Molly Rants

The mountain of damning evidence is incontrovertible: Apple's iPhone 4 antenna design is flawed. Consumer Reports is only the latest publication to complete a battery of testing and declare what other reviewers have discovered as well: holding the phone a certain way causes repeatable reception problems that, in weaker signal areas, can lead to dropped calls.

Those lucky folks who live in areas with rock-solid AT&T reception likely won't run into the problem. Those less fortunate can reproduce it virtually at will. Here at CNET, Kent German demonstrated in video how dramatically a hand over the bottom left corner of the phone can affect signal quality--in his first test, his voice drops off completely when he's got the phone in the "death grip."

Everyone's testing. Engadget gets the same results; Anandtech stripped the phone to its guts and found that, "(t)he fact of the matter is that cupping the bottom left corner and making skin contact between the two antennas does result in a measurable difference in cellular reception." Lefties: you're out of luck. One researcher found that oven gloves seem a safe way to hold the thing. And so on and so forth. One Ph.D. in wireless network planning, Richard Gaywood, confirmed the antenna design flaw and said "(t)he best scenario is for Apple to coat the antenna and replace all existing phones with a revised model."

I agree.

But as you know, Apple's response has been less than consumer-friendly. As we know, there's the infamous, "don't hold it that way" advice. The same statement told users to simply purchase one of many available cases, including one Apple sells.

Next up, the company unveiled a "stunning" software problem that over-inflated signal quality...but shortly thereafter, AppleCare started advising customers that any forthcoming software fixes wouldn't fix the hardware-based antenna problem. And of course, the official customer service script, if this leak is to be believed, advises tech support to tell customers that, in fact, the antenna is awesome, but even so, don't hold it that way, maybe buy a case, and no, AppleCare is not to give out a free case, offer any kind of warranty repair, or deal with the problem in any satisfactory manner at all.

Oh, and now Apple is deleting mentions of the Consumer Report findings on its support forums, as it's wont to do when problems crop up that it doesn't want to acknowledge.

Now, I know Apple's selling new iPhones like Rocket Pops on the Fourth of July, but this is the kind of issue that's melting into the mainstream, fast, and it's going to leave a stain. When Consumer Reports starts advising mainstream consumer electronics customers against buying your product, you've got a problem, and it's time to address it.

Apple has responded with arrogance and dismissal to the fact that it's shipping a flawed product. And that arrogance and dismissal comes at a time when Android market share is growing up and to the right, self-proclaimed Mac freaks are turning to other platforms, and journalists are daring to write about a geek backlash against the iPhone. Well, if geeks are the canaries in the coal mine, Apple would do well to start counting carcasses. And as Consumer Reports goes, so goes much of America.

Apple should recall the iPhone 4 and start disseminating new phones with properly coated antennas--and I'm not talking duct tape or neon-colored rubber bands. A recall would give Apple major goodwill and prove its commitment to the impeccable quality and design principles it's always espoused. Yes, it would be expensive and unprecedented. But wow, would it win back some flagging hearts and minds. I know Apple's not used to having to work for the love of its consumers, but now might be a good time to start.

It looks like Apple's iPad will be the slate-market winner by default. Or rather, by forfeit. Remember back in January, when CES 2010 was all slate tablets, all the time? Now, it's June, and for the most part, the iPad stands unopposed in the tablet space. What happened?

Several launches are planned for fall and winter 2010, but the iPad, on track to sell 16 million units, according to some, will be the iPod of tablets by then. If anything, iPad 2G will have been announced and everyone will be queuing up for the version with the camera on the front. Heck, I'm even considering rebuying the darned thing because I want the battery life and movie-viewing for traveling, and I'm sick of waiting for the Android-tablet hordes to get their collective act together.

It's not as if, skeptics like myself notwithstanding, there isn't a market for tablets. Now that I've had a taste of its instant-on, always-connected, and stupendous battery-life promise, I can tell you that a tablet of some sort is, indeed, something most people will want and can use. It's good for media consumption, pacifying children, air travel, winning bar bets, and taking to meetings.

And as more people start to realize they can actually find a use for a tablet, they'll go looking for one. And what will they find? iPad. At least for the next several months.

What's on tap? Well, extremely thin reports promise an Acer Android tablet by end of year, there's the Pandigital Novel for $199, same time frame. MSI is promising an Android tablet (the WindPad, coming "later this year"); Samsung's Galaxy Tape also delivers sketchy details and vague "end of the year" promises; and the Eee Pad and Eee Slate actually look kind of cool, despite my quite natural refusal to say either name aloud. Delivery date and pricing? You guessed it. Unknown. I bet it's the end of the year, though.

The iPad's biggest competition, at the moment, is probably the iPhone 4. E-readers have finally dropped down to the sub-$200 range that befits their single-purpose nature, so if you wanted a non-iPad tablet for reading, you're probably just as well off with a Kindle or a Nook. Your shipping tablet alternatives include:

The Dell Streak

The Streak is basically the only Android tablet we saw at CES that actually shipped, despite a slew of promised devices, and it's more a competitor to, say, an HTC Evo, than the iPad. It's a 5-inch tablet-phone, and it's running Android 1.6, at least in the U.K. model. And its size makes it a weird hybrid of phone and tablet, neither small enough to be a comfortable phone nor large enough to be a delightful movie delivery gadget.

The JooJoo
Ah, I crack myself up. Sure, the JooJoo (formerly known as the CrunchPad) is down to $499, the same starting price as the iPad, but it's got software problems, hardware problems (I think CNET's been through two that flat-out didn't work), and some pretty serious sales and PR problems. iPad killer, it ain't.

Archos 9 PC Tablet
It's a tablet, yes, and it shipped post-CES. But the Archos 9 PC Tablet is slow, the touch-screen is unresponsive, and it costs more than an iPad. Plus, it's running Windows 7, which isn't going to win any touch-screen usability awards against the iPad. (Archos also offers the 5-inch Archos 5 Internet tablet with Android, but again, it's more of an oversize media player than actual tablet.)

Cisco Cius, coming soon
Not technically shipping, no, but Cisco on Tuesday announced the Cius, which looks a bit like an iPad, weighs about the same, and is intended to be used for corporate video conferencing (think: the screens that sit atop conference room chairs in the most prescient sci-fi film ever made, "Demolition Man"). That's Android-based, but again, won't ship until the first quarter of 2011 and isn't even intended to take on the iPad.

How about some of the tablets we heard about at CES and never saw again?

The HP tablet
It wasn't even that impressive at the time, but turned out to be the most promising of the bunch--it even got a $549 price tag, some specs, demo videos, the whole works.

Status: Delayed, in the wake of rumors that Windows 7 didn't work well as a touch-screen OS, and, of course, HP's Palm acquisition.

The Lenovo U1 Hybrid and Skylight SmartBook
This promising and sexy-looking laptop-slash-hybrid actually won our best of CES award in the Computers and Hardware category. We swooned over its Windows 7 shell and detachable screen, which then became a Linux-powered slate. We swooned...too soon.

Status: Delayed, while Lenovo investigates Android.

Dell/Stantum 10-inch tablet
Sure, it reeked of vaporware, but Dell was showing off its 5-inch tablet design and this 10-inch model, designed as a showcase piece to display Stantum's touch-screen prowess, seemed like a perfect complement.

Status: If it smells like vaporware, it's almost certainly vaporware.

Nvidia Tegra2 tablet running Android (various)
Nvidia's booth had a passel of them. One even booted up! It was actually running! It ran Android and had Wi-Fi and 3G, and a Tegra2 chip inside!

Status: See above re: vaporware stink.

HP TouchSmart tm2
The rest of the CES show said "slate," HP said "tablet," and the tm2 was just that...an old-school convertible tablet. About $1,000, Windows 7, more like, you know, a real computer.

Status: It shipped. But like I said, it ain't no iPad killer.

I mean, for crying out loud, even the Plastic Logic Que ProReader is delayed and almost certainly dead. It's hard to understand why so many companies jumped onto the tablet (or slate, or whatever) bandwagon and failed to deliver.

Were they all banking on Windows 7? Did they doubt Android's ability to translate to a tablet form factor? Were they confused by Google's Chrome OS, which at the time was making a whispered appearance on a never-seen HTC tablet? Did Apple's reported entry into the market simply scare them all into dusty corners?

Whatever the reason, I find myself approaching a long weekend with a plane ride ahead involving a toddler, and I'm thinking the car might steer itself toward a Best Buy with an iPad in mind. There just isn't any competition, and frankly, I'm tired of waiting. Sure, I wish I could have Flash support, the open Android marketplace, and the sense of intellectual superiority that would come from carefully and dispassionately evaluating the field and choosing the best technology, rather than the best marketing.

But none of that would help me when I'm stuck on the plane and my Netbook's battery just died in the middle of "Dinosaur Train." You win this round, iPad. You may have just won the entire rodeo.

Apple is sending some seriously mixed messages to developers this week.

In Monday's WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs made an impassioned case to the home crowd of Apple developers, assuring them, just as he did in his recent All Things D interview, that "95 percent of all apps submitted are accepted within seven days." He tried to reassure them that there are really only three reasons apps are rejected (they don't do what the developer says they do, they use private APIs, or they crash).

He reiterated his commitment to two platforms--the "fully open" HTML5 standard and the "curated" App Store. And he trumpeted the fact that the company's app store revenue sharing has paid out $1 billion to developers. Plus, he said the iAds platform would be such a boon to developers that they could simply tell Apple where to put the ads and "start making money."

And then, just a few hours later, one of the paid iPad apps Jobs trumpeted on stage--the Pulse news aggregator--had been unceremoniously yanked from the App Store.

The New York Times Company complained to Apple about the $3.99 Pulse app, saying it commercializes the Times' free RSS feeds and also frames Times content within the app, with other content around it. The company said those uses violate the Times Co.'s RSS terms of use. Apple removed the app. (And why not? I mean, the Times complained. Off with your head, little developer!)

Later Tuesday, the app mysteriously reappeared, and even the developers said they didn't know why, considering they'd received a pretty pointed letter from Apple about it being removed, and instructing them, essentially, to work it out with the Times.

Now, of course, other paid reader apps exist, and, like Pulse, can presumably pull public RSS feeds from the New York Times or any Times Co. paper in just the same way and are still available in the App Store. Are they next? (I hope I didn't just ruin it for them.)

The other question that comes up, of course, is that if there are three reasons an app can be initially rejected from the store, there seem to be innumerable and incomprehensible reasons an app can be yanked from the store. Plus, the three reasons Jobs gave don't seem to include ridiculing public figures (or otherwise including objectionable content), duplicating functionality already on the iPhone, or any of the other reasons on this list, or, better yet, this site.

And let's not forget that, while on stage with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at All Things D last week, Jobs essentially painted most of the people complaining about App Store rejections (or Mark Fiore, specifically, depending on how you read it) as "son of a bitch liar(s)." So, I guess it's not helping to complain to AppRejections.com. You're clearly just lying to get your 15 minutes of fame, you pesky would-be iPhone developer, you.

Jobs' message to developers this week might have sounded simple on stage: three easy rules to follow, 95 percent approval rate, and cash money just rolling into your pockets. Frankly, I can't believe any developer still believes any of those lines, and after the events of this week, everyone ought to be reading between them. You may think the App Store is a gold mine, but it sounds like one hell of a dangerous mine.

AT&T announced this week that it will phase out unlimited data plans and start a metered approach, with tethering available for an extra cost. And although some elements of the new data plans will work for some customers, AT&T is moving in the opposite direction it should be going. I'm tired of multiple data plans, artificial caps, and arbitrary monthly usage charges. And I'm tired of paying the same companies multiple times for what is, essentially, the exact same service. That service? Data.

Between multiple cell phones, high-speed Internet connections, and even digital TV subscriptions, most households are now paying for data delivery at least three times over, and frequently paying the same provider twice. This is ridiculous, and it's time for some major consolidation. It's time for a universal data plan. I want to pay once (maybe twice) for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.

I want to pay once (maybe twice) for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose.

Think about it. Let's say you have a Verizon smartphone, and you pay $30 a month for an unlimited data plan. Let's say you have a family plan--you're still required to pay for unlimited data plans on any data-using phones on that plan, too. Just that concept is insane if you break it down: You're paying multiple times for "unlimited" data? Isn't that like multiplying by zero? Either way, you lose.

Plus, you pay extra for texting--up to an astonishing $20 a month--and do you know how texts are delivered? Via the same data pipe that all your other data is coming through. Now, let's say you also have a MiFi mobile hot spot device or wireless card, since Verizon doesn't yet allow tethering. Yep. You pay for data on that, too, even if you've got a (mandatory!) data plan on a smartphone like the Droid or the Incredible.

It's all the same data, but a mobile broadband plan costs more than an "unlimited" smartphone data plan, and either way, it's still two plans. And let's get even crazier: What if you have Verizon FIOS Internet and TV? That's all just data, and that's a separate plan, too.

Now let's say you have AT&T, and you've got all the same opportunities to pay for data delivery over and over (this time with U-Verse instead of FIOS). Now, you can also pay an additional $20 monthly fee for the privilege of tethering your phone or iPad's network access to another device. You're already paying for the data transmission--this tethering fee is simply for the right to attach another device to AT&T's network. And that $20 doesn't even include an increase in your bandwidth cap--it's simply a usage fee. (Verizon will also charge a monthly fee for tethering.)

You're in a similar boat with T-Mobile or Sprint if you're paying for data on more than one device as a result of a family plan, or you have a wireless card. And with the new HTC Evo, Sprint will charge a $30 monthly fee for using the Evo as a mobile hot spot; but at least that fee includes an upgrade to a supposedly unlimited data plan. But "unlimited" is a lie if you have to pay for it over and over. You're paying for the right to connect a single device to a carrier's network, and it's time for that model to change.

Imagine if your ISP made you pay for a "data plan" on every computer you own. Imagine if the ISP also made you pay a separate monthly fee for, say, attaching a wireless router to your network. Or an Xbox. Or a TiVo. "Data" on a smartphone, an iPad, a Netbook, a Kindle, or any other future always-connected device is simply another word for "a network connection." And it's time that network connection stopped being tied to the device and started being tied to an individual or an account.

Make no mistake: Data plans are going to become a much bigger deal in the very near future, because a 3G or even 4G connection will be ubiquitous in the instant-on, always-connected devices of the future. The iPad is almost certainly driving part of AT&T's decision to drop unlimited data plans, and the second big factor is tethering.

Some of our Buzz Out Loud listeners suggested that AT&T is metering its data plans now because it doesn't want customers, once they're equipped with tethering, to just cancel their traditional ISP service and use AT&T's 3G data network for full-time Internet access. But you know what? That train's coming and it won't be stopped.

Like it or not, wireless is the future of bandwidth, and telecom carriers are becoming de facto ISPs. They know this, their networks are smaller, and they're hoping to avoid the traffic-shaping pickle ISPs say they're in by rolling out metered usage from the get-go. AT&T certainly isn't alone in trying to drop unlimited plans; Verizon has also said it plans to charge for data by usage.

Now, though, with the FCC breathing down carriers' necks about tiered usage plans, it's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing. Everyone's usage is going to start to increase, and this parsing and nickle-and-dime-ing and "plus" and "pro" plans is all just a smoke screen. And, frankly, a rip-off.

Carriers need to keep beefing up those networks and start rolling out universal data plans that are device-agnostic, include either unlimited data or realistic caps that encompass our growing data needs, and that charge you one time for network access, period. That's how we get to a true wireless broadband future--one where there's no such thing as a "data plan," there's just a network, and we're all on it.

How badly do you want to see new movies in your home close to the date they're released in theaters? Badly enough to let the movie industry reach through your front door and break your TV? Well, good news for you.

The Federal Communications Commission decided on Friday that the movie industry can remotely disable analog video outputs on your home theater equipment to prevent you from recording certain programs--namely, first-run movies available on demand before DVDs are released or while they're still in theaters.

The FCC ruled that it's "in the public interest" (PDF) to give the Motion Picture Association of America so-called selectable output controls, and that it will help enable the "new business model" of delivering on-demand movies closer to the theatrical release date.

Previously, the FCC banned selectable output controls because of concerns that some people wouldn't be able to receive certain high-definition content (HD copy protection, built into HDMI cables, isn't available over analog connections like composite or component).

In 2008, the movie industry asked for a waiver on that ban that would have prevented on-demand, early-release movies from being recorded on DVRs and viewed at all on older HDTVs that lacked digital connections.

Happily, the FCC didn't give the MPAA everything it wanted. It dryly notes in its order (PDF) that "the breadth of the waiver requested by MPAA exceeds the protections necessary to guard against illegal copying of content." The limited waiver it did grant says the industry can only selectively block analog inputs, a waiver can last only 90 days, and the FCC will have to review all waivers before they're granted.

The problem for consumers, of course, is that millions of HDTVs have no digital inputs, and owners of those televisions wouldn't be able to watch any of these early-release movies at all without buying new TVs. Advocacy organization Public Knowledge noted that some people might actually buy the on-demand movies without realizing that they won't play, a charge to which Sony essentially responded, "call the FCC if that happens." Nice.

There's also, of course, the slippery-slope argument that if you give the movie industry an inch, it will take a mile--granted, it already tried to take a mile and was only granted an inch, but the precedent of allowing the movie industry to literally remotely disable portions of your home entertainment equipment is seriously disturbing.

As the Consumer Electronics Association said in a statement, "We are unsure when the FCC has ever before given private entities the right to disable consumers' products in their homes. The fact that the motion picture studios want to create a new business model does not mean that functioning products should be disabled by them. The decision is not in the public interest and harms the very consumers that the commission is in place to protect."

And then, of course, there's the argument so very well articulated by my colleague, CNET Senior Editor John Falcone:

"Nobody hooks a VCR or DVD recorder to a DVD player and hits 'record.' They just rip the DVD on their PC and upload via BitTorrent. Shutting off the composite video output solves nothing."

Sadly, the FCC noted that it felt it had to approve the limited SOC (selectable output control) waiver because otherwise, the "service will not be offered at all." Though I can appreciate that dilemma, I still wonder whether so many people are interested in early-release movies that they're willing to allow selective crippling of their TVs (or willing to buy new TVs just to accommodate these new-release windows), and whether this is the kind of thing that simply infuriates consumers while doing little to nothing to combat wide-scale piracy.

In a statement, Bob Pisano, president and interim CEO of the MPAA, said the move would give consumers "far greater access to see recent high-definition movies in their homes" and would help the industry "respond to growing consumer demand" for early-release on-demand movies.

If people want these movies so badly, isn't it possible that piracy of movies in the early days of their release could be diminished simply by making them available sooner? Isn't it possible that the very existence of artificial release windows--designed to keep DVD sales humming along nicely--is contributing to piracy way more than the analog hole ever has? Over and over, we've seen that if an industry makes a digital product available at a fair price, people buy it.

Given all the ways pirates have to find and distribute movies illegally (like the actual DVDs), I find it hard to believe that releasing movies on demand earlier without technology-crippling restrictions could possibly result in a measurable increase in piracy. And even if it did, I think it would be more than matched by the on-demand rental revenue the industry would reap.

Offer people more choices, when it comes to buying your product, and they'll pay for the product. Give them crippled, halfhearted stabs at meeting "consumer demand" by extracting devil's bargains and imposing invasive technologies, and they'll probably keep pirating. Just a guess.

By the way, I encourage you all to read the FCC ruling (PDF) in its entirety so you can savor the breathtaking boldness of what the MPAA originally asked for--including waivers so broadly defined, they could "come to embrace the entire life of a movie or program" (meaning you could never record a movie, even once it had gone into permanent TBS rotation). You know, in case you had any doubts about whether they really have the interests of the consumer in mind.

This week, Michigan became the 23rd state to pass a law banning texting while driving. Oprah is urging people to observe a "No Phone Zone Day" Friday that would raise awareness about the distractions of using cell phones in cars. And Thursday, I appeared on CNBC's "Power Lunch" to talk about the potential dangers of distracted driving. Before my segment, "Power Lunch" ran a David Pogue segment based on this column that detailed apps that can help prevent you from texting or talking while driving. The whole flurry of activity, plus Pogue's post, got me wondering: where the heck are the cell phone makers in all this?

As I suggested in the CNBC segment, laws against texting or talking while driving are often spottily enforced and little more than PR stunts. But why should I have to buy an app that keeps me from texting while I'm driving? Why doesn't my Droid, my iPhone, my LG EnV, my Samsung Moment, or my giveaway little flip phone have a "driving mode" built in?

Phone makers have encouraged all kinds of functions to help you talk hands-free, to some extent: Bluetooth headsets, pairing with your car stereo, simple speakerphone. But why not build in a function that would solve two basic problems: not talking on the phone at all, and letting someone who's calling or texting me know that I'm driving and I can't answer right now?

For people used to texting, specifically, it's instinctual to respond quickly to an incoming text--according to this Sprint-sponsored survey, those under 30 are "four times more likely to respond within minutes to a text message compared to a voice mail, and 91 percent respond to a text message within one hour."

I'm not under 30, but even I feel wired to respond to texts quickly, and therefore wired to assume the person who's texting me expects a quick response. It's really, really hard to ignore that incoming text beep, especially if, say, I'm creeping along in slow traffic.

Cell phone makers could help alleviate that need to respond by building in a simple auto-responder that I can set for incoming texts, and even a response voice message I can record for when I'm driving. Call it "driving mode," just like airplane mode, and let me enable it with a simple menu item (or better yet, a button or toggle) whenever I get in the car.

Honestly, this doesn't seem hard, and I'm not sure why phone manufacturers and/or software providers haven't thought of it sooner. In app-rich environments like Android or the iPhone OS, smartphone makers may be assuming developers will take care of this type of feature-add for them. But it would go a long way toward building good PR and addressing a serious and growing social problem if an actual phone or phone OS vendor stepped up to the plate and made driving mode a built-in feature. Apple? Google? Symbian? HP-Palm? Make it happen!

It's almost become a joke: Facebook makes a change to its privacy settings that opts you in to a bunch of scary stuff, the entire Internet flips out about it, it rolls back the change, and then a few months or years later, it makes the same or a very similar update, opting you in to it again. It would be funny, if it weren't getting so damned insulting.

Here's the latest. In the wake of its F8 conference the other day, Facebook rolled out a slew of changes aimed at transforming the Web into one giant conduit for Facebook data collection. And, as usual, the lofty discussions of a more "semantically aware" Web are based on the assumption that the Facebook-ized Web in question has access to most of the personal data of, hopefully, everyone in the world.

Let's be clear: I hold few illusions that Facebook's business strategy has ever been about anything other than building up a huge user base and then selling ads to those users. And obviously, the more targeted the ads, the easier it is to get people interested in them. But as the opportunities for data mining and targeting grow, Facebook faces a growing problem: how to get the data, if the users won't share it.

Facebook has created an unprecedented web (if you will) of connected users, with connections to other users who are more than willing to specify, in great detail, their interests, hobbies, and buying habits. The only problem? Those pesky private profiles.

Users tend to want to protect that data, at least a little bit, and at least some of it has to be "public," if it's to be used for the kind of behavioral targeting and, ultimately, ad targeting that really brings in the big bucks. And that is really the only explanation left for why Facebook has now gotten so shrilly insistent on you publicizing virtually every facet of your life. It's not about the user anymore, people (if it ever was).

Among other things, Facebook this week announced new "personalization" changes--the stickiest of them being Instant Personalization, which shares all your publicly available information (name, profile picture, gender, and "Connections," another new way for you to publicize all the things you're interested in) with, right now, three partner sites: Yelp, Pandora, and Docs.com. It's sticky because, as with most of Facebook's annoying new features, it's opt-out.

Instant Personalization also shares your list of friends, as well as those friends' public information, with these partner sites. And again: you have to opt out of this feature, and even if you do, your public information will still be shared, if your friends remain opted in. The only way to stop that from happening, according to Facebook's fine print, is to actually block the application entirely.

So, does that mean that I can't use the Pandora, Yelp, or Docs.com applications on my Facebook profile, if I don't want to have to share all this information? Frankly, I can't tell if I'm just blocking them for all time, or just blocking them from this one feature. Unclear. In fact, it feels intentionally confusing; I guess that I'd rather share than lose access to Pandora on my profile page, right? Everywhere I turn, Facebook's boxing me into overshare.

Plus, let's say I block Pandora, Yelp, and Docs.com: what about future partners that want to access this treasure trove of information? It's a very, very good bet that I'll have to opt out of those partners individually, as they're signed. It's an exhausting treadmill of privacy protection. I think that Facebook likes it that way: eventually, you'll get too tired to care.

Now, there does seem to be an answer in Facebook's byzantine maze of privacy settings, under the heading, "What your friends can share about you." This lets you control what applications and Web sites can learn about you from your friends. It's unclear how this might affect "Instant Personalization" (see how that pattern of confusion and obfuscation just rolls on?), but wow, hey, look at all the things that are prechecked here!

It's almost quaint that Facebook didn't precheck my relationship status or religious views. So, you're telling me that "Instant Personalization" aside, my friends could be sharing nearly everything I put in my profile or on my wall or anywhere else with any application or Web site they use? Huh. Good to know. Notice how there's no "uncheck all" option here?

Even the stuff you're not opted in to is part of an inexorable pull toward revealing as much as possible to as many people as possible. The newly announced Facebook Connections feature, for example, would like you to replace your boring old text list of likes and dislikes with "Connections."

If you like skiing, you can instead "like" a skiing page, and then, presto-chango, your love of skiing goes from being part of your profile that you can decide to make private to being an interest that is public. Period. And even if you make your connections invisible to your friends, you'll still show up as a connection on those pages. (Note: This feature has only been announced and doesn't appear to be rolled out yet. Hope springs eternal.)

Now, Facebook will argue that it's being as transparent as possible about these changes, as evidenced by its myriad blog posts and announcements whenever it rolls out a new feature. But I think that it knows the truth: most people will either ignore those long, confusing posts and eight-section privacy statements, and I think that it also knows that its oh-so-transparent privacy settings are actually so involved, so click-intensive, so confusing, and so multilayered that they're essentially worthless.

Most users, minus those who now predictably freak out about privacy with every little change, will probably ignore their new settings or--and this is just so nefarious and sleazy--make a change that's essentially useless (like opting out of Instant Personalization without blocking applications or even spotting the screen that says your friends are still busy sharing everything you're "protecting").

This all begs the question: why? Why are the settings so confusing and multilayered? And how do you benefit from having so much information about you being made public in so many different ways? And how is it useful for users to have a Community Page dedicated to "skiing" that might have 100 million fans (oh, wait, they're not fans anymore...now they're, um, likers?), or at least so many that you could never really hope to find a skiing buddy listed there? The answer: it's all about the ads, people.

Don't get me wrong. It might actually be kind of cool to be bopping around the Web and have a list of the things your friends were interested in that's following you wherever you go. The idea of the Web as a living, breathing, social-recommendation engine--there's something to that. It's probably not personally threatening to me in any way to have Pandora know, from my Facebook profile, what kind of music I like. Those are all ideas that could be user-focused, offer tangible user benefits, and be presented in a fun, nonthreatening, opt-in way.

But since Facebook insists on opting me in to these features without my permission, and on opting in all of my friends, and on letting my friends share nearly everything about me by default on the sites and applications they use most (on top of everything they want me to share), it's pretty obvious that user desires are low on Facebook's priority list. What's high on its list is creating a massive data set that can be sliced, diced, and monetized until the cows come home.

There's nothing wrong with making a little money. Heck, there's nothing wrong with making a lot of money. But you should not, Facebook, get to make that money by tricking me into making personal information public, by creating an increasingly baffling web of privacy-violating loopholes, and by opting me in to every new moneymaking scheme you come up with. That's how you lose user trust, and losing user trust is how you lose users.

It might take a long time, and you might be feeling pretty cocky up there on top of the social-networking heap. But trust me: put users first, or you'll find yourself down there in the Friendster pile faster than you can say "Facebook Connect."

Ok, nerds. It's time to mount up. We're going to war. We're living in what is increasingly becoming a copyright and intellectual property police state, and it's time we self-organize and do something about it. Here's the deal.

Recently, the office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (a new post under the Obama administration) asked for comments as it puts together its "Joint Strategic Plan" for intellectual property enforcement. Yes, you the public are also invited to comment, and that's what I'm hoping you'll do after you read this. Or during. Or both.

See, the RIAA and the MPAA submitted a joint commentary that the EFF refers to as a "wish list" and, most accurately, a dystopian view of a future in which most government and police resources go toward stopping intellectual property theft and illegal downloading.

This Gizmodo post describing the comments reads like something only hyper-overreactive, FUD-spreading free-stuff-loving Internet types would come up with as a paranoid nightmare: the RIAA and MPAA want spyware installed on your computers that would automatically delete "infringing content." They want network-monitoring software that would halt an illegal download in its tracks. They want to deputize the FBI, Homeland Security, and border crossing guards to examine and seize MP3 players and laptops (something so egregious it even came out of the wildly over-the-top ACTA agreement). Crazy talk, I know.

But read the comments for yourself. It's all in there. And there's more: the MPAA wants blockbuster movie releases to be treated with the same kinds of security measures and law-enforcement mobilization that might occur when, say, a head of state comes to visit.

The comments call for bandwidth throttling and shaping, network filtering and deep-packet inspection (especially on college campuses), and accelerated federal investigations into the theft of "pre-release music and movies...as this is one of the most damaging forms of online copyright theft and requires immediate attention and swift action." Dive in anywhere. It's a minefield of overreaching, unbelievably punitive, alarmist language.

And this is just insult to injury, considering the other things the music and movie industry have either asked for or forced on us over the years, as they become increasingly paranoid about digital piracy and increasingly panicked about their outmoded, pre-Internet business plans. And let's not forget their historic unwillingness to make any sort of actual business changes and instead try to rely on government to keep them in business. Let's review.

Thanks to the DMCA, it is illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you have actually purchased. That's because, under the law, you are not allowed to break the technological DRM that keeps you from ripping the DVD. It's also because you have no explicit right to fair use with the content or devices you own. The RIAA has spent years flirting with ways to stop you from ripping CDs, hinting that they don't think making digital copies of your own CDs is, in fact, fair use. Several labels briefly issued widely despised copy-protected CDs, until consumer outcry put a stop to it because the crippled CDs frequently wouldn't even play. And of course, when that failed, they resorted to dirty tricks like embedding rootkits in CDs that would essentially break your computer when you ripped one.

... Read More

Updated throughout with comments from co-founder Peter Kazanjy

A new site called Unvarnished launched in beta today, and aims to do for individual people what Yelp does for restaurants and local businesses: let anyone create a profile about you and then post "reviews" about your job performance, management style, reputation, behavioral quirks, and so on. Or, put another way, it'll let co-workers or relative strangers subject you to anonymous and potentially defamatory attacks that are completely outside your control, can't be removed or edited, and are ripe for abuse. So, that sounds like a super idea.

Just out of the gate, Unvarnished isn't finding a warm welcome on the Web. TechCrunch calls it a "clean, well-lighted place for defamation." ZDNet hopes Unvarnished has a good team of lawyers on retainer and ready to go. TGDaily wonders why anyone in their right minds would sign up for the private beta. Me, I'm just trying to find a way to translate "shocked sputtering" into text.

Because let's be clear. Though Unvarnished may be billed as a natural extension of trends that started with LinkedIn, Yelp, and even Facebook, MySpace, and message boards, there's nothing about this site that, in my opinion, doesn't lead almost immediately to rank nastiness.

After a long conversation with co-founder Peter Kazanjy, formerly of VMWare, I'm convinced that the founders (the others come from eBay and LinkedIn) really do think they're creating a site that will maintain a professional veneer, be well moderated by its users, and won't descend into personal attacks. I just don't agree.

Maybe I'm sadly jaded at this point, but I think creating a "social network" dedicated to reviewing and rating people basically amplifies everything that's awful about the Web right now: anonymous, drive-by, ad hominem attacks that can't be erased or edited and that live in search forever.

The problem here, of course, is that someone else can create a profile about you, and all the reviews on the site, although tied to a real person behind the scenes, are "obscured." (That's not quite anonymous, but you won't know who wrote the review, and neither will anyone else viewing the site.)

You can claim your own profile, but that doesn't give you any control: it can't ever be removed, and Kazanjy insists that letting you edit or remove reviews, no matter how nasty or personal, would of course undermine the whole idea of the site. That's an approach that might work for user reviews of laptops, coffee machines, body shops, or books, but reviewing people is an entirely different can of worms and one that is intensely personal and potentially very, very professionally damaging.

"We're committed to preventing that," says Kazanjy, pointing to the fact that you join the site via Facebook Connect so that your identity, even though it's "obscured" on the site, is actually known, and you have persistent identity as you move through the site. So, says Kazanjy, the site will depend on not just its community to moderate the potential nastiness of the site, but also a sense of responsibility from the reviewers themselves. Reviewer behavior will be tracked as they move through the site, and they'll get "trusted" rankings over time, as they provide more reviews and get more experience with the site.

Again, it's my feeling that this approach works fine on Amazon, where a prolific purchaser can review lots of products over time. But even after talking with Kazanjy, who explains that reviewers won't build up trusted status simply by posting a lot of reviews, I'm still convinced that a busybody on this site is a busybody in the real world, too. A "trusted reviewer" might have posted a lot of relatively innocuous or even positive reviews that are well-received by other reviewers on the site. But that person still isn't anyone I'd ever consider a trusted source. That person is a nosy, judgmental gum-flapper who should spend a little more time thinking about his own performance and less about everyone else's (if I may channel my third-grade teacher for a moment).

Kazanjy says reviews will be ranked, in part, by how close you are to the person your reviewing in terms of other social networks--in nerd voice, your nodes have to be interconnected for your review to have algorithmic weight. You can, if you engage in a lot of drive-by nastiness of strangers, actually end up getting an "untrusted" designation by the site itself, and all your reviews will be hidden. Again, the founders of Unvarnished really do want the site to be about reviewing fellow professionals to help the community at large figure out if there are potential employees out there who, for lack of a better word, "universally suck."

But that designation, with some exceptions, is almost always personal. You might think your manager is incompetent, but it might just be because you two have differences in personal or professional style, or you just bug each other. Since everyone is different, it should be obvious that another person might have a completely different experience with your manager (or with you).

The thing I dislike most about this idea is that it gives someone else all the power to exert his or her will or personal preference on the reputation of another. Just because you don't like your boss doesn't mean you should have the power to affect his or her future employment prospects. After all, it's possible you're the jerk, not your boss. And so what if you can counter a negative review? If it hasn't risen to the level of outright defamation, it's just a matter of opinion, and the presence of that opinion could cost you a job.

To me, the biggest barrier remains the fact that the reviews, however closely monitored, are presented to the public as being anonymous--sure, there's a real person back there who's slightly more accountable than your average troll. But they can still speak without fear of being identified. And anonymous commenting is actually one of the things about the Web we like the least. That's not a forum that should have the potential to affect people's livelihoods.

Kazanjy and his partners are hoping that Unvarnished will actually improve the idea of online reputation by aggregating it into a single area where people can participate in the conversations about themselves and where, he's hoping, a sense of basic decency and accountability will keep things honest.

I suspect, though, that the more effort that goes into trying to formalize the idea of online reputation, the more we will, in fact, start to devalue the entire concept.

After all, Kazanjy and his co-founders may be convinced that they can keep a slag-fest from breaking out on Unvarnished, but they're also convinced that no one will ever leave an honest critical review of a peer or co-worker using a real name. If it's true that you'll only ever slag from safety and that all praise is a lie, then everyone leaving a review of a person anywhere, whether on LinkedIn or Unvarnished, is either a liar or a coward. And that's no way to get at the truth. I'd almost rather take my chances on a bad hire.

I think most Web-savvy people now realize that Yelp reviews aren't entirely trustworthy, whether because they're outright suspect or because individual reviews are such a murky, subjective mess. Similarly, I can't imagine that, in a few years' time, employers will take Unvarnished reviews any more seriously than they take the LinkedIn tongue-baths Kazanjy is hoping to combat. I don't think you can keep out the trolls, the liars, or the cowards, and I think human interactions are totally emotional, subjective, and judgmental. There's simply no algorithm that can overcome those two things.

One thing that is true? These guys just took the discussion on online reputation to the next level. And this will be a fun one to watch.