In Age of Security, Firm Mines Wealth Of Personal Data (reg. req’d): the Post provides an overview of ChoicePoint, described as a “little-known information industry giant.” However, many librarians and researchers are well acquainted with the company’s products, and it has been in the bulls-eye of privacy advocates for selling its vast databases of personal… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: January 2005
E-Commerce Gaining Ground With Consumers
Survey: Web Sites Building Better Brand Loyalty Than Physical Stores Continue Reading
Innovative Legislative Tracking Tool Now Available
Joshua Tauberer, a grad student at U. Penn, has created an amazing legislative tracking service, GovTrack.us, which won the top prize in the Technorati Developer’s Contest. The site’s automated monitoring services are free, and the data is obtained from federal sources including THOMAS and the websites of the U.S. House and Senate. Users may track… Continue Reading
FBI’s Net Surveillance Tool Abandoned in Favor of ISP Provided Data
From EPIC: “Through the Freedom of Information Act, EPIC has obtained FBI reports to Congress stating that the agency did not use its DCS 1000 Internet monitoring system — formerly known as Carnivore — during fiscal years 2002 (pdf) and 2003 (pdf). According to the reports, the FBI used commercially available software to conduct court-ordered… Continue Reading
Washington Post Inauguration 2005 Coverage
Inauguration 2005 (reg. req’d). See also the Post’s Inauguration Blog ’05. Continue Reading
MSN Search Now Live, and My MSN Supports News Feeds
Microsoft is done beta testing MSN search, and it is now “offically” live. Related news about MSN – Really Simple Syndication: Getting Started, is a useful guide to implementing news feeds on the My MSN service. See also MSN Removes Beta Tag from Search Site, which includes information on how this engine indexes content, as… Continue Reading
Video Search Engine Will Offer Archive of TV Broadcasts
From This is London, via Om Malik and Andy Baio, important news that blinkTV has an agreement with the BBC, ITV, Sky and Fox to provide subscription access to a substantial archive of past content as well as programming from future broadcasts. Related reference: BBC Creative Archive pioneers new approach to public access rights in… Continue Reading
New Scientist Offers Lots of News Feeds
New Scientist provides a roster of RSS feeds (in a choice of Atom, RSS, XML and RDF), on breaking news, topical areas including Info-Tech, Health, and Being Human, as well as a range of special reports such as Motoring Technology (my favorite), Electronic Threats, and Climate Change. While you are on the site, take the… Continue Reading
Texas AG Sues Major Global Spammer
From the press release: “Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed the state’s first lawsuit against one of the world’s largest spam operations in an effort to crack down on the massive flow of illegal e-mail into Texas consumers’ in-boxes.” Lawsuit Against PayPerAction Et Al. (16 pages, PDF) Consumer Tips on SPAM Prevention See also related… Continue Reading
E-Reg Website to Provide Wider Range of Documents to Public By This Summer
Arriving this summer, significant improvements in the Regulations.gov website, detailed in this GovExec.com report. “For the first time, citizens will be able not only to comment on proposed regulations using the Internet – as they do now on the site – but also will have access to supporting agency documents, every public comment and rules… Continue Reading
Updated CRS Report on Access to Gov’t Info
Access to Government Information in the United States, updated January 7, 2005: “Throughout the first 150 years of the federal government, access to government information does not appear to have been a major issue among the three branches or for the citizenry. There were a few instances during this period when the President, for reasons… Continue Reading
Shortcut to Searching Phone Numbers on Google
From Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch a quick, useful tool to search phone numbers in the U.S. using Google. The author notes that his site has no affiliation with Google, and that users may search by full name, or use first initial and last name, as well as reverse lookup (by entering the phone number). Continue Reading
