Have you received a fax advertising a “Florida Bahama’s Cruise” for $398 pp? If so, read on.

Under federal law (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 47 U.S. Code 227), it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial faxes. The definition, in my opinion, is broad enough to include junk email (AKA “spam”), but IANAL and that’s beyond the scope of this post. The law makes it illegal to

(b)(1)(C) to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine

and it defines ‘telephone facsimile machine’ as equipment that “has the capacity”

(a)(2)(A) to transcribe text or images, or both, from paper into an electronic signal and to transmit that signal over a regular telephone line, or
(a)(2)(B) to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper.

The law allows individuals to sue the sender for $500 per violation. I am considering filing my first small claims court action due to an unsolicited fax sent to my toll-free fax number, even though the violator is in Florida. Why? The egregious nature of the fax and the company’s record of skirting the law.

The only identifying information on the fax is “SOTA License# ST-23944.” Turns out “SOTA” stands for “Seller of Travel” (I think), and Florida License ST-23944 lead me to a BBB report on a company, SPECIAL T TRAVEL SERVICE INC:

The company “offers travel packages through telemarketing and their web site… This company has an unsatisfactory customer experience history with the Better Business Bureau…. This company is licensed by Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The license number is ST 23944. This company also does business as Travel Shopping Spree T.”

From the Florida BBB Report:

Georgia: On August 1, 2002, the company signed an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance (AVC) with the state’s Fair Business Practices Act Administrator. The respondents willingness to enter into an AVC shall not be considered an admission of violation. Specifically, the Administrator alleged that the Company: Solicited consumers in the state of Georgia by misrepresenting via an Internet advertisement that consumers have won discounted travel services. The Company entered into the AVC in order to resolve this matter without the necessity of formal legal action. Upon breach of any of the provisions of this AVC by the Company, the Administrator reserves the right to request initiation of formal legal actions against Company concerning the subject matter of this AVC.

Report as of: 5/12/2004

A Google search of “Special T Travel” yields a lot of unhappy customers. Here’s one thread and a Ripoff Report.

I found their address information through a WhoIs Search:

Of course, Network Solutions, like other firms, offers to hide the registrant address for a fee. Bah. Here’s another of their websites.

Neither phone number associated with the fax — 1-866-388-7739 to order, 1-866-670-5897 to be removed from our “opt-in list” — turns up on a reverse phone number look-up.

The fax blaster firm labels itself as “Flip Flop Market.”

If you received a fax, you can file a complaint with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. If enough of us file $500 claims, we could make them think twice before (a) fax blasting and (b) falsely promoting.

Why do I say falsely promoting? Because the website special — three of the four trips promoted on the fax — is being sold for $3896 per family.

VideoNuze tells us that Google is planning to provide ad-supported “high-quality video” (from Fox’s “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane) to affiliated websites. For free. The websites help distribute the content (a long tail distribution model). Google, MacFarlane and the website proprietor split the revenue.

Lest you think only big guys can play, consider Jambo Media — 12 employees, two years old, video syndication with 2 million views per day. Like Google, Jambo relies on affiliates to distribute the videos.

Amazon popularized this concept when it launched its affiliate program in 1996. In that program, website proprietors who linked to Amazon offerings got a small cut of any direct link sales.

Lorne Michaels, the man behind the 1970s phenomena Saturday Night Live, plans to take NBC’s “Late Night” to the web this fall. According to the Los Angeles Times, Michaels wants new host Jimmy Fallon “to work out as many of the rough spots in his presentation as possible in performances on a website” before current host Conan O’Brien moves to “The Tonight Show.”

One reason for trying out the show online, Mr. Michaels said, is that the Internet will allow Mr. Fallon more freedom in terms of what he can say and do, “more opportunity for experimentation” … But the main reason for the idea, he said, was the experience of Mr. O’Brien, who endured a long period of uncertainty about whether he would survive after he assumed the desk on “Late Night” succeeding David Letterman. “Conan needed time to find his show,” Mr. Michaels said. “I think this will help Jimmy to do that.”

Act 3 debuts on Friday. The whole thing goes away, well the streaming version, anyway, on Saturday. Then it will be iTunes and DVD-only. Watch it now! Learn more at the official fan site.

Is this the new business model for online video?

Facebook; MySpace; Twitter.

I’m in the market for a new “birthday greeting” application for Facebook, because the one I have right now sets my teeth on edge due to interface cluelessness.

The “Cards you sent your friends” tab reveals a list of birthday cards that you’ve created. But it doesn’t clearly indicate that they’ve been sent … because (1) there is no “sent date” and (2) the second largest button on the page is “Send Card Now.”

Also, there is a “continue” button (the LARGEST on the page - did no one remind the designer that “largest” = “most important”?) at the bottom of this panel … that is a promo for FB “Answers.” WTH?

Not a pleasant experience.

PenguinGroup tells us that Don Tapscott has updated Wikinomics (”expanded” edition, not “second” edition) with “a new introduction and a new chapter.” Great. But for those of us who bought the original book, why not make these two chapters available as a PDF for free or for a nominal fee?

I wandered over to the book’s website to see if they were offering these updates. Nope. The “sneak peak” link (pdf) is from the 2006 edition of the book, even though the webpage text focuses on the “expanded edition.”

When Sam Harris updated The End of Faith (hardcover to softcover transition) and added an afterward, I sent him an email and said, “It would be lovely if those of us who have the hardback could read the afterward that is part of the paperback … without having to buy another copy of the book.” Sam kindly sent me a PDF of the new chapter. Wonder if Tapscott will do the same thing? I’ll let you know if he does.

x-posted to summer’s economics class blog

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) uses Twitter to communicate with constituents (and other folks). But according to TechDirt, he has been using that potent networking tool to “ignite a totally misguided partisan war, pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using Twitter.”

Congressmen are prohibited from “posting official content outside of the House.gov domain.” The rules haven’t kept pace with technology (no real surprise here). The last time the rules were changed was July 1998. (Note: Republicans controlled the House from 2001-2007.)

The Bi-Partisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards (Franking Commission) governs official constituent communication. It is considering proposals to change the video posting restriction, which would allow posting videos in a channel, for example, on YouTube. Although there is no move to adopt rules for social web sites, Rep. Culberson has charged that the Democrats want to prohibit official Congressional use of social technologies. His charge ran through the Net like … wildfire. Even the Sunshine Foundation is in on the act: Let Our Congress Tweet.

I applaud the use of social media technologies as alternative communication channels with constituents. At the same time, when communications are “official,” there are certain logical and legal requirements, such as maintaining permanent records and avoiding campaign rhetoric while using public equipment. After all, we’re still trying to find missing White House email. If Twitter or Facebook or MySpace are to be official communications channels, we’ll need some way to preserve those electronic records; the alternative is a world of “he said/she said.”

So please, don’t get carried away by forwarding messages that the Democrats are trying to prevent Republicans from using social media as official constituent communications channels. But if you think the rules should be clarified, chime right in with that message. By the way, nothing in the Franking rules prevents the use of these tools for campaigning, which is where most are being used.

And folks, as much as I love Twitter, it doesn’t scale. No Representative with 646,952 members (the average size in 2000) will be able to carry on one-on-one conversations with voting-age constituents.

About the Senate
Documents available at Technosailor suggest that under Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), the Senate Rules Committee “prohibit[ed] offices from maintaining websites on third party social networking sites.”

About Europe
Given that the courts have granted Viacom the right to access YouTube’s logs, wouldn’t you like to know who gets to see the data records of Congressional video clip views? As the New York Times reported in 2005: “[E]very other Western country has a comprehensive set of national privacy laws and an office of data protection, led by a privacy commissioner. The United States, by contrast, has a patchwork of state and federal laws and agencies responsible for data protection.”

See the 1995 and 2002 legislation passed in Europe: Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC; Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications 2002/58/EC (pdf). We still have nothing like this; our Congress seems more interested in protecting corporate copyright than individual privacy.

The 233rd Birthday Coming Up
Oh. And the Franking Commission? Bi-partisan: three Democrats, three Republicans. Since November 1775, Congressmen have had “franking” privilege; that is, they can send mail to their constituents for free. No postage stamp required. The Commission governs the use of that privilege.

Why might there be rules on the use of the frank? Because anyone running against an incumbent Representative has to pay the US Post Office for their mailings. That’s why there is a prohibition on mass mailing during the 60 day period prior to an election (USC Title 39).

One more case where “free” (as in “free” services like Twitter or Facebook) is disrupting existing institutions.

ArsTechnica reports that NASA’s JPL scientists have identified optimal wind farm locations by analyzing eight years of global satellite data. And I missed this announcement: oil baron T. Boone Pickens (personal networth: $2.7bn) is investing $12 billion in a wind farm in west Texas. True to Texas mythology, it will be the largest in the world when completed, and it will start generating power in three years.

Newsweek compares the Pickens campaign with that of another Texan, H. Ross Perot in 1992. After all, oil prices and imports is not a headliner for either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, the presumed D and R presidential candidates. And Congress and the President aren’t talking about it either.

Pickens — who kicked off his $58 million campaign with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal — thinks spending $700 billion annually on foreign oil — to import about 70% of the oil we use — is “dangerous, and it threatens the future of our nation.” He has done a complete about face on this topic (if he were a politician, someone would accuse him of flip-flopping) — in 2005, he pooh-pooed the idea of wind-based energy:

I was in wind energy for a minute … I hate it. And when I got to looking at those damn things I said, I don’t want to be a part of putting that on the horizon. We took a loss and got out of it and I’m glad I did.

But that was then. Today, like many of us, Pickens thinks the nation needs another infrastructure project like Eisenhower’s Interstate system — but this time related to energy. And according to Pickens, the Department of Energy says that we could generate 20% of our electrical supply from wind — by 2030. He thinks we can — and must — do so faster. The impediment? Congress & the President.

According to the UK Independent, a farmer could earn $10,000 a year on a quarter-acre, about 3% of the value of the electricity produced. Conversely, if that quarter-acre were used for corn for ethanol, the net is about $300. There is still a potential impact on food costs, assuming that the land is viable for human- or animal-grade corn production. But food costs are going to rise, even in America where we pay less of our disposable income on food than most of the globe.

The Pickens team is using social media technologies to spread the word: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter.

Watch his YouTube commercial, and revel in that Texas drawl (7 July 2008 ):

Reuters reports today on how computing technology is changing K-12 education, focusing on the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Boston. Comments from Michael Horn, co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. (tip)