Judge Rules Colorado Sales Tax Reporting Scheme Unconstitutional

Politicians the world around spend their time scheming ways to separate their constituents from their money.

Anyone involved in online marketing we should be aware that states cannot force an online merchant to collect sales tax unless the merchant has a physical presence within the state. Of course, the states are very upset because the residents still have a bit of money in their pockets and the politicians hadn’t been able to get their hands on it.

Colorado came up with a new scheme. The state has a use tax and wanted the online merchant to report the purchases to the state, thereby helping the state chase down the miscreant citizens. But, a Federal Judge ruled that the Colorado law was unconstitutional.

Colorado’s reporting law “imposes a differential burden on out-of-state retailers because the different burden is imposed precisely because the retailer is an out-of-state retailer” who is exempted by the Supreme Court from paying sales tax in Colorado, Blackburn wrote. “Only a change in the law by the Supreme Court or action by Congress can change the situation” and allow states to reach out-of-state retailers, he concluded.

Read more: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/judge-spares-amazon-from-colorado-sales-tax-reporting-scheme.ars?clicked=related_right

Employers Ask for FaceBook Password in Job Interviews

You’ve probably heard of the stories where job applicants were asked to give up their FaceBook password. Now, even Congress is investigating the practice and we even have this from Facebook itself. I suspect the practice will be very short lived. I sincerely hope so.

Read more: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-and-privacy/protecting-your-passwords-and-your-privacy/326598317390057

ATT Knows How T Anger Its Customers

The ATT business model must be based on the concept of over promise and under deliver.

ATT has an “unlimited” data plan for its customers but warns them that it’s unlimited only until they reach their limit.

When ATT customers on the “unlimited” data plan use too much data they suddenly find their download speeds slow to a crawl.

The new rates apply to about 17 million customers, mainly those that download a lot of videos or music. As you can well expect, the customers are not happy.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203986604577255532947217336.html?mod=rss_Technology&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_med
ium=twitter

and: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57389039-94/guess-whod-like-to-throttle-at-t-now/?tag=mncol;topStories

Look Out FaceBook. Here Comes Pinterest

Motley Fool thinks Pinterest could knock FaceBook off its perch.

When a better technology comes along, there is little cost for a consumer to switch – as they did, for example, from Yahoo! to Google around 2003. While Google+ was seen as the biggest threat to Facebook because of Google’s size and built-in user base, Pinterest demonstrates that a small player might be what Facebook should fear instead.

They don’t like Facebook as an investment.
Read more: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/03/02/why-one-website-kills-facebooks-future.aspx

Google to Allow Do Not Track Button in Browser

Google Inc. will allow a “do-not- track” button to be embedded in its Web browser, letting users restrict the amount of data that can be collected about them.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-23/google-agrees-to-allow-do-not-track-button-in-browser.html

Beware of ATT Unlimited Data Plan

Think how nice it is to have an unlimited cellular data plan. All the major carriers have such a plan. But the ATT unlimited data plan works well – until you use it.

Once ATT decides you have become one of the heaviest users, i.e. the top 5% of data users, ATT will throttle their speed by as much as 99%. It would make the smart phone essentially useless.

ATT wants to push users toward using WIFI instead of cellular.

It must mean that ATT is adopting that old business maxim, “over promise. under deliver.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_ATT_DATA_SLOWDOWN?SITE=NYPLA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The Most Hated Companies in America

This one surprised me. I never would have expected Facebook to be among the most hated companies. A few others surprised me too.

Check it out: http://247wallst.com/2012/01/13/the-10-most-hated-companies-in-america/

Canadian Enters US Using iPad

A Canadian man who forgot his passport managed to enter the US using a scanned copy of the passport on his iPad.

Martin Reisch said Tuesday a slightly annoyed U.S. border officer let him cross into the United States from Quebec after he presented a scanned copy of his passport on his Apple iPad. Reisch was a half hour from the border when he decided to try to gain entry rather than turn back and make a two-hour trek back home to Montreal to fetch his passport.

Read more: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/canadian-man-uses-ipad-to-enter-us-20120105-1plji.html

Is Facebook Killing Google?

There have been a lot of predictions that Facebook would kill Google. This Businessinsider article says that it may happen some day, but as of today, it’s not even close.

To get a quick reality check on whether Facebook is killing Google, all you need to do is glance at these two numbers:
$40 Billion
$4 Billion
What are those two numbers?
Those are the approximate revenue numbers for 2011 for Google and Facebook respectively.
Google’s 2011 revenue will be about $40 billion, Facebook’s will be about $4 billion. Google, in other words, is 10-times Facebook’s size.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/like-hell-facebook-is-killing-google-2011-12#ixzz1i8ZY3UXf

iPads and Orangutans

Just wait until Ed hears about this.

The orangutan iPad program, known as Apps for Apes, was started after the gorilla keeper at the zoo mentioned on her Facebook page that she’d like to get some iPads for her gorillas to play with, Rafert explained. It was kind of a joke, but a zoo volunteer took it seriously and donated a used iPad to the zoo. It turned out that the gorillas didn’t really enjoy the iPad – “they are more stoic,” said Rafert – but the orangutans went wild.

Maybe the gorillas preferred Android tablets.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/tablets/orangutans-go-ape-for-ipads-20111230-1petg.html#ixzz1i8OfRVle