New Title of My Blog

Most of you who read my blog noticed that I recently changed the title of my blog from My Daily Dime to Frankly Speaking. I'm doing this because I believe Frankly Speaking is more of a catchy title, and if I really want to, I can start using those cliche statements towards the end of my blog where I begin a sentance with Frankly speaking....

In any case, I still focus on news, and business news, and try to write from an ordinary person/consumer perspective. I'm also going to start a Thursday feature (beginning next week) called Syndicating Thursday, where I will republish one of the blogs that I enjoy reading.

As always, if you want to know something special, leave a comment or send me an email.

eBay v MercExchange

eBay v MercExchange hit the Supreme Court today, and already it looks as if the Justices who sit on the Court have already made up their minds on the case.

The issue in this lawsuit contends with eBay's Buy It Now feature, which allows people to immediately purchase items from the Auction website. The patent was allegedly developed by MercExchange in 1995, just before eBay began it's rise to the top of the online world.

Justice Scalia reminded eBay's lawyers of the following, ""You're talking about a property right, and the property right is explicitly the right to exclude others. That's what a patent right is ... give me my property back."

Whether or not the Court agrees with eBay appears not to be the issue anymore - eBay claims to have already updated the back end coding of their BIN feature. What I believe is still at issue is the right of patent holders to arbitrarily sue successful companies who use technology that is similar to their patent.

Think about it, if eBay was a scrawny little company, MercExchange would not bother wasting their time suing them. However, after eBay has proved itself as the behemouth it is, MercExchange obviously wants a piece of the action.

eBay, for it's part, has not sat on their ass about this. I recall while working there when this lawsuit first came down, eBay's primary focus was changing the back end of their BIN feature to make sure that it didn't infringe upon MercExchange's patent.

I think the Court will likely side with MercExchange in this case, simply continuing their history of siding with patent holders. They did this recently by siding with NTP in its patent suit against Blackberry. However, at some point patent laws are going to have to reviewed and revisited. Too many people are taking advantage of this country's stringent laws, and one day, it could cause a lot of us a lot more harm than good.

A Couple Thoughts about Today's News

A couple interesting stories that piqued my interest today:

First, Doctors removed two fetuses from an infant today in Pakistan. Considering that the feat took place in Pakistan is the first thing that makes it amazing. It was apparrently a case of triplets, however, two of the fetuses developed inside each other.

Secondly, our friend Britney Spears was in the news again. This time because of a piece of art that was sculpted over her pregnant body. Be sure and take note of the picture, it may be the only time that you get to see her without any clothes on.

Alleged 5th Plane Hijacker

Interesting news today from Zacarias Moussaoui when he allegedly confessed to having a plan to (along with his pal Rich Reid) to takeover a 5th plane on 9/11 and fly it into the White House.

Maybe it's just me, but it's a little hard to believe that this alleged 5th Highjacking would've gone off without any problems. The reason I say that is, Rich Reid, the guy who was supposed to help Moussaoui do this thing, is the same guy who in December of '01 came up with what is (in my opinion) probably one of the most innovative ways to blow up a plane by building a bomb in his shoes. However, when it came time to light the match, he couldn't do it right.

Even more interesting to me is the fact that, if Moussaoui and Reid were going to fly this alleged fifth plane into the White House, what does that mean for United Flight 93? Were they going to take that one into the capital building? A couple more questions: If Moussaoui doesn't get arrested in the summer of '01, and the White House is destroyed, is 9/11 10 times worse than it already was?

No News is Good News

I really meant to blog about something today - really, I did. However there is absolutely NOTHING to talk about. Is it just me, or is everything eerily quiet, like right before 9/11.

Instead of blogging about one particular subject today, here is a collage of different things that are going on:

-The news around town in Salt Lake City is Karl Malone's number being retired.

- Here is a link to a quite amusing story I found on Wonkette. (By the way, if you're not reading Ana Marie Cox's new book "Dog Days", you're missing out. Good times).

- An interesting story on cnn about a girl who claimed she was kidnapped, but was apparrently living a couple miles from her father. All this over a time - span of 10 YEARS! And I thought that this only happened in Salt Lake City.

Hopefully, this should keep you all occupied until I write again - possibly tomorrow.

Google Finance

I suppose the big news of the day (other than Helen Thomas bitch-slapping President Bush) was the release of Google Finance.

I took this baby out for a joy-ride and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't that impressed. The site itself looks very rudimentry in nature, though the site is still in Beta. (Quick tangent: is it just me, or does Google stink when it comes to UI?)

One thing that I do like about Google Finance is the fact that it does relate to all information with regard to a paticular stock. For example, YHOO's finance page only displays mainstream news results when you are looking up information about a website. However, on Google Finance, it will also serve you with results from "less-than-mainstream" sites (read: blogs).

John Battelle had the following to say about Google Finance in his blog today:

"This marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. And that's a shift, a shift that is worth noting. "

Quattrone Case Thrown Out

A Federal Appeals Court in NYC threw out a conviction against Frank Quattrone. The Judge said that the Jury in the Quattrone case was improperly instructed when it went to deliberate about the case.

For those of you who don't remember good ol' Frank, he's the guy who was convicted on obstruction of justice charges because he allegedly told bankers to shred important documents relating to an IPO.

The case received a mistrial during its first time around. Quattrone was convicted his second time around and received 18 months. He is currently free while his conviction is appealed.

Quattrone was a classic poster boy (along with Bernie Ebbers, Martha Stewart, Enron, et al) of everything that was wrong with the business world during the bull market run of the late 1990s. It should be interesting to see if the government decides to retry the case, or decides that this fish isn't worth the fry.

Drug Causes impulsive Sex and Gambling

This won't be a long post but I wanted to share this interesting article that I found in the Post this morning about a Parkinson's drug that has lead to increased dopamine levels in the brain. Enjoy the read and the rest of your weekend.

We're on a Slippery Slope

A judge today ruled that Google must handover Search records to the Justice Department. As I posted in a related blog, this is the beginning of a slippery slope as far as our privacy online.

The DOJ is claiming that they have legitimate need for the records in an effort to determine exactly who is looking for child porn on the Web, however, can you really trust a government who was caught red-handed in tapping the phone lines of its own citizens.

Sergey Brin has publicly said many times that this could be the beginning of a slippery slope. This raises many questions on what limitations are in place when it comes to the government asking for data. What's to stop them from claiming they need to do research about people doing searches with the keywords 'dirty bomb', 'atomic bomb' or 'join terrorist group'.

We're headed in the wrong direction and I'm earnestly looking forward to anyone standing up to the government and telling them that they crossed the line.

Wal-Mart: How Good is Too Good?

I listened to a really interesting interview tonight on the local station of NPR about a recently published book entitled "The Wal-Mart Effect" by Charles Fishman.

In his book, Fishman describes the world's leading retailer and how far consumers go to find the best price. One of the many examples that was used in the interview was the fact that Wal-Mart sells lawnmowers for $99.99. To most people, $99 for a lawnmower seems like a great deal, but think about it, why would a 'quality' lawnmower only cost $99. Think about it, what if your lawnmower doesn't start 6 months after you stop using it? You have to take it in and get it repaired, which will likely cost you anywhere between $50-$60 - which is 66% of WHAT YOU PAID FOR A NEW LAWNMOWER!!

What Mr. Fishman implies in his interview that with every purchase, there is a 'quality' cost that has to be factored in. Wal-Mart does a very good job at excluding this 'quality' cost in an effort to achieve the lowest price.

Another example that Mr. Fishman included in his interview is that Levi Strauss recently introduced a line of jeans specifically to Wal-Mart. Normally, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans will set you back $33. At Wal-Mart, you can get a pair for $23? Is this a great deal? At face value, it's a great deal, but let's dig a bit deeper. What's the probability that these jeans last you more than 6 months after 'normal' use? I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't last me 3 months.

Wal-Mart has been in the news for soliciting the assistance of bloggers to help polish its image (I suppose this is there attempt at guerrilla marketing). I recently read a hilarious article indicting Wal-Mart for doing this.

You can download the podcast of the interview on iTunes, and you can purchase his book here.

Email Marketing Settlement

Datran, a huge online marketing company based in NYC recently settled a lawsuit with the State of New York. They were found guilty of marketing to customers to whom they collected personal information from while they were doing other projects from some of their clients. Consumers were usually duped into giving their personal information when they clicked through banner ads or text links that advertised free iPods or free plasma televisions.

Datran is a marketing company that will send out email advertisements, do banner ads, and text links in favor of other online Merchants. Companies provide Datran with basic information about their customers such as a name and an email address and Datran in turn does a online marketing campaign to get those people to buy from certain merchants.

Datran was accused by New York Attorney general Eliot Spitzer of spamming customers with discount drugs and diet pills. This article proves that you better be careful to whom you provide information about your customers to.

New List of Billionaires

Forbes is out with its annual list of billionaires. Once again, Bill Gates was on top of the list with his net worth rising to a eye-popping $50 Billion dollars. This reminds me of the old Chris Rock joke, where he says "If Bill Gates woke up and realized that he was only worth as much as Oprah Winfrey, he'd jump out the building and slit his throat on the way down!"

Warren Buffet ranked second on the list, although the value his net worth dropped by a cool $2 Billion to $42 Billion. You can read the complete article from the AP here, or wait until the next edition of Forbes.

Google Settles Click Fraud Case

From John Battelle's Blog:

The company has posted on the topic here. My original posting is here. This is clearly not just about the Lane's suit, it's about Google rejiggering its policies with regard to click fraud.
From Google's post:
We’re very near a resolution in that case, so we thought we’d offer an update.
We’ve been discussing the case with the plaintiffs for some time and have recently come to an agreement with them which we believe is a good outcome for everyone involved. As a result, Google and the plaintiffs are going to ask the judge to approve the settlement, which would resolve the case.
Until the settlement is approved by the judge, it is not final. And the details are confidential, but will become public when it is formally filed for the judge’s consideration. However, we can share the major pieces of our proposed agreement.
Google currently allows advertisers to apply for reimbursement for clicks they believe are invalid. They can do this for clicks that happen during the 60 days prior to notifying Google. Under the agreement with the plaintiffs, we are going to open up that window for all advertisers, regardless of when the questionable clicks occurred. For all eligible invalid clicks, we will offer credits which can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. We do not know how many will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million. What I am not sure I grok is - is this $90 million set aside only for the plaintiffs in the Lanes' case, or is that the total Google is setting aside for all advertisers, period? I've asked Google for clarification. Seems to me, if they are changing their policy, the claims, and the costs, could go well above $90 million.

I will be following this very closely. The company that I work for does a lot of SEO work through Google and this will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Thoughts on the BlackBerry Settlement

I know this is a bit of old news, and lots of people have already posted their thoughts about it, but I thought I'd write a comment or two about the recent BlackBerry settlement.

On Friday, BlackBerry settled with alleged patent holder NTP for $612 Million. Lots of journalists have written that this is akin to the two employees of NTP winning the lottery. I'm a fairly new user of the BlackBerry, but am coming to the acute understanding of why people refer to it as 'crack'-berry. It's a very addictive little toy.

I think it's good for BlackBerry to settle when they did. With an injunction that threatened to shut down service in the United States, a lot of BB's future business was on the line. Rather than go all in and let the courts decide its fate, BB took the safe route and simply settled with the company claiming to hold the patent to BB's core business model.

Is this right thing for BB to do? That remains debateable. In the short term, BB recently reported that it will fall below earnings estimates and new subscriber estimates. This stems from the fact that many users were wary of using BB because of the impending shutdown. As well, BB may end up raising prices for the devices to help recoup some of the cost of paying NTP. In the long-term, BB will most likely make up for these losses as the use of BB expands from its current base of 4mm users.

Many other providers such as Microsoft, PalmOne and others have taken advantage of the patent distraction that befell BB in recent month by marketing their mobile computing devices. However, in a coup for BB and as first reported in today's WSJ (subscription required), BB received it's biggest endorsement from the US government, when it told a court that many federal officials rely on BB for communication, and shutting down BB immediately would not be feasible.

It should be interesting to see what happens. As mentioned above, I've started using BB and I absolutely love it! In fact, you may see more frequent postings from me because I'll be able to access the Web more frequently!

Skeletons in the Closet

With HBO coming out next week with a new series entitled "Big Love" national media attention has focused once again on the subject of polygamy. When the word is brought up, almost everybody associates it to the practice of Mormons in the state of Utah.

The Mormon Church officially outlawed the practice in the 1890's (with the promise from the Federal Government that if they did, they would receive statehood). However, the practice of polygamy is still alive and well.

Being a resident of this state, I'm fairly sensitive to all the attention that is given to the issue. I'm aware of the snickers, the jokes, all of it. I recently started to question whether or not all of it was justified. My answer: Yes.

The Attorney General of the State of Utah is well aware that the problem exists, however, he is consistant in ignoring the problem. There are several small communities of polygamists throughout Salt Lake City, extending hundreds of miles north and south. Many of these people openly practice the illegal act, without fear of arrest. And why should they? Polygamists haven't been busted en masse in over 50 years.

State Officials are fully aware that the problem exists, but yet they fail to act. Because of this failure, thousands of women and children are stuck in a mysogynistic society, where they are abused by there male husbands, fathers and religious leaders. They have nowhere else to rely on except the state to provide them with welfare subsidies to support themselves and their children.

Why doesn't the Attorney General do anything? Obviously there are drug problems, gang problems, murders, and rapes and other serious crimes. These crimes are caused by criminals who take up most of Utah's resources and prison space. However, this is overlooking the fact that 20,000-30,000 felons are living in Utah without a care in the world.

So why do people in the other 49 states joke about Utahn's being polygamists? It's not because they're ignorant, it's because they understand that people still freely practice polygamy, and nobody is doing anything about it.