Re: We dont need .eu !!! :)
They will chlorinate water next.
Posts by LeeH
49 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Oct 2013
Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021
I see a satellite of a man ... Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, that's now 4 sats fit to go
Wednesday 6th June 2018 14:42 GMT
Re: Oh, The Magic of Clockwork Theory Strikes Again
"Brexit is purely about harking back to a mythical golden age. The thing about mythical golden ages is they are mythical."
That is kinda funny because the only people I know who talk about the mythical golden ages are Remainers; and they are increasingly anonymous cowards.
Tuesday 5th June 2018 22:48 GMT
Oh, The Magic of Clockwork Theory Strikes Again
If only economics worked like clockwork. A magical clockwork world wherein the number of people in a trade bloc is the same as the number of people who purchase goods and services from member nations of the trade bloc. Such a place where, for instance, 510 million people can all be counted as 510 million actual customers who actively purchase from, say, the UK.
Funnily enough, except for the history and antics of man (and woman), the real world does not work like clockwork.
510 million people do not automatically constitute 510 million paying customers for each member nation of the EU. No one is so entitled to believe they have the automatic right to count population stats this way.
The economy's health is dependent on partners that trade with it and not on the fancies of statisticians who point at numbers and conclude "There! There they are! 510 million people and all of them will purchase at least something from the UK each week"
Much better to have real and confirmed businesses plus real and confirmed people who will purchase our products and services than to have a set of numbers of prospects of which fewer than 10% might purchase goods and services from us. And, yes, I am aware it runs both sides of the Brexit debate.
So, I think you can tell what I think of your 'But, but, but there are 510 million people in the EU who earn between $5,700 and $43,454 per annum who will prefer to order sugar from us via Amazon or eBay instead of loyally walking to their local corner shop to enjoy a quick cig and a natter with their neighbours.'
That $43,454 figure is a bit too precise for my liking.
What you actually need to consider is how many people and businesses in the EU actually purchase from the UK and invest in the UK, how much of this collective transaction can EU bureaucracy interfere with, what's left of that calculation that favours the UK, how much will non-EU trade and investment bring to the UK, and what's the then total trade balance? Compare that balance with the existing balance to decide whether leaving the EU is a net benefit or gain to UK trade and industry.
Alternatively, show your lack of education and life experience, rely on hysterical loops, and try to predict economics with Clockwork Theory.
In any case, Brexit is not purely about economics.
The glorious uncertainty: Backup world is having a GDPR moment
Thursday 31st May 2018 15:33 GMT
I first wrote about the issue of data backups re GDPR a year or so ago and many times since. Amazing how many times I wrote about it and yet it is only getting attention now. I mentioned it in forums here on El Reg (a well read tech site), on Facebook (a well read social site), in my own blog posts on my own sites (sites that attract techies), on Quora in answer to GDPR and EU related questions, in other places around the web, to my clients (who understood my advice), and to every day people when GDPR came up for discussion. I doubt I am the only person to consider the implications of GDPR. What did I get for my reward? Take a guess.
This is not a newly recognised issue. It is an obvious issue that has been willfully ignored. How did people miss this?
Businesses brace themselves for a kicking as GDPR blows in
UK digital committee fumes: You didn't answer our questions, Facebook. (Psst. EU. Pass 'em on)
Android devs prepare to hit pause on ads amid Google GDPR chaos
Wednesday 16th May 2018 03:26 GMT
Re: Hmmm..
There is a lot of data collected by web servers (I'll ignore other data collecting elements for now) that could render a request making client identifiable either by itself or when that data is combined with other available data.
For example, server visitor/request logs that record browser device, visitor IP address, operating system, time of request and page requested. Then there are error logs that also record information about the client that requested the resource that prompted an error.
It is not currently possible for most providers of digital services served from shared hosts to fully comply with GDPR. Though not technically Data Controllers in this case (because in this case the host provider is the technical Data Controller) those service providers are pathways for any data collected and stored by the web host. This makes them complicit in that data collection. To be fully compliant any such provider would need to ask permission for those data logs to be written before a request is serviced. How many shared host providers (for instance) offer the means for software running on their hosts to instruct the server to never record client PII data when resource requests are made or to anonymise such collected data? What about recursive deletion of such data held in historical logs/data backups? What if a shared host is hacked and log data compromised?
Given time hosts will offer GDPR compliant servers. Costs will go up. As the topic here is ads, why do you think developers and website owners display ads? It's not because they make pages beautiful.
One option is to filter every request through a middle service such as Cloudflare. This is not always an acceptable option and requires a lot of faith being put into the middle service.
GDPR is not solely concerned with marketing. It is about the data ownership rights of EU Data Subjects (rights I agree with) and the obligations both data controllers and data processors must abide with regard to EU Data Subjects.
I doubt regulators will go after bloggers immediately 25th May hits the world. There will be time to adapt. But GDPR affects the ways of the Internet more than many imagine.
GDPR is a much bigger shake up of Internet provided services (and off-line services) than many people realise. Fun times ahead.
Tuesday 15th May 2018 14:38 GMT
Re: Hmmm..
I've been commenting for months in various places to tell people how far reaching GDPR is. Few want to believe the full implications because GDPR compliance is both
a) difficult to achieve where possible to achieve, and
b) impossible for almost anyone who uses cloud or shared resources to achieve where any form of data is collected, stored or processed in digital format.
Then there are the paper records to deal with. Who fancies reviewing filing cabinets and physical archives to edit or delete data or to check/remove consent basis?
We can count ourselves lucky GDPR doesn't apply to data committed to human memory, or does it?
Ads aside, GDPR is too well written. It is the Cookie Regulation II with big ugly teeth. All this could have been avoided had we obeyed the cookie laws just as a token gesture.
Eurocrats double down on .eu Brexit boot-out
Europe dumps 300,000 UK-owned .EU domains into the Brexit bin
Friday 30th March 2018 16:07 GMT
Re: The EU mafia .. they are dumb as hell!
You won't know this unless you regsiter domains regularly, but:
1) .com is a gTLD with 'com' representing commercial, not restricted to the US. The US has a ccTLD of .us.
2) There are a couple of nations/regions with ccTLDs that restrict registrations to only persons, businesses and entities with a physical presence within the region the ccTLD represents. I can't recall which regions have such restrictions but have seen it in the past when registering domains.
3) .org, .biz, .edu and .gov, for example, similarly have (or previously had) restrictions about who and/or what can register them.
As I said in an earlier comment, I think the EU's ((over)re)action is petty but I understand the EU's take on it.
It is petty because they had a discussion about whether or not to deregister .eu domains in UK hands post Brexit. Had there not been a meeting about this and a decision made based on current registration restrictions, or had there been a broader conversation over opening .eu registrations to persons and entities outside of the EU then it would not have been considered petty.
The fact a meeting to discuss this matter was held at all shows how petty and bureaucratic the EU is. The EU is a sham.
Friday 30th March 2018 12:53 GMT
Another Friendly Gesture from the EU
I saw this new diktat coming ages ago because it is in the small print of the license that .eu registrants must be resident in the EU or have a physical EU business presence (something like that). Surprised people are shocked by it.
As to why people bought them I can answer from a web developer's perspective. The .eu ccTLD has been offered at basement prices frequently by registrars. Some of us developers registered them simply because they were cheap when registered and useful to use as staging domains that would receive very very little traffic (.eu not being popular and all that). Similar story for .info and other TLDs. We can use sub domains and host files etc... but a cheap domain has its benefits.
Seeing this coming I disabled auto renewal of my .eu domains just before this ruling was pronounced. I really don't care about my .eu domains.
I do think it is a petty decision. I feel for those who invested in .eu domains and spent thousands or millions in traffic generation for their .eu domains but maybe they can sue the EU for damages. I'm sure there will be a regulation that allows the EU to be taken to court.
I won't be sad to see EU bureaucrats getting ramroded up in Brugge with one of their many flag poles. Their pettiness is beyond measure. The apparatus of the EU could do with some s**t cleaning.
Brit retailer Currys PC World says sorry for Know How scam
Sunday 18th March 2018 19:35 GMT
Re: Hanging
I worked with them when they were PC Service Call. Did myself no favours by solving the problems people had with their computers. Gave PCSC a year of my time. I left a few months after they palmed the non home computer support calls on to us under the guise of an 'every digital good is a computer' premiss that made it feasible under our contracts.
I remember well the dancing bonus targets, desk-chains, staff employed under the promise of particular shift patterns who were promptly slammed into unworkable shift patterns, staff afraid to do their jobs because they would cost their team its bonus, ideas being stolen from their originators and passed onto others to develop (happened to me at least twice). Horrid work environment. Never known any work environment as disgusting.
One night shift I was picked up by a taxi driver who had worked at the same Nottingham call centre. He told me he left when he was unable to sign in. He was so stressed from the job that he could not move pen to paper to sign in. His wife told him to quit there and then. He was not alone.
I do not miss being told 'Your call times are too short, your call times are too long, you can't tell people to take their computers back, you can't tell people their statutory rights, you can't tell people their contract rights, you can't send out engineers to replace faulty parts, you fix too many problems...' all in the same meeting.
The last straw was when my team leader said he was going to "Break me down to build me back up again." At that point I understood why one colleague quit as soon as he heard this particular team leader was taking over our team.
The week I left with stress was the same week a hundred or so more walked off too. When I explained my feelings to my doctor he looked at me, tutted, and sighed 'Not another one' before saying "You have severe stress. Get another job." as he signed me off with depression.
I won't shop with Curries, Dixons, PC World or any member of the Dixon's PLC group and have not done so for 15/16 years. I should sue the bastards. I'm not the only one who should do so.
10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10
Wednesday 7th March 2018 20:35 GMT
Re: Thank You Mr Chester...
Only one lad in the class did. The rest of us called him sir. He was one of the most liked teachers in the school. Was not funny when I hit him in his eye as he picked me up off a table in a drama lesson.
He had told me off for being naughty a few days before and made me stand against a wall in the playground so I told the other lad stood with me that I was "going to beat him [Mr Chester] up". Well, when he pick me up off the table I thought he was starting. I would have been 9 years old. Poor bloke. He was my teacher that year so we had to patch up.
Tuesday 6th March 2018 15:57 GMT
Thank You Mr Chester...
My primary school teacher brought his ZX80 into class so we could use it during breaks. Someone broke in and nicked it over a weekend. He replaced it with a ZX81 a few weeks later. Someone nicked that as well. The 3rd one stayed.
Mazehogs and Bomber were the games we played. Vague recollection of 3D Monster Maze. I didn't play often but fond memories made. Good times.
Girls in the class showed no interest in it but I do remember Mr Chester showing a few female teachers his new toy; they were interested.
Thank you Mr Dick Chester for sharing your computer with us.
'WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?' Linus Torvalds explodes at Intel spinning Spectre fix as a security feature
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 09:57 GMT
Re: Speculative but maybe workable fix
Nice. So, without being a dick about it, can you briefly explain how the CPU firmware flash does not reprogram the CPU in anyway and then supply a brief schematic to show that the buggy part of the CPU is not bi-passable and therefore not replaceable by a middleman component that sits between the CPU and the CPU slot, whether given an additional power supply or not.
I only ask because I have minuscule knowledge of the CPU architecture with regard to the programmable and non-reprogrammable h/w elements, their proximities to one 'n' other, how they interact with one 'n' other and how the CPU interfaces with the motherboard. Be nice to expand my surface knowledge. You seem like the right person to ask, being all rude, arrogant and dismissive and all. You have that man-in-the-know-I'm-too-good-for-this-question vibe about you. Could you come down a little lower and provide a quickly readable, easily digestible explanation for lower mortals like myself. Pretty please. I would like to enhance the beauty of my fractal, if you think that's possible.
Monday 22nd January 2018 23:32 GMT
Speculative but maybe workable fix
Could this be fixed in some cases by putting an auxiliary piece of hardware into the CPU slot such that the auxiliary sits between the CPU and the slot then either the CPU instructed to reroute requests away from the vulnerable part of the CPU toward the auxiliary hardware so it can perform the vulnerable parts task for it or the auxiliary part used to filter out malicious code before it reaches to the CPU?
My thinking is that this might allow more efficient processing than a software fix or buggy update to the CPU, and might be less costly than CPU replacement.
Firefox 57: Good news? It's nippy. Bad news? It'll also trash your add-ons
Friday 10th November 2017 17:43 GMT
For the last 6 months I have only used Firefox for 2 reasons: 1, to get stored logins from Autofill Forms when I find I need them in other browsers, 2, to use the Web Inspector tools. All other times I use Opera as my main browser then Chrome for entertainment. This is because I know my favourite password manager extension is likely to die when 57 is released.
Firefox is next to useless to me without a decent system to manage passwords. Opera at least provides a VPN and browsing is smooth.
Unless FF 57+ offers Opera like features I will continue to use FF 56- for legacy services. If Opera gets FF quality website inspector tools and a good password manager then I'll likely not need to revert to FF in the near future.
Looks like FF has killed itself.
WordPress has adverse reaction to Facebook's React.js licence
Monday 18th September 2017 19:15 GMT
To Address a Few of the Misconceptions about WordPress
React is not used throughout the WordPress world. Wordpress.com uses React for its backend admin (Calypso) but the self-hosted version of WordPress provided by wordpress.org does not use React in its admin area except where a plugin developer specifically adds React to his/her own plugin or theme.
Gutenberg is a re-imagining of the WordPress content editor. This is written in React. Gutenberg is not a core component of WordPress and will not be until at least WP 5.x is released. As we know, Gutenberg will soon be rewritten to use something other than React.
Many of us in the WordPress community are happy Gutenberg has been delayed. Although it is evolving into a nice product to use, Gutenberg is a big shift from a straightforward TinyMCE editor whereby an author creates content as he/she would with a word processor toward a blocky lego brick wall style editor whereby an author needs to add different content blocks to add different types of content. Additionally, Gutenberg lacks many features of the current editor framework that plugin and theme developers rely on, though this is being addressed by the Gutenberg team. Both Vue and Preact are in the running to replace React. I think Vue will win the competition.
The WordPress REST API allows developers to build apps on top of WordPress. It can be used in both the frontend and the backend to interact with WordPress. WordPress.org does not use the REST API by default i.e/e.g. the display of posts in the frontend of the website is not generally created via interaction with the REST API.
Regards WordPress is not a framework like 'Laravel, CakePHP etc...'. That's correct. It is not supposed to be. WordPress is a content management system that facilitates database management, interaction with a database and presentation of data stored within a database. There are hooks and filters built into WordPress that allow developers to interact with WordPress code execution. Additionally there is the REST API.
There are lots of content management systems available, few of which are as adaptable, as well supported and as well liked as WordPress but then there are some that are better suited to specific tasks for which WordPress is overkill. For example, if you want a blog and only a blog then choose a flat file CMS that is built for bloggers.
I've used and supported WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Simple Machines Forum, CMS Made Simple, custom built CMSs, Business Catalyst and many other CMSs and I can say with experience that WordPress is popular and widespread for good reasons: namely, it works, it is extensible, it is inexpensive and it is easy for authors and site admins to learn to use.
For those like to talk badly about WordPress because they think they know something they do not, if you're going to slag something off you should at least get up-to-date first hand experience of what you are gossiping about.
Pastejack attack turns your clipboard into a threat
Wednesday 25th May 2016 13:54 GMT
Clever Evil Application of a Really Obvious Copy/Paste Trick
This is the same as appending a website URL or copyright notice attribution to copied text. Not a huge leap from that to applying it to commands intended to be pasted directly into a terminal. Clever idea.
Simple defence: Paste into a text editor before pasting into a terminal in a GUI environment. I've always done this when pasting code into a terminal but only because commands sometimes execute before I've pressed the return key and that annoys me.
OK Google? Firefox to nibble Chrome extensions from 2016
Thursday 24th December 2015 01:37 GMT
Am I the Only One..
.. who prefers Firefox Developer Tools?
Chrome's developer tools have a few useful features (can't think of them now) but the in-built developer tools of Firefox are more useful: 3D view of the DOM, CSS editor that allows new style sheets to be created, easy to use HTML editor and so on. I see no benefit to using Chrome's developer tools over Firefox developer tools but plenty of benefits to using Firefox's developer tools instead of those provided by Chrome.
I do hope Autofill Forms continues to work when Firefox introduces its new extensions API. Looked for a similar form filler for Chrome but not found suitable substitute yet.
Photoshop for 40 quid: Affinity Photo pushes pixels further than most
Return of the Pocket PC: Acer shows off Jade Primo PC Phone
Not app-y with VAT: Apple bumps up prices in Blighty, Europe, Canada
Internet governance group pushes on without, er, internet organizations
EU VAT law could kill thousands of online businesses
Wednesday 17th December 2014 19:58 GMT
Manually emailing or sending the digital product might not necessarily be enough for the new regulations to not apply. Different tax authorities may have different ideas of what constitutes manual intervention.
Another option businesses have been looking at is to provide digital products over the Internet then to follow them up with hard-copies on CD or paper etc.. sent through the post (the digital part being the 'get it now while you wait for the hard-copy') but some tax authorities within the EU might consider the digital part to still be VATable.
Too much of the regulation is open to interpretation.
The regulation needs to be scrapped else wise enforcement delayed while it is rethought and proper definition of what is/is not affected decided. I view EU VAT to be a barrier to trade and as such, I believe it needs to be scrapped.
El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.
Saturday 13th December 2014 18:03 GMT 
Every redesign steps back before it moves forward
I am glad to see a new design for the site. The Reg needs one. This design isn't 'it' but you'll get there over the coming weeks. Getting it right takes time.
I like the red, black, charcoal and grey with a dash of turquoise. Red and black say El Reg to me. I know I'm where I need to be when I see them.
The colour tone is a little bright for my eyes. Needs to be toned down a little.
I'd go full-width and fluid for the structure.
For one of my own sites, I took a leaf out of El Reg's (old) style guide re images. I used images in the homepage post grid and removed them from display within articles unless an article topic calls for images. In other words, no in-article image just for the sake of displaying an image. That style guide is effective for sites like The Reg where readers come for news not visual media.
I've worked professionally in web development for about a decade (less time than many reg readers). In that time I can say I rank only two of the theme designers I've worked with as being top of their game. One constructs simple & effective designs. The other creates out of this world imaginative designs. I'll happily put your design team in touch with those two designers.
Looking forward to seeing where the El Reg design goes next. Keep moving forward.
SEX BEAST SEALS may be egging each other on to ATTACK PENGUINS
Another day, another Firefox: Version 31 is upon us ALREADY
Tuesday 29th July 2014 14:07 GMT
I Use Web Developer and Firefox Developer Tools
Tried Firebug. Prefer the Web Developer plugin. Firebug didn't suit my preference for editing CSS and HTML freestyle as though using a text editor. Maybe I just couldn't be bothered to learn how to do that with Firebug; is it possible to do with Firebug? It can be done with Web Developer.
Love the Firefox inbuilt developer tools, especially the 3D cube and the CSS viewer. I would drop Web Developer altogether if I could use the inbuilt FF developer tools to edit HTML without needing to double-click and right-click the editor in order to make edits.
Edit:
Just noticed I can 'Edit as HTML' with FF Developer Tools but this is still not as free as scrolling through the HTML and editing the HTML as though using a text editor.
50,000 sites backdoored through shoddy WordPress plugin
Thursday 24th July 2014 17:15 GMT
WordPress or a Purpose Built CMS... Let Me Think About That....
WordPress: in constant development, regular updates, open source, many core developers, multiple development teams, easy to extend, thousands of plugin and theme developers, well commented core code, hooks to latch code into, automatic updates (since 3.9, a pro and con, I know)...
Purpose Built CMS: small development team unless you have lots and lots of money to throw at the project, code comments dependent on coder's mood, costly to extend, expensive to replace or modify if the development team vanishes, smaller group of people checking for vulnerabilities, often closed source code, restrictions on usage (depending on contract), limited support channels...
423 out of over 100,000 WP plugins might contain vulnerabilities (those figures are not fact-checked and are very likely underestimates) so that means 99,577 plugins do not contain vulnerabilities (or vulns. have yet to be found in some of them).
WordPress might not be ideal for every use case but it is suited to the needs of most people and is within the price range of most people.
As someone who can develop a CMS (and has developed several) from the ground up, I say that WordPress, despite some shortcomings, is a good start point to work with.
If you dislike a WP plugin, change it. If a plugin is vulnerable, solve the vulnerability. Want to use a new plugin but unsure whether it is vulnerable to attack, check the code and tell the developer about the flaw. Stop faulting WordPress and WP developers and help the project by providing workable solutions.
How many of you complainers have been in business for as long WordPress has been in existence? Do you expect to be around for as long as WordPress will be here?
Mozilla fixes CRITICAL security holes in Firefox, urges v31 upgrade
Thursday 24th July 2014 15:52 GMT
I like the new Firefox UI
The old menu bar can be restored by right-clicking 'plus' icon to the right of the tabs and selecting 'Menu Bar', at least on Linux and I guess this is the same for Windows too.
The two gripes I have with the new UI is that the reload button is in an inconvenient place and can't be moved and the back/forward buttons can't be relocated: I prefer to have navigation buttons (back, forward and up (via Uppity), stop and reload) to the left of the address bar and tools to the right of the address bar.
Other than those two gripes, the new modern UI works well.
True fact: Your CAT wees ... like a racehorse
Surprise! NSA's first ever 'transparency' 'report' is anything but
Saturday 28th June 2014 01:06 GMT
The Question Is
Can government survive without us or can we survive without government. Likewise, can the US survive without the support of those nations that placed it where it is for the sake of 'world peace'?
The NSA is not just a US issue. I really do not understand why citizens outside of the US consider the CIA, NSA etc... to be legal entities outside of the US. Makes no sense at all. Are they superhuman??? Get a grip.
As wonderful as the US is, it has now become a world problem. A problem we Europeans made. A problem we now need to resolve.
Seriously, if the NSA came to grab you would you give up quietly or scream, shout and fight?
Man or mouse: which are you?
Snowden defends mega spy blab: 'Public affairs have to be known by the public'
Tuesday 24th June 2014 20:36 GMT
Too Many Mixed Arguments Going on Here
Is this about law?
Is this about being a traitor?
Is this about democracy?
Is this about responsible individual liberty?
Is this about privacy?
If this is about the law then the law is pretty damn wrong, isn't it? How can anyone agree with a legal system that turns people into serfs?
Anyone who argues for a return to serfdom doesn't deserve to live in a democracy and should pack up his/her bags now and kindly f-off and leave the rest of us to restore individual liberty and privacy to the democracy we want to live within.
Who are the traitors? The people trusted to protect our democracy and our rights, those very people who little-by-little eroded our rights and destroyed our democracy; or are the traitors the people who expose those incursions into our lives?
Get a bit of perspective and begin thinking of your rights and your children's rights and your grand-children's rights. Yes, ACs and GCHQ/NSA supporters of this world, I'm throwing that one right back at you. Do you really want your children to be dominated by a political class of trough-hoggers?
Point 1: The law has to change to ensure the law respects the common man
Point 2: Politicians need to live the lives they preach and force onto the common man. How can you support a group of people who willing put their own agendas ahead of the people's wishes?
Point 3: Stop excusing bad behaviour for the sake of patriotism or for the sake of some wild thought that you are part of the group you are defending. The intelligence gathering agencies of government do not care one bit about you. In fact, you are probably being laughed at by the very people you defend.
Point 4: Stop assuming that law is automatically right, just and correct by virtue of it being law. Laws are made by man. Man is not infallible, man is not without fears, man is not without envy and man is known to not be consistently just in judgement. The idea that law is law is law is befitting of a serf; even a slave has more dignity than to follow laws blindly.
So, to the ACs and other supporters of invasive mass surveillance, supporters of the erosion of liberty and supporters of the removal of individuality, what are you: serf, brainwashed or just deluded?
Think I'm being offensive? I'd rather offend you than to offend humanity and dignity by not defending our right to live free, the right to live as leaders of our own lives, the right to die free and the right not to have decisions forced onto us.
If I choose to give up my rights, then that is my choice; do not force that choice onto me. Give up your own rights as you wish, do not drag others from their rights in the process of you giving up yours..
Google hit by class action lawsuit over claimed AdSense fraud
Thursday 22nd May 2014 16:10 GMT
The World Will be a Different Place After This... Will it F##k
I have a very vague memory of this being discussed 4 or 5 years back. I'm 50% certain I read people complaining that Google had been killing accounts just before payouts. Can't recall how the conversation started but the timeframe places the memory at around 2009.
The big issue here (if true) is that Google waited until just before payment day before closing accounts and keeping the money.
All that needs to be proved is that someone at Google took the decision to delay Adsense account closures as until a few days before payday instead of forcing closures as soon as malpractice was discovered. Once that is proved... webmasters will still think with their pockets instead of their moral principles so Google will make a few payouts and webmasters will still suck up to Google ;)
So no change to the world really.
Google wouldn't be alone if it had delayed account closures to benefit Google's own bank balances. Many Affiliate Marketing Networks are pretty appalling:
1) ClickBank openly "steals" from affiliates by charging account fees on affiliate balances not paid out due to having not met payout thresholds;
2) Amazon does not pay affiliate marketers when prospects crossover to different Amazon sites to make purchases e.g. When someone in the US clicks an affiliate's link to a product on Amazon UK then purchases via Amazon US, the affiliate gets not even the measly 5% referral fee that Amazon promises;
3) Affiliate Window and Commission Junction both do as Amazon does (or did so when I last checked them out and questioned them on it).
There are some good Affiliate Marketing Networks but most are rubbish. Who ever reads the small print anyway?
ShareAsale is one of the few good networks.
US judge: Our digital search warrants apply ANYWHERE
Tuesday 29th April 2014 07:31 GMT 
With all their money..
..I can see a group of tech companies buying an island, declaring independence from any other nation's juristiction, recruiting an army and equipping said army with the most technologically advanced gear they can both buy & 3D print.
Coming back to reality (maybe), is there a reason MS, Google and Apple are forced to stay in the US?
Google makes Compute Engine official
US senator asks: Will Bitcoin replace Swiss bank accounts?
Snap-happy blogger babe posts catcalling blokes' mugshots online
Tuesday 22nd October 2013 04:16 GMT
Re: It must get really, really boring
Seem to be a lot of people in modern society who only date through online dating sites and who consider real world (non virtual world) attempts to meet a mate as being weird. The modern world has moved ahead us, Khaptain. The old world, the one where we approach people in person, is much more fun.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
