At the root, that is what my definition of a web page is; it defines a single 'expression' out of an infinitely malleable web page. Something better is knocking around in my mind, maybe I can even write about it sometime soon...

'Expressions' are too malleable now-a-days. Today, when you view this page, you will see a unique page, because the advertisement for weblogs will be different for each of you. No two expressions will be the same. Something else is needed to put the rights we need on the Internet together into a conceptual framework. . . something that embraces the transientness of the new media, instead of trying to impose the old representations on the new medium.

The root 'unit' of copyright is an 'expression'. When you create an expression of something, you get the rights attached to it by copyright, like the right to distribute that expression, the right to make derivative works, etc.

DoubleClick Plan Falls Short: Privacy advocates prefer opt-in plans, where companies can't collect information unless the consumer has actively provided consent, over opt-out. For a company that promised really hard, honest to never collect data ever, so help them the BBB, only opt-in makes sense for them. Anything else is a lie.

"E-commerce is a burgeoning business, but there really aren't rules and regulations that stipulate how you'll do business," May said in an interview shortly after the House of Delegates vote. "Primarily the objective was to establish an even-handed treatment of buyer and seller so neither side has the advantage." Bull. If that was the primary objective of the bill, then maybe it might have actually protected the buyer in some significant way, rather then the seller, seller, seller at all costs as the bill is currently set up.

I've written elsewhere that metaphors are not arguments, and a more general expression of that idea is "Metaphors are useful only for explaining, never deciding." (Perhaps On Deciding... Better should do a bit on what I call the 'metaphor' fallacy. I'm tempted to do so myself, it just wouldn't be as good. Too many people thinking about Internet issues resort to metaphors, which unfortunately is a form of intellectual laziness in this environment where so much is new.)

Cookies are not stalking. If cookies are to be compared to anything in the real world, it would be radio tagging an animal, except that cookies only work some of the time, and the tags can be removed or rejected (see, even that's not such a good metaphor). You dare not start down the path of creating metaphors for all Internet activity and then start legislating based on that; it will not work. It creates a miasma of legislation and will not 'scale', in engineering parlance; you are constantly creating new special cases for the Internet program du jour.

No no no! This is a thoroughly bad bad bad idea. It may seem like a smart use of the law, but that's smart as in "smart-aleck", not "smart Nobel Prize winner".

Do You Yahoo?: The suit alleges that the companies' use of cookies, or little text files written into a personal computer's hard drive to identify a computer user, violates Texas' anti-stalking law.

As one who commented on Jason Snell's piece a day or two ago, I probably have a moral obligation to point to his reply to Dave Winer. (I would still contend that if he had meant to say what he says in that reply, it should have been more clear, but goodness knows my writing isn't perfect either.)