Irony alert: People
nabbing Napster tunes for free
Napster has gone straight,
requiring paid subscriptions to download its music, but that doesn't mean
the rest of the world has. Some webbies say it's still easy to get free,
permanent music downloads from the company. Napster To Go customers
discovered they could make permanent copies of the unlimited number of
songs they have access to during a service trial by downloading a free
audio player that can record audio directly from a computer's sound card.
Most copy-protection technology doesn’t prohibit the recording of analog
audio signals. Napster compared the process to copying songs from the
radio onto cassette tapes. The company is currently offering a free trial
of its new Napster To Go service.
Study: Well-to-do webbies lead online usage
People with bigger bank
accounts spend more time surfing the internet and read more web pages than
anyone else, according to a new study by Nielsen//NetRatings. Internet
users with household incomes of more than $150,000 jumped 20 percent
year-over-year to 10.3 million in January. Both men and women in high
income brackets liked similar travel sites. But men visited more financial
sites while women visited entertainment sites. The sites of Fidelity
Investments, Sabre Travel Network, CBS MarketWatch were among the men’s
favorites. Moviefone, and Expedia and AOL Entertainment ranked highly on
the women’s list.
Court says using spyware on spouse is illegal
Using spyware to track people's internet habits in
order to bombard them with advertising? Annoying. Using spyware to track
the habits of an unfaithful spouse? Illegal. A
Florida woman playing the role of a high-tech Magnum P.I. broke a
wiretapping law in the process. A Florida appeals court ruled that Beverly
Ann O'Brien illegally obtained records of husband James' affair by
installing a spyware program called Spector on James' computer. Florida
law says intercepting electronic communications is illegal. Her attorney
argued that the monitoring was not wiretapping and was similar to reading
a stored file on her husband's computer. Judge Donald Grincewicz and two
other judges barred Beverly O'Brien from presenting the contents of the
logged conversations in the couple’s divorce proceedings. Though it may
be illegal for private citizens to do it, some organizations can and do
monitor people’s online activities. Businesses may examine employees'
e-mail and instant messaging conversations, and the FBI has been known to
capture criminals’ passwords.
Odd
out of home: Your name on a pregnant belly
There was a major buzz when eBay bidders had a chance
to see their names on Boston’s FleetCenter. But a Georgia woman’s
decision to put her pregnant belly on the auction block as ad space is the
source of some real drama. This month after the auction for ad space on
Elisa Harp’s belly ended, she refused to rent the space to highest
bidder, SunPoker.com. Instead she is letting The Golden Palace Casino have
the space. Golden Palace paid $35,099 for one-day naming rights for the
FleetCenter but a mere $8,800 to plaster its name on Harp’s
eight-months-pregnant belly. Harp says she has the right to decide who she
sells to, but eBay rules say a product must go to the highest bidder and
that the auction is a binding contract. SunPoker.com is suing Harp, though
they'd better act quickly--she's due next month.
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