Posts by Steve 129 88 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Nov 2009
Vendors that 'loose' their customer's details should have to foot the bill for card replacements and any incurred losses in my mind.
Currently there isn't even a real slap on the hand for absolute carelessness handling card details.
They just don't care since there are no real consequences.
"To be fair Ticketmaster's policy has always been to pass everything on to third parties."
Yep, including the processing fee, the venue fee, the f**ck, I don't know fee, the just because we can fee and the ohhh, here's another fee fee.
Ticketshafters.
Just bought $75 tickets with $32 in fees !!!
Hope they get sued into the ground.
Erm, did I ready this wrong...??
To be safe I would have to be...
a) A 'professional' journalist and
b) Not make money from the link
??
Or is it that you have to check ALL the following boxes to be in danger ?
You make money from your posts.
The material isn’t readily available elsewhere.
You know the material is unlawful.
You refuse to pull the link when contacted and told it is unlawful.
Or... a high tech company that is working on many products that it doesn't want the competition to get wind of!!??
What is with everyone being so blinkered to think that, just because it is Apple, they should let the world+dog know any details about their business model/strategies/technologies or anything else they choose not to make public.
Imagine they decided to move to a processor running at 20GHz and Samsung found out before release and decided to change their strategy based on this information. They are called trade secrets. When you start working for a company you sign agreements you won't let out those secrets. If you do, then you are in breach of contract. EVERY company has a clause like that in their employment contract. Go check yours... It will be there.
Obviously you don't know how insider trading laws work.
You don't have to personally gain from the information to be guilty of insider trading. Let your mum know something and she buys stock and you will both be guilty.
And, believe it or not, more than Apple employees own stock !!!
Everyone so far seems to be completely ignoring the (il)legality or breaching NDAs. Just because it is Apple doesn't mean they can't protect their IP, regardless of what you think
I one received a check for 17 cents from an AT&T class action suit which had 34 cents postage.
Absolutely ridiculous !!!
Lawyers got millions, AT&T got away with paltry "fine".
Fines are supposed to hurt, otherwise what's the point !!! If the fine is less than the gains then it is just a cost of doing business.
"Telstra's deal with the AFL allowed it to deliver a live stream of matches on devices with up to a 7-inch screen"
WTF is this insane set of restrictions !!???
Come on children, quit sulking, either allow streaming, or don't !!!
Sheesh, it is no wonder people resort to pirate streams when you make it so friggin difficult to do things legally!!!
I tried to get tickets from TM a while back for a high demand concert and in less than 3 minutes there were already over a thousand tickets ON THE TM RESALE SITE !!!
One way to reduce the scalping (and abuse by TM) would possibly be to have a lock out period where tickets could not be re-sold (especially on the original sale site) say for 30 days after initial public release.
I was disgusted at TM (as I always am) at allowing people to but tickets then IMMEDIATELY put them back up for re-sale at 3x the original price.
In the past TM were also sued for illegal contracts with venues, but as with all these types of cases their 'penalty' was about $2.59 and a stiff telling off !!!
There needs to be some real pain to these companies when they are found to be doing things illegally.
TicketMaster even has it's own resale page now, directly on the original sale page !!!
Recently I tried to get tickets for Coldplay (don't judge!!). I was on the site within 3 or 4 seconds and didn't get a ticket !!! Within 15 seconds there were ALREADY over 1000 tickets up for re-sale... ON TICKETMASTER and 5x the face value !!!
There is absolutely NO incentive for TicketMaster or any other sales outlet to 'clean up their act'. Why would they !!???
@rongorongo
I don't think fleaBay counts as a respectable source.
If you really did get from a respectable source then I guarantee you can contact them, let them know they sold you fakes and they will do everything they possibly can to rectify your immediate concerns, and will investigate the source of the fake devices.
Do you think FTDI are the only target for fakes? The real root cause is your 'respected' supplier, who really aren't.
@AC
I think you have just single handedly managed to prove FTDI's point here !!! The FTDI hardware/driver was pretty much the first, and continued to be the best for a long time, so much so that it is considered the defacto standard.
So much so that fakers want to ride on the back of their drivers and reputation.
@Alan Brown.
They ARE stealing their IP, which includes FTDI's reputation. They are putting a fake FTDI logo on and faking the PID/VID, which is IP owned by FTDI.
It is like you coming up with your own crap-coke then putting it in a Coke bottle, with the Coke logo etc... and claiming to be Coke.
It is illegal. Period.
"there's no way to opt out"
Ermm... Of course there is!!!! DON"T GO TO FACEBOOK !!!
Gotta love how every country is pissed at companies NOT within their borders who have managed to do something really well, then want a piece of the pie 'just because'
The web is global, if you don't like something which originates outside your borders then block it. Plenty of other countries have tried it then realized what a farce it is.
This story reminds me of a story many years ago. Chase Bank 'stole' chase.com from an engineering company in the UK that had been using it for years.
The original company was not passing off as Chase bank, and in fact was definitely using it for their own engineering business.
Still, Chase bank gained control, but at least they offered to pay for Chase Engineering to re-do their letter head !!! How valiant of them.
To this day I still refuse to do any business with Chase Bank because of this. I was/am disgusted with their behavior and bullying tactics.
Many years ago I set a cron job to execute every few seconds (ironically to change my e-mail signature!!).
For some unknown reason during the night the cron job was no longer able to execute.
As those of you who know cron better than me will know it then sends an e-mail letting you know it failed (I know, I know, you can probably disable this feature but I had/have no clue how).
When I came in in the morning I had thousands of e-mails from me telling me my e-mail sig changing cron task had failed to execute.
@DainB : "Nope. Operator might be able disable it, that's totally different." wtf are you smoking ??? Different to what ?
On MY iPhone if I try to enable it I get a message stating that the feature needs to be enabled by my carrier. Also, I know what my contract states, and that is that tethering is an ADDITIONAL feature and has limits.
VERY clear in my ToS.
"Can I get an explanation for why these two things are actually separate" - Seriously !!! You need that explained !!???
This is meant to be a PHONE plan, with tethering for occasional use thrown in as a perk. It is NOT meant for you to use tethering so you don't need to buy internet service at your home/office etc...
It is very clearly stated in the ToS, but people, being people, are knowingly abusing it by trying to circumvent monitoring which TM had to put in place for exactly this reason.
So what? Even that whole debacle was a complete waste of time. Why didn't they get sued for including notepad??? paint??
That, again, was simply a case of one company 'trying it on' with the government (or more likely they had their own pocket politician with whom they swapped brown paper envelopes)
Browsers have never been a monopoly and neither are search engines.
If advertisers don't like the playing field then go to a different one. Let's see how that works out for you.
OK, every time I read about someone trying to sue UBER for their gas money, car maintenance, tips etc... I have to think there is some a. hole lawyer poking the bear.
All these drivers read and agreed to their contract with UBER, then suddenly decide (after making lots of money) that hey, let's see if we can squeeze more out of UBER ???!!
One recent law suit was trying to claim $10Ks in expenses for gas !!! That is a LOT of gas, so why only now is it suddenly an issue?
Most taxi drivers are independent contractors too (you will even see it printed on the side of the cars in many cases) "independently owned and operated". Taxi drivers can't claim gas money etc... from the taxi rank operators either. Gas money etc... is a business expense and should be claimed as a tax deduction.
I just get really annoyed when people quite happily agree to terms and conditions, follow them quite happily for a long time then 'suddenly' decide they don't like them !!! If you don't like the terms, don't agree to them !!!
"In the US, a film studio filed suit earlier this month against 11 people who were accused of illegally using the service to access the Adam Sandler film The Cobbler."
Were the film company contacting them to issue a refund for the time spent downloading/watching it?
11 people. More than paid for it I expect :)
Double standards people. Why is it OK for every idiot to record something they don't like, edit the good bits then release to YouTube and the world as "All cops beat small black disabled, gay children" ??
All the video SHOULD be open and available.
Why do we never see phone video of the (pick your [un]preferred race) thug running up behind the cop and beating the crap out of him, putting him in hospital (as happened a few weeks ago) !!?? Ohh right... THAT side of the story is just not as exciting or contentious !!!
EVERY package we send to our family in the UK gets stopped at customs and import tax assessed even though we explicitly follow the rules, individually package and mark items and keep below the limits.
Customs NEVER let them through, as they should be legally required to do, but always try to charge more than the items are worth in tax and fees.
Every time my family needs to go down to the customs office and say 'Open it up and check it. We followed your rules so you can't charge tax"
It is disgusting bullying by the customs office as I am sure most people don't have the time/patience/will to go down there (during office hours) and prove they should not pay import duty.
Non-issue anyhow.
Even if class action status had been reached it would likely have only cost them $18.37 anyhow!!!
Class action suits are a complete sham these days.
About 3 years ago I got a 'payment' check from an action against AT&T for 12 cents !!! Seriously... Postage on the check was 35 cents !!!
A couple of years ago I received a check for $0.12 from ATT for a class action settlement !!! Postage was $0.35.
Ridiculous !!!
These companies need a REAL threat before they stop their illegal, immoral practices. perhaps even jail time for their upper management so that the costs of getting caught are not passed to their customers.
The comparison is perfectly valid. I am sure that a wire tap request does not need to mention call forwarding.
A huge portion of IP addresses are localized enough to at least pinpoint a residence.
Even if NAT is uses by the ISP the ISP knows which local IP address was assigned to specific customers.
Not really sure what your point was unless you are pointing out a technicality which might allow a criminal to get away with a crime?
They won't be forced to pay up. They will get a slap on the wrist. Whoever came up with the idea will get a bonus since it saved them $100M but only cost them $5M in fines. I bet they even have the money for the 'fine' in escrow.
What really needs to happen is for these companies to be fined a significant portion of their revenue and not the pocket change that falls down the back of the sofa.
This lawsuit will be completely irrelevant to everyone except lawyers. They will get a slap on the wrist and lawyers will take all the 'refunds'.
Last year I received a 'payment' from a class action against ATT for 12c... Yep... $0.12 !!
It cost more to send the check ($0.35) !!
ATT don't care. Worst customer service I have EVER encountered and they are flat out liars.
And just how would 'bricking' be any different to 'simply not work' for someone like this???
The only people who the difference actually means anything to are technically savvy people.
If a USB-serial stops working most people will simply throw it in the bin and buy a new one, perhaps complaining to their supplier in the mean time that this is the 7th one which doesn't work.
And just what good would a 'fake detect' tool do??? Seriously, do you think ANYONE who found a fake chip would do anything at all about it?
FTDI should simply refuse to work with fake chips. Customers would still be left with non-working products but at least they could send them back to whomever they purchased them from.
Every time I hear people complaining about 'trolls' my blood boils!!!
The whole idea that patent owners MUST actually produce something or else loose their claim is ludicrous !!! They are really nothing more or less than venture capitalists. They are prepared to pay an inventor for his idea then turn it in to cash... or not... their choice.
If I come up with an idea, patent it but then can't afford to manufacture it (since the cost of patenting it wiped me out) this does not mean that then anyone can suddenly decide to steal the idea and make their own, just because I didn't. If then I decide to sell the idea to someone/anyone to make cash on the idea I came up with and patented, then that is my prerogative. What the new owners do with the patent is entirely their prerogative. If they choose to sit on it and wait for someone to willfully copy the idea in the belief that "well hell... the real owner isn't using the idea so I will" they can do that.
The REAL issue is crap patents.
Now, having said all this, this current article is even more messed up since it is nothing at all to do with patent violation and all about contract violation, as mentioned previously.
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