Archive for the ‘business’ tag
Just in Time Employment
There is a paradox in the American economic recovery. GDP is expanding at incredible rates, and yet the economy keeps shedding jobs. While the official unemployment figure stands around 10 percent, including worker who are underemployed pushes “the full measure of slack in the labor market closer to 20 percent“. While economists and policy analysts are mixed as to what this means, one certainty is that there will be few gains in employment for the foreseeable future.
Is the problem that there just too much supply in the US labor market, or is there a fundamental change in the way the U.S. handles employment?
FCC Inquires About Google Voice App Rejection
TechCrunch is reporting that the FCC has sent letters of inquiry to Apple, AT&T and Google regarding the rejection of Google Voice related apps from Apple’s app store. In the letters, the FCC is asking both Apple and AT&T about their levels of decision making in approving/rejecting apps.
AT&T has maintained that it has no involvement in the approval process, although their loosely-written press release gives a wide latitude for interpretation.
I suspect that the FTC and DoJ may get involved next, given the administration’s strong antitrust policy.
[From FCC Takes On Apple And AT&T Over Google Voice Rejection]
Port of Rotterdam Suffers from Economic Downturn
NRC Handelsblad is reporting that container traffic in Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, is down 15% and overall shipping traffic down 13.4%. The downturn is expected to continue through the remainder of the year.
This is, or course, reflective of the overall downturn in shipping. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of the cost of shipping goods, is down to a quarter of what it was a year ago.
nrc.nl – International – Rotterdam port turnover drops sharply: “”
FTC: Sears Violated Customer Privacy Through the Sin of Omission
The Federal Trade Commission today entered a consent order today finding that Sears Holdings Management Corporation (Sears and Kmart) by which Sears settled FTC charges of failing to disclose the scope of collection and usage of customer data and web activity. This, according to a statement by the FTC, constituted a deceptive practice.
Affected customers were members of the “My SHC Community”, who would pay $10 to participate. These customers would then be asked to download research software. A description of the nature of the software was buried in a “lengthy user license agreement.”
Under the settlement, Sears will not only destroy the information collected by the “research software” but also make a separate disclosure as to the nature and purpose of any future web tracking software, including any possible sale of the data to third parties.
The proposed settlement is open for public comment until July 6, 2009. Those interested can visit the FTC website for further information.
European Commission Imposes €1.06 billion Fine on Intel
The European Commission (EC) today imposed a €1.06 billion fine on the Intel Corporation for “abuse of a dominant market position . . . by engaging in illegal anticompetitive practices to exclue competitors from the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units.” The Commission futher ordered Intel “to cease the anticompetitive practices to the extent that they are still ongoing.”
According to the Commission, Intel engaged in a practice of providing substantial rebates to PC manufacturers who either used exclusively or predominantly Intel processors. The rebates themselves were not the basis for the fine, but “the conditions Intel attached to those rebates.”
The Commission also found that Intel made direct payments to manufacturers to delay the launch of products containing processors from rival AMD. This “pay-for-delay” scheme, the Commission finds, was directly aimed at preventing AMD from selling its product on the open market and thus violative of EU Law.
Journalist or Blogger?
Newspapers are in trouble, so report the newspapers. So does network television, also facing new challenges from both cable television and the internet. This week, NPR’s On the Media posed the question on how to save newspapers. They played excerpts from a recent Senate commerce committee hearing on the future of journalism. After pointing fingers at one another, with Google News and the Huffington Post on one side and greedy media conglomerations on the other, the consensus seemed to be that the newspapers in particular and “old media” in general needs special help to survive.
Of course, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the media debating the virtues of the media. Journalism is a profession and a business, with its own history, customs and practices. Like all businesses, it has little interest in seeing reform or change come to its time-honored traditions. Unfortunately for the Fourth Estate, the barbarians of new media are at the gate and reform is coming to the industry, whether or not it is welcome.
The media like to use “bloggers” as a straw man to attack when discussing the woes of the current state of journalism. These ambiguous, amorphous figures sit behind laptops and anonymity, publishing the first rumor and hearsay to reach their inbox. Bloggers, according to the media, have no respect for journalistic practices and do not know how to write a story. One key question seems to go unanswered in this discussion — what is the difference between a journalist and a blogger?
Filters and Links
Wired.com today published an article calling into question the legality of Facebook’s new policy of filtering links to the Pirate Bay. Citing EFF lawyers, the article claims that Facebook is violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.) by filtering these links. While there is little wisdom in doing so, nothing about Facebook’s new policy violates the law.
Monetizing the Crowd
This is part two of a multi-part series on the next generation of internet communications. In this article, I will be exploring the problems with internet business models.
Unless you are a multi-national bank, there is something seriously wrong with having a business model that does not produce any income. Running a business or organization requires money and, although profit is not always the motive, some form of revenue is important for sustaining almost any endeavor.
The exception to this rule is, of course, the internet. Throughout its commercial history, profit has been an sufficient, but not necessary, condition to the perpetuation of cyberspace.
