So for some of you who read (e:drew) page he has this great looking picture of him self it is from a website called Obamicon.me . I will admit that it can be a little bit addicting and sometimes you can have a picture look perfect and then you mess it up playing with colors to much. I haven't tried to do any pictures of multiple people yet but maybe in the future I will here is what I have done so far. I don't think I can get mine to look as cool as some peoples on that site there are some amazing ones and I include (e:drew)'s in that.

So when I saw this piece on News on Yahoo I thought how strange. For those who want to read it I will comment after the story

Fla. teen commits suicide with live Web audience




By RASHA MADKOUR, Associated Press Writer Rasha Madkour, Associated Press Writer - 1 hr 10 mins ago

MIAMI - A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke.

Some watchers contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs' home - a scene also captured on the Internet - it was too late.

Biggs, a 19-year-old Broward College student who suffered from what his family said was bipolar disorder, or manic depression, lay dead on his bed in his father's Pembroke Pines house Wednesday afternoon, the camera still running 12 hours after Biggs announced his intentions online around 3 a.m.

It was unclear how many people watched it unfold.

Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama - and the reaction of those watching - was seen as an extreme example of young people's penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.

Biggs' family was infuriated that no one acted sooner to save him, neither the viewers nor the Web site that hosted the live video, Justin.tv. The Web site shows a video image, with a space alongside where computer users can instantly post comments.

Only when police arrived did the Web feed stop, "so that's 12 hours of watching," said the victim's sister, Rosalind Bigg. "They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours."

She added: "It didn't have to be."

An autopsy concluded Biggs died from a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, which his family said was prescribed for his bipolar disorder.

Biggs announced his plans to kill himself over a Web site for bodybuilders, authorities said. But some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before.

Some members of his virtual audience encouraged him to do it, others tried to talk him out of it, and some discussed whether he was taking a dose big enough to kill himself, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner's office.

A computer user who claimed to have watched said that after swallowing some pills, Biggs went to sleep and appeared to be breathing for a few hours while others cracked jokes.

Someone notified the moderator of the bodybuilding site, who traced Biggs' location and called police, Crane said.

As police entered the room, the audience's reaction was filled with Internet shorthand: "OMFG," one wrote, meaning "Oh, my God." Others, either not knowing what they were seeing, or not caring, wrote "lol," which means "laughing out loud," and "hahahah."

An online video purportedly from Biggs' webcam shows a gun-wielding officer entering a bedroom, where a man is lying on a bed, his face turned away from the camera. The officer begins to examine him, as the camera lens is covered. Authorities could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video, though it matched their description of what occurred.

Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said Biggs' very public suicide was not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

"If it's not recorded or documented then it doesn't even seem worthwhile," she said. "For today's generation it might seem, `What's the point of doing it if everyone isn't going to see it?'"

She likened Biggs' death to other public ways of committing suicide, like jumping off a bridge.

Crane said she knows of a case in which a Florida man shot himself in the head in front of an online audience, though she didn't know how much viewers saw. In Britain last year, a man hanged himself while chatting online.

In a statement, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said: "We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."

The Web site would not say how many people were watching the broadcast. The site as a whole had 672,000 unique visitors in October, according to Nielsen.

Miami lawyer William Hill said there is probably nothing that could be done legally to those who watched and did not act. As for whether the Web site could be held liable, Hill said there doesn't seem to be much of a case for negligence.

"There could conceivably be some liability if they knew this was happening and they had some ability to intervene and didn't take action," said Hill, who does business litigation and has represented a number of Internet-based clients. But "I think it would be a stretch."

Condolences poured into Biggs' MySpace page, where the mostly unsmiling teen is seen posing in a series of pictures with various young women. On the bodybuilding Web site, Biggs used the screen name CandyJunkie. His Justin.tv alias was "feels_like_ecstacy."

Rosalind Bigg described her brother as an outgoing person who struck up conversations with Starbucks baristas and enjoyed taking his young nieces to Chuck E. Cheese. He was health-conscious and exercised but was not a bodybuilder, she said.

"This is very, very sudden and unexpected for us," the sister said. "It boggles the mind. We don't understand."

___

Associated Press Writers Jessica Gresko and Lisa Orkin Emmanuel and the AP News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS sister's last name in next-to-last graf.)

My first thought was wow that is really odd. It seems like people where being so cruel to encourage him to do it. But then I thought hey maybe they didn't think he really would and that it was a joke. Or maybe people thought hey if he wants to die he should do it. Or maybe they thought if he is going to do it anyways maybe I can see it. I think that a lot of people didn't think he was serious. Since it was by using pills I don't think anyone on line could really tell for sure he was dead. All in all it seems very strange and distrubing. I do think it was good that some people tried to get him not to do it. In any event I do agree that the ideas they express in this article are kinda true. I'm not the young generation but I have multiple blogs and post all kinds of pictures. So maybe if I did end my life I might want people to see the pictures but I don't think to watch but I don't know cause my mind isn't there. But there is something this article doesn't ask and I will. Where were the parents. I know that isn't fair that being bi-polar is very tough and I can't imagine what that is like. But at some point I wonder if they could have done more.

In terms of the legal isues I disagree with them a little bit. If anyone who was online new him personaly or any one new his location the cops or his house should have been called to try and stop him, anyone who had the ablity to do so would be liable for his death, would it hold up in court I don't know. The problem is though that in terms of the website itself it is hard to blame them really. I'm guessing they don't monitor content. If they do monitor all content or if there is someone who does and they have an address and do nothing then they it would be their fault partialy again don't know if it would hold up in court. I would think that if you could prove that the people encouraging the person to kill them selves could be said to be partly to blame and could be held as causing the person to do it. That being said if he was going to do it anyways I think would cause reasonable dobut most likely but it is something to think about.

Well maybe I should have put this under the TV topic but I'll keep it here. Every so often you will hear someone say the internet is the future of TV, I say no and it shouldn't be for a bunch of reasons. Yes I think it can be great for world events live 8 where you can watch a live performance in Germany then go to another band in say Canada. With Football starting up sports makes a good example of why.

Granted I don't have a huge TV but it is medium size. Manny Computer monitors are not big like they should be for sports events. I have heard there are TV's where you can see the blades of grass, man I wish I had one of those HD 42inch bad boys. Watching football on a little screen on my computer chair just isn't the same. Not to mention no matter what any one says the video on computers isn't as good. Not to mention often times the video doesn't take up the entire screen because you need to be able to Navigate. When I watch sports that is all I want to see and I want to be distracted by other stuff.

In terms of the money side the reason there is NFL games on TV is from companies like Pepsi who pay lots of money for ads and they are not the only ones who pay a lot of money for ads. I don't see any company paying that much money for something over the internet. I Could be wrong but I just don't see that happening. I also don't think that it should.

Yes I have gone back and watched a show I missed online and it was nice. It was in chapters but the video wasn't as good and it wasn't as fun to watch it in a video window. Yes you can sometimes make it take over the entire screen. but that still isn't the same as watching in the living room. Maybe if you had one of these new (seen an add for them) non keyboard computers it might be different. Not sure how it works but I guess everything is on a touch screen it does look pretty cool. But in that case I still think it is a bad idea. I want seperation between my TV and computer what if I get a virus and now not only can I not surf the web but that is how I get all my entertainment.

I also don't think it would Happen because of there being so many channels. If you have cable or the dish look at all the chanels there are and that isn't even all of them out there. Yes I do think it would be nice if Cable gave the al le carte option so you could only get the channels you wanted but then maybe some of the lesser ones would lose money.

The Poor: I know I just bashed them in a comment in (e:imk2) post. What I was trying to say is that there are a lot of people who abuse the system as opposed to the system helping them. But there are people who don't have the money for a computer or the internet and the TV they get is with rabbit ears. With TV going digital that is why they are giving money so people can get those converters. How often that scroll goes across the screen is a very telling sign of how many people don't have cable. But this brings up another point what if you have TV, Phone, and Internet all on the same line (one company) and something happens like a snow storm, hurricane or other thing. Well ever way to communicate has just been lost and you could still have power, how are you going to know what to do, how is anyone. But wait there is that poor guy next door who gets like one channel on his little TV, but what if that wasn't an option because all TV has gone to the net?

Some could say that Computer screens will go big and go HD and they might be right. Some might say that the software or what ever it is that hurts the quality of the video will get worked out and it will be just like watching your tv, and maybe some day it will. Some might say the prices will drop and everyone will have a computer and a good connection, that I really doubt. Some might say that NBC and HBO will jump to the internet. I sure hope they don't and they would be wise not to. You have to be loyal to the Medium you are a part of. I love the indemand services and think that is a great way to go. I don't think that having episodes that you can only see online is really a good idea. I understand that the way they are made in format might fit the internet better then the station and you might not be able to fit them in. But in time if you do enough of them you will put your self out of Buisness.

I do understand that Companies see a lot of promise on the internet and do have TV show content on the web. I do get that Utube is very popular and is good to watch videos on. I do get bands putting videos up there. But it still isn't the same as sitting alone or with 10 people in your living room watching something and I hope people understand that and advertisers understand that and that the internet is only used as a way to Help out with viewership. But that being said there would be two good things that might come out of TV going to the net. 1. the ratings would be exact and you would know how many people really watched it as opposed to the Current rating system that is kinda guess work. 2. You can watch something when you have time and if two shows would have been on at the same time now you could watch them both with out conflict. But that being said I don't think those two reasons alone are enough to move it to the web. You would lose the communty feel of some people talking about a show they watched last night..

Ok end of my rant.

So I saw this article on line on Yahoo. At first I thought who are these crazy people suing google over privacy. My next thought was but what happens if they win. Could that mean that anyone who has a house or building picture that shows up on this google service could sue. Could that mean that if I take pictures at a festival and there is a house in the background the owners of the house could sue me for posting the picture on line? I do understand that people have a right to there privacy and security for there home. But I think that as long as there is nothing that shows who lives there or a car with the license plate showing or anything that gives away information like that then privacy isn't violated. We aren't talking about taking interior pictures of someones home, that would be different. In any event it is an interesting article and thing to think about.

Couple sues Google for posting house pix

By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

PITTSBURGH - A western Pennsylvania couple has sued Google Inc., saying pictures of their home on its Web site violate their privacy and devalued their property.


Images of the home Aaron and Christine Boring bought in the Pittsburgh suburb of Franklin Park in October 2006 appeared on Google's "Street View" feature, which allows users to find street-level photos by clicking on a map.

"A major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy," according to their complaint, filed Wednesday in state court, which also says the couple suffered mental distress.

The images must have been taken from the couple's long driveway, which is labeled "Private Road," and that violated their privacy, according to the complaint.

To gather photos for Street View, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google sends vehicles with mounted digital cameras up and down the streets of major metropolitan areas taking pictures. Many other companies take real estate photos the same way.

Google spokesman Larry Yu said the site indicates that property owners can get the company to removed images if they cite a good reason and can prove they own the property depicted.

"We absolutely respect that people may not be comfortable with some of the imagery on the site," Yu said. "We actually make it pretty easy for people to submit a request to us to remove the imagery."

If the Borings made such a request - especially if they told Google its photos must have been shot from their driveway - Yu said he is confident the image would be removed.

The couple's attorney, Dennis Moskal, said the point is that the Borings' privacy was invaded when the Google vehicle allegedly drove onto their property.

Removing the image won't undo that damage, nor will it deter the company from doing the same thing in the future, Moskal said.

"Isn't litigation the only way to change a big business' conduct with the public?" Moskal said. "What happened to their accountability?"

Yu declined comment on the suit itself because the company was still reviewing it.

Google is not the only Web site with a photo of the Borings' property.

The Allegheny County real estate Web site has a photo, plus a detailed description of the home and the couple's names. Similar information, including pictures, of nearly every property in the county is on the Web site.

Moskal said the county's image appeared to be taken from a public street.

"The county's not trespassing," Moskal said.

Moskal said his clients did not wish to speak to the media. The Associated Press could not find a listed phone number for them.

The Borings paid $163,000 for the property, according to the county Web site. The county describes the home as a single-family, four-room bungalow with a full basement. The one-story frame home was built in 1916 and sits on a property that's a little less than 2 acres.

The home is 984 square feet with a fireplace and central heat and county assessors graded it as being in "Fair" condition. The county Web site does not mention the property's two detached garages and swimming pool, which are visible in the Google pictures and are mentioned in the couple's lawsuit.

Before I get to the topic of this post for those that are interested I have some pictures of Buffalo and Joan Osborne in my previous post.

First of all the TV topics in the Buffalo news had a piece on the concert for Diana but only listed it as being on tonight at 8pm for an hour but it is currently on Live on VH1. It is called a concert for Diana. I saw the ads on vh1 but forgot about it and you can also watch it on vh1's web site I have it on another screen right now. I'm not sure if there are ads on vh1 but I haven't seen any on the web. I turned in a cought on the end of Duran Duran, yeah so I only know like a couple or maybe 3 of their songs but they where pretty good. I belive the concert is over at 5pm so I can understand that it is a lot to watch or in my case listen to. I'm surfing the web using msn and have it open in firefox the video is pretty good. Not to trash The TV topics to much they did have some good information about multiple broadcasts of coming up I assume of that concert for earth.

So I know I just lost all my rock cred but Lilly Allen is pretty cute and can sing to oh well. Ok back to my point. It seems to me that in terms of live8 and in this case that the web coverage of large scall concerts is better then tv's. Granted you have to watch it on a smaller screen and you can't blare it so the person next door hears your music; Wait i take that back if you know how to wire things you could blare it, but most people don't know how to. However that isn't a fair statement. The reason is that you need the tv networks or people video taping or what ever the proper word is so that you can see it on the internet. I know that for somepeople who have dial up watching it online isn't really an option. That being said with things like digial phone and companies that have Cable/phone/and internet I wonder if there will be a time when at least for somethings the internet takes over for TV. I also wonder if the will be nielson ratings for the internet or if some other company will take that over for the net. I would guess if someone could start up a company like that it could turn a huge profit. I will admit that I don't think nielson will be the company to do it if it happens on the net in a large scale way. The reason is cause if I was a rartings company I would find a cable box company and work with them or at least with the DVR people and work out a way to work in the ratings. Anything that was DVR'd would count towards the ratings. For anything that used a cable box you could have a button that you pressed to let the box know you where watching when you where done you could hit another button. Now maybe some of this has been thought of and not done in Buffalo yet. But if I can push a button on my remote and it tells cable I want to see a movie then and people have ratings boxes there is no reason someone shouldn't be able to combine the two.

I used to think dial up was fine. But now that we have Verizon it gives you so many other possibities. I admit I'm not really a video on line type of person. But I do watch some video. I wonder if companies that provide dial up will eventually just stop offering it. Maybe there might even be some kind of budget type of service that makes you allways on line and will let you watch video but for everything else is about the same speed as dail up. That way people who don't have the extra cash can still go online. Another thing I have heard is some people running for office have You Tube vidoes. I wonder if YouTube or maybe even some other video site will be how we take money out of politics. If you could go online and say what your political beliefs are It is possible you wouldn't have to travel the country. Maybe Canidates to even have live video chats with people of different cities. I have a fealing that what I'm talking about should happen and may happen but I'm guessing what should take about 5 years maynot happen for 25 years. But I hope I'm wrong. I know that a lot of people in this country don't have computers. I do believe that someone who does something on a computer should also know how to do what ever they are doing with out one. So in school kids should be taught how to look things up and reserch things but then they should also learn how to do that online. Yes computers are great but you should know how to do things if they crash. Hey if people knew that then those terrosists in the die hard movie's plan would have fallen apart. Yeah that is a bad example but it is true. But that alone shouldn't stop the expansion of the internet. I just hope in 5 to 10 years we look back and can say that the internet went in the right direction and look how little we could do back then. I guess we shall see.

I went to go see Superman Returns today. I thought it was verry good and liked how they did the story. The only thing that I thought was strange is one of the actors was a major Character it the X-men movies. Oh and sexy Kate Bosworth wow. I thought she did a great job not sure if I prefer her as a brunette or Blonde but great job.

But before that I went with the Family on a walk of the Marina. So I'm in line get my food and walk past a guy and think to my self is that (e:mrmike) , I couldn't tell his head was turned. If that was you I'm sorry. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of doing something I continue. What I should have done is set down my try and gone back and seen if it was him. So I'm sitting with the family and he walks past and goes to sit down. I'm thinking I should go see if it is him. But then If I do then my nosey little sister will ask who it is and how I know him (assuming it was him, maybe even if it wasn't). Then I would have to lie, or tell a half truth. I really don't like doing that. If someday they find the journal on there own then I may have to deal with it. But with some of the stuff I write I wouldn't want them to read. So that got me thinking Well what if I'm with them and I run into (e:PMT), (e:ladycroft), Jen or any other (e:peeps) then would I just say they where friends than eventully the question comes up of well how do you know each other, then what. So maybe that means I shouldn't write personal stuff. Or maybe I should only write personal stuff as its own blog with nothing else and turn it into a non public journal. Not really sure.

On another Note I went to New World Records yesterday looking for some CDs and wound up buying 30 Seconds to Mars's first CD. I havn't had a chance to listen to it yet. But if any of you fans out there want to listen I plan on burning a copy for myself that you could borrow.

I thought this article was interesting and should be posted. It can be found on the Buffalo News website. I will reread it and post some comments about it below. It is basicly about how bloging can be costly.

You said WHAT? Internet messages can come back to haunt senders

---

Personal lives become public on blogs accessible to eyes users never intended them for

By STEPHEN T. WATSON
News Staff Reporter
7/3/2006



Marcus Yam/Buffalo News
Lisa A. August of Buffalo State College's Career Development Center said the Internet can quickly make private thoughts very public.

We've all seen the errant e-mail - a profession of love, perhaps, or a criticism of a co-worker - that's sent to an entire workplace instead of the sole, intended recipient.
And Web logs that offer too much information on the writers' personal and work lives.

Or the profile pages on MySpace and Facebook that bristle with descriptions of the hosts' drunken misbehavior and nocturnal escapades - with photographic evidence, to boot.

It's clear people still haven't learned the basics of smart Internet behavior.

"Instead of putting your foot in your mouth, you're shoving your whole keyboard in there," said Jennifer Wutz-Lopes, a Lockport resident and computer systems analyst who hosts the blog Jen's 14,221 Thoughts.

But today, the repercussions can go far beyond just a modest dose of embarrassment.

Some companies have fired employees for writing critical comments on their personal blogs.

And employers are starting to search through MySpace, Facebook and other Web sites to find any online profiles set up by job candidates.

So college career-development officers are warning students to avoid posting photos or commentary that might scare off a company recruiter.

"What they don't understand is that it now becomes public domain, and you don't know who's going to read it," said Lisa A. August, associate director of Buffalo State College's Career Development Center.

They've found that - with apologies to Jimmy Buffett - the Internet is a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling.

"The Internet, in my opinion, should be treated as a near-infinite time capsule," said Harvey S. Axlerod, the University at Buffalo's computer discipline officer. "Once you put [content] up, you have no control over it or who uses it."

People have always done embarrassing, or dumb, or scandalous things.

The difference in the Internet age is that now there's a record of these gaffes, and they can swiftly travel around the world.

Several years ago, when Wutz-Lopes was working at a health care company in Boston, Mass., an employee there inadvertently sent a love note intended for his office sweetheart to a full list of company supervisors.

"I didn't get the original e-mail, but it was forwarded over and over again," said Wutz-Lopes, who moved back to this area in 2004. "It was steamy."

One of the employees ended up leaving the company shortly afterward, she said.

Lawyers seem particularly prone to e-mail gaffes.

Three years ago, Jonas Blank, a summer associate at a prominent New York City law firm, intended to e-mail a friend about his low-stress workdays of sushi lunches and casual chitchat.

The expletive-laced e-mail mistakenly went to 40 people at Skadden Arps - and then to basically the entire world.

Blank soon apologized profusely in an e-mail and, later, got hired full time at the firm.

Earlier this year, an e-mail exchange between lawyers Dianna Abdala and William A. Korman was forwarded repeatedly across the Web.

By e-mail, Abdala turned down an employment offer. When Korman objected to Abdala's tone, she replied, "bla bla bla."

Why do intelligent people do stupid things on e-mail?

It's so easy to click "send" or to hit "reply to all" instead of "reply," e-mail users said.

Also, words on a screen carry a lack of tone, facial expression and vocal inflection. "I'm very mindful that things can sound obnoxious, even when you don't have that intent," said Alan Bedenko, a lawyer who runs a popular blog called Buffalo Pundit.

Now, the rise of blogs and social-networking sites offers new online minefields for people to gingerly step through.

"You don't want anything you write on the Internet to come back and haunt you," said Chris Smith, who rarely writes about his work or home lives on his Buffalo Geek blog. "It's a careful line we all walk if you want to be part of the blogosphere."

Locally, one blogger who is openly critical of his employer is Cliff Parks Jr., who produces the Pop Culture Is My Curse blog and works for Verizon.

"To call us "the company that couldn't [urinate] straight' is a profound understatement. How you people put up with us I will never know," Parks wrote in a candid March 27 posting. Parks declined to comment further.

Two months ago, former mayoral candidate Judith S. Einach said she briefly was barred from City Hall after she criticized Mayor Byron W. Brown on her Einach Report blog.

The day the move was reported in The Buffalo News, however, Brown called Einach to say she was welcome to return to City Hall for her volunteer work on a city cleanup effort.

Some employers bar workers from saying anything sharply negative or from revealing company secrets on their blogs.

Getting fired for criticizing your company in a blog is known as getting "dooced." It's a reference to blogger Heather B. Armstrong, who was fired in 2002 after slamming her then-employer on her blog, Dooce.com.

Kanoodle, an online-advertising company with offices in Getzville, encourages its employees to blog but does have a policy limiting what they can say about the company, said Tricia Marcus, Kanoodle's chief human resources officer.

"I think employers just have to realize that this is the way the world is today. You can't control [the Web]. You just have to protect yourself and be supportive," Marcus said.

Now, sites such as the vastly popular MySpace and the college-focused Facebook have given young people a new forum for their innermost thoughts and detailed accounts of their personal lives.

David Iwankow, 25-year-old member of the West Seneca School Board, had a lively profile on MySpace. That is, until earlier last week, when complaints from the community prompted his fellow board members to ask Iwankow to take the page down.

A few years ago, before August took her current position at Buffalo State, she was assisting an engineering major at another school with his job search.

The student had, quite properly, listed on his resume a Web site he had designed, so August decided to check out the site.

"When I pulled up the Web page, what I saw was him holding a beer [and] wearing a jester hat," August said. She recommended the student keep the Web address on the resume but drop that photo just to be safe.

Now, employers are entering the names of applicants into Google or other search engines and are starting to dig deeper into Facebook or MySpace for the candidates' profiles.

"We're certainly very aware of that possibility," said Jim Jones, director of the Canisius College career center. "And my feeling is, why take the chance?"

A couple of years ago, a student of Alex Halavais' set up a blog as a class assignment. In one entry, he blasted the customer service at a company.

Soon after, he went to interview for a job with another company. The interviewer told the student he liked him but the student would never get hired there unless he took down the critical blog entry.

The company with the bad service was one of its clients, the student learned. "I got this panicked e-mail saying, "Please kill this. Please delete it,' " said Halavais, an assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac University who earlier taught at the University at Buffalo.

One recruiter said his company uses the Web to find good employment prospects and to get background information on job candidates, including to verify resume information.

"We use it as an informal screening mechanism," said Chris Beckage, regional sales manager with Superior Technical Resources, a staffing and outsourcing provider in Williamsville.

Facebook and MySpace users said it's a matter of common sense not to put anything on their sites that is potentially embarrassing or that reveals too much about their identity.

However, several users said it's not fair for companies to judge job applicants based on what they post on their Web pages.

"I think that's an invasion of privacy," said Jennifer Hobes, a Buffalo State junior who lives in Buffalo. "It's a social site. It doesn't have anything to do with how they'd do their job."

"I really do think what people do in their personal lives is their business," said added Rachel Griffo, who is earning a teaching certificate at Buffalo State and who uses MySpace.


e-mail: swatson@buffnews.com

I think that they have some interesting stories in this article. I think that a couple points made are valid. Firstly you shouldn't blog or put up anything that is to personal or could get you in trouble at work. [fuck I do that all the time, in terms of personal stuff] For example talking about how you and your GF or BF get high and screw, when work has a no drugs policy. However if what you talk about is going on in your personal life and not at the job or during working hours then it is wrong for the bloger to suffer because of it. I also think that it should be illegal to discrimante because of what you write about on your blog. The thing that I think a lot of people who seek to find peoples blogs don't understand is that a lot of it is fealings. Just because someone says Customer service sucks, that is what they feal at the time and it is a fealing. It isn't a statement of fact and that is a big differance. I also think that places of imployment Googling you is wrong fbefore they hire you. I understand that in some fields it is a good way to get profesional information on you, but any thing personal or in blogs needs to be disregarded. What is ok and what is not is a realy fine line and so maybe companies shouldn't look up anyone on line. I would also say that it is a form of discrimantion. First of all people who don't have online access or any information about them don't have any information that can be used for them or against them. That means that the hiring company wouldn't have any extra knowledge about them and so it really isn't fair to use that online information. With the exception of giving away company secerts on one blog no one should be fired for what they say on a blog, generaly that is so wrong and unetical. I also don't think that anyone should be hired because there blog is liked more then someone elses, that is unetical and wrong also. Hopefully some of you will chime in on this so I can hear other opinons or maybe even write into the guy at the news.

[size=s]For those of you may have noticed If i see interesting articles I like to post them. I wouldn't really call this news or porn so I guess internet is the closest catogory. The blue jays lost again yesterday but I had fun and went to Planet Hollywood after words wich I know has nothing to do with this, but I never got to read sunday's paper. But I wonder if all new porn domains got xxx how you would know if it was a german or american or a UK site or a Candain strip club site. I didn't completly get the entire article. I guess new sites that use the XXX would get some benifits. It is one idea to try and cut down on people going to adult sites by mistake, it isn't perfect but it sounds like a good idea. Don't be affraid to tell me if you agree disagree or don't care at all about the issue.[/size]



'.xxx' marks the spot

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Will a virtual red-light district help parents curb online pornography?

By ANICK JESDANUN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
8/29/2005


Illustration by DANIEL ZAKROCZEMSKI/Buffalo News

Click to view larger picture

Associated Press
With their computers in front of them, members of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet's key oversight body, meet to oversee the administration of domain names such as .biz, .museum and possibly .xxx.

NEW YORK - A red-light district is being considered for construction on the Internet - the ".xxx" domain. This virtual location is being billed by backers as giving the $12 billion online porn industry a great opportunity to clean up its act.
A distinct online sector for the salacious, one with rules aimed at forbidding trickery, will reduce the chances of Internet users accidentally stumbling on porn sites, they argue.

If only it were so simple:

Zoning in cyberspace has always been a daunting proposition, and participation in the porn domain will be voluntary. Critics wonder why ".xxx" got the OK at all when so many other proposals sit unaddressed, some for years.

Nearly five years after rejecting a similar proposal, the Internet's key oversight body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), voted 6-3 in June to proceed with ".xxx."

But acknowledging "unprecedented" opposition, the U.S. government has asked the Internet's key oversight agency to delay approval of a new ".xxx" domain name for one month.

Michael D. Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department, stopped short of urging its rejection, but he called on ICANN to "ensure the best interests of the Internet community as a whole are fully considered."

The department received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails expressing concerns about the impact of pornography on families and children and objecting to setting aside a domain suffix for it, he said.

"The volume of correspondence opposed to creation of a .xxx TLD (domain name) is unprecedented," Gallagher wrote to Vinton Cerf, ICANN's chairman.

Gallagher said ICANN should take more time to evaluate those concerns.

The chairman of ICANN's Government Advisory Committee, Mohd Sharil Tarmizi, also wrote ICANN officials urging delay and expressing "a strong sense of discomfort" among many countries, which he did not name.

Gallagher's comments, however, carry greater weight because his agency has veto power over ICANN decisions given the U.S. government's role in funding early developing of the Internet and selecting ICANN in 1998 to oversee domain name administration.

ICANN officials had no immediate comment.

The market unquestionably exists: Two in five Internet users visited an adult site in April, according to tracking by comScore Media Metrix. The company said 4 percent of all Web traffic and 2 percent of all surfing time involved an adult site.

A Florida company, ICM Registry Inc., proposed ".xxx" as a mechanism for the online porn industry to clean up its act. All sites using ".xxx" would be required to follow yet-to-be-written "best practices" guidelines, such as prohibitions against trickery through spamming and malicious scripts.

Use of ".xxx" would be voluntary, however.

As envisioned, ICM would charge $60 for each of up to 500,000 names it expects to register, $10 of which would go to a nonprofit organization that would, among other things, educate parents about safe surfing for children.

The nonprofit, run by representatives of adult Web sites, free-speech, privacy and child-advocacy concerns, would determine registration eligibility.

Skeptics argue, however, that porn sites are likely to keep their existing ".com" storefronts, even as they set up shop in the new ".xxx" domain name. And that will reduce the effectiveness of software filters set up to simply block all ".xxx" names.

The ".xxx" domain "legitimizes this group, and it gives false hope to parents," said Patrick Trueman, senior legal counsel at the Family Research Council and a former Justice Department official in charge of obscenity prosecutions.

The adult entertainment industry is also hardly behind ".xxx" as a group. Many of its webmasters consider the domain "the first step toward driving the adult Internet into a ghetto very much like zoning laws have driven adult stores into the outskirts," said Mark Kernes, senior editor at the trade monthly Adult Video News.

ICM insists it would fight any government efforts to compel its use by adult Web sites, but the existence of ".xxx" would certainly make the prospect easier.

"There are going to be pressures" to mandate it once available, said Marjorie Heins, coordinator of the Free Expression Policy Project at New York University's law school. Federal lawmakers have proposed such requirements in the past.

Robert Corn-Revere, a lawyer hired by ICM to address free-speech issues, said the company has pledged $250,000 for a legal defense fund to keep ".xxx" voluntary, and he notes that courts have struck down efforts to make movie ratings mandatory.

"Where governments have tried to use private labeling systems as proxies for regulation, courts have always held those measures unconstitutional," he said.

Even if it's voluntary, supporters say, adult sites will have incentives to use ".xxx."

"If the carrot's big enough, you're going to get sites in there," said Parry Aftab, an Internet safety expert who served as an informal adviser on ".xxx."

Stuart Lawley, ICM's chairman and president, said use of ".xxx" could protect companies from prosecution under a 2003 federal law that bars sites from tricking children into viewing pornography - as ".xxx" would clearly denote an adult site.

Lawley said those requirements could make credit-card issuers more confident about accepting charges. The online porn industry currently faces higher fees because some sites engage in fraud and customers often deny authorizing payments.

But given the limited effectiveness of a voluntary ".xxx" for filtering, Internet filtering expert Seth Finkelstein calls ".xxx" no more than a mechanism "to extract fees from bona fide pornographers and domain name speculators." (ICANN also gets an unspecified cut of each registration fee.)

Even if it were mandatory, it wouldn't be foolproof.

A domain name serves merely as an easy-to-remember moniker for a site's actual numeric Internet address. David Burt, a spokesman for filtering vendor Secure Computing Corp., said a child could simply use the numeric address when the ".xxx" equivalent gets blocked.

Better technologies exist, he said, including a little-used self-rating system that lets Web sites broadcast whether they contain nudity, violence or foul language, along with the specific forms, such as presence of genitals or passionate kissing.

Burt also favors a ".kids" domain that would serve as a safe haven for children. The U.S. government has approved one under ".us," but support has been cool, with only about two dozen ".kids.us" sites listed.

ICM proposed both ".xxx" and ".kids" in 2000, but ICANN board members resisted them for fear of getting into content control. Instead, ICANN approved ".info," ".biz," and ".museum" and four others.

But pressure has continued to mount for ICANN to expand the number of domain names, and last year it reopened bidding.

ICM resubmitted its application for ".xxx" only, this time structuring it with a policy-setting organization to free ICANN of that task.

That did the trick.

ICANN board member Joichi Ito, who backed ".xxx," wrote in his Web journal that the decision wasn't an endorsement of any type of content or moral belief but a chance for "creating incentives for legitimate adult entertainment sites to come together and fight "bad actors.' "

Anti-porn activist Donna Rice Hughes, however, remains unconvinced.

"They are not going to give up their ".com' addresses," she said of porn sites. "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out."