FTC warns of widespread data breach

WASHINGTON (AFP) -

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Monday it has notified nearly 100 companies and organizations of data breaches involving personal information about customers or employees.

The FTC declined to identify the companies or organizations involved, but said they were both "private and public entities, including schools and local governments."

The companies and organizations ranged in size from "businesses with as few as eight employees to publicly held corporations employing tens of thousands," the FTC said in a statement [more]

(Just for your info, in case you missed it.)

Amazon Super Saver Shipping

I have a question perhaps someone here can answer.

In years past, I used to order quite a bit from Amazon and do it with free shipping. The stuff shipped quickly and arrived in a week, no more than two. Now, however, when I order and do free shipping, I get a "ship date estimate" that is two, three, four weeks into the future. It takes forever to get my order. My question: Does Amazon now put the free shipping orders at the very end of their "To Do" list?

FTC Targets Blogger Freebies

latimes.com/business/la-fi-bloggers6-2009oct06,0,4733519.story

The link above announces the FTC's long awaited rules concerning its crackdown on misleading endorsements by bloggers. "The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement...." "Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service." Will this have any effect on Our Lady of the Perpetual Reviews, speed poster Harriet Klausner, and other of the notorious shills who infest - with the company's astonishing connivance - Amazon.com? Or is Amazon, as one insightful wit described it, now and forever "above the law?"

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Ed. note: a couple more related articles: (1) in the Financial Times and (2) from Yahoo Finance.

Question About Amazon Text Stats

I just found out about "text stats" at Amazon. The New York Times even wrote an article about them a couple years ago. But I can't find them when I look. Are text stats something Amazon once had, but discontinued? Anyone know?

I noticed Amazon started tagging reviews written by those who bought the book from them. Worth doing, I suppose. Not that it will help at all, but it's something.

Remember Lev Grossman? Turns out that...

Remember that article in Time by Lev Grossman? The one about "one of the world's most prolific and influential book reviewers" Harriet Klausner?

Turns out that the selfsame Lev Grossman is not just some journalist. Turns out that "Lev Grossman is a senior writer and book critic for TIME magazine". And we wondered why he would write such an article! Hmmm... :-)

Btw, turns out he's also an author. He's written three books (as far as I could see).
1. Codex
2. The Magicians: A Novel
3. Warp: A Novel

Check 'em out (don't forget the reviews).

All The Unnoticed "Helpfuls, Where Do they All Come From?

Am I alone in my bewilderment as to how Harriet's number of "helpful votes" is growing by leaps and bounds? Her "reviews" themselves within the last few years have never garnered a suspicious number of "helpfuls" as did, say, those of Grady Harp. In fact, she is winning such little favor among Amazon readers as to be on a definite downward spiral in the New Ratings System. On the other hand, her position as Number One Reviewer in the Classical (i.e. fraudulent) System is cemented, I suspect, not only by the continuing surreal proliferation of her "reviews" but by an unbelievable number of "helpful votes," presumably in the main on her older reviews. She's garnered more than 40 such within less than the last 24 hours. Now this is an easily overlooked phenomenon which, for my money, calls to mind Grady Harp's practices of old.

Because they can: Amazon deletes books from Kindles, remotely

Jeff Bezos apologizes (after being caught out):

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has issued an apology to Kindle customers after [books] were remotely deleted from their electronic readers.

"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of '1984' and other novels on Kindle," the Amazon chief executive said in a post on Thursday on the Kindle Community discussion forum.

"Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles [yeah! just look at the shills proliferating on the site! Harriet Klausner anyone? Six books a day for a decade, all five stars -- them are fancy principles, we know.]," Bezos wrote.

"It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received," he said. "We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."

Bezos' apology came a week after unauthorized copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" were wiped from Kindle readers in a move that triggered privacy concerns and drew unfavorable comparisons to Big Brother-like behavior.

Lessons learnt: they can do it. Kindle-loving dumbos paid over two hundred dollars for someone to be able to keep tabs on them, congratulations. That's why I will never buy a Kindle or Kindle-like device (in addition to the cost of it). That is also why the new Google OS will be a flop. No one needs someone else's hands in one's pockets.