Saturday, March 21, 2009

Privacy policy for blogs and email?

As part of their new interest-based advertising program, Google is reminding us AdSense publishers to update our privacy policies, telling us that "Visitation information from publisher sites will be used to create user interest categories, delivering more relevant ads and improving monetization for publishers over time." Privacy policy? I have never had any formal, published privacy policy for any of my web sites, primarily since my sites are static and do not actively collect any data. But, technically, some data is gathered behind the scenes, primarily logging of page views. Also, I do have some pages with a Google search box to search my web sites and Google may or may not "collect" user usage data for those searches unbeknownst to me. I suppose I need a policy for any email that people might send me, but that is more of an email policy rather than a policy of the web site. I probably should have a policy for blog comments as well.

My overall personal policy is that I never do anything with any user data (including email), other than to respond directly to the user.

Out of curiosity, what is the "default" policy under controlling law if no policy is displayed? Is it maximal respect for user privacy (what I do) or is it maximal use of user data?

Simple question: If one has a blog on Google Blogger, where it is Google that is controlling most user data, what privacy policy is needed to cover user page views and comments, especially where we bloggers cannot even know exactly what Google may be doing behind the scenes? Given that it is superficially absolutely clear that user comments on blogs are visible and accessible to the world, what privacy does the user retain? Maybe reuse and copying, but there is probably some controlling law there as well.

Hmmm... what if the user types in their own copyright notice in their comment text? And then what if Google ignores it -- who is violating what then??

As far as email, if a user sends an unsolicited email to me, what privacy obligations do I have to obey or even disclose? My personal email policy is that any email is a private communication and requires explicit permission to be forwarded or published elsewhere.

I do have to admit that on occasion I will excerpt from an email message or comment anonymously, but I do so in a way that does not violate privacy.

All of this said, I suppose I should formalize a privacy policy, maybe roughly what I have written in this blog post and just put links to it on my blogs and home pages of my web sites.

Or, maybe there is a generic privacy policy analogous to my personal policy so that I do not need to personalize it.

Please comment on the privacy policies that you use or would prefer. And... be sure to explicitly state whether I have permission to "steal" your policy!

-- Jack Krupansky

Friday, March 13, 2009

Death of my mother

My mother passed away suddenly Thursday evening. That puts me in the "club" of those who have lost both parents.

My blogging (and Twittering) will probably be rather light or even non-existent over the next week or so as I deal with a variety of arrangements.

-- Jack Krupansky

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Using Twitter for SEO and SEM

The thought of using Twitter to give you an SEO and SEM boost is appealing, but not so clear cut. Yes, you can place links in Twitter tweets, but since Twitter using the "nofollow" attribute, Google will not count such "tweet links" as inbound links to your own web pages.

That is the bad news.

The good news is that Twitter tweets are a good way to drive traffic to your web pages. After all, the whole point of achieving a high placement in Google search results is to get users to click and navigate to your web pages.

Twitter has a search feature where people can enter keywords to search for tweets, so be sure that your tweets are rich with the keywords that are likely to be used by your target market. As far as I know, the search results are strictly chronologically ordered, so there is no Google-style SEO to do other than to use lots of keywords.

As far as the issue of Twitter using TinyURL links, that is a non-issue due to Twitter using "nofollow".

I do not have any great clarity as to whether the existence of any of your URLs at TinyURL.com actually gives your URLs some SEO boost. I suspect it might, but it is hard to say for sure. I suppose it can't hurt to enter your important web page URLs into TinyURL.com, treating it as if it were another form of web directory.

-- Jack Krupansky

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Turn off DNS pre-fetching in Google Chrome to fix page loading problems

I have occasionally experienced a problem in Google Chrome where it would simply not load some web pages, leaving them blank, white. Hitting Reload would not help. You needed to shutdown Chrome, run Microsoft Internet Explorer, and then restart Chrome to make the problem go away. That is too much of a pain.

The problem seems to be some bug in Chrome's network I/O stack.

There is another workaround... simply disable the DNS pre-fetching feature in Chrome.

I had refrained from doing that because the DNS pre-fetching feature is there explicitly to speed up loading of web pages, part of the main reason I was using Chrome.

But, today, I ran into the blank page problem so many times that I finally bit the bullet and turned the DNS pre-fetching feature off. That made the problem go away.

But guess what that did to page load performance?

No... it actually made it FASTER!!! Go figure.

In any case, here is what you do:

  1. Bring up the Chrome "Tools" menu by clicking on the little wrench icon.
  2. Click on the "Options" menu item.
  3. Click on the "Under the Hood" Chrome Options tab.
  4. Click on the "Use DNS pre-fetching to improve page load performance" check box. Make sure there is no little green checkmark in the box -- if there is, click it again to make the checkmark go away.
  5. Click on the Close Button.
  6. Click on the Reload icon (circular arrow), and PRESTO! the page should load promptly.

-- Jack Krupansky

Monday, March 09, 2009

My suggestion for the White House economic recovery web site: blog and Twitter

The White House has an "okay" web site for the stimulus package, www.recovery.gov, but it needs a blog and they need to exploit Twitter. I sent them the following suggestion:

The web site needs a blog and Twitter feeds to provide us with more timely information.

See the NY Fed site for Twitter examples:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/
http://twitter.com/NYFed_news
http://twitter.com/NYFed_data

Thanks.

-- Jack Krupansky

They do have a blog on the main White House web site, so it is not an unnatural request.

Somehow, I find it amusing that the New York Federal Reserve Bank is on Twitter!

In any case, I at least gave them some useful feedback. Have you??

-- Jack Krupansky

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Check out tipjoy for online contributions and payments

This is mostly a note to myself to look further into something called tipjoy, a new web site for online contributions and payments. As the web site says:

simple social payments for great people, causes & content

Their About us page says:

Tipjoy is a simple, social payments service which makes it easy for people to earn money from and give money to great people, causes and content. Our office is in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Tipjoy's Series A funding is lead by Betaworks. We were a part of Y Combinator's Winter 2008 funding cycle.

Have suggestions for us? Please send us feedback or email us directly at founders@tipjoy.com

Keep track of our progress on our blog and by following us on http://twitter.com/tipjoy

They have some form of integration with Twitter as well as being easy to use from a blog or web site.

Looks interesting. Maybe an alternative to mediocre AdSense.

-- Jack Krupansky

Monday, March 02, 2009

My AdSense click-through rate (CTR) for the month of February 2009 was...

My AdSense click-through rate (CTR) for the month of February 2009 was... OOPS! Sorry, but Google has forbidden me from disclosing my click-through rate. As per the AdSense Terms and Conditions:

7.  Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. "Google Confidential Information" includes without limitation: (a) all Google software, technology, programming, specifications, materials, guidelines and documentation relating to the Program; (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Property performance in the Program provided to You by Google; and (c) any other information designated in writing by Google as "Confidential" or an equivalent designation. However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google's gross payments to You pursuant to the Program. Google Confidential Information does not include information that has become publicly known through no breach by You or Google, or information that has been (i) independently developed without access to Google Confidential Information, as evidenced in writing; (ii) rightfully received by You from a third party; or (iii) required to be disclosed by law or by a governmental authority.

I can tell you that my net income from Google AdSense for the five months from September 2008 through January 2009 were a whopping $100.27, a whole $20 per month (simple average.) The T&C permit this disclosure (from above):

However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google's gross payments to You pursuant to the Program.

Technically, I probably cannot tell you my earnings for the month of February 2009 or any other individual month since Google granted the right to disclose only "gross payments to You" and there was no "payment" for February. But, you would be able to disclose payment for each month provided that your net earnings for the month were not less than $100, the minimum payment. Also, technically, you would not be permitted to even disclose that monthly earnings until the day when the payment is actually made and legally constitutes "a payment to You."

The T&C also proscribe me from disclosing my total page impressions and number of clicks.

In theory, I would be permitted to give you page impressions if I had independent analytics to determine that number, but since all of my blogs are on Blogger, I do not have any analytics available to me. I suppose I could put a "site counter" on my blogs.

-- Jack Krupansky

My AdSense clickthrough rate (CTR) for the month of February 2009 was...

My AdSense click-through rate (CTR) for the month of February 2009 was... OOPS! Sorry, but Google has forbidden me from disclosing my click-through rate. As per the AdSense Terms and Conditions:

7.  Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. "Google Confidential Information" includes without limitation: (a) all Google software, technology, programming, specifications, materials, guidelines and documentation relating to the Program; (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Property performance in the Program provided to You by Google; and (c) any other information designated in writing by Google as "Confidential" or an equivalent designation. However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google's gross payments to You pursuant to the Program. Google Confidential Information does not include information that has become publicly known through no breach by You or Google, or information that has been (i) independently developed without access to Google Confidential Information, as evidenced in writing; (ii) rightfully received by You from a third party; or (iii) required to be disclosed by law or by a governmental authority.

I can tell you that my net income from Google AdSense for the five months from September 2008 through January 2009 were a whopping $100.27, a whole $20 per month (simple average.) The T&C permit this disclosure (from above):

However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google's gross payments to You pursuant to the Program.

Technically, I probably cannot tell you my earnings for the month of February 2009 or any other individual month since Google granted the right to disclose only "gross payments to You" and there was no "payment" for February. But, you would be able to disclose payment for each month provided that your net earnings for the month were not less than $100, the minimum payment. Also, technically, you would not be permitted to even disclose that monthly earnings until the day when the payment is actually made and legally constitutes "a payment to You."

The T&C also proscribe me from disclosing my total page impressions and number of clicks.

In theory, I would be permitted to give you page impressions if I had independent analytics to determine that number, but since all of my blogs are on Blogger, I do not have any analytics available to me. I suppose I could put a "site counter" on my blogs.

-- Jack Krupansky

Should Twitter have an app store (ala Apple)?

The fact that Apple seems to be doing quite well with its App Store makes me wonder whether, say, Twitter could also do well with a comparable store for add-ons for use with Twitter.

In other words, which is the cart and which is the horse (or chicken and egg if you wish), the iPhone as a "platform" or Twitter as a platform?

-- Jack Krupansky

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Amazon Kindle - if a software agent reads a book aloud is that a performance or the creation of a derivative work?

The recent uproar over the read-aloud feature of the new Amazon Kindle book reading device has raised some fascinating questions related to the definition and interpretation of the concepts of a performance and a derivative work, as well as the concept of licensed use. I would add that this dispute also raises the issue of the role and status of software agents.

An article in Ars Technica by Julian Sanchez entitled "Kindles and "creative machines" blur boundaries of copyright" does a decent jobs of covering both the pros and cons and legal nuances of the "rights" for electronically reading a book aloud.

I have read a lot of the pro and con arguments, but I am not prepared to utter a definitive position at this time.

I would note that there is a "special" context for the entire debate: the ongoing "culture war" between the traditional world view of people, places, and things and the so-called "digital" world view, whether it be online with the Web or interactive within a computer system. Clearly there are parallels between the real and "virtual" worlds, but also there are differences. Rational people will recognize and respect the parallels even as they recognize and respect the differences. Alas, there is a point of view that insists that the virtual worlds (online and interactive) should not be constrained in any way by the real-world world view.

The simple truth is that the real and virtual worlds can in fact coexist separately, but the problem comes when we try to blend the two worlds and pass artifacts between them. Then, the separateness breaks down. The Kindle is a great example, with real-world books being "passed" into the digital world and then the act of electronically reading them aloud passing back from the digital world to the real world.

It is also interesting to note that many books are now actually created in the virtual world (word processing, storage, transmission, digital printing) even if not intended specifically as so-called e-books, so that physical books themselves in fact typically originated in a virtual world. Clearly the conception of the book occurs in the mind of the author and the editors, but the actual "assembly" of all of the fragments from the minds of authors and editors into the image of the book occurs in the virtual world.

In any case, my interest is in the role of software agents. A software agent is a computer program which possesses the quality of agency or acting for another entity. The Kindle read-aloud feature is clearly a software agent. Now, the issue is whose agent is it. The consumer? Amazon? The book author? The publisher?

The superficially simple question is who "owns" the software agent.

We speak of "buying" books, even e-books, but although the consumer does in fact "buy" the physical manifestation, they are in fact only licensing the "use" of the intellectual property embodied in that physical representation. You do in fact "own" the ones and zeros of the e-book or the paper and ink of the meatspace book, but you do not own all uses except as covered by the license that you agreed to at the time of acquisition of the bits. Clearly not everyone likes or agrees with that model, but a license is a contract and there are laws related to contracts. Clearly there are also disputes about what the contract actually covers or what provisions are enforceable. That is why we have courts.

So, the consumer owns the bits of the read-aloud software agent, and the consumer may have some amount of control over the behavior of that software agent, but ownership and interaction are not the same thing.

I would suggest that the read-aloud software agent still belongs to Amazon since it remains a component of the Kindle product. A Kindle reading a book aloud is not the same as a parent reading a book to a child or a teacher reading to a class (or the reading in the movie The Reader), in particular because it is Amazon's agent that is doing the reading.

An interesting variation would be an open source or public domain version of Kindle as downloadable software for the PC, or software with features different from Kindle for that matter. Who "owns" any software agents embedded in that software? Whose agent is doing the performance? Whose agent is creating derivative works? To me, the immediate answer is who retains the intellectual property rights to the agent. In the Kindle case, Amazon is not attempting to transfer all rights. Even if they did, there is the same question as with file-sharing software, whether there is some lingering implied liability that goes along even when ownership is transferred.

Another open issue would be software agents which completely generate content from scratch dynamically, not from some input such as an e-book data stream. Who owns that content? I would suggest that the superficial answer is that the owner of the agent owns "created" (non-derivative) content, except as they may have licensed transfer of ownership of such content.

Another issue is whether a "stream" can be considered a representation. I would think so. One could also consider it a performance of an implied representation. Whether each increment of data in the stream is stored may not be particularly relevant. The stream has most of the "effect" of a full representation.

Another issue is trying to discover the intent or spirit of the law as opposed to the exact letter of the law. Sure, there are plenty of loopholes and gotchas that do in fact matter when in a courtroom, but ultimately I would think that it is the intentions that matter the most to society. Unless, you are a proponent of a "free" digital world that is unencumbered by any constraints of the real world and seeks to exploit loopholes simply because "they are there."

In any case, my point is not to settle the matter, but to raise the issues of performances and creation of derivative works in the realm of software agents, both for developers of software agent technology and those who seek to deploy it. And we have this issue of what lingering liability tail connects software agents and their creators.

-- Jack Krupansky