Damage Control

Mark Zuckerberg defended the recent change to Facebook’s TOS in a blog post recently. As much as I appreciate any response from Facebook regarding their lecherous move, his rebuttal has no merit whatsoever. As a co-founder of my own startup in the 90s (unfortunately, never anything close to the scale of the 500-lb gorilla that is Facebook), this post is simply damage control.
» Continue reading “Technical rebuttal of Mark Zuckerberg’s rebuttal to Facebook TOS change”

Facebook pulled a "Columbia House" on us

Well, as I’ve said in the past, you can’t expect to use free services and have any semblance of privacy.

Facebook updated their Terms of Service (TOS) yesterday and slipped in a little “extra” clause which » Continue reading “Facebook’s new TOS: We have rights to everything posted here, forever. Sorry!”

The X and the "up" icon added recently to Google results

I noticed in the past two or so months, after Google upgraded their SERPs to enable users to rearrange and delete results (see thumbnail to right) that the outbound links Google was posting on SERPs were redirects through the google.com site (meaning, they were tracking clicks on outbound links.)

Since I often search for something on Google, then “right-click”, “Copy” to get a link, I noted the links were not the actual links, but Google.com links. This went away shortly thereafter.

Today, checking again, they are using JavaScript to track outbound links (View Source on a SERP and examine the outbound links).

For example, one of our » Continue reading “Analysis of Google outbound link tracking”

You can contact me at “kent -at- no spam marketruler dot no spam com”, and remove the term “no spam” from that address.

And I kid you not, you see this on a lot of sites, even ones which » Continue reading “The death of the email link”

You. I am talking to you.

When you receive an email which says “Forward this to everyone you know,” you forward it, right? I know it’s you. You want to. It’s a little shout-out to everyone you know that says “Hey, I’m here! I have the scoop on this … email that was just forwarded to me by my friend in Boise, Idaho.”

I finally convinced my mother to stop sending these to me, knowing that » Continue reading “Google, Yahoo! and everyone is tracking you!”