Hello! Internet companies, wake up! If you don't want people doing it to you, you can't do it to others. In other words, if you claim people's content as your own, so can I.

OK, the offer is satirical, but there's no reason it has to be. There's nothing stopping somebody from doing that, it seems.

(Actually, there are some database protection laws proposed that would turn that into an illegal act, but as far as I know, it hasn't happened yet! Act fast!)

Exclusive iRights offer!: For a $2000 sponsership, I will post on the public Internet every resume PassportAccess possesses. They charge $995 for a year of access, the other thousand is for my pocket. Depending on how long it takes I may be forced to charge more. But good news! PassportAccess can't complain, because by making those resume's available on the Internet, don't ya know, they're public domain! They can't add restrictions to public domain material once it's in my grubby little hands, and even if they try, if they can usurp copyright, so can I.

Yahoo, are you aware you're in the public domain? Why doesn't PassportAccess get out of the resume business and start mirroring Yahoo, selling their own ads? After all, Yahoo's in the public domain!

Wow. Not even any babbling about the DMCA. Folks, did you need any more evidence that there are companies and people who believe they own everything on the internet?

Per your request, we have removed your resume from our database. Our technology works by searching the Internet (public domain sites such as Yahoo and Excite) and collecting resumes that match a specific criteria. Once you post your resume or any sort of material on the internet it becomes public information and therefore, can be spread from site to site very quickly. This is most likely how we got your resume.

Hey, PassportAccess solves my What Is A Web Page? controversy in their reply to mathowie's request for them to remove his resume from their system.

Things need to change, but they need to change at a high level; ban cookies, and tommorow they'll use some other tracking technique. Want to accomplish something (skipping the debate as to the goodness or badness of the something)? Ban a behavior, like user tracking. Don't go after the hammer, go after the idiot beating heads in with it. Tools aren't the problem; uses are.

Privacy bill would control 'cookies': Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., says he wants to control networks' use of "cookies," or digital ID tags, dropped on Net users' hard drives. OK, great, we've got people who want to do something about the privacy issues on the Internet. Is Sen. Robert Torricelli, or any of his staff, aware that Cookies aren't the problem, tracking people is. Banning cookies isn't any good, Doubleclick can still track you by IP address, they just won't be able to trick your machine into doing the hard work for them.