This may be a non sequitur for the Train Wreck blog, but this stuff drives me nuts, and I can't resist ranting about it.
Check out Title 24, Part 6, of the California Code of Regulations: California's Energy Efficiency Standards for Residential and Nonresidential Buildings. On second thought, don't bother. Reading that garbage will fry your brain.
I don't know how many zillions of pages this building code is, but the latest hundred pages or so have strict requirements for new home lighting. Every room in the house, and outdoors as well, has been blessed with specific requirements for high-efficiency lighting and motion sensors.
That's not all, mind you. There are also requirements for HVAC (heating ventilating air conditioning), water heating, insulation, and believe it or not, how much window area a house can have.
And all this stuff adds cost. No big deal, right? It's not as if building a house in California is expensive or anything.
OK, fine, whatever. So legislatures and lawyers have to do something with their time, right? Well, it's not that simple. You know what really happens? Get this. The electrician installs this stuff, the inspector signs off on it, and then the electrician swaps it all out for the stuff the homeowner wanted to begin with. ... Read more
I got an email from Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation yesterday. It began, "Half the companies you blog about have copyright or privacy legal issues simmering just under the surface. Since most of them are thinly capitalized, when they get into trouble, they're likely to call EFF for legal advice. Several already have."
I called von Lohmann right away, since I've had a nagging feeling for months that too many of the interesting products I've been seeing were legally shaky. So I talked with him to come up with this list: 9 Fun Ways Web 2.0 Startups Can Commit Legal Suicide.
For more information than can fit in a blog post, you might want to check out the EFF's upcoming Compliance Bootcamp on Oct. 10 in Mountain View. I told von Lohmann I'd link to the event in exchange for this preview.
1. Ignoring the rules of Safe Harbor
Many media sharing sites, like SimplifyMedia, exist in a narrow legal framework carved out of the DMCA. But you can't take advantage of the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA if you don't register as a "copyright agent." All that's required is filling out a form and paying an $80 fee. You can't get protection without registering. As von Lohmann said, "The difference between you and Napster might be this form."
2. Ignoring the Terms of Service chain
This applies to sites that collect or aggregate data--like Mint, which collects its users' financial information. The sites where the data are coming from may have terms of service that prohibit their users from sharing them with third parties. Sites that collect this information may be seen as encouraging breech of contract, which is a legal exposure.
3. Falling for a sob story
If you're collecting personal information from or about people, there will be other people who want it. They may call up your company and give someone there a convincing story to get it. If your team falls for this "pretexting," or social engineering, users can sue you for exposing their information.... Read more
Microsoft loves developers, just ask CEO Steve Ballmer. But while the company has been making some of its tools available for free, it also likes to draw the line on just how much gets given away.
According to a report in The Register, the software company has taken an aversion to TestDriven.Net, an add-on to its Visual Studio developer tools. In particular, Microsoft doesn't like the fact that the software works with Visual Studio Express, the free version of the tools. E-mail exchanges between Microsoft and the small, U.K.-based software maker have gotten increasingly testy, having reached the "cease and desist" letter stage.
The dispute seems to center on the fact that TestDriven works with Express, rather than just with the paid versions of Visual Studio. According to the e-mails, Microsoft has given TestDriven's creators until Wednesday to remove that feature from its product.
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