Spyware and trackbacks
I did the first in a string of talks about spyware today. My fancy-schmanzty software (MindManager — I thought it would be great) crashed over and over again before I started, so I gave up and just talked. I did not blame or even mention the software problem (this is similar to not blaming the horse who throws you to the ground).
Boy, do we have a long way to go on this issue. Some people say it's all about privacy. Other people (including Utah) say it's really about unauthorized uses of trademarks prompting unauthorized ads (or sponsored links). I'm saying it's all about oppressive relationships, and we have lots of law to deal with these relationships already. But because of relatives and cluelessness (bet you there are lots of legislators with relatives who have spyware problems), legislators are swinging for the fences on this one.
Just as the broadcast flag is really about control over the design of devices, the spyware debate is really about control over the design of code. We should be cautious in legislating these design decisions — no matter how pernicious particular stories/examples are — because our language for these distinctions is so impoverished. We don't know and can't describe in advance what “bad software” will look like two months from now. HTML? JavaScript? Cookies? What's “bad” and needs notice and consent?
Someone asked me how to make a trackback show up on a blog. Here's how:
1. Find a good blog.
2. Find an entry and copy the URL for the “permanent link” to that entry.
3. Create a link to that entry in your own blog.
Contextual search
Yahoo! has rolled out a new service, Y!Q, that allows for contextual searching — on web pages, through a blog, whatever. Yahoo! blogs about it here.
It's a pretty neat tool. Is it spyware?