DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Long-time readers may recall our mention of a vertical Zin sampler offered by Dashe Cellars. On a recent day of some personal importance, we drank the oldest bottle of the trio, a 1996 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. According to the label, the Zin was blended with small (but unspecified) amounts of Carignane and Alicante Bouschet.

This wine is huge. Monstrous berries, with none of the high-alcohol heat that often accompanies Zinfandels. It was perhaps not as balanced as some of our other favorite Zins, but we enjoyed it immensely, and quickly, with 100g of Ritter Sport Halbbitter. Sensational!

January 15, 2001 — Go.com buys the centerfold spread in the Industry Standard, “introducing the new Go.com”, pitching their new “interactive” advertisements called ActivAds.

In a move that was probably designed to appeal to the corporate executives in the Standard’s readership, the ad instructed readers to contact Thomas Hartman, VP/Worldwide Sales — no phone-sales flunkies here, no cube farm of MBA interns in Plantronics headsets… your ad order goes straight to Mahogany Row!

January 29, 2001 — Disney lays off the entire Go.com staff and announces plans to shutter the go.com website.

According to The Industry Standard’s calendar, that insert was placed on December 11, or possibly earlier. So the time between rolling out a hopeful, high-profile new ad campaign, and giving the boot to 400 people, is a measly 49 days.

In this economy, that doesn’t sound too bad; running full-tilt into the wall is in some ways preferable to the alternatives. But it is ironic when the company it happens to boasts that their new ad technology is “as close as you can get to being psychic.” If they were really psychic, they might have been able to predict that betting the company on an online ad-sales business plan, after a 6- or 9-month slide in online advertising rates, wasn’t such a hot idea.

As a somber postscript to this episode, we confirmed (with a quick call to the phone number in the advertisement) that Thomas Hartman, VP/Worldwide Sales, is no longer working at Go.com.

For your anonymous surfing pleasure, here are quick links to opt out of the 3rd-party tracking cookies issued by some of the large banner-ad networks. Some of these links go to an opt-out form, which you must click or submit; others do the opt-out automatically. You may wish to open these in new windows (MacOS users: command-click to do this easily in iCab, IE, Opera, or Navigator).

(Updated 2005-03-22)
MediaPlex

(Updated 2003-10-24)
AtlasDMT, Advertising.com, CoreMetrics (scroll to the bottom), DoubleClick, Enliven, Hitbox,
24/7 Media claims to have an opt-out tool, but instead links to networkadvertising.org, which is an alliance of online advertisers that does not have your best interests in mind. (They claim that Web advertising is critical to the vitality of the Web! Gad.) Further, networkadvertising.org does not have an opt-out for 24/7 tracking cookies. UPDATE (5/30/01) — networkadvertising.org has launched a new site that lists additional opt-outs from its members.

Opting out is an imperfect solution to the threats to your privacy — but it’s the best we have. The alternative, disabling cookies entirely, will prevent you from using some websites, e.g. buy.com, E*Trade, AmeriTrade, MicroWarehouse, CDW, Yahoo Mail or most other services that require you to log in. Some other popular sites can be used when you have cookies disabled, but the site’s functionality is limited (e.g. Amazon, Ebay).

The Supreme Court judges are weighing in on the Microsoft antitrust suit. In a line that sounds scripted by one of Microsoft’s attorneys, Judge A. Raymond Randolph (who has ruled in favor of MSFT in the past) opined that Windows without a browser is like “a clock-radio without the clock.”

Let’s think about that for a minute. On the one hand, you have a clock-radio, which may or may not have a clock. On the other, an x86-based PC running Windows, which may or may not have a web browser.

A clock-radio serves one primary purpose: producing noise at a predetermined time. The noise may be an alarm, or may be broadcast talk, music, or commercials, or smarmy schlock jocks yipping at one another to canned laughter… e.g., the radio. As a secondary purpose, a clock-radio may be used as just a radio, although it’s safe to say very few people would buy a clock-radio if they don’t need its clock-specific functionality. A clock-radio without a clock, we can conclude, is a radio: useful in some contexts, none of which are the ones where a clock-radio with a clock excels. In other words, and to clearly state the point of Randolph’s analogy, a clock-radio without a clock is useless.

In contrast, a personal computer without a web browser — even one running Windows — serves up hundreds of useful functions. I’ll skip the list and assume that you, unlike Judge Randolph, can imagine the utility of a PC minus a web browser. Here is a hint: step back in time about 5 years, to an era when millions of people owned personal computers, and none of them had a web browser.

Now let’s examine the context in which Randolph’s statement was made. Part of the antitrust suit is concerned with MSFT’s bundling of its web browser, Internet Explorer, with its operating system, Windows. The suit isn’t about whether users can have a web browser or not; it’s about Microsoft’s forcing users to have IE even if they don’t want it. Randolph’s analogy implies that unless MSFT bundles IE, Windows users can’t have a web browser at all.

Clearly, this implication is a fantasy, perhaps believed by MSFT’s executives and PR team, but a fantasy nonetheless. Windows users are free and have for years been free to choose from Netscape Navigator, Opera, or any of a variety of browsers that, in some cases, beat IE in features and performance, and match it in price ($0).

So where does all this leave Judge A. Raymond Randolph? Our best guess: on Microsoft’s payroll.

It has recently been discovered that all varieties of the Windows operating system, as well as Outlook and Outlook Express, are a virus!!!! Telltale behavior includes shotgun forwarding of phony virus warnings to the entire address book!!!!

I received two copies of an absurd virus warning this weekend. It’s difficult to tell which is worse, the threat of a destructive virus, or the pileup of warning emails that precedes it. Actually, I know what is worse still: most varieties of the Windows operating system, which in their gross vulnerabilities encourage panic-stricken, distrustful users to spam the entire planet with virus warnings.

I don’t happen to use Windows so I’m immune to 99% of the viruses that these emails warn about. The next challenge: becoming immune to the email pileup.

What was curious about the latest “virus warning” attack is that it references McAfee’s website, presumably to gain the credibility of their anti-virus brand. However, a 30-second visit to mcafee.com indicates that this particular virus (“A Virtual Card For You”) is a hoax. Worse still, this hoax was listed in November of ‘00, meaning it’s been circulating the net for at least three months.

Windows users should bookmark this site: McAfee.com Virus Hoax Listings.

Gene Spafford, author of Practical UNIX & Internet Security, wrote a fascinating article describing why Windows is so vulnerable to viral infection, and suggests ways to reduce its huge vulnerabilities. Even single-machine homes can benefit from this. See also these steps to disable Windows Scripting Host, a primary vector of virus propagation.