Techdirt has written many times about the dysfunctional state of academic publishing. The main issue is that academics do most of the work required to publish a paper, but the publishers reap most of the benefit. Profit margins are extremely high for top publishers — typically 30-40%. And yet academics are routinely forbidden from sharing […]
Over the last week or so, I keep hearing about a big push among activists and lawmakers to try to get the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) into the year-end “must pass” omnibus bill. Earlier this week, one of the main parents pushing for the bill went on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and stumped […]
It’s 2022 and somehow nearly half the nation still has some form of criminal defamation law on the books. This is a holdover from the days before the US went independent — laws that allowed (usually) the government to treat speech it didn’t like as a criminal act. Once the First Amendment went into effect, […]
Sam’s Club is a membership warehouse club that offers members quality products at great value. From groceries and kitchen supplies to electronics and furniture, Sam’s Club has great deals on the items you want! By redeeming and signing up as a member, you’ll be paying just $24.99 for a 1 year Sam’s Club membership (normally […]
Quite possibly you heard that former President Donald Trump, who has spent the past two years in delusional denial about the fact that he lost the last election, and who continues to lead a dwindling coterie of equally delusional fans, has now announced his plans to run for re-election in 2024. This was widely expected, […]
Back in 2015, the FCC announced that it would be adopting rules for shared commercial use of the 3550-3700 MHz band (3.5 GHz band), creating an unlicensed Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and a system to manage shared government, private, and public access to this spectrum. The move was a broadly welcomed one, as it […]
Courts are cool with pretextual stops. As long as a cop can make up a reasonably good excuse for pulling someone over, they can start casting their lines in hopes of bigger fish. Given enough time and bullshit, cops can often talk people into warrantless roadside searches. But the pretext needs to be reasonable. And, […]
The somehow both long-running and surprisingly quick death of Stadia is now complete. We have been covering Google’s attempt at a video game cloud-streaming service for several years now. Frankly, it’s been a mess from the jump, from a banal launch that was rife with user experience issues, to poor game performance, and a laughably […]
So far, the biggest genius idea from Elon Musk for Twitter was to try to make people pay for blue checks. He keeps insisting that this will somehow solve the “bot/spam” problem, but no one has come up with a credible explanation for how or why. Musk himself has compared it to a spam filter: […]
Thanks to a steady stream of reports of abusive uses of its powerful Pegasus malware, Israel’s NSO Group saw its reputational stock drop precipitously as it became more and more apparent the company didn’t really care who it sold its products to. The list of customers included several notorious human rights abusers and leaked data […]
The 2023 Ultimate XBox Game Developer Bundle will teach you all you need to know about game development using Unreal Engine. Known for its ability to render high-fidelity graphics, Unreal Engine is one of the most popular engines available for creating video games. With its easy-to-use Blueprints Visual Scripting system and overall quality performance, it […]
We’ve already pointed out that the new Twitter under Elon Musk may be facing some big challenges from the FTC in the US. The company is under a consent decree, and it’s not clear that Musk is complying with the terms of the consent decree. And unlike SEC violations, violating an FTC consent decree can […]
Back in 2020, New York City officials unveiled an aggressive plan to revolutionize broadband in the city. The centerpiece of this Internet Master Plan involved building a $156 million open access fiber network that competitors could easily join at low cost, driving some much needed competition — and lower rates, faster speeds, and better coverage […]
In-N-Out is In-N-At it again. In our many posts on the burger chain, we’ve discussed the company’s habit of what I’ll call trademark tourism. In posts that have focused primarily on its trademarks in Australia, we’ve detailed out how In-N-Out will conduct a popup restaurant in these countries that it otherwise has zero brick and […]
Well, well, well. As you may recall, back in 2019 Devin Nunes and his bumbling lawyer Steven Biss sued Esquire magazine and reporter Ryan Lizza because Nunes really did not like this article about Nunes’ parents and their family farm, which is actually in Iowa, rather than California as many people believed. It’s an interesting […]
Plenty of countries have vulnerability disclosure requirements in place. This is supposed to increase the security of all users by requiring notification of affected platforms or software of exploits that may be used by malicious entities. Define “malicious entity” tho. The NSA has never abided by these requirements, despite being the free world leader in […]
I sent this notice around internally here at Techdirt, but figured it might be useful to state this publicly. Historically, Techdirt would often embed tweets using the embed feature from Twitter. This was always somewhat risky for a few reasons, including that people could (and often did) delete tweets. Though Twitter’s embed feature had a […]
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The government of India continues to increase its monitoring of residents’ day-to-day lives. Like pretty much every other country in the world, India relies on the internet to handle communications, data, and multiple services used by residents. The government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has become less democratic and more authoritarian. To keep dissent to […]
Last week yet another study indicated that Apple’s heavily hyped new dedication to privacy was somewhat hollow, with the company’s apps often extensively tracking user behavior despite claims that doesn’t happen. It was the latest in a series of studies showcasing how Apple’s pivot to a privacy-dedicated company is often a bit performative once you […]
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