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Daily Deal: The Complete 2022 Microsoft Office Master Class Bundle

2 years 5 months ago
The Complete 2022 Microsoft Office Master Class Bundle has 14 courses to help you learn all you need to know about MS Office products to help boost your productivity. Courses cover SharePoint, Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Teams, and more. The bundle is on sale for $75. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. […]
Gretchen Heckmann

How Do You Sue A DAO?

2 years 5 months ago
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are one of the most fascinating things to emerge from the crypto space. While everyone was going crazy over NFTs, almost all of the more interesting things were happening in the DAO space. DAOs are something of an experiment in being able to form new kinds of organizations quickly in non-traditional […]
Mike Masnick

Some Good News: Planet Aid Agrees To Pay $1.9 Million To Settle Its SLAPP Suit Against Reveal News

2 years 5 months ago
Once again, we need good anti-SLAPP laws in every state and a strong federal anti-SLAPP law. It’s the best defense against vexatious, censorial lawsuits. Reveal News from the Center for Investigative Reporting does some really good reporting, with a focus on big, important issues. Reveal wrote a series of articles about the non-profit Planet Aid. […]
Mike Masnick

Daily Deal: Apple A1535 Magic Trackpad 2

2 years 5 months ago
The all-new Magic Trackpad 2 is a faster, more responsive trackpad for your Mac. The built-in battery and four force sensors underneath the trackpad surface allow you to click anywhere, and detect subtle differences in the amount of pressure you apply, bringing increased functionality to your fingertips. Magic Trackpad 2 also features an edge-to-edge glass […]
Gretchen Heckmann

UK Immigration Officials Get ICE-y; Scrape Phone Data To Ring Up An Immigrant For Working Too Many Hours

2 years 5 months ago
We’ve all seen how immigration agencies (but especially ICE) shifted away from enforcement that mattered (removing the worst of worst) to engaging in nothing more than as much removal as possible under Trump. There’s a new Commander-in-Chief in town, but that doesn’t mean ICE is just going to stop being routinely terrible. But this isn’t […]
Tim Cushing

Semafor Joins A Very Broken US Media Industry Claiming To Have Found The Cure For Eroded Trust In News. But Have They Really?

2 years 5 months ago
Former New York Times reporter Ben Smith and friends have launched a new media company named Semafor on the back of $25 million in donations. You might recall that one of the organization’s launch events didn’t go particularly well: a “trust in news” event that somehow didn’t see the problem with platforming and amplifying millionaire propagandist Tucker Carlson […]
Karl Bode

Copyright Absurdity Rules Over Amazon’s ‘The Rings Of Power’

2 years 5 months ago
J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” is one of the best-known and best-loved modern works of literature, not least thanks to Peter Jackson’s films based on the cycle. Given that popularity, it’s no surprise that there was interest in creating adaptations of other Tolkien works. The result is “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings […]
Mike Masnick

Louisville Cop Used Law Enforcement Database To Seek Female Targets To Hack For Sexually Explicit Content

2 years 5 months ago
Law enforcement officers have plenty of unfettered access to expansive databases containing plenty of personal information. This access is instrumental to law enforcement work, including ongoing investigations, attempts to locate wanted criminals, and the routine minutia of validating drivers licenses and registration. The problem is there’s so little oversight of officers’ use of these databases. […]
Tim Cushing

After All That Nonsense… Republicans Aren’t Even Using The Spam Backdoor They Forced Google To Create

2 years 5 months ago
Do you remember all the nonsense from earlier this year, in which executives from the Republicans’ favorite spamming operation misread a study about how various email providers handled political mailings and absolutely flipped out? The study didn’t say what they claimed it said: that Google was nefariously sending GOP emails to spam filters. It showed […]
Mike Masnick

The Word ‘Emoji’ Is A Protectable Trademark?

2 years 5 months ago
Emoji Co. GmbH has registered trademarks in the dictionary word “Emoji.” They mostly are a licensing organization, and their registrations are in a wide range of classes: “from articles of clothing and snacks to ‘orthopaedic foot cushions’ and ‘[p]atient safety restraints.’” (Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen Emojico-branded patient safety restraints). Indeed, the court […]
Mike Masnick

Chinese City Decides LARPers Are Next In Line For Government Censorship

2 years 5 months ago
The Chinese government is being weird again. Most of this weirdness springs naturally(?) from its desire to suppress dissent and control the narrative. That desire sometimes leads to bizarre outcomes, like the brief banning of the letter “N” on social media platform Weibo. The government’s concerns were related to online displeasure with Xi Jinping’s moves […]
Tim Cushing

Daily Deal: Apple Magic Mouse

2 years 5 months ago
Magic Mouse is wireless and rechargeable, with an optimized foot design that lets it glide smoothly across your desk. The Multi-Touch surface allows you to perform simple gestures such as swiping between web pages and scrolling through documents. The rechargeable battery will power your Magic Mouse for about a month or more between charges. It’s […]
Gretchen Heckmann

Ye’s ‘Buyout’ Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy

2 years 6 months ago
Ye, formerly Kanye West, has had quite a week or so. He got locked out of both his Instagram and Twitter accounts for posting anti-semitic nonsense. Immediately following that, he went on the Drink Champs podcast/video show and spouted even more such nonsense. He’s continuing to spew similar nonsense in other interviews as well. Indeed, […]
Mike Masnick

AT&T Hit With $23 Million Fine For Bribing Illinois Lawmaker

2 years 6 months ago
In just the last decade or so AT&T has been fined $18.6 million for helping rip off programs for the hearing impaired; fined $10.4 million for ripping off a program for low-income families; fined $105 million for helping “crammers” rip off their customers; fined $60 million for lying to customers about the definition of “unlimited” data; and accused of ripping off U.S. […]
Karl Bode

DC Taxpayers Are Spending Millions To Rehire Bad Cops

2 years 6 months ago
Late last year, a trove of records was obtained by transparency activists Distributed Denial of Secret (DDoS). Those records showed what the Washington DC Metro PD hoped to hide: that the internal disciplinary process was apparently irreparably broken. The joint report by DCist and The Reveal made sense of the DDoS-liberated data. What it showed […]
Tim Cushing

U.S. Utilities Are Poised To Disrupt Telecom Monopolies Thanks To Biden COVID Relief & Infrastructure Bills

2 years 6 months ago
As noted previously, I’ve got some mixed feelings on the Biden COVID relief and infrastructure bills’ plan to throw more than $50 billion dollars at U.S. broadband. Mostly because we still haven’t mapped U.S. broadband properly (meaning we don’t know where money should be prioritized), and the U.S. has a rich history of failing to […]
Karl Bode