act fast when required and are just generally a bunch of excellent people!

eat.co.uk

Please immediately tell this person (details updated, thank you Peter)

Judge Louis L. Stanton
Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse
500 Pearl St., Room 2250
New York, NY10007

Phones
+1 212 805-0252

Faxes
+1 212 805-0389

that obtaining your personal history will in no way assist Viacom in identifying which of their intellectual properties has been illegally distributed. Please add that the phenomenal (how many millions of users?) negative impact on personal privacy utterly outweighs any spurious copyright swinery...

Read it: Judge orders YouTube to give all user histories to Viacom (Wired) and eff response and Viacom CSR

Man this is infuriating, and while I'm on the topic can I add that the making available argument is tantamount to arresting car owners because their ownership makes available the possibility of running over a pedestrian or saying that owning a gun is legally equivalent to shooting someone:-(

Time to increase my donations to the EFF, and you should too OK?

Wow, when was the last time you thought you'd get a response as a result of filling in a form on the web (never mind a rapid response)?

Well, I had a little grief from the fraud protection mob at Firstdirect this afternoon and as a result posted this note in the feedback form on the Eat website (and I won't go into the domain name resolution issue on the site which means if you load the flash movie by entering the domain without the 'www' the links to the feedback form are broken--I wonder how much more feedback they'd get if that was fixed...)

At 14:31:55 on 27 June 2008 (roughly an hour ago) I purchased a soup and sandwich from your 15 Basinghall Street shop.

When I returned to my desk to eat my lunch I received a call from my bank (first direct) informing me that there had been fraudulent behaviour on my switch card.

According to their records, the transaction I had just made in the City of London was routed through a supplier in Equador.

The security guys at the bank where I work reckon this is a man-in-the-middle attack and that someone has tampered with the keypad in the store (similar to attaching card readers to ATM tellers, to harvest card details).

Please review this situation asap.

All the best,
Dug Falby

To be honest, I really didn't think I'd get an answer (strangely, the Flash front-end is what gave me this impression: If it's not a real html form, how can it yield real results?) but I did.

A nice man called Martin (I think he said he was head of business communications?) rung up to explain what was going on as a result of my note. From his description, I pictured a black helicopter appearing over Basinghall street and special forces whisking the card-reader off to a controlled explosion. It was very impressive, he said he'd frozen all card transactions at the store, notified the card processing supplier who are going to come in and refit the store tonight and would double-check records for staff access to card processing stuff.

He also made a point of checking that I had notified my bank and assured me he would get back to with with any progress relevant to my situation. Prompt, courteous and thorough, just the way it oughta be.

Which of course means I'll be all the more likely to go buy delicious soups and salads from Eat:-)

Scoble wants us to link to this

He's got a point, this is potentially very worrying (and is also something I just wouldn't have guessed would happen):

This is a fight for the Web. We all just crawled inside a box that locks Google out.
Don’t believe me?
Go to Google and do a search for “Le Web 08.�
Do you see a Facebook entry there? Nope. Google is locked out of the Web.
This has created HUGE value for Microsoft and has handed Steve Ballmer an Internet strategy which brings Microsoft from last place to first in less than a week.
Boom!

Scary stuff indeed...

This just in from Billy:

Finally, Kiloh discovered that Boris's full name is Boris de Pfeffel Johnson so we came up with an ad campaign based on the Dr. Pepper approach: 'Boris de Pfeffel, what's the worst that could happen?'

Doctor Pfeffel, I like it :-)

Hey, we've just had a long and very informative post from Matt, a Luton-based Openreach engineer. I hope this really is an engineer speaking and not some perverse item from a 'guerilla marketing' agency subverting from within. He describes some real horror stories, if you're interested in the BT thing it's well worth a read:

I was on a fault last week and the customer drop-wire from the pole to the house was rubbing through trees so I replaced it only to get a phone call the next day from my manager asking why I hadn't charged the customer as the trees were on his property--this is the level that they are stooping to.

Do they care? This thing has been simmering for a while now, I wonder at what point a BT pr person is going to chime in?

Is BT still shit? (A Donkey on the Edge)

I'm leaving Vodafone and you can too:-)

I guess when the customer's experience with a leading brand is so shit that it prompts a rebellion against the inertia, the matrix-like sucking-hose of the increasingly mandatory direct debit that feeds off you without you knowing or feeling, when it comes time for Bogey to Chesterfield the leeches you gotta figure there is a plan.

I mean Vodafone is one big-ass player and you gotta figure they've got armies of bright young things with MBAs who know how to do brand value pyramids and systems architecture layer diagrams and powerpoint builds and all sorts of voodoo of the modern telecoms executive;-) So my guess is that when the service is crap it's because some clever chap has worked out a tolerance threshold and has calculated the likely impact of churn on revenue (a bit like Ed Norton's character in Fight Club working out whether or not to issue a recall on a car model which has just crisped its passengers...) and has worked out that if you keep your shit below this threshold you make more money by ignoring and abusing your customers.

Well, it's a theory anyway...

So yeah, does the following experience back this up? You ring

Amanda isn't unique--she also works for First Direct and no doubt other businesses who have calculated a benefit in a good customer experience. As for Vodafone, well I finally beat off the inertia and posted the letter (because of course even though Vodafone is entitled to run riot with your direct debit and may at their leisure do pretty much anything they want including interrupting your service without notice the consumer--that's you and I--must give thirty days notice in snail mail) so fingers crossed I will soon be free of this particular rash.

Wow, comments are pouring in on the old is BT still shit? post. One guy even gave an update twice today.

Could BT have a class action heading its way? Does anything actually happen when you write to Ofcom?

I wonder... oh, and I love that graphic from the Ofcom site. At first glance I thought it meant download the podcast of complain to Ofcom how very hip;-)

You know, I was gonna comment on the Skype blog Heartbeat (no, not on the bit where if they had decided to use computers equipped with a proper operating system their crash and subsequent total meltdown wouldn't have happened in the first place) (and no, not on the bit where for the same reason they can't manage a reliable single-customer view grrrr) no, I was going to comment on the email I received earlier today:

As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail customers, we're adding an additional seven days to your current subscription, free of charge. And even if you didn't miss out on using Skype last week - you can still have a week free on Skype, on the house!

So my first reaction is that

1. customers that aren't those listed above can just fuck off
2. a customer worth building a relationship with is one that commits to a financial transaction with your brand. Gosh, how 80/20 nineteen-eighty-seven of you...

But then I thought to myself, you just nicked the nine quid I had in my account three weeks ago. True, you did explain that you had to, and you did make it theoretically easy for me to protect my dosh while giving me ample and repeated fair warning.

But you know what, if you clean out the balance in your customer's accounts that's all they're gonna see.

Come on, this is sooooo not a modern approach to marketing. Your empty gesture has left me with exactly the same balance I had just before your meltdown--zero.

Niklas Zennström, you're a smart guy, my guess is you can do a lot better (and you can start by giving me my money back)

From the Eurostar frequent traveller website

Dedicated ticket desk & express check-in

Glide through the formalities at our seamless Business Premier priority ticket desk and 10 minute check-in, again, regardless of the ticket you have.

Unless there are humans in the terminal in which case you might find yourself pushing on a door which has been remotely locked and missing your train and ending up on a strapontin because there isn't an empty seat on the train.

There is nothing more pathetic than the hordes of lumpen business travellers desperately waving their various badges, tickets and 'club' memberships in a vain attempt to get The Upgrade that is their due... And yesterday, I was one of them (hangs head in shame).

Still, on the bright side, I've discovered that the fold-down seats on the Eurostar have more legroom that the normal seats. Might have to try this again;-)

More activity on the old Is BT still shit? post. A chap called Carlos has left a comment about his experience with BT and it sounds pretty spectacular...

Please keep your feedback coming in and if you find any ways around the system (such as that 'secret' phone number posted on the first "BT is shit" post) please do share them.

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only consultant out there to get into trouble with Tagged.com. The more I look, the more I find people sharing similar experiences

So here's a public service anouncement.

If you're pissed off at receiving the damn emails, why not threaten, or at least hurl abuse at, the VCs behind tagged.com? Here are some bits to get you started:

enjoy :-)

If you get an email with a subject something like "[New Challenges] Soandso has Tagged you! :)" delete it quickly. I can't say for sure whether the company (tagged.com) is the next generation of sploggers or spammers gone social or if what happened to me this morning was just a cock-up on my part.

So I got the email this morning. As I follow Web2.0 stuff as part of my job I tend to register for everything to see what's what...

1. I follow the link in the email
2. I register on the site
3. Noticing they're using the gmail api to pull addresses I think "cool" and give it a try
4. On the address listing I mark one of my demo emails as a friend and click on "invite"

...at which point everyone in my gmail address book receives a "you've been tagged" email. This is great, I of course relish the chance to be incredibly rude to friends and strangers alike while looking completely stupid at the same time.

As Tim said in his angry response "Dug, this is a terrible service". Tim, I couldn't agree more.

And finally, dear gmail address book folk, sorry about my invading your inbox this morning:-(

Really loving my new employer. I just had to pay for a CHAPS transfer to ensure that I get paid on my payday. On top of that I have to pay GBP100/month to get paid at all.

Of course I shouldn't be taking it out on Gordon Brown seeing as he's just defaulted on his promise to help the UKs poorest children and is no doubt still trying to find a way to finance the UK's defence budget hike to GBP33.6 billion for 2006-07. Quite a tough bit of accounting.

Still, I guess I'm being stung by IR35 which after all was one of the seeds planted under Thatcher (I seem to remember in a kind of distant, non-accurate sort of hazy way...)

Safe???!! WTF does that mean?!! This from the Flickr help files:

My account has been reviewed as safe. What does that mean?

Having a "safe" account means that you are good at moderating your own content. Awesome!

"Good at moderating your own content" wow that sounds creepy. I hate it when I read something like this that intellectually I know is right but somewhere hidden at the back there's a little alarm bell that goes off... Now if I could only work out what it was.

One of the Flickr posters in my contacts has had a lot of grief with her regular readers complaining that they could no longer see her pictures. I've been doing a little reading ever since I became a libellous Flickr user (can you libel someone in an email address? I'm sure there's a precendent out there...) and you know, this Flickr content filter thing is really getting up my nose.

Anyway, am not liking the feeling of being 'handled' this is definitely not the Flickr experience I signed up for.

You know, I wasn't going to get all huffy about it, but I just don't believe the explanations coming out of Yahoo.

I ignored the many emails explaining how this was going to be a seamless transition and that us early adopters who sent Katerina our cash from day one would be happily assimilated into the collective and that really this was for the best for all concerned. So I finally got this today:

Aside from just not liking their style or their products, one of the main reasons I never got a yahoo id is because the options suck. Well, not in any inherent way, but because they've been carrying a registration database around since 1996 so have more than two users.

Call me a wanker (and many do) but I've grown used to having nice logins, I'm "dug" on delicious and most other places. If not, I'm Bozo (generally for thing's I'd be a little embarrassed to discuss with my mom) or even donkeyontheedge if I'm trying to extend or integrate with the blog.

So of course I tried donkeyontheedge@yahoo.com (and co.uk) and hey, of course they're gone, as are dieyahoodie, dieyahoodiediedie, yahooarescum, filthyyahooscum (which I thought sounded a bit like self-criticism but which Nicki suggested) and any permutation of yahoo and sucks...

Nope, I'm not kidding;-)

So yeah, has this harmed my experience of Flickr, has it impacted our network of one? Well, yes it has. Am I going to stop using Flickr? No. Am I going to stop fantasising about Katerina? Well, probably not but I'm gonna try, dammit. In any case, while I was regressing to the state of a vindictive six-year-old, I finally managed to find a yahoo id that wasn't taken:

This rant inspired by Digital Mavericks: Opal Fruits, Marathon, Jif, now Flickr - Grrrrr! via Technorati.

Interesting interviews on JDN économie, a series of bosses who actually want to pay their taxes (text in French)

I do hate agreeing with what Steve Jobs has to say but I do...

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music.

I wonder if he writes his own stuff or has retired White House staffers to handle his language? I love this passage from the same rant:

Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the "big four" music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI. These four companies control the distribution of over 70% of the world's music.

Without saying it explicitly, he is suggesting that the 'big four' are a bit like an organised crime syndicate. Just change a word or two:

These four families control the distribution of over 70% of the world's [gambling | prostitution | waste handling | internet poker | music distribution].

Fantastic:-)

And seeing as I've come this far, I'll repeat an earlier post because it never ceases to amaze me that the music distribution industry thinks that unlike any other, it doesn't have to change in response to cultural or technological or simply free market evolution.

In 1895, the steam engine manufacturing industry could put any price it liked on its goods. The players in the industry all lived in Hollywood mansions and drove Ferraris (you know what I mean).

By 1985 they had seriously reduced in number and those that remained had lost a lot of weight and focused manufacturing efforts on very specific markets. They specialised in recycled steam technology for engines built in China. The owners of the few remaining companies were still doing well, but no longer lived the movie star lifestyle. In essence they had become more 'normal', more 'average'.

Back in 1895 there was no online content distribution, and music copying was expensive, involving scribes and printing presses. The Victor Talking Machine Company was founded by Eldridge Johnson in 1901 and thereafter, the Victrola would gradually spread disks of recorded music around the world. Those leading the industry did well, and over most of the Twentieth century developed a lifestyle that culminated with TV sets being thrown out of hotel windows, bathtubs full of cocaine and the odd Bentley parked in a swimming pool.

Well, it's 2007 and the reality is that the technology is now in the hands of the people. Copying is cheap and easy and the citizens want a new deal from the industry. We want to pay for our music, but we want most of the money to go to the artists. We want fair use and we want a fair price.

It's time for the business end of the industry to give up the coke and move to China, just like everybody else. OK?

Well, Russell's just been hit by his first evil little troll.

I suggested he post the links to the swine so we'll see what happens.

I was reminded on my own Troll, a nasty man (who, well, yes, nonetheless made some very good points but just not in a full-size-human kind of way...) called Andrew MacLaren who left a comment which had me floored for a week or two.

I posted the full text at the time but I'm not sure if that helped. Here's a taster:

…by some unfortunate deep linking i somehow landed at your ‘website’, having spent a few miserable minutes reading your mostly uninspiring and often self-rightous (pap) posts, it would appear to me that in many ways you come across as a borderline wanker, and although that may seem harsh i’ve just had another look and to put at nicely its a bag of shite! and from what i can gather this is what you actually do!??

Anyway, not going anywhere in particular with this, just felt like pinging some support to Russell.

Why?

It's hard to explain exactly why it is, but Vodafone is so spectacularly crap it makes me cry. I'm guessing crying is actually part of their CRM strategy as I'm pretty sure to shed a tear whenever I speak to their customer 'support' people...

Phil Roche made this natty little broken sim card graphic way back in November 2002. I'm sure he's forgotten he ever made so maybe a ping to his referral log will remind him of the joyous occasion.

One of the things that really irks me is that I spend a lot of time consulting with large firms (many of them mobile network operators) on the influence of individual consumers, but when faced with an actual problem I'm left feeling powerless and impotent:-(

OK, off to chop up my three Vodafone sim cards and rekindle my difficult 15-year marriage with Orange...

Damn, Tuesday morning and Gmail is still on the fritz. Problems started around Sunday lunchtime and the service has been intermittent since then.

Gmail down | Google Groups

My Boss just came in and is legitimately today's enraged mutton. I mean he's standing in the queue at Café Nero on the Kings Road and

I'd like a small decaf soya capucino

I mean what's the point?! If it were my café she'd be barred:-)

Billy has recently received another threat from Google re the design of the Lecture List pages.

A bit of background: Billy supports the list entirely from his own pocket. The hosting is quite expensive as the list runs a large database and requires a dedicated server. The Google adsense revenue covers about a half of the hosting charge so you can imagine how Billy feels when the check from Google doesn't show.

Google turned off the money last year complaining about the wording on some of the site's pages. At the time, we made all the changes Google required, had them review the site, and finally got their blessing (after, I'm sad to say, lots of calls to the Google press office).

So the 'not evil' mob are at it again:

From: "Google AdSense"
Date: 2 August 2006 17:34:01 BST
To:
Subject: Google AdSense

Hello, While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as http://www.lecturelist.org/content/view_speaker/2304.

Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads or bring excessive attention to ad units. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click the ads," "support our sponsors," "visit these recommended links," or other similar language that could apply to the Google ads on your site. Publishers may not use arrows or other symbols to direct attention to the ads on their sites, and publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements."

Please make any necessary changes to your web pages in the next 3 business days. We also suggest that you take the time to review our program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) to ensure that all of your other pages are in compliance.

Once you update your site, we will automatically detect the changes and ad serving will not be affected. If you choose not to make the changes to your account within the next three days, your account will remain active but you will no longer be able to display ads on the site.

Please note, however, that we may disable your account if further violations are found in the future.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team

So here we go again! Here's my reply to Google:

Dear Google Adsense person,

I have just now heard that you have once again threatened Billy Clark from The Lecture List (http://www.lecturelist.org/) about compliance with your TOS.

The lecture List's pages have not changed since you last discussed this issue. Your team reviewed the Lecture List pages and found them to be compliant. I don't understand how if this page was compliant last year, it is not today?

As your notes should hopefully show you, the list is a UK no-for-profit company and they rely exclusively on the revenue from Adsense to pay their ever-increasing hosting charges.

I notice that you have disabled Mr Clark's account as ads are not appearing on the site. Please re-instate these immediately.

I regret to inform you that, in exactly the same way as we were forced to do the last time you became evil, we will have to make this a public conversation.

We are informing our friends and supporters, including the press offices of all the major universities and museums in the UK as well as Emily Bell, Editor of the Guardian's online pages who is a staunch supporter of the Lecture List.

I urge you to act swiftly to make sure that Google is not seen to be evil (something your founders were keen on I understand)

All the best,
Dug Falby pp/ Billy Clark

Meanwhile, Billy isn't going to be able to cover this month's hosting, I'm keeping fingers crossed:-(

Tags: google, adsense, Google adsense, charity, nonprofit

I haven't got the plugin installed that lets you ping a post back to the index without disrupting the order of the posts so I can't highlight the post, but I wanted to show you the most recent comment from an old post I did about BT which reffered to an even older post that also had some good comments on it...

I work for BT and even i am disgusted by them. They have the monopoly and basically don't give a f*ck about their customers. I get customers screaming at me and crying down the phone with problem after problem day after day, but BT don't give us, the call agents, the resources or authorisation to help them. They don't care if we help them, they just want to grab their money. So frustrating!! Basically BT are money grabbing bloodsuckers and i wouldn't touch them with a 10 ft barge pole!! Oh... and while the bosses are rolling in it from all the money they drain from people for their shit service, we're on little more than minimum wage! Cunts.

Now that's what i call having an opinion. Has anyone called the secret phone number recently? I can't imagine it still works...

So I got three-and-a-half hours sleep last night and I started work at 05:00 this morning.

I'm just so happy with this job I could scream.

So I get home at 23:15 last night, check my eBay listing and my bike didn't make the reserve price. Arrrggggg, I need to sell it tonight so I can pick up the new bike tomorrow before going on holiday on Saturday. Quickly, I click on the three top bidders and send them a message.

...ah, a captcha, that's new, probably to prevent spammers or something... Fill in the number and pow, I can't send a message to my buyer because the auction is over. What??? how the hell am I supposed to sell the bike??? (£32 later)...

It's getting near midnight and hallelujah, the top bidder sends me a message. He's still very interested and wants to make a deal. OK, I click on "reply to message", give him my details and wait... another captcha and wham! THE SAME MESSAGE AARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!

Bloody hell, there's a trend going on here. Big hosted apps can't afford to monitor or consider individual circumstances. It would cost a fortune to have a human evaluate every message sent on eBay or every click sent to an Adsense server. Instead, these companies work on aggregate (kinda the same way racial prototyping works).

Basically, the way it works is that if you find yourself in a situation where on aggregate a crime takes place then you are arrested, whether or not you had any intention of committing a crime. Aggregate justice is a whole new way to say goodbye to our Eighteenth century friends. Maybe we'll be bringing back the lash next...

Bloody French street theatre... I was merrily on my way to an event at the ICA this morning when this large wooden spaceship crashed out of the sky and gouged its way deep into the tarmac of Regent Street.

OK, not really, but darn I should watch the news. Large chunks of the West End were completely roped off this morning with all parking bays supended etc. Apparently there's gonna be a huge metal elephant-robot tromping around London over the week-end. Sounds fun but I'll be tromping around the South Downs with Billy. Will try and take some pictures:-)

Actually, I've just been sent a sexy new cameraphone from LG so might have some news to add re mobbloging stuff (first step is to instal shozu)...

Billy just sent me a link to a great piece on Google's total unaccountability.

In particular, I am concerned at the fact that both advertisers and syndication partners are denied the right to audit the figures produced by Google. All you are provided is an average cost per click figure, together with the total revenue for the day.

This is unacceptable for many online publishers as it means that you are unable to correctly identify the amount of money owed to you, nor are you able to identify areas of growth (particularly in regards to the type of advertisers your users are clicking on).

and it goes on... well worth a read. In particular, the author also outlines how Google's position on VAT means European AdSense customers will struggle to avoid the Exchequer a knocking...

I know I have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the music publishing industry, but I just wanted to confirm that if any record companies are listening, I will never buy another CD from you guys that has copy protection or other DRM nonsense.

Oh, and Steve, just so's you know, I'm not buying another track from the iTunes Music Store until until you remove the machine limitation on FairPlay or JHymn is fixed.

Thank you.

I missed this last week: EFF: An Open Letter to Sony-BMG

OK, so I joined the EFF. Not only am I supporting the only serious lobby group for digital rights, I also got a fabulous t-shirt;-)

So I've been sitting here getting increasingly pissed-off about the totally unregulated goings on at Google, the iTunes Music Store, CD manufacturing, spyware galore and a whole host of other nasty little profit-driven abuses of power so in the end I snapped.

I've joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Mind you, I haven't received my t-shirt yet, but this is a cause worth forgoing the shirt:-)

Sometimes we forget that the laws we obey are written (indirectly) by us.

If you want to sort something out, you can join a lobbying group (fat lot of good that did me) but more satisfying in the short term is contacting your MP. I was trying to figure out the best way to write to Glenda Jackson when I came across this lovely little application that directs emails to your MP. Now I have no excuse to ignore my constitutional responsibilities

The Lecture List is a non-profit site that aims to promote public speaking across the UK. The site was launched with a generous grant from NESTA but for the last two years has been entirely supported by the time and money of its founding editor Billy Clark. Billy collects Google Adsense revenue to help with the hosting costs (which are ever growing as the service's popularity increases).

Recently, Google has decided that the site has infringed their terms of service and have decided to deduct the value of six months hosting.

I've complained to Google (see letter below) and I know that if you value the existence of services such as The Lecture List, you'll want to complain to Google as well.

If you'd like to share your outrage at Gooogle's behaviour, please contact:

Ema Linaker
UK PR Specialist
+44 (0) 20 7031 3130
ema@google.com

Debbie Frost
International PR Manager
+1-650-253-4660
dfrost@google.com

Thanks,
Dug

Dear Google,

On 27/10/05, Google AdSense wrote:

> Therefore, we have deducted $971.38 from your account. This amount
> represents the earnings previously credited to your account from invalid
> clicks.

If you deduct $971.38 from Mr Clark's account, you will be terminating The Lecture List.

The Lecture List is a high-profile UK educational charity that relies entirely on Google Adsense to pay its hosting bill. Remove Adsense revenue and you remove the hosting.

Aside from the fact that the $971.38 was NOT the result of illegal clicks and that you cannot prove that it is, you are making a grave mistake.

I'm sure Google wants to be supporting (or seen to be supporting) noble, public-service initiatives such as the Lecture List and that on reflection you will change you mind and refund every penny to Mr Clark.

I don't wish to sound threatening, but I can assure you that the disappearance of the Lecture List (and Google's corporate greed) will not be a private affair. You may wish to consult with your legal department and your press office before replying.

> We also request that you remove the following language from your
> website:
>
> "Click on a Google Ad
> It's just pennies, but every little helps."

Thanks, we'd be happy to remove this (because of course, as a charity with too much cash on our hands, we don't want people clicking on our Google ads), but could you confirm you are OK with the copy on our home page:

"Any ad revenue is entirely reinvested into the Lecture List's operating fund"

> If we find your account to be in violation again

May I point out that YOU DIDN'T FIND us in violation, I wrote to you for advice on making sure the Lecture List didn't break any rules.

Finally, it's a well known fact of life that charities are often excused from the terms of onerous contracts such as yours. A simple example of this is that charities don't pay tax and donations to charities are tax deductible.

I find it surprising that while the Unites States Treasury is willing to cut non-profits some slack, a publicly owned company such as Google takes a harder line.

All the best, Dug Falby

Technical Consultant
The Lecture List

> Hello,
>
> As you know, Google treats instances of invalid clicks very seriously. By
> disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures
> to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site. Due
> to the proprietary nature of our monitoring system, we're not able to
> disclose any specific details of these clicks.

Wow, that's convenient isn't it. You can't see what specific people are doing on specific machines behind firewalls so you analyse behaviour patterns and penalise individuals based on those assumptions. I did wonder how you would handle the fact that you couldn't afford to adjudicate each click with human inspection. You're in murky waters indeed...

> Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further
> participation in Google AdSense. However, if you can maintain in good
> faith that the invalid clicks we detected on your ads were not due to your
> actions or negligence, or the actions or negligence of others working for
> you, you may appeal the closing of your account.

Please accept the present note as a formal appeal.

> Google reserves sole discretion in considering whether to take any action
> on an appeal.
>
> In order to appeal the disabling of your account, please email us at
> adsense-adclicks-appeal@google.com with the details requested below. We're
> unable to consider appeals that do not contain all of this information:
>
> - Your name

Dug Falby

> - Your company's name (if applicable)

N/A

bq. > - Your publisher ID number (located in the AdSense code on your website
> with the format, pub-################)

pub-6496886088358499

> - Your website's URL

A - http://www.donkeyontheedge.com
B - http://www.labellife.com
C - http://www.pumpernickle.net
D - http://www.bigsaucer.com

> - Date your account was disabled

19 October 2005

> - Your website's audience

A - UK designers, parents and those interested in my activist ramblings
B - New launch, not sure of actual audience but target is UK record industry execs
C - People searching for UK-based usability specialists
D - New launch, to date, zero traffic (not been publicised yet)

> - The source of your website's content

A - Self-written
B - Manually aggregated by two record industry specialists.
C - Self-written
D - Written by a food journalist

> - Frequency of content updates

A - weekly
B - weekly
C - infrequent updates
D - posts are added almost daily

> - The primary sources of your website's traffic

A - links from other blogs (have been slashdotted and boingboinged in the past) as well as traffic generated by alistapart.com
B - Traffic to small to analise
C - No specific referrer stands out - general
D - No traffic yet

> - The number of people involved with the administration of the site

A - 1
B - 4
C - 1
D - 1

> - Any relevant information that you believe would explain the invalid
> click activity we detected

Well, seeing as your idiotic policy prevents you letting me know what the specific problem was, I can't very well isolate any one incident can I?

However, the problem may have happened because of bigsaucer.com.

When I launch a new site, I check the Adsense ads carefully to see if I need to do any filtering. During the first week or so I check back often and visit all the sites advertising through google. As a result of this, bigsaucer had a ridiculously high ctm.

To give you an example of why this is important, I published another site for a major UK museum. We had a whole series on Graffiti art in the UK and all the 'targeted' Adsense ads were about graffiti-removal services.

This was clearly really bad news and your ads made us look very stupid. (Can I suggest this problem might be something you guys need to look into).

I've been checking ads that look wrong or those that visitors or clients complain about on all my sites since I started using Adsense. I would be surprised to hear that your TOS does not include this in a 'fair use' definition of your service.

If it doesn't, you really need to give publishers a way to register their IP (or some other technique) so you can filter them out and allow them to do this checking without penalty.

> If Google decides to evaluate your appeal, we will do our best to inform
> you quickly and will proceed with appropriate action as necessary. If we
> have reached a decision on your appeal, subsequent or duplicate appeals
> will be ignored.

Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you

Best,
Dug

--
Dug Falby
http://www.donkeyontheedge.com/

Just read a post on the Google Print copyright debacle which reminded me I got a bit tipsy last night and had a vigourous and interesting converstation with a barrister who specialises in intellectual property. We sort of have a similar conversation every time we meet, but this time he put a little more energy into deconstructing Stallman's argument which was quite interesting.

In UK law, most cases proceed from the initial assumption that any and all copying is illegal. In other words, the debate isn't about what you do with your copy, wether commercial (record a film from the back row and distribute copies for money) or not (tape a cd you just bought so your wife can play it on the car stereo). This is crazy as most people will copy stuff without even being aware of it (do you use a photocopier in your office?). Clearly, this law was written at a time when a copy was a difficult and expensive thing to produce--it made sense to say that doing so intentionally made you a premeditating and determined criminal.

For me, this reinforces the urgent need for a review of copyright law. In the meantime, I will continue to exercise my fair-use rights as a consumer with whatever means are at my disposal.

So yup, I've started digging around and we may have something here (thanks wAntAn productions: Google AdSense Account Disabled)

The post lists a couple of Adsense alternatives

• Adsense alternatives on threadwatch
• Yahoo Publisher Network

I think we may have a thing here.

Can you imagine the impact on Google's share price if it turns out they're actually the Big Bad Google and legions of Gmail, Adsense and Google search users take their business elsewhere?

Chris Wheatley makes a few observations about iTunes 6. In particular:

Gifting - like it
Just For You - the jury's still out on that one.
Reviews - whatever.
Videos - very cool, dependent on content obviously
However, no CD or DVD burning for videos - nooooooooooooooooooooo, bad Steve, naughty Steve.

Now, I think Just for you is an irritant and I've disabled it (smart of you to give me that option Steve), but the no-video burning is criminal. You know, it's time we start a mass education movement. Copyright law doesn't work anymore and if Disney can get the rules re-written everytime Mickey is about to go into the public domain then the world's music-buying public ought to have some sway.

The EFF and the Creative Commons are great ideas and certainly influential but the guy flicking through jewel cases in V Megastore needs to stop buying buying music and write his MP.

In the short term here's were I'm at:

1. Apple's Fair Play isn't, If you bought a CD but the label said you could only listen to it in Fives 'authorised' rooms and that the burden of managing those rooms' authorisation was on you you'd return it.
2. All iTunes Music store users should claim the fair use of their purchased music. Do this by downloading Hymn and removing the rights management bollocks from your MP3 files
3. Oh bugger, iTunes 6 has broken JHymn--developer is working on it, check back soon.
4. Tell your MP that you want a new deal on copyright. We all agreed on the current deal at a time when the benefits of cheap access to books outweighed the downside of reduced access to copying (seeing as you needed a scribe or a printing press to copy a book). It's time for a new deal.

And while I'm banging Stallman's copyright drum, I've got another consideration. The music industry will tell you that they need you to not make copies of your music because 'illegal' copying harms music and reduces creativity. Film studios will say it takes millions of dollars to make a movie and studios need to recoup that cash somehow.

They're missing the point.

These industries need to make a profit to survive, but they don't need a giant turnover to do it. Find a way to make a movie for $1000 and sell it for $2000 and you've made a 200% profit. My point is that all industries have to change over time. There just isn't a law that says that everyone in the record industry has a right to a glamourous, cocaïne-fuelled lifestyle--nope, in the future, record company execs will need to find new ways to remain profitable. In the new world, record execs will drive second-hand Lada Nivas and privacy sellers or spam blockers will be bathing in gold tubs.

My point is that a sweet deal doesn't get to stay sweet forever--move on.

Ohna just sent this:

And another American Pie:

Well, I feel a whole lot better now that the White House website is covered with pictures of the sensitive couple hugging refugees...

Anyway, I was reading some knitting sites (as you do) that last one described how lots of folk are donating knitting and sending cash to the red Cross.

Sounded like a good idea, what with children bunking-up with cadavers in the heartland of freedom so I went on over to the Red Cross site and donated some dollars.

If you're feeling the same, the place you need to go to is here:
http://www.redcross.org/

A nice feature they have enabled is to make your donation a tribute or a memorial.

I took the liberty of making mine a tibute to the The George W. Bush Emergency Preparedness Award

Of course, I asked that the letter of confirmation be sent to:

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

So that an impersonal, mail-opening computer can chuck it in the bin. No but seriously, maybe you're not a sarcky liberal like me, maybe you've lost someone dear in a similar event or even to Katrina herself. Whatever the case, you should make your donation a tribute to something you care about and send the notice to George.

Jed just sent me this. As ever, MM says it best...

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

This one gets so far up my nose I could sneeze.

Set to forward all incoming requests irregardless of type.

Irregardless is a new word which is not only not a word (ok Billy, steady...) but manages to contain its very own double-negative.

So guys, just for the record. Irregardless is not a word it is a concatenation of two perfectly serviceable English words; irrespective and regardless so would you please stop using it!

(and if, as I suspect it may, find a home in the O.E.D. I wonder how its definition might end up reading)

20 July 2005--As ever, Billy has the answer

PS Here's the Merriam-Webster entry for 'irregardless':

Main Entry: ir·re·gard·less
Pronunciation: "ir-i-\'gärd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
nonstandard : REGARDLESS
usage Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

PPS I wouldn't use 'irregardless' myself as I think simpler is always better (e.g. I use American English 'orient' more often than British English 'orientate') but I don't think double negatives are necessarily bad. 'Negative concord' is what linguists call two or more negatives making a negative. It's not part of Standard English or lots of Southern English dialects but they are part of lots of dialects of English (including Scottish ones), not to mention French of course, n'est-ce pas?

PPPS Actually, I don't think I'd use 'regardless' either. What's wrong with 'nevermind'?

B-)

I'm always amazed when the European Parliament sees sense and does the right thing :-)

Just bumped into this quote from Voltaire

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Chillingly current for a guy who died 227 years ago...

What is it with account execs? They can't help themselves from poking the screen. One in particular had the endearing habit of using a biro which left little blue smudges...

(Thank you thank you thank you Ivan from creativebits for reminding me exactly how anoying that is!)