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    Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

    At Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization we know that knowledge is power. That's the reason we started this SEO blog. We know that the better informed our visitors are, the better the decisions they will make for their websites and their online businesses. We hope you enjoy your stay and find the SEO news contained within this blog useful.


    April 3, 2012

    Freedom and Loathing in Lost Facebook Accounts

    Freedom Online?

    Not if the free-loaders have any say about it, and brother, they will not shut up. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “when you cut the head off the serpent two more shall replace it“.

    SOPA Hydra

    True to form, each head we lop off seems to simply provoke the beast further.

    In this case the latest bill the spring forth from the carnage as a likely candidate for passing (with over 100 co-sponsors) is called the Rogers-Ruppersberger bill, also known as CISPA or HR 3523.

    The HR 3523 bill is so bad that it’s made the ACLU’s comparison chart of ‘Information Legislation’ bills. This PDF is an excellent way to see how each bill will effect information flow and the freedom of on-line communications.

    Yes this is another ‘we must act now’ moments.. If you are growing tired of them then the only recourse is to go for the heart of the beast until it stops sticking it’s heads where they don’t belong.

    Facebook Access for Employers

    Did this actually happen? Has the world really gone nuts?

    According to articles on-line that have been popping up all morning, Kimberly Hester, a teaching aid, has been ‘fired’ for refusing to grant access to a private photo inside her Facebook account.
    Kimberly Hester
    Kimberly Hester (pictured above) was called into the superintendents office to investigate claims that one of her private Facebook photos was inappropriate.

    After three requests for access to her Facebook account that she refused to comply with, the decision was made to ‘presume guilt’ lacking further information, and to her employment was terminated.

    The picture has made it’s way on-line and it’s just a blurry image of a co-workers pants, around her ankles. For all we know the co-worker was wearing a skirt, shorts, etc., and there’s nothing at all ‘wrong’ with the photo in terms of ‘appropriate content’.

    Clearly what we have here is a school superintendent that likes to pay legal fees for trampling the rights of it’s workers?

    Anyone who has read Facebook’s Terms of Service/End User Agreement knows that it’s a CLEAR violation of their policies to allow someone else to knowingly access your account. By asking Kimberly for access, the superintendent is actually risking the loss of Kimberly’s private Facebook account based on the allegation that anyone who has access might see something inappropriate.

    That’s like saying that I had a friend over who saw a private picture on my mantle of what looked like a pair of naked legs in some pants, so they told my boss, and now my boss needs to fire me because I refuse to give him a key to my house so he can come over and look at things?

    And finally, what is going on with the mother that had earned a ‘friendship’ status with Kimberly on Facebook? At what point do you go after someone’s job vs. speaking to them about something like a decent human being?

    Bat Country
    We clearly can’t stop here.. :(

    SEO news blog post by @ 12:58 pm


     

    January 26, 2012

    The Slippery Slopa

    Ever try to catch something slimy only to have it slip away from your best attempts to grasp it? That’s how the intellectual world feels towards SOPA and the various laws that follow in it’s slimy footsteps.
    Slippery sopa snake

    Public protests erupt as Poland signs ACTA

    Yesterday Poland went ahead and signed onto the ACTA agreement joining the nations already signed on and enraging it’s public in the process. The internet is cheering on activists who took to the street in mass protests of the signing.

    Over 9000 protesters meet in the streets of Kraków to have their voices heard!”

    Hopefully this strong public reaction will be a very clear message to other political powers debating on how bad the public backlash will be over signing such ‘internet endangering’ agreements.

    As if ACTA wasn’t bad enough?

    Over in Ireland they are showing respect for the people by slipping in a bit of legislation called the “S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011″, which will pass via ministerial order which does not involve a public vote.

    Is it the sort of addendum that doesn’t merit input from the public?

    Well Irish legal expert Tim McIntyre had the following comment on the new regulations:

    “At a minimum this will probably allow courts to require ISPs to block access to alleged infringing sites (such as the Pirate Bay). Over and above that it becomes impossible to say — the language is so vague it might, for example, allow a court to require an ISP to introduce a three strikes system or to block certain ports. However, once copyright plaintiffs get hold of this power you can expect it to be pushed to its absolute limit.”

    There’s still time!?

    While the USA, Canada, and Mexico are already signed onto ACTA, there’s no reason why the public can’t organize an opposition to the decision and work to either get the agreement amended or have support withdrawn one country at a time. The only roadblock is getting folks to agree on a meaningful reaction that everyone can rally behind. So far the most centralized effort I’ve come across is the SOPA subreddit which has plenty of discussions on ACTA and PIPA as well.

    SEO news blog post by @ 11:50 am

    Categories: Internet Law,Technology,web hosting
    Tags: , ,

     

    January 19, 2012

    Leftover SOPA scum

    Congrats to everyone that participated in the SOPA/PIPA Jan 18th blackout, even if all you did was sit on Twitter and complain(some strong language was used), you did something to bring the topic into the foreground.

    The internet is unified

    Yesterday’s on-line unity was a clear message to the political parties backing these bills. Last I checked the opposition to PIPA was only 6 senators away from the required 41 “no” votes needed to keep PIPA stuck in the Senate for good. While I haven’t seen a public list of senator opposition to SOPA, it too needs 41 “no” votes to end the future of the bill.

    While this sounds great, it really just means that the entertainment industry, and fans of public censorship, now have to try even harder to keep their efforts out of the public eye. Make no mistake, there are people, wealthy and misguided, that will keep trying to find a way to sneak this sort of law through. Don’t think that’s a fair/optimistic assessment of the situation, well here’s the flip side (Very strong language/opinion warning) from Mr.Maddox.

    Just last night I was trying to get some programming done while watching a bunch of movies I’ve been backlogged on. One of the movies in the stack was ‘Kick-Ass‘ and I won’t spoil a decent film for you with too much info, but there’s a scene where they are streaming a web broadcast live on the news. As the live stream becomes ‘too violent’ for television the audience quickly switches to the web to watch the rest of the live stream on-line.

    While most folks watching the film were probably totally distracted by the context of the scene, I was immediately thinking about all the conservative types watching this unfold and thinking to themselves:

    ‘This should never be possible, we should have the ability to censor a live stream that is so disturbing! If it can’t be shown on TV it shouldn’t be viewable on the Internet! Just think of all the things the internet could broadcast un-censored! We need something like this SOPA/PIPA thing we can abuse!’

    I’m not sure if the big players in Hollywood actually intended that sort of reaction to the scene, I’m not saying the film is a brain-wash attempt by the industry, but the thought did cross my very ‘open’ mind, so it stands to reason I wouldn’t be the only one.

    In fact if you haven’t looked at ACTA, you might want to check it out. This is a more international version of PIPA/SOPA with the same issues surrounding loose definitions and loopholes that could be exploited while doing little to actually stop piracy. ACTA has been bouncing around since 2006 with a bunch of countries already signed on to the current version.

    The closure date for signing onto ACTA isn’t until 2013 but it looks like there may be some difficulties getting all signing countries to agree on a final version (yay for diversity!). A notably large issue of ACTA, especially in the eyes of the EFF, is that it has been drafted in secret, hidden from public eyes by participating governments around the world. So if you haven’t poked your nose into it, you really should.

    Speaking of closure, I think Chia Bart’s pretty much grown all that he will and I’m cheating now to try and get the top of his head to sprout.

    Chia Bart # 6 - Looking leafyLeaf me alone! The kid is not my sun!

    SEO news blog post by @ 12:25 pm


     

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