Monthly Archives: June 2012

It’s Only Funny at First

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

This looks like the sort of internet ‘tax’ you could learn to love:

explorer tax

"Today at Kogan we’ve implemented the world’s first ‘Internet Explorer 7 Tax’. The new 6.8 [per cent] tax comes into effect today on all products purchased from Kogan.com by anyone still insistent on using the antique browser," says a blog post from the firm.

via Kogan implements Internet Explorer 7 tax – The Inquirer, who seem to think it’s copacetic.

Kidding aside, though, this isn’t a true tax since since it’s private, not governmental.

Worse, I wonder if this might lead to a new struggle for market share in which some retailers would offer a discount to users who visit with Chrome, or come from Bing. In the long run, this sort of deal would not work to the advantage of open source projects since they don’t have the deep pockets it would take to run that sort of (wickedly effective?) promotion. I wonder if there would be any anti-trust implications…

Posted in Internet, Software | 7 Comments

Why You Should Root for the Miami Heat Anywy

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

The Nation, Why We Should All Root for the Miami Heat, explains the politics behind tomorrow night’s game.

Missing from the story, though, is the extent to which the owners of the Arena may have failed to pay the county what it is owed. An amount that has, it seems, never been calculated, probably with the connivance of local government. See AmericanAirlines Arena audit cites Miami -Dade for poor oversight for more.

Posted in Basketball | 5 Comments

Off to Privacy Law Scholars Conference

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

While my wife is in Hawaii at the Law & Society conference, I am going to be in Washington DC Thursday and Friday for the 5th Annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference, one of my favorite events of the scholarly year.

PLSC is run by Chris Hoofnagle and Dan Solove, who do a great job. The only bad thing about the event is that every year there are more and more parallel tracks — they are up to EIGHT this year — and I usually want to be be in at least three quarters of them simultaneously. This year I will miss more of the papers then ever before, not only because there are more tracks but because my draft paper, Lessons Learned too Well, was selected (by ballot of the attendees) for the so-called “Encore” track. That means I’ll be one of the six people presenting twice, which is an honor I’m absurdly pleased about. The downside is that because I’ll be presenting a second time, that makes even fewer papers I’ll be able to go to.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | 1 Comment

SFDB Not-So-Random Thought Of The Day

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I like this question from South Florida Daily Blog:

Florida law requires concealed carry weapon permit holders to be U.S. citizens. Just like voting laws.

So I’m wondering what the reaction would be from the NRA and the Republican Party if the Democrat Party led a purge of CCW permit holders much like Governor Scott has led a purge of voting rolls. You know, review the information contained in State databases and send letters to those CCW holders whose citizenship status could not be verified.

Posted in Florida, ID Cards and Identification | 8 Comments