Forrest Fires and Gasoline

Over the past few years I’ve been trying to come up with some alternative for just saying “words fail me” or the ever popular “WFT?” to describe my reaction to the various acts of net lunacy I encounter. Yesterday’s example of someone treating Facebook and the World Wide Web like a slumber party for their three best friends isn’t really what I’m talking about here; that’s just a matter of people who didn’t grow up with the Internet trying to get their minds around the fact that the world we knew has changed beyond recognition. Sometimes I run across business concepts so flawed than any average six-year-old could point out the howling idiocy involved, but which seems to have slipped right past entrepreneurial businesspeople, investment bankers, and the New York Times reporter covering the start-up company. Times like today, and stories like this one…

According to the actual account as published on the New York Times website , there are a number of new companies launching that will do a quick background check on someone you met on an Internet dating site – frequently for as little as $9.99! – to make sure that your new friend isn’t a predator of some kind. It sounds okay on the face of it – all of the annoying television ads about 20% of all relationships now starting on line are essentially correct, and there’s certainly a level of anxiety inherent to agreeing to meet anyone you met online in the real world. But as James Brady Ryan’s column on Nerve.com points out, there is a hole in the logic behind this service that a small child could point out at once: all you know about someone you met online is what THEY told you – including their identity…

Unless your new virtual beau is unbelievably stupid – I mean cartoon character stupid; makes-Homer-Simpson-look-like-a-rocket-scientist-stupid – there’s no real chance that he is going to give you his real name in prelude to committing a major felony. By the same token, the hot chick you think you just met might just as easily be a gang of muggers, burglars, or identity thieves. Until such time as there is some air-tight way to identify someone you are communicating with online (don’t hold your breath) there is no way for such a service to verify anything beyond the criminal record attached to the name your correspondent chose to give you, which would appear to make this whole concept useless. Unfortunately, it’s actually much worse than that…

Suppose for a moment that you were going to attempt some nefarious act with a person you will pick up on line, and that you also knew about the existence of such “background check” web sites. The obvious dodge in this case is to find an identity that could believably be your own (correct age, race, description, etc.), which you can easily obtain by using such a service until you fine someone with a sufficiently clean background. Maybe you’ll select someone with a few unpaid parking tickets, or an old pot bust in college, just so as not to attract attention. Then, when you go online to look for your victim, you’d just use the fake (clean) identity you’ve just scammed up – making your victim even less likely to catch on to whatever crime you intend to commit until much too late…

It’s hard to imagine any such service lasting longer than the first wrongful death lawsuit when their first customer gets murdered by someone who used exactly the methods described here – and I doubt any disclaimer on the website is going to help with the defense, either. Everybody out there can do what you want, of course, but if it were mine, I’d just fold down these sites and fade quietly into the ether before anybody finds out that this particular howler was my idea…

Everyone is Watching…

Some time ago I wrote in this space about a young Facebook user who got into trouble by posting pictures of himself at a costume party wearing a “convict” costume and drinking beer while awaiting sentencing on a DUI charge. It really didn’t help matters that his attorney had described the fellow’s drunken driving as an isolated incident, or that the offender himself had claimed to be very sorry for his actions and promised not to act that way again. It probably didn’t help that the defendant was below the legal drinking age, either. Instead of the wrist-slap he’d been hoping for, this jovial fellow wound up with serious jail time and other sanctions – all because he couldn’t be bothered to keep clean, stay out of trouble, and (most importantly) NOT have pictures of himself repeating his previous offenses splattered all over the Internet…

As bad as that was, there’s a story from New Zealand this week that tops it easily. It seems that an employee of their Social Development Ministry was fired, and has subsequently lost a wrongful termination action, as the result of posting descriptions of herself as “a very expensive paperweight” and similar comments on her Facebook page. You can find the original story from the Dominion Post by way of the Stuff.co.nz website linked here, but the upshot of the story is that after fraying her employer’s trust rather severely being charged and convicted of arson, the employee in question was then terminated for describing herself as the stereotype of a useless government drone. Under the circumstances, I suppose, we have to question if this self- report wasn’t, in fact, correct…

A much more immediate question would appear to be why otherwise sane people – some of them apparently partially educated! – go around believing that their Internet exploits will never be seen by anyone except their friends. This kind of behavior would be sufficiently asinine if they’d had their accounts set for full privacy (and the incriminating posts were leaked by gabby friends or careless acquaintances, but in both of these cases (and dozens of others that have popped up on the news in the last few years) the Facebook users in question hadn’t even bothered with the privacy settings, and just left everything on the defaults…

Now, no one is saying that Facebook users (or anyone else) shouldn’t have the right to freedom of individual expression, or that you shouldn’t be able to post any content you like (provided that neither the content nor whatever you had to do in order to get it violate any existing laws) to the Internet. What continues to bewilder me is why anyone thinks that anything you post online has any expectation of privacy. Even if Facebook had a perfect track record with privacy and data security (and they don’t; confusing and constantly changing privacy settings have been among the most frequent complaints about the company in recent years) there’s still no way they could possibly guarantee that you account couldn’t be hacked, cracked, or stolen – and your incriminating comments and/or pictures revealed to people who mean you no good…

It’s possible that as technology continues to evolve there may someday be privacy on the Internet, but I rather doubt it. I suspect that in much the same way that people have grown wary of leaving their doors unlocked or giving out their telephone numbers, people will just grow accustomed to the idea that anytime you’re online you are, in effect, standing on a lighted stage with everybody in the world who wants to bother tuning in watching you from out in the darkness. If that idea bothers you, there’s a simple solution: don’t post things online that you wouldn’t be comfortable accepting responsibility for in open court…

And whatever you do, never start a blog…

Don’t Buy That!

I noted with great interest a slide show on Kiplinger.com this week talking about things you should avoid buying as Christmas presents (or the equivalent). I’ve published a gift guide in this space every year I’ve been writing this blog, but that’s been about the Rules of what is or is not a good idea from a social awkwardness/relationship standard; this Lifestyles and Consumer Interest slideshow is about pricing and opportunities, and one in particular caught my eye: Snow throwers…

Astute readers may recall some of the posts from our first winter in Michigan, when all of the local retailers ran out of snow throwers at the end of January, and the local news anchors began making fun of anyone who had put off purchasing their snow machine until later in the season. Not surprisingly, Kiplinger’s says the best time to buy these is at the end of the season (March or April, depending on where you live), when retailers will be trying to clear out their stock to make room for the spring and summer merchandise that will be in the pipeline by then. Skis, snow boards and other winter sports equipment work the same way, and for the same reason, as do winter clothing and outerwear. Some of the other categories were a bit more eccentric, however…

Consider, for example, digital cameras. Obviously, these make for a nice present, especially if the person you’re shopping for has ever expressed any interest in photography, but given that the main electronics trade shows take place in January and February, and that new models are introduced (and old ones are discontinued) at that time, you might be better off getting something in March. Personal computers (and accessories for them) are also affected by the electronics show season, but apparently the best deals come in late summer, when college students are getting ready to go back to school, and retailers need to clear out their stock to make way for the Christmas specials merchandise that will arrive in September. The one that really surprised me was power tools; apparently these are marked up to capitalize on the Christmas rush, but will be marked down for Father’s Day in June…

Now, no one is saying that you shouldn’t give any of these items as gifts, or even that price (or level of discount) should be the deciding factor in what you give people for any occasion. The point of this article, and the reason I’m calling it to your attention here, is that if YOU need any of these items, you may wish to purchase them during more favorable conditions (e.g. sometime next year). By the same token, if your household needs a new car, or any other really big-ticket item, you may want to wait until the week between Christmas and New Year’s and see if you can find a dealer who needs to clear inventory off the books before the end of the tax year. This last bit is important for businesses that need equipment and want to avoid paying income taxes for the current year, too, so I’d definitely check with your accountant as soon as possible…

The Kiplinger’s people didn’t specifically mention them, but there are two items that have been popping up all over the Internet on this subject that deserve mention here: anything with the legend “anti-aging” printed on it, and anything that is advertised as enabling the user to meet his or her fitness goals in just a few minutes each day without actually doing anything. Even if these products do work as advertised (and I wouldn’t bet money on that) there’s still an excellent chance that any potential recipient will interpret the message you are trying to send as “You look older than crap” and “You need to get into better shape” respectively; sentiments which will rapidly become problematic if they aren’t already – especially if they are true…

The Ethics of Walking

Here’s another hypothetical for you: Suppose that you own a business, and six months ago you took a pre-order from a customer, to be delivered now. Just before you’re ready to deliver the product, a huge order comes in from a government client agency which will require all of the product you have available, including the pre-orders. If you make good on the special order you can make a huge bonus/mark-up on what your product would normally go for; more than the pre-order customer will ever spend with you; probably more than they will ever have to spend on anything. You can provide your pre-order customer with an equivalent product, and even offer them a deep discount on it; you can apologize for the inconvenience; you can even point out the “substitution” clause in the purchase agreement, which says you can substitute an equivalent product if you have to. But whatever you do, it won’t be the product you originally sold; nor will it be the product your customer actually wanted. What are you going to do?

Well, before you answer that question, you might want to consider the case of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and the situation they ran into last month when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia came for a visit. You can read the New York Times article about it if you want to, but the basic story is that seven Saudi princes came with the King, and all of them brought their various entourages and security details, which wound up taking up more rooms than the Waldorf had available that week. So, as is commonly done in the hospitality industry, the hotel found rooms at a nearby property of equivalent price and quality for all of the guests displaced by this sudden demand, starting with people who had booked their rooms in advance using discount programs – the guests paying the least for their rooms to begin with. This practice is called “walking” within the industry, and most hotels do have substitution language in their contract with you that prevents you from suing them over such a substitution. Thus, the practice is legal enough; my question is, is this ethical?

In the story linked above, the Waldorf stood to make an extra $100,000 or more per night the Saudi contingent was with them; more than the discount customers they displaced were likely to spend in the next hundred years in total. They also provided the displaced customers with very nice rooms at the Hilton property around the corner, and provided one night free, which at New York prices is not a trivial gesture. It would be difficult to say that the displaced guests were actually damaged in any way; certainly no lawyer would touch the case even if the hotel didn’t have substitution language on their side. But the Hilton isn’t the historic Waldorf; the hotel the customers in the story had specifically wanted to stay in as the highlight of their trip, and the one they’d stayed in on the same dates for many years. Did the hotel have an obligation to give its customers what they wanted, or only the equivalent value?

In a world filled with Internet bargains and third-party travel cites (like Expedia, Hotels.com, and so on) the practice of “walking” discount-level guests in favor of higher-paying customers is becoming more and more common, and even confirmed reservations are no longer certain unless you’ve reached that stratospheric status where even a Saudi prince would think twice about messing with you. We’re going to end up seeing more and more stories like this one from the Consumerist website , and it’s going to get harder and harder to be sure of anything when you travel. Eventually the industry and its customers will both evolve new procedures to deal with all of this, but until then we’re left with the question of whether “walking” is ethically acceptable, or if hotels (and their management) have a responsibility to their customers (to provide the service as promised) that supersedes their responsibility to their stockholders (to maximize profits without breaking the law or materially damaging anyone)?

It’s worth thinking about…

Drive Thru for Rent?

The other day I was out driving around, when I passed a small commercial building by the side of the road with a large “For Rent” sign nailed to it. This isn’t unusual in Central Michigan, where the slow economy has driven a number of businesses under and made it difficult to start new ones (or rent out the space they used to occupy). The sign was unusual because it didn’t start with the usual text of “Commercial Property For Lease” or “Will subdivide/modify to suit” or even with the square footage of the building, but rather with the phrase “Drive-Thru for Rent!” and underneath it continued “BBQ? Tacos? Coffee?” before giving the real estate agent’s contact information. This wouldn’t be that unusual either; as I like to point out, food service is one of the hardest industries in which to turn a profit, and the current economic crisis hasn’t done drive-thru places in Central Michigan any favors, either. It’s just that this particular structure used to be a bank…

I should interject here that drive-thru business locations are much more popular in Michigan than in most of the other states I’ve visited in my travels. Given the long, cold winters and generally crappy weather, people prefer to get in and out of their cars as infrequently as possible; thus you see more drive-thru banking locations, restaurants, coffee houses, pharmacies and other businesses than in more temperate climates. In this particular case, the former bank building was only big enough to have held two or three desks and a small teller area (maybe four or five employees at most), but it included three separate drive-thru lanes. The line closest to the building was the typical bullet-proof window and access drawer arrangement, but the two outer lanes both made use of speakers and pneumatic tube systems…

Now, I can see driving up to a window, placing an order, putting your money in the drawer, and then receiving your food the same way; it’s not all that different from any other fast-food operation. But the thought of tacos or barbequed meat – or worse yet, cups of coffee – being sent through a pneumatic tube system gave me a long moment of incredulous laughter. Okay; so unlike in the movies, real pneumatic tubes send their cargo in a capsule, which would tend to contain the barbeque sauce, hot sauce, or coffee. In real life, the capsules also don’t fly through the tubing at the rate you see on the big screen, which means that they wouldn’t end up spraying everything you’ve purchased all over the neighborhood in the first place. It’s still an amusingly silly image…

Of course, all that will probably happen is that somebody will rent the building and just use the window and drawer to serve customers, leaving the outer two lanes unused. Or, perhaps, some enterprising businessperson will figure out that you could have people place their orders through the outboard lane’s intercom and then loop around to pick up their food through the window and drawer. Or, more likely yet, either the tenant or the landlord will modify the property, including the drive-thru lanes, to suit the new occupant’s business model, whatever that turns out to be. But there’s still a small part of me (left over from a miss-spent childhood, no doubt) that wishes the new tenants really would try using the pneumatic tubes to deliver food to their customers. I’m not sure if they’d be able to make money on the food, but they could probably charge admission to watch people receive their orders via air pressure…

It’s a Gas

There’s been a lot of chatter on the Internet – and over the airwaves – for the past few days, as various pundits have be chiming in on the new version of the “Pickens Plan” in which T. Boone Pickens appears to be backing off of his previous stand on wind power (he spent $80 million of his own money pushing it in television ads and online) and is now concentrating on natural gas to decrease America’s dependence on imported oil. Environmentalists appear to be gnashing about how disappointing it is that Mr. Pickens is backing another fossil fuel over clean, renewable wind power, while anti-business types and anyone else who hates billionaires who like to throw their weight around is howling about how Mr. Pickens owns several of the companies that would build the infrastructure for a natural-gas-based transportation system, and how all of this is just another attempt to line his pockets. As a life-long environmentalist and business pragmatist, I have to ask, why does anyone care?

You can check out the story on MSNBC.com here if you want to, but I think we should note two facts about the situation before reaching any conclusions. One is that Mr. Pickens isn’t abandoning wind power; he’s relocating the wind farm he was going to build in the Texas Panhandle to Canada, where local utilities have a mandate from the national government to purchase electricity from renewable sources (like wind farms). It’s hard luck on the small town in Texas where the wind farm was going to be, but the local infrastructure couldn’t have handled (or transmitted) the output from the wind farm even if it did get built, and it’s really hard to blame anyone for taking their product to a market that will pay more for it. The second is that Mr. Pickens isn’t trying to conceal his interest in natural gas or his financial stake in getting the infrastructure in place; he’s just touting it as an alternative to imported oil – which, in fairness, it is…

In addition, it’s probably worth noting that the wind turbine industry seems to be doing just fine, and that if giant wind farms are built in Canada using American-made equipment, there should still be a major lift to our economy. But the real point here is that a businessman with an interest in natural gas infrastructure campaigning in favor of natural gas is in no way different from the petroleum industry commercials I called to your attention earlier this year, which claimed that this country could fulfill all of its own energy needs with the resources found within our boarders. If we agree that an improved foreign trade ratio and a decreased dependence on several countries that actively hate us for oil is a good thing then these new natural gas-powered vehicle programs are probably worth the effort, and if these initiatives turn out to be cheaper or more practical than wind power (at least in the short run), then we all stand to benefit. The real question is what are we going to do when the world starts running out of natural gas?

It’s possible that the new energy policy that will come out of Washington in the next two (or four) years will include increased support for alternative sources of energy. And if we can buy enough time to develop those new sources, build the infrastructure to sustain them, and educate our people on how to use them by using the respite that the Pickens plan could quite possibly gain for us, then I don’t see why anybody should complain if the guy who had enough foresight to figure out which way the bandwagon was rolling and get in front of it makes another fortune or two in the process…

Cheating at Solitaire

There was an interesting court ruling in the news this week: a federal appeals panel upheld a lower court ban on software that automatically plays World of Warcraft, enabling players to grind through the lower levers of character development while showering, working, sleeping, or doing their homework. On the face of it, of course, both halves of this case are absurd; the people who make software that enables customers to exchange hours of their actual life for a virtual existence are suing over software that makes it easier and more convenient for their customers to succeed in the game, and people who are spending their spare time pursuing virtual rewards are complaining because software that allows them to cheat has been outlawed by the court. But when you actually get into the facts of the case, everything rapidly becomes a lot murkier…

Consider, for example, that the software company makes money on time-based subscriptions to their online activities, which means that any software that decreases the amount of time their customers have to spend online cuts directly into their bottom line. Since an automated program can “play” the game 24 hours a day, each day of the subscription will be that much more productive, and the player will be able to spend less money while reaping the same benefits. By the same token, this type of software allows people who are willing (and able) to use it an unfair advantage over players who actually take the time to develop and grow their own characters. In many ways, it’s like the cases we’ve seen where online games allow the user to purchase success elements using real-world money rather than earning them through game play as intended. The difference in this case is, the terms and conditions of the game expressly forbid the use of software (or “bots” as they are called) that can play for you automatically…

What a lot of people fail to grasp is that the terms of service provided in an End User License are actually the terms of the contract under which you are purchasing or leasing the product, and failing to conform to those rules is a material breach of your contract. I’m not aware of Blizzard Software suing anyone over the use of bots in World of Warcraft, but from a legal standpoint this shouldn’t be any different from the civil cases regarding unlawful copies or piracy issues or any of the other software-oriented lawsuits of recent years. Or, to put it another way, these bots aren’t legally any different from a software program that would allow five hundred office workers to use one copy of MS Office (and only pay for it once), but no one would even try to argue that such a program wasn’t both breach of contract and piracy. It’s just because the application they are designed to fool is a game program – and the image of a technology geek furtively cheating on a game which is a surrogate for actual human interaction and achievement, like a man cheating at solitaire – that this case ever made it to court in the first place…

You can pick up the rest of the details off David Kravets’ “Threat Level” blog at Wired.com if you want to. I can’t really comment on the quality of the legal actions involved, or even on the DMCA, because as previously noted I don’t have a law degree or a license to give you advice on legal matters. Ultimately, the issue of what constitutes violation or misuse of a copyright will have to be decided by more qualified people than me, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see additional legislation as well as additional case law come into effect before all of this gets settled. For the moment, let me just suggest that if you’re going to develop World of Warcraft characters you do it the old-fashioned way, at least until a more favorable legal climate emerges. Of course, if that bothers you, there are always activities in real life you could amuse yourself with in the meanwhile…