Techmeme: Ad-supported web led to targeting and surveillance as a default; let's try again, with fees for service (Ethan Zuckerman/The Atlantic Online)

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August 17, 2014, 4:30 AM

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Ethan Zuckerman / The Atlantic Online:

Ad-supported web led to targeting and surveillance as a default; let's try again, with fees for service — The Internet's Original Sin — Ron Carlson's short story “What We Wanted To Do” takes the form of an apology from a villager who failed to protect his comrades from marauding Visigoths.

More: BuzzMachine, Forbes, SlashGear, Digital Trends, CNET, BGR, Engadget, MacDailyNews, Gizmodo, The Verge, NEWS.com.au, Gizmodo UK, RT, TechSpot, Tech Times, Business Insider, Joho the Blog, The Register and Yahoo Tech

Tweets: @adriennelaf, @csoghoian, @jayrosen_nyu, @evgenymorozov, @anildash, @zeynep, @niemanlab, @ftrain, @pinboard, @ashk4n and @ashk4n

Thanks:@nethistorypod

Jeff Minich / Business Insider:

Ex-employee defends Yahoo: Mayer is ignoring legacy ad business to focus on potential growth — A Former Yahoo Employee Defends Marissa Mayer From Her Biggest Critic — Eric Jackson has had a lot to say about Marissa Mayer and Yahoo lately. He's a smart guy, I read his column and think he's generally an astute investor.

Tweets: @jaudrius, @kimbatronic, @anildash and @karaswisher

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

Investor Eric Jackson pesters Yahoo and its CEO, hoping to attract activist investor or buyer — A Yahoo Fanboy Turns Critic: “I Am Committed to Remaining a Pest” — What exactly is investor and Forbes columnist Eric Jackson up to with his now month-old blog attack on Yahoo and, most pointedly, its CEO, Marissa Mayer?

Emily Steel / New York Times:

After first original TV series fall flat, Amazon leans away from data-driven creative approach — For Its New Shows, Amazon Adds Art to Its Data — LOS ANGELES — Joe Lewis, a television executive at Amazon, lies on his stomach on a rumpled bed. Jill Soloway, the Emmy-nominated writer and director …

Tweets: @carr2n, @ronmwangaguhung and @emilysteel

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:

Chrome drops Microsoft's “Pointer Events” touch input spec in favor of Apple's “Touch Events” — Google to drop Microsoft-designed touch Web spec, stick with Apple tech — Developers on the Blink browser engine, the core component that powers both Google's Chrome browser …

Heise:

GCHQ's “HACIENDA” program completed full port scans targeting 27 countries — NSA/GCHQ: The HACIENDA Program for Internet Colonization — Translations of this article are available in German, French, Italian and Spanish. — Since the early days of TCP …

More: The Hacker News, IETF Datatracker, Engadget, tum.de, Gigaom, PC World and The Register

Tweets: @matthew_d_green, @kashhill, @fredericjacobs, @ashk4n, @cyberwar and @ioerror

Rémi Rousseau / Medium:

Surgeon uses synchronized GoPros to record surgery, Oculus Rift to play it back for students — Virtual surgery gets real — What the Oculus Rift could mean for the future of medecine — Technological innovation takes time : virtual reality has been a thing in the medical field …

More: SlashGear, Mashable and Road to Virtual Reality. Tweets: @levie

Selena Larson / ReadWrite:

Medium adds public follower and following lists to profile pages, catching users off guard — In Exposing Followers, Medium Fails Readers — If Medium wants to turn itself into a respectable publisher, it probably shouldn't behave like a social network.

More: Medium. Tweets: @counternotions. See also Mediagazer

Cat Zakrzewski / TechCrunch:

Uber To Test Moving Services In Atlanta, Nashville — Earlier this summer, we saw Uber experiment with UberRUSH, a courier service in New York City. The car service seems to be testing the waters for another service, announcing it will move Atlanta college students and Nashville residents this weekend.

More: Uber Blog, Uber Blog, Nooga.com, Nashville Public Radio and TechRadar.com

Greg Finn / Search Engine Land:

Farewell ‘Pure’ Exact Match, AdWords Will Soon Require All Campaigns To Use Close Variants — Today Google has announced that in late September, AdWords advertisers will no longer have the ability to de-select close variants. All campaigns will now include these variants, something that advertisers could previously opt out of.

More: Inside AdWords, WordStream, Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Watch, SEO Book, Marketing Land, WebProNews, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch and State of Digital

Lora Kolodny / Wall Street Journal:

Club Penguin founder Lane Merrifeld raises $4.3M for education software company FreshGrade — FreshGrade Raises $4.3M to Connect Teachers, Students and Parents … Club Penguin founder Lane Merrifeld sold his kid-safe, massively multiplayer online gaming community to Walt Disney Co. in 2007 in what amounted to a $350 million deal.

More: VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, Re/code, EdSurge, Techvibes Global News and PR Newswire

Barton Gellman / Washington Post:

Spyware tools allow buyers to slip malicious code into YouTube videos, Microsoft pages — CloudShield Technologies, a California defense contractor, dispatched a senior engineer to Munich in the early fall of 2009. His instructions were unusually opaque. — As he boarded the flight …

More: The Intercept, The Citizen Lab, Digital Trends, The Verge, The Register and Gizmodo

Tweets: @dangillmor, @csoghoian, @csoghoian, @anonyops, @thomas_drake1, @youranonnews, @ciphersuite, @evacide, @dangoodin001, @kaepora, @ashk4n and @csoghoian

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