Despite
new law, spam ain't been slammed
As suspected, CAN-SPAM actually isn’t. The law,
which took effect Jan. 1, that was supposed to limit the amount of junk
email,
sent by marketers hasn’t slowed the stuff down, finds a
new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Web users
are actually more frustrated with spam now than they were last summer:
63 percent say they trust email less because of it, compared to 52 percent
last June. More than half of respondents reported that they have not
seen a dip in spam levels at work or at home since the bill was passed.
Slightly more, 29 percent compared to 25 percent in June, said that they
had curtailed email usage because of spam. Seventy-seven percent said
being online had become unpleasant and annoying, plus-7 percent from June.
Study:
Ma & pa are clueless about downloading
The music industry blames kids for much of the online
peer-to-peer swapping that robs labels of their profits. Turns out they
should be targeting their parents. A new survey by Nielsen NRG, conducted
for the Motion Picture Association of America, finds that almost 40
percent of parents are aware that their kids are downloading things from
the internet but were unaware that it’s against the law. Kids aren’t
entirely blameless. One-third of parents surveyed who have downloaded
music or movies had their kids teach them how to do it. Ever since the
Recording Industry Association of America began targeting uploaders with
lawsuits, it’s become much more important for parents to know what their
kids are doing on the net, liability-wise.
New
place for online hook-ups: Your cell
The science guys at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology want to help people dial a date. Researchers at the Boston
college have introduced a new service called Serendipity that stores
personal profiles and the lowdown on what they desire most in a partner in
another’s cell phone. When two well-matched types are within a certain
distance of one another, their phones let them know and offer the option
of connecting. The MITers conceived the plan as a counter to online
dating, which has become a multi-million-dollar business online. The only
problem thus far is that no mobile companies have expressed interest in
the technology.
Messenger
users honor Spanish bomb victims
There’s a new symbol popping up in internet chatrooms,
one meant to show respect for those killed in last week’s Madrid
bombings
much as earlier groups showed sympathy for the victims of 9/11. Teenagers
with Microsoft MSN Messenger usernames are putting crosses in front of
them as a mourning symbol. After 9/11 MSN allowed users to put the phrase
“I (heart symbol) 911” in tribute to the victims. The recent trend
apparently began earlier this week, though Microsoft has not said how many
of its 120 million messenger users were participating. Two-hundred-and-one
people died in the bombings.
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