Goodbye, Blogger

We stopped posting on Blogger in June, 2005. Please go directly to www.likelihoodofconfusion.com for our Word Press version.

Likelihood of Revelation

The last week or so has been light on blogging, largely because of technological issues but also because of a slow week in topical news plus the occasional need to practice law around here.

It doesn't get better too fast because we will be out of the reality-based loop due to our office's observance of the Jewish festival of Shavuoth, the celebration of the Revelation that made the Jews the chosen nation. (Nice! Right?)

See you after shul.

Taking the IP Train

The New York Times reported (yes, reg. req.) last week that New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is scrambling to enforce trademark rights in its wide array of iconography, including the famous alphanumeric train symbols known to all New Yorkers.

Evidently powered by the MTA's burgeoning licensing program, it's not a bad idea. No question but that these and the many other powerful symbols used by the transit system are excellent communicators of source, quality and all those other trademarky things. The New York transit system, especially the subway, is an entire subculture unto itself. In other words, don't be surprised if there's some pushback on this new, and somewhat belated, attempt to kind of privatize, or revenue-ize, a world that generations of people think of as "everybody's" property. Of course, the libertarians remind us constantly, and accurately, that when something is everyone's property, it is ultimately treated like no one's property at all -- which "everyone" ends up paying for. Still and all, there is an interesting trademark policy issue in here somewhere. It's one thing to say that services aren't free and that even when, as in the case of the MTA, they succesfully address significant externalities, their costs should not be unduly disconnected from users. But it's another thing to say that, however revenue-starved, a public institution (in the broad sense of the word) such as the MTA should restrict the public, much less the bloggy, enjoyment of a public iconography such as the train number symbols and the image of the classic subway token.

In other words, if you get a C&D letter from the MTA, give me call, won't you?

Google and the Privacy Obsession

Google is the new horseman of the ever-approaching privacy apocalpyse, according to an article in Reuters. Why? Because Google lets you keep your email (on its Gmail service) "forever," though the article doesn't explain what exactly the privacy risk is there. And, being fundamentally in the business of aggregating, analyzing and mining data, it keeps search, IP and other logging data for a long time, too. What's the problem with that? Lauren Weinstein, of People for Internet Responsibility -- an organization whose slick, professional website suggests it has not done or even said all that much lately (though Weinstein's blog look somewhat active) -- tells Reuters, "There's really no good reason to hold onto that information for more than a few months. . . . [Google] seem[s] to think that because their motives are pure that everything is OK and they can operate on a trust basis. History tells us that is not the case."

Huh? Google doesn't have to justify its motives -- which it never claimed were pure; see their stock price, thank you -- and you don't have to trust Google at all. Just don't use it.

How long until some representative demagogues this one on Capital Hill?

Should the Reds Enforce Trademark on "Gulag"?

I try mightily to avoid purely political postings here, which would be off topic. But I have always been very bothered by the debasement of language and meaning in politics which, not incidentally, does find its way into my line of work. Likelihood of confusion and all that.

So forgive me this one -- pace Amnesty International, the question is, is any unpleasant experience a "gulag"? Via Instapundit, here's a suggested answer.

UPDATE: Dean Esmay collects gulagiana here.

Enviro-Fascism in New Jersey: The New McCain Doctrine?

Drudge links to this AP story about a guy who bought a billboard, and may buy more, slamming New Jersey environmental regulators for preventing him from completing a development project. The billboard says, "Welcome to New Jersey. A horrible place to do business." "Money quote": "'At some point, we'll have to consider action against him,' [Environmental Protection chief Bradley] Campbell said, implying a potential legal fight."

WHAT? Has the FEC chipped off some of its expression-regulation power to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection now? It's not an entirely irrelevant question, because the news stories indicate that the businessman in question is feeling out governor-in-waiting Senator John Corzine about the issue. And it's not like it's Internet speech, so let the prior restraining begin!

I didn't call Mr. Campbell and ask for a clarification or explanation, which is what I would do if I were acting as a journalist here. I am not; I am only commenting on what appears to be an outrageous statement by an agency head. I'm confident someone from the intrepid New Jersey press corps will hunt this one down and scream bloody murder -- or get a clarification from DEP.

New Penumbra: "Internet Free Speech"

Glenn Reynolds links to an editorial in the Washington Times that urges "Free speech for bloggers," to which Glenn adds, "and everyone else." But while that caveat in his headline is appreciated, it does tend to get lost in the sauce. The key language pulled from the editorial by Instapundit is, "Unfortunately, no matter what the FEC decides, there's a chance that the days of unbridled political discourse on the Internet are nearing their end. . . . We encourage lawmakers to support the bills so that Internet free speech can advance unimpeded."

Why "unbridled political discourse on the Internet"? Why "Internet free speech can advance unimpeded"?

As I have said before, I think this is a terrible formulation, both rhetorically and legislatively. It allows Congress to buy off the for-the-moment influential blog medium while continuing to savage the Constitution for other media -- including, conceivably, as-yet undeveloped or unrealized media -- via the notorious McCain-Feingold anti-sedition legislation. The best thing the "Blogosphere" -- right, left and center -- can do in connection with this issue is refuse to be bought by a dubious, and prospectively temporary, carve-out for "Internet free speech" only.