25. September, 2003 - the war on spam goes poorly

Did you know about eBay Spying and Ratting Its Users out to the cops? And it’s not just eBay, it’s half.com and PayPal, too. Basically they’ll provide whatever information a law enforcement officer asks for, without a warrant or subpoena. They hold information on the buying habits of over sixty-two million people, and not only will give it up to the cops when asked, but they’ll even watch your account, and if you do something “suspicious”, they’ll hand that information over to the cops, too. But hey, you don’t mind if Chief Wiggum finds out that you’re the biggest collector of Malibu Stacy dolls in Springfield, do you, Smithers? [endwar]
U.S. Court Unplugs Anti-Telemarketing List, so for the moment, the October 1 introduction of the national do not call list won’t happen. Boo!
In more bad news on the spam front, blackhole.compu.net is now defunct and monkeys.com is now retired from spam fighting. Two of the realtime blackhole providers close their doors in one day.
Fontscape® and Identifont® can help you identify a font that you’re not sure what it is. Useful! [zeldman]
Kari Tauring wrote an interesting critique on our public education system. For now it’s posted on The Usual Suspects. For future reference it will be archived here [jim]
In happier news, Radio K celebrates a decade of excellence on October 1st. Happy Birthday Radio K.