Posts tagged Responds
Facebook Responds to Abused DMCA Loophole Issue, Doesn’t Fix System
Apr 29th
Yesterday we reported on a problem that was affecting several Facebook page owners – due to a loophole in Facebook’s process for handling DMCA takedown requests, anyone with an ax to grind and a fake email address could take down any Facebook page by filling out an online form with false information, claiming copyright infringement.
Facebook doesn’t verify the identity of those filing the claim, and more importantly, it doesn’t verify the claim is from a legitimate email address. After a handful of high-profile sites became the victim of this problem, Facebook has stepped in to resolve the problem. Well, sort of. The social networking company says it has restored four pages, but it has not made any changes to its system as of yet.
Sponsor
What Was Happening?
With Facebook’s faulty system, which we detailed here, anyone could get a Facebook page taken down just by filling out an online form with fake information. Because Facebook did not verify the email address of the person doing the reporting, several page owners found themselves without any way to resolve the dispute. In some cases, the fake email addresses the scammer had entered ended up belonging to an uninvolved third-party, who, fortunately for the site owner (Taimur Asad of RedmondPie), was kind enough to contact Facebook on the owner’s behalf to have the claim removed. Others, like Hamard Dar, who owns a site called Rewriting Technology, were not as lucky. His page was down for over a month. He was only able to restore it by performing an investigation on his own to determine who submitted the complaint and then threaten them with criminal charges.
Facebook’s Response
In light of the controversy, Facebook has now responded to these complaints, saying that it has “investigated a number of recent intellectual property cases and have restored four pages as a result.”
Yes, just four.
The spokesperson also added:
Abuse of DMCA and other intellectual property notice procedures is a challenge for every major Internet service and we take it seriously. We have invested significant resources into creating a dedicated team that uses specialized tools, systems and technology to review and properly handle intellectual property notices. This system evaluates a number of factors when deciding how to respond and, in many cases, we require the reporter to provide additional information before we can take action. As a result of these efforts, the vast majority of intellectual property notices that we receive are handled without incident. Of course, no system is perfect and we are always striving to improve our practices. As such, we will be considering the results of our investigation into this matter as we continue to refine our systems and procedures.
How Many Others are Out There?
Unfortunately, this response is not good enough for others who are still dealing with the effects of Facebook’s failed system.
According to Hassan Ali, who runs apniisp.com, a popular entertainment website based in Pakistan, his Facebook page with over 44,000 fans was disabled on March 3, 2011, and the email address belonging to the supposedly infringed upon party is not even working – all the emails just bounce back.
This goes to one of the main issues with Facebook’s system – it doesn’t even verify the email address works. In addition, Facebook’s support in this area doesn’t help the affected parties – form letters from what appear to be bots called “Reggie” and “Marissa” are the only “people” who will respond to emails asking for help. And they always say the same thing: Facebook won’t get involved, work it out yourself and get a lawyer.
But in Ali’s case, Facebook isn’t even listening to his legal counsel, he says. In an excerpt from Facebook’s email, the company writes,
“If you believe that this claim has been made under false pretenses, we recommend that you contact a lawyer or your local law enforcement agency and discuss this issue with them.”
But when Ali’s lawyer contacted Facebook on his behalf, Facebook replied:
“We can only correspond with an admin of the removed content.”
Ali says he has been struggling with this issue for 50 days and doesn’t know what do to anymore.
Restoring Pages is a Band-Aid, Not a Solution
While the four site owners affected were glad to see their pages return, the brand reputation they suffered is, in some cases, irreversible. In one instance, a new, fake Facebook page had appeared, offering the newly migrated fans “free iPads,” in what was clearly an online scam.
When asked what Facebook was doing in the future to address this issue, as simply restoring the pages of those bloggers notable enough to have caused a ruckus doesn’t fix the real problem, Facebook told one of the site owners that the issue would be discussed and Facebook will “consider refinements to our system.”
Consider?
How hard is it to implement email validation? What’s to consider? At the very least, the form should verify the email address works before removing pages based on faulty claims. At best, Facebook should make it more challenging for these claims to exist in the first place. A good first step? Stop allowing disposable webmail addresses in the “email” portion of the field.
We expect that this isn’t the last we’ll hear of changes to the DMCA takedown system over at Facebook. In the meantime, can someone besides “Marissa” or “Reggie” please look into Ali’s case?
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Apple Finally Responds to iPhone Location Tracking Issue
Apr 27th
It’s been a week since data scientists Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden published their discovery that the iPhone has been keeping track of users’ locations and storing the data – unencrypted – on the phone as well as any machine with which you sync the device.
Although the news spread like wildfire, Apple has remained silent until now. The company has finally issued a statement on its collection and use of location data. We’ve reprinted the press release in full below.
Apple insists it is not tracking the location of your iPhone. “Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.” It maintains that what Warden and Allan found was a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and celltowers around your current location, information that will help your iPhone quickly calculate your location when requested.
Sponsor
Despite insisting that it’s innocent of any accusations of tracking users, Apple says it plans to issue a software update soon that will change how much data is stored (just seven days’ worth, which will be encrypted), will end caching this data when the device is synced, and will actually cease if users turn off location services.
In the end, Apple seems to be agreeing with what we first thought of the consolidated.db file: more negligence than nefariousness.
Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.
1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.
2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.
3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.
4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).
5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.
6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone’s location data–it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.
7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).
8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).
10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.
Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Amazon Responds to Music Industry Concerns Over Cloud Drive: MP3 Sales Are Up
Apr 12th
The launch of Amazon’s Cloud Drive may not have seemed like an innovative move as more consumers are opting to stream rather than download their music. But it was a disruption enough to cause some record labels to bark back at Amazon and chastise the company for not getting their permission to launch a cloud-based storage and music player. Their permission, and of course, their licensing.
But Billboard reports that Amazon has responded to some of these music industry complaints with a letter contending that since the launch of Cloud Drive two weeks ago, that MP3 sales are up.
Sponsor
Infamous for not ever releasing the sales figures to back up these sorts of claims (the same goes for claims about sales of Kindles and e-books, for example), Amazon doesn’t say how much sales are up. But it insists that the new cloud-based storage will help, not hurt the industry.
Amazon also reiterated its stance that, since the Cloud Drive is akin to an external hard-drive or an online back-up service, there is no requirement for it to obtain licensing agreements with music labels.
“Cloud Player is a media management and play-back application not unlike Windows Media Player and any number of other media management applications that let customers manage and play their music. It requires a license from content owners no more than those applications do. It really is that simple.”
The letter does indicate that as Amazon adds features to the Cloud Drive and associated MP3 player, that it may seek licenses. The letter ends with, “expect to hear more from us on potential licensing in the near future.”
As both Google and Apple are reportedly working on their own versions of cloud music storage, it’s not surprising that Amazon wants to be firm in its argument that it doesn’t need the record industry’s approval on these efforts. To have to negotiate deals would set it back as these major players all move to provide customers with some sort of storage and streaming cloud-based service.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Google Responds Rapidly To Japan Quake, Tsunami With Online Help
Mar 11th
The 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan early today, followed by the tsunami, left the country in a massive state of disarray – one that Google jumped in to help immediately. The search company quickly deployed a person finder site where people could look for or report information on people in the area.
Google also set up reference maps, added an area in CitizenTube for videos, and a Crisis Response page to collect information and provide a place where people could look up various information.
Click to read the rest of this post…
View full post on Search Engine Watch Blog
W3Schools Responds to W3Fools
Jan 17th
Last week a website dedicated to criticizing the popular tutorial site W3Schools, called W3Fools, launched. Reaction from the development community to W3Fools has been mixed. Today, W3Schools responded to our request for comment: “The W3Fools.com website/project is different compared to single user comments, but we always appreciate suggestions on how we can improve W3Schools.”
Sponsor
W3Schools began correcting content in its tutorials almost immediately after the launch of W3Fools. The corrections are noted by strike through on the W3Fools website. However, either the corrections have stopped or the updates on W3Fools have stopped. No corrections have been noted in the JavaScript tutorial, perhaps the one that W3Fools criticized most harshly.
As we noted in our earlier story, a commenter at the W3Schools forum using the name boen_robot took issue with some of W3Fools criticisms. boen_robot noted that some of the mistakes pointed out on the forum have since been fixed on the W3Fools forum. The commenter adds “I wish they could… I don’t know… wikify their page or let people post comments… oh, the irony.”
Although some of W3Fools’ examples are nitpicky, some are more serious – such as the pervasive use of document.write in the JavaScript tutorial. Even this, though, is still a matter of debate among developers. The discussion on Reddit is interesting with regards to relevance of the criticisms.
W3Fools suggests Mozilla’s documentation as an alternative to W3Schools. However, some have pointed out that W3Schools’ tutorials are more friendly to beginners. On a Hacker News thread on W3Fools a commenter using the name bermanoid notes that Mozilla’s XPath documentation recommends W3Schools’ tutorial. This demonstrates the role that W3Schools plays on the Web and the difficulty faced in replacing it.
The best outcome of all of this would be for W3Schools to improve its tutorials – which is the stated goal of W3Fools. That seems to be happening, if slowly.
It would also probably be best for everyone if W3Schools acknowledged on its front page that it is not associated with the W3C.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Google Responds to THVB Text Bug
Jan 7th
The THVB text bug (that is, the terrible, horrible, very bad bug) has been getting a lot of attention over the last few weeks. The issue re-emerged into prominence thanks to the release of the Nexus S phone, which failed to resolve the issue that was reported several months ago. Now, Google has given an official response.
For those unfamiliar with the glitch, here’s the short version: When you go to send a text message, it gets sent to the wrong person. End of story. According to a report on Mashable, Google says that there are two possible causes for the issue, and so it’s shown two possible lines of approach to resolve it.
The first issue is basically being pegged by Google as a user error, saying that it’s important to double-check who you’re sending the message to before you send it, and that users who think they’ve clicked on a different message thread may simply be too impatient. “We’ve found in testing this issue, it is more likely to occur if you tap on a message before the Messaging app is fully loaded,” said Google’s statement. “So we recommend waiting for all the elements to load before clicking.”
Part of the reason for the dismissal of responsibility may be that this is an impossible-to-fix error on the Android end of things. Given the diverse hardware and processing approaches to the Android OS, some issues will arise due to the different touch screens, load times, and so forth; Android may not have full control over the issue.
There are times, however, when this glitch happens without a good way to blame it on the user. “It took us some time to reproduce this issue, as it appears that it’s only occurring very rarely,” said the Google statement. “We’ve now managed to… develop a fix that we will deploy.”
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Responds to THVB Text Bug
View full post on Search Engine Journal
Amazon Responds with Export Capability for Virtual Machines
Dec 24th
Amazon Web Services is now providing the ability to export VMware virtual machines in addition to an import features that it announced last week.
According to the AWS Web site, exporting will be available to common image formats.
The ability to export VMware images is a welcome one. The lack of an export features has been the source of some criticism over the past week.
Sponsor
It appears at least that AWS did listen to what people had to say.
It also shows how important the VMware installed base is for AWS. VMware dominates the server virtualization market. AWS recognizes that many of those customers will want to move to the cloud. AWS wants those customers to move to its service.
To make a dent in the market, AWS needs to gain the trust of the enterprise customer. To do that, it’s a must to offer the capability to export virtual machines.
But isn’t exporting data a must for the cloud overall? Don’t we need to make this a standard way of doing business?
Exporting data should be a common place capability for cloud computing customers. Those that do provide the capability will be rewarded. Customers want the ability to export data. They will turn to the providers that offer that option.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
