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Category Archives: E-Commerce

Paper – Gone in Six Characters: Short URLs Considered Harmful for Cloud Services

Gone in Six Characters: Short URLs Considered Harmful for Cloud Services  – Martin Georgiev, Vitaly Shmatikov (Submitted on 10 Apr 2016) “Modern cloud services are designed to encourage and support collaboration. To help users share links to online documents, maps, etc., several services, including cloud storage providers such as Microsoft OneDrive and mapping services such… Continue Reading

Microsoft sues DOJ – demands right to disclose when law enforcement seeks customer data

Microsoft v. The United States Department of Justice, USDC Western District of Washington at Seattle – April 14, 2016: “Microsoft brings this case because its customers have a right to know when the government obtains a warrant to read their emails, and because Microsoft has a right to tell them. Yet the Electronic Communications Privacy… Continue Reading

Profits from cloud computing ring up billions in micro charges

Billing by Millionths of Pennies, Cloud Computing’s Giants Take In Billions by Quentin Hardy – “This economics of tiny things demonstrates the global power of the few companies, including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, that can make fortunes from the small..Amazon Web Services…Andrew R. Jassy, the senior vice president of Amazon Web Services. The per-millionth pricing… Continue Reading

FCC Unveils Consumer Broadband Labels to Provide Greater Transparency to Consumers

“With this Public Notice, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs, Wireline Competition, and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus (Bureaus) approve, with modifications, the consumer broadband labels proposed by the Commission’s Consumer Advisory Committee (CAC). The CAC proposed the labels pursuant to the 2015 Open Internet Order and, as required by the Commission, the labels will operate as a… Continue Reading

Consumer Protection in E-commerce OECD Recommendation

“E-commerce has evolved dramatically since 1999, when the OECD Council adopted the first international instrument for Consumer Protection in the Context of Electronic Commerce (“1999 Recommendation”). On 24 March 2016, the OECD Council revised this instrument and the Recommendation of the Council on Consumer Protection in E-commerce (“the revised Recommendation”) now addresses new and emerging… Continue Reading

Local Consumer Review Survey 2014

BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2014. “This survey is an annual exploration into how consumers read & use online reviews. It seeks to quantify the value that users place on the reviews they read & how this impacts their opinions & actions when seeking a local business to use. The survey is specifically concerned with the reviews & purchase… Continue Reading

NYT – Ethereum, a Virtual Currency, Enables Transactions That Rival Bitcoin’s

New York Times: “A new virtual gold rush is underway. Even as Bitcoin, riven by internal divisions, has struggled, a rival virtual currency — known as Ethereum — has soared in value, climbing 1,000 percent over the last three months. Beyond the price spike, Ethereum is also attracting attention from giants in finance and technology,… Continue Reading

NYT – Race Is On to Control Artificial Intelligence and Tech’s Future

The Race Is On to Control Artificial Intelligence, and Tech’s Future By John Markoff and Steve Lohr – “Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft are using high salaries and games pitting humans against computers to try to claim the standard on which all companies will build their A.I. technology.” Continue Reading

Wellcome Trust Open Access Publishing Data

Follow up to previous posting – Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight – see Wellcome Trust and COAF Open Access Spend, 2014-15: “…Once a year we ask all those institutions in receipt of an open access (OA) grant from the Trust to provide details on how the grant… Continue Reading

Report – Millennials’ Media Habits Are Different and Distinct

Nielsen – “The difference between an 18-year-old and a 34-year-old is often like night and day. From where they live to what they wear to how much discretionary income they take home, a vast array of differences exist within what is often portrayed as a monolithic group of consumers. Likewise, according to Nielsen’s Q4 2015… Continue Reading

Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight

Follow up on previous posting – Database of 48 million pirated research papers is focus of litigious revolt against paywalls – see Sci-Hub: research piracy and the public good – The release of millions of journal papers online reflects impatience with an outdated publishing model, says John Willinsky: “The old economy is the impetus behind… Continue Reading