GoDaddy lost 72,354 domains this week. It's not enough.

Despite a massive Twitter campaign and a blog post that claims “Go Daddy no longer supports SOPA legislation” the company and their CEO have dodged questions about opposing the bill. In essence, they are taking a lesser role by not showing support for the bill. They have not opposed it.

This week, they lost around 72,000 domain registrations. At a yearly discounted rate of $6.99 (most registrations are higher), that’s over half a million dollars per year. It is apparently not enough for them to speak out against the bill.

How many domains is the company willing to lose before they oppose this abomination of legislation? Do they believe that when they “step back and let others take leadership roles” that we are going to see it as something other than a “duck and cover” public relations move to try to get out of the spotlight and hope someone else takes the brunt of the attacks while they quietly support the bill?

Is 72,354 domains enough? Not even close. It’s a drop in the bucket. The have anywhere from 15,000 to 40,000 domains added daily. Despite cries from the internet, yesterday was a good day with over 32,000 added. Go Daddy has not felt much pain yet. The “PR nightmare” that many of us in the tech industry perceive is happening to them hasn’t hit their pocketbooks in any real form, yet.

Until the effect is more pronounced, they can afford to deflect questions and let the negative PR pass. More must be done.

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/vhELw7

Microsoft bails from CES tech trade show after '12

Will also end its 14-year run of keynotes with Ballmer's Jan. 9 turn

By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld

December 21, 2011 04:35 PM ET

Microsoft today announced that next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will its last as an exhibitor.

"We have decided that this coming January will be our last keynote presentation and booth at CES," said Frank Shaw, the head of Microsoft's corporate communications, in a blog post Wednesday.

As Shaw noted, January's CES will also be the last time that a Microsoft executive gives the gigantic trade show's opening keynote. Former CEO and current chairman Bill Gates delivered his first keynote in 1994 and ended with the 2008 CES. Current chief executive Steve Ballmer, who has taken the stage the last two years, will do so for the final time Monday night, Jan. 9.

"We won't have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don't align with the show's January timing," said Shaw.

Microsoft decided to downsize its role at CES, Shaw also said, because the company was "look[ing] at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories," Among those new avenues, Shaw cited Microsoft's home-grown events, website, and the retail stores it's launched in more than a dozen locations, as well as social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

"It feels like the right time to make this transition," Shaw said.

The show sponsor, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), echoed Shaw in its own statement today.

"Both CEA and Microsoft have agreed that the time has some to end this great run [of 14 keynotes]," a spokeswoman said.

CEA also confirmed that Microsoft will not seek booth space for 2013 in the Central Hall, where it's had a massive presence for years.

Microsoft's move is reminiscent of Apple's decision in late 2008 to end its active participation -- which also included booth space and the delivery of the keynote address -- after the January 2009 Macworld Conference & Expo.

Shaw's list of alternative ways to communicate Microsoft's product messaging was similar to the ones given by Apple's head of marketing Philip Schiller three years ago. At the time, Schiller said Apple was "reaching more people in more ways than ever before" and that "trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers."

Like Shaw, Schiller also pointed to Apple's retail stores and its own website as alternatives to trade shows.

"This is all part of the very long decline of the various technology trade shows," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "A trade show like CES is a very difficult and expensive selling environment, and although they may be a good way to connect with small retailers, the very largest technology companies don't have to sell that way."

Gottheil saw parallels between Apple's and Microsoft's decision to pull out of major trade shows like Macworld and CES.

"Microsoft isn't simply copying Apple, but like Apple, they have the kinds of products and the kinds of messaging where you want to get across something deep and complex, and you want to get this across without distractions of other products," said Gottheil.

Microsoft has stepped up the number of self-made events it has hosted this year, and like Apple, has shifted to invitation-only product launches or meetings with media and developers.

Last month, for example, Microsoft used a such a meeting to unveil more details about its upcoming online Windows Store -- its version of Apple's Mac App Store -- and to announce the late-February availability of Windows 8's beta.

The latter was a departure for Microsoft.

In early 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the availability of Windows 7's beta during his CES keynote.

The CEA declined to answer questions about how Microsoft's future absence will affect the trade show.

The association's spokeswoman, however, did note that it had already heard from companies on its waiting list which wanted to discuss taking up the exhibit space slack.

Microsoft has used CES to introduce major products -- such as the Xbox in 2001 -- the show has been the scene of some infamous gaffes, including the "Blue Screen of Death" that popped up on a Windows PC during Gates' 2005 keynote.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer , or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com .

Read this article here:  http://bit.ly/t5z5p1

Apple wins limited ruling in important Android patent suit

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt  December 19, 2011: 5:46 PM ET

Not the knockout blow Steve Jobs sought; Google has until April to find a workaround

Apple (AAPL) has won a partial victory in an intellectual property case that Steve Jobs had famously vowed to fight to his "last dying breath."

The U.S. International Trade commission ruled Monday that the software in some of HTC's Android smartphones violated one provision of an Apple patent and that those phones would no longer be allowed into the U.S.

But the ruling is not as broad as Apple had hoped, and the import ban doesn't take effect until April, giving HTC -- and Google (GOOG), whose software the phones were running -- time to fashion a workaround.

The announcement was made after the close of markets:

"Notice is hereby given that the U.S. International Trade Commission has found a violation of section 337 in this investigation and has issued a limited exclusion order prohibiting importation of infringing personal data and mobile communications devices and related software. The Commission has determined that exclusion of articles subject to this order shall commence on April 19, 2012." (Via AllThingsD)

According to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, who has been closely following the case, the ruling is not the knockout punch Apple had been seeking. 

What Apple has won is a formal import ban scheduled to commence on April 19, 2012, but relating only to HTC Android phones implementing one of two claims of a "data tapping patent": a patent on an invention that marks up phone numbers and other types of formatted data in an unstructured document, such as an email, in order to enable users to bring up other programs (such as a dialer app) that process such data. The import ban won't relate to HTC Android products that don't implement that feature, or that implement it in ways not covered by those patent claims.

If Google can implement this popular feature, which users of modern-day smartphones really expect, without infringing on the two patent claims found infringed, this import ban won't have any effect whatsoever.

UPDATE: ISI's Brian Marshall offered several "quick thoughts" on the ruling, among them:

HTC (#2 Android smartphone vendor after Samsung) has low-20% share of the U.S. smartphone market and has shipped ~44 million units globally over the last 4 quarters (vs. AAPL's ~72 million iPhone shipments)

We believe this ruling lends credence to AAPL's view that Android-based phones have infringed on AAPL's intellectual property (IP) and could lead to a stronger position for AAPL in its other cases against Android vendors (e.g., Samsung, Motorola Mobility/GOOG, etc.)

With ~$80 billion in net cash, we believe AAPL is not interested in a financial settlement with HTC or other Android vendors but wants to stop the shipment/sale of products that infringe on their vast IP portfolio

Read the story here: http://bit.ly/tFTpIA

DeMaura and Segal: All Candidates Should Be Concerned About SOPA

By Stephen DeMaura and David Segal

Special to Roll Call

During the waning days of the 2008 presidential race, there was an important but overlooked occurrence on the John McCain campaign. In mid-October, the McCain campaign awoke to find that its Web videos and online advertisements were disappearing from its YouTube page.

The culprit turned out to be a major television network claiming they owned portions of the videos and that posting the clips was a violation of copyright law. Even though the campaign, and many others in the online community, believed the content to be privileged under the "Fair Use Doctrine," the videos were pulled down.

Fast-forward more than three years, and a new piece of legislation is making its way through Congress that would make it easier for online campaign content and websites to be taken down. Even more concerning, if passed, this bill would allow opposing campaigns or campaign committees - not just the original content provider - to pull down websites harboring "infringing content."

The legislation that campaigns across the country should be concerned about is the Stop Online Piracy Act. The overarching goal of SOPA is a good one:  Take aggressive steps to curb online copyright infringement. The problem is that the bill would create heavy-handed regulations that would blacklist legitimate websites without adequately addressing online piracy.

Here's a plausible campaign scenario under SOPA. Imagine you are running for Congress in a competitive House district. You give a strong interview to a local morning news show and your campaign posts the clip on your website.

When your opponent's campaign sees the video, it decides to play hardball and sends a notice to your Internet service provider alerting them to what it deems "infringing content." It doesn't matter if the content is actually pirated. The ISP has five days to pull down your website and the offending clip or be sued. If you don't take the video down, even if you believe that the content is protected under fair use, your website goes dark.

The ability of any entity to file an infringement notice is one of SOPA's biggest problems. It creates an unprecedented "private right of action" that would allow a private party, without any involvement by a court, to effectively shut down a website. For a campaign, this would mean shouldering legal responsibility for all user-generated posts. As more issue-based and political campaigns utilize social media to spread their message and engage supporters, a site could be targeted not only for the campaign's own posts but also for well-meaning comments from supporters.

Another damaging aspect of SOPA is the increased liability the bill would place on ISPs and search engines. SOPA effectively guts the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbors - one of the big reasons companies such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter weren't crushed in their early days by harassing lawsuits. Without these safe harbors, the risk of frivolous lawsuits greatly increases, which makes it more expensive for startups to get off the ground and decreases the chances of investment and future job growth.

The good news is that there is an alternative to SOPA, recently introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), which would effectively stop online piracy without harming legitimate U.S. businesses and campaigns. The Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act would create a process for rights holders to protect their property that wouldn't shut down entire sites over a small amount of copyrighted material. This legislation helps to solve copyright infringement while protecting the vitality of the U.S.-based Internet sector - an industry that has contributed 23 percent of the growth in world gross domestic product and has revolutionized the way we live.

By creating legislation that allows sites to be shut down at will, with limited recourse available to the sites' owners, SOPA greatly threatens the democratizing tool the Internet has become. With the Internet playing an ever increasing role in the political process, the powers the bill creates could be greatly abused by those wishing to silence their opponents.

Political campaigns and anyone interested in an open political process should be greatly concerned about the regulations SOPA creates and the freedoms it restricts. Online piracy needs to be stopped, but not at the expense of creating a legal wasteland that could restrict the vital flow of candidate and campaign information on the Internet.

Stephen DeMaura is the former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party and the current president of Americans for Job Security.

David Segal is executive director of Demand Progress, a former Rhode Island state Representative and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in 2010.

Read the article: http://bit.ly/sNRfRw

Oops: Two-month payroll-tax holiday would be a logistical nightmare, say experts

POSTED BY ALLAHPUNDIT

   

Righties on Twitter are crowing that this means Reid's bill is DOA, but I'm not so sure. Don't forget, The One has been known to stand behind programs that even his own cabinet says are surefire disasters in the making. If he and Reid let little things like unworkable math or Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmares stop them from passing legislation, we wouldn't have ObamaCare, now would we?

Pete Isberg, president of the [nonprofit National Payroll Reporting Consortium] today wrote to the key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate, telling them that "insufficient lead time" to implement the complicated change mandated by the legislation means the two-month payroll tax holiday "could create substantial problems, confusion and costs affecting a significant percentage of U.S. employers and employees.".

The two-month payroll tax holiday, which the president has said should be extended throughout 2012, will mean that wages would face a Social Security tax of 4.2 percent during January and February, but it would increase to 6.2 percent in March.

Isberg wrote that "many payroll systems are not likely to be able to make such a substantial programming change before January or even February. The systems affected tend to be highly complex, normally requiring at least ninety days for a change of this magnitude for software testing alone; not to mention analysis, design, coding and implementation."

That's not the only group that says two months is too short. The National Association of Wholesale-Distributors wrote to Congress today to second the conclusions of the NPRC, so in case there was any lingering doubt about how tonight's House vote will go, this should eliminate it. The only mystery now is how partisan the roll will be. Will House Democrats stick with Reid by endorsing a policy that would cause chaos to payrolls across the country or will they bail too, backing Reid into a corner? And what happens now to Senate Republicans like Scott Brown who have been grumbling that Boehner's reversal on the two-month extension is "irresponsible and wrong"? Do they cave under the weight of the NPRC verdict or press on for another dumb, lazy stopgap measure? Only one thing is certain: If not for one last round of congressional histrionics and floor drama, there'd be nothing to blog about this week at all.

Read the posting here: http://bit.ly/uEIh2M