Code,Privacy,and Copyright

Code
HTML is the language of websites. For a number of years the W3C has been the  accepted authority on the bits of code and tags that make up what shows up on your screen. As technology has changed,there has been a number of people who think about and are working on coming up with a new version of HTML which includes various hooks to display different types of information.

The point of various ‘standards’is to try to get what is written to show up hopefully the same in the various browsers.  This is a battle that has been going on since the second browser showed up. There is work on a new standard taking place right now. It is not going well. Shelley Powers has a great post on what it means,and the spitballing going on.

A lot of what is creating confusion is not deciding what a tag does,but more in what can be hooked up to it,and what can be extracted from it. Where cases can be made for Sematic tags,RDF Frameworks,common tags for extraction,all of this disconnects the writer from the user,and opens the door for forming technologies that manipulate these various elements in ‘novel’ways.  The problem with machine readable tagging is the garbage in,garbage out,problem. If you can’t get it on the screen in the browser it doesn’t matter what you can do with it.

Privacy
On the privacy front with the aforementioned code lunacy and allowing third party scripting reporting to someone trying to sell you something,collating your viewing and surfing habits,are a number of tools to stop this behavior. Tools like AdBlock Plus can cut down on a significant invasion of your privacy. Highly Recommended!
Adobe and its Macromedia product Flash which runs so many video sites,sets cookies in non standard locations for tracking,and are not easily removed. If you try to block them,sites break. Never mind that Adobe has never respected either your privacy nor your choice in your home. One of the first versions of the Flash Player turned on your webcam and microphone by default,and you had to change it to regain your privacy. Getting rid of Flash cookies is harder,But Wladimir Palant has a trick for doing that.
Getting rid of Flash cookies It is a little complicated,which just points out the lengths that companies and organizations will go to in order to invade your privacy and sell you down the river.

Copyright
Copyright in the US is irretrievably broken. It has moved from a simple limited time monopoly for writers and artists into a gigantic entitlement program for the Industrial Entertainment Complex. Mike Masnick at Tech Dirt has a great writeup on a conference celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Copyright Act of 1909 .
Read the posting.

Significant were the conclusions that International treaties are bullshit. I have long been an advocate of reducing Copyright back to 14 years,and re instituting Registration for Protection. Registration does not have to be a big deal especially in the internet age. Nor does it have to be expensive. Such a registration methodology can eliminate a lot of the present court time being sucked up litigating copyright issues,when a simple online search of the Registration Database can answer these questions.
Copyright is not a welfare program for the entertainment industry.