Archive for February 17th, 2012

And yet, Apple is evil.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

…four advertising companies — Google, Vibrant Media, WPP PLC’s Media Innovation Group and Gannett’s PointRoll — have all been using code to work around privacy features in Safari’s iPhone browser. The search engine giant intended to place a temporary cookie on users’ devices to see if they were logged-in to Google services, but the research found that other cookies were also being placed on devices through the workaround.

Google is removing the cookies. Here’s a direct link to the actual work by Jonathan Mayer. And here’s the WSJ report, which does not appear to be behind a paywall.

Edited to add: LAT:

In the wake of evidence that Google Inc. circumvented privacy protections on the iPhone, federal lawmakers are asking if the company violated the terms of its broad privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

Noted for future reference.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

All that airline stuff reminded me of a story I’d read a long time ago in Reader’s Digest.

I ended spending far more time than I needed to trying to track down that story (in part because I had both the title and the author’s name mangled). So just in case I want to refer to it in the future, and for the benefit of my readers (full-service blogging experience here, people; also, I think Frankie Housley should not be forgotten):

Wikipedia entry for Frankie Housley.

Knoxville “Metro Pulse” article on Frankie Housley (by way of the Wayback Machine).

MacKinlay Kantor’s “A Girl Named Frankie”.

HCDA stuff.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

I missed this last night: the Texas Rangers are asking for a special prosecutor to assist in their investigation of the Harris County District Attorney’s office.

I learned of the HouChron article by way of  The Hon. Murray Newman, who points out this is the fourth special prosecutor appointed to investigate the HCDA’s office since October.

Also, just to make things a little easier, I added a “HCDA” sub-category to the law category, and edited posts appropriately. Now everything I’ve posted (AFAIK) related to the Harris County District Attorney’s office is in one place, for easy review. Just part of the full-service blogging experience here at WCD, no need to thank me.

Burning airlines give you so much more.

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Another topic of conversation at dinner last night: planes. Specifically, airlines.