US Senate Wants to Let Telecom Co’s Violate Laws.

Published on December 17th, 2007

A bill to protect the telecom execs from lawsuits over violations of numerous laws has passed the Senate 76-10. Pathetic Congress.

Another Pew American survey says Americans do not care about privacy or online information.

Vista SP1 may have a backdoor.

Facebook suing a bunch of porn sites for harvesting data on Facebook.

Firewire going to crank up to 3.2 gbps.

Quickbooks having update problems with Mac users.

HP-Staples may have colluded to keep alternative inks away from customers.

If you use a public terminal, then clear your data when you leave.

Canada ISPs experimenting with “ad injection.” Fabulous!

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11 users responded in " US Senate Wants to Let Telecom Co’s Violate Laws. "

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# 1 John Paradox said, on December 17th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

So it’s going to be “sit on my FaceBook”?

J/P=?

# 2 GregA said, on December 17th, 2007 at 9:40 pm

Bah on the quickbooks thing. It is only accounting data, it is not as if your company basically ceases to exist if that file is destroyed or anything… Who cares accounting is boring anyways;)

Hey and if you don’t trust quick books anymore, you can switch to one of the other accounting packages for OSX that are like 1+ years old now;)

# 3 DeLeMa said, on December 18th, 2007 at 1:28 am

JCD makes it sound as if the telco’s can now sell your/their info to the highest bidder..not. As I remember the sound bite on..CNN ?..the gov wants to give telco’s immunity for past “indescretions” the gov asked them to perform. It seems this is about right..sorta..because the lawsuits should be aimed at the gov for doing the deeds and forcing the telco’s to violate the law. I say sorta because it doesn’t take into consideration supposed professional ehtics the telco’s should know about…Uh-huh..riiight..
Oh well, maybe I can get a great stock tip from the guy at the C.O. now..

# 4 Glenn E. said, on December 18th, 2007 at 3:44 am

Oh Yeah! I’ll just bet that the PEW survey was conducted by phone, during the dinner hour, very recently. And/or in busy shopping malls. Give me a break! I doubt they started this survey by actually telling you what it’s about. But ran on with a bunch of other crap questions. And when you finally beg off, or hang up, cause you got better thinks to do. They put you down as “not caring about the privacy issue.” They should have a moratorium on these surveys between Thanksgiving and New Years. Sheesh! And nice job of the Senate to sneak this one in. When did they vote on it, at 3am one morning?

# 5 ECA said, on December 18th, 2007 at 3:52 am

#4
Its not the survey,
Its HOW WIDE and the locations they DO them…

then you ask about SECURITY, but you dont DEFINE it.
you dont TELL them about the Cameras on the corners, or the listening devices on all phones. you dont tell them it would take MORE taxes to start and keep it running. you DONT tell them that ANY person found guilty, has ALL their assets and home/cars TAKEN by the gov, and EVEn if not guilty, its HARD to get your goods back.

# 6 pedro said, on December 18th, 2007 at 3:54 am

People don’t care about their online privacy? who knew!

You have three articles about it in one ‘cast and you wonder about the issue? I mean, people don’t care if the government greenlits the telco’s to give info away, then you mention the survey and then you warn people about clearing the private data after using a public computer? yeah, they’l hear ya and start clearing that thing before leaving. I’ll bet on that one.

People don’t care about shiz these days, unless they see a direct an instant threat to them. Screw preventive safety. The future is still far away. I’ll deal with that when it arrives. Same thing with illegal aliens, the economy, world politics… see the pattern of western civilization? we’re doomed.

By the same token, why tell people that use public computers to surf to clear the browser’s private data? as if all public internet sites are clean and don’t have things like key loggers installed. A moron using a public computer to log onto their online mail and get into its bank accounts deserves what’s coming to them.

# 7 Glenn E. said, on December 18th, 2007 at 3:55 am

Oh great! Just when you trust (and believe) that Staples isn’t out to screw the customer, the way Office Depot has done. You hear that they too may have played dirty pool. Are all of these office supply store chains inherently a bunch of con artists. So much for the “super stores” being better than the “mom & pop” alternatives. Now you can see why the former choice, often sucks. All the CompUSA stores are now going out of business, because of the legal judgements against them for not honoring rebates. Fine, good riddance to them.

# 8 bigb said, on December 18th, 2007 at 4:54 am

The immunity bill has not passed, but now potentially could if no one speaks up to stand against it. The vote that passed was “to end debate and proceed to a vote” ( http://tinyurl.com/3xydvt ). It is not too late to email or call your senators regarding this issue( http://tinyurl.com/2yjp3r )!!

[Please use TinyUrl.com for overly long URLs. - ed.]

# 9 emeryjay said, on December 18th, 2007 at 6:16 am

Professional ethics and telcos? I would agree those words don’t belong in the same sentence. It won’t help much to send emails or write letters. The biggest favor we can do to ourselves is getting the proponents out office.. namely Mitch McConnel, the telco fan boy

# 10 Improbus said, on December 18th, 2007 at 12:16 pm

If you want to get rid of another bought and paid for legislator how about Howard Berman a.k.a. Senator Hollywood.

# 11 Uncle Patso said, on December 19th, 2007 at 8:25 am

Wow, The Tick! I’m impressed!

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