“Craigslist is effectively useless.”

To me, this is another example of how national prejudices and bigotry are assumed to be of value to the whole world. Which they are not. But then, in US-College-libraries, the Kama Sutra will probably only available to people over 75 being accompanied by their parents. Oh boy …

Info: the blog-entry of the developer of the aforementioned e-book reader is http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/whither-eucalyptus

But we have problems as well, when internet problems have to be decided by judges. not all know the specific problems of the internet when it comes for example to brand problems in keywords.

One point: this is all a backlash of the craigslist killer. People get ripped off on craigslist all the time. While murder certainly doesn’t equate, the phrase ‘buyer beware’ ought to come into play.

I think the idea that the “community will police itself” is a bit glib and simplistic.

This is something teachers have started to do more of – create a classroom community and get some consensus around classroom rules (i.e. contracts signed by all students of rules they developed). As regulatory agencies impose rules, especially now as social media is exploding, we’re going to begin seeing more of the “internet speak-easy.” People will react to the rules and laws they see as unfair – and all cultures and communities will be different.

We’ve seen this already with Facebook and the uproar over their terms of service a few months ago (hell, we’ve even seen it with their site redesign and people’s downright disgust and anger that it was changed). When you do wrong by the community, there is surely going to be chatter, unrest, and even revolution (i.e. creating something else!).

It shouldn’t up to regulators to police content, it is up to the community. AGs and other regulators imposing laws (with Craigslist, internet gambling, etc.) see their job as protectors; really they’re just censoring and transferring control to governments, managers and other hierarchical heads.

Not to open up a HUGE bag of worms, but why it is my perception that it is primarily conservative-republican politicians that call for this censorship/policing/saving-humankind-from-itself? They’re trying to be a party of “revolutionaries” and “less government.” By limiting open communities that have functioned at a high level of efficiency, doesn’t that present itself in direct opposition of their platform? Is that perception wrong? (again, not trying to ruffle feathers … I’m not even claiming that I’m one party or the other, but I find it troubling).

The law tends to be a weak protection against the tide of sufficiently widespread consumer sentiment and behavior (think marijuana). People want to be moral and lawful…so long as it doesn’t significantly restrict what they otherwise really want to do.

The past decade of frustration the music industry has faced should be some indication. If there’s one lesson iTunes has taught us, its that a business model that allows people to stay within the law without having to fundamentally alter their baseline behavior will be quite successful…but law alone doesn’t serve as much of a barrier.

In the libertarian world of the Internet, successful business is more about following the stampeding herd than shouting at the herd for stampeding…

Dale Harrison
dale.harrison@inforda.com

ooops! that’s “public”.

my bad.

carry on.

and why would i spend $10 for a “photocopy” of jeff’s book? he pretty much lays it out here for free on a daily basis… with added seasonings!

Should the police enforce the law in either of the scenarios?

My take on Jeff’s blog post above that the prostitution ad should be left alone. What about the ad for copyright violation? In his blog entry he mentions that fraud is enforced? Why enforce fraud but not prostitution or copyright?

what about (the now-owned-by-hef) adultfriendfinder plethora of properties?

jdate?

and the numerous other pay-to-lay locations?

good luck with that.

1) Very clear prostitution ad. Specifically offers sex for money.

2) I will sell you a photocopy of “What Would Google Do?” for $10.

There are people on the Internet that are OK with prostitution ads and there are people that are OK with copyright violation. Jeff, would you let the second ad stay on Craig’s List if they would not remove it?

How do you distinguish the first ad from the second? Should Craig’s List treat these two ads differently?

What are the options, then, when we take into account that the internet is global by design? Hint: only one answer is correct:

(a) Global laws
(b) Censorship

OK, this is not so hard. Since nations have so far prevailed over any globalisation, either in economy or in law, (a) will probably be some days off in the future.

So while I do not have any easy solution, it is not as easy to whail about politicians that are not techno-phobe or control freaks. They are acting in the name of the people that mandated them to govern their country. This excludes