Reading Assignment #5

The last reading report is titled “The End of Privacy” which was written by Daniel Solove, and published in Scientific American in September of 2008.  The article begins discussing the famous “Star Wars Kid” who became famous on accident because of a video that went viral all over the internet of the kid trying to choreograph the moves from the movie “Star Wars” and ends up tripping and falling.  It explains that with the internet if one person shoots it, the whole world can view it, if the video is ever in the wrong hands and uploaded to the internet.

The article next focuses on what Solove calls the kids growing up today “Generation Google” because kids could practically “Google” everything they need to know.  He discusses how before the internet was created and became popular gossip spread through word of mouth, and now it can be spread over the internet which reaches a wider audience.  Certain examples he uses is a web site called “Don’t Date Him Girl” which allows women to post complaints about the men they have dated with their real names and photos.  Solove also mentions that now everyone can trace your activity and compromise your privacy.  Anyone from your credit card agency to government agencies.  

The next section of the article discusses how reputations can be damaged now because with the openness of the internet information is stored virtually forever on it.  “Generation Google” members might be limited because of something they did years ago might end up arising again later in life and affecting them career wise.

The remainder of the article talks about if and how we can get our privacy back.  Solove tells about the changes of Facebook over the years, and argues that it is not really privacy that is being violated but the ease of accessibility of personal information.  He claims that this issue can be fixed with changes in laws like in Canada and Europe.

The article does hit many good points.  However, trying to control privacy and crack down on the accessibility is not going to be easy and probably virtually impossible.  We, the United States, let it get out of control and now it may be to late to fix the problem.  I agree with Solove that we are in a generation now where privacy is no longer a luxury we have and we have to be careful because something posted now on the internet could destroy us later on in life.  Something that started off being created for fun, like Facebook, has turned into a disaster for people who want privacy.  In some ways our society ask for it, but in others, the government should have stepped in to help counteract the problem, like in other countries.

Extra Credit UNCW Professor's Research

Daniels, Karen A., et al.  “Learning to diminish the effects of proactive interference:  Reducing false memory for young   and older adults.”  Memory & Cognition 38.6 (2010): 820-829.  Web of Knowledge.  Web.  15 Nov. 2010.

The purpose for this research was to determine whether PI (Proactive Interference) could be reduced by providing test subjects with numerous experiences dealing with PI.  PI is the reduction in memory performance for recently learned information resulting from the prior learning of related materials.  The article itself produces results from two experiments with proactive interference effects on young and older adults.  The test subjects were given two rounds of experience, with different materials, in a situation that produced PI.  The authors then compared with control conditions which showed that the effects of PI on accuracy and high-confidence intrusion errors (false memory) were reduced on the second round, as compared with those on the first.  

The goal of the experiments was to determine whether PI could be reduced by providing test subjects with multiple experiences dealing with PI.  Past experiments have never attempted to examine whether people can adapt their processing to diminish the effects of PI.  The results of Experiment 1 showed that PI did diminish effects for both ages of adults.  Experiment 2 was conducted to gain insight into the means by which experience with PI allowed participants to diminish its effects.

The article gives data information on the results of each experiment with a detailed description of the results.  48 young and 48 old adults participated in the experiments to help with maximize the results of each experiment, so to allow a low margin of error or bias.  This article and experiment is valuable to people in the psychology field and health field.  This test allows researchers to better determine the cause of memory loss in young adults vs. old adults.  It can also help give better insight into Alzheimer's disease, and how the brain reacts to pulling information out.  These experiments may sound minor, but the overall effect the results have can help in many ways, not just with psychology and health.  Criminologists can examine if people who have high PI are more likely to be criminals or vise verse.

Dixon, Richard D., Roger Lowery, Lloyd P. Jones.  “The Fact and Form of Born-Again Religious Conversions and Sociopolitical Conservatism.”  Review of Religious Research 34.2 (1992):  117-131.  Web of Knowledge.  Web.  15 Nov 2010.

This article is a report that attempts to distinguish Christian Protestant born agains from each other and to determine if the distinction is reliable when examining influences on a composed index of sociopolitical conservatism.  The results are from 287 white Protestant adult residents in a county located in the Southeastern U.S.  The experiment was conducted through telephone interviews.  The goal is to show relevance of the distinction between two forms of born-again religious conversion and the relationship between born-again status and sociopolitical conservatism.

The interview was conducted at random.  Data was collected by white adults 18 or older, during six weekday evenings in mid-November and early December 1989. The test subjects were all ask a series of questions from a list of 54 questions listed.  To gather the 287 subjects, during the phone interview the first question that is always asked is “What is your religious preference?”  Only the subjects who answered Protestant were asked to answer specific questions.  The other subjects were released and the researchers found new subjects until they reached 287.  

As stated in the report, the results revealed four important findings.  1) That born-gain Protestants elicited affirmative responses from both types of born-agains; 2) whether or not a white Protestant is born again has a significant influence on sociopolitical conservatism, but how one is born again, whether suddenly or gradually, does not.  3) when submitted to multivariate analysis, born-again status loses its sailence as an independent influence on sociopolitical conservatism; and 4) other religious variables tapping fervor correlate at the multivariate level with sociopolitical conservatism.

This report is useful to people in the sociology field and the political science field.  It is important because it tells us a significant amount of information about political views in one county, the race in that county, and how it influences their families in the area.

Lanier, Christina.  “Structure, Culture, and Lethality:  An Integrated Model Approach to American Indian Suicide and Homicide.”  Sage Journals.  14.1  (2010):  72-89.  Web of Knowledge.  Web.  15 Nov 2010.

This article investigates lethal violence in the United States on American Indians.  Most investigations that are done in the criminology field seem to primarily focus on whites and/or African Americans.  Statistics already show that homicide and suicide rates among American Indians are already higher than other racial/ethnic groups within the United States.  This report also attempts to understand the lethal violence patterns associated with American Indians.

The data that was used was from the mortality data for American Indians was obtained from the Indian Health Service Vital Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics.  The data provides the total homicide and suicide counts for American Indians in all U.S. counties.  Analyses is run on area instead of each individual county to determine factors such as poverty level, single-home families, married families, crime.  All these factors could play a potential part in determining the most accurate results.

The results of the report found that lethal violence was found to increase in counties where the economic status of American Indians was lower.  The lack of economic resources and options for employment result in an increase of actions or violence.  The higher the level of poverty and unemployment, the higher the aggression American Indians have directed at others.  The results as stated in the report support the argument of previous research that lethal violence are often not racially invariant, and researchers should consider the possibility of variations across groups when examining lethal violence.

This report and research is the most helpful to people in the criminology field.  This helps examine lethal violence in a minority racial/ethnic group.  With this information, criminologists can help determine the causes and if they lead to crimes being committed as a result of this happening.  Sociologists can also use this information, but only to determine how it would effect families and children as they grow up.  Would they be more prone to be subject to lethal violence because of what happen early in their childhood?

Extra Credit Mobile Device

Reviewing the library's mobile device brought a few issues I found.  I currently have the new iphone 4 and scrolled through the site.  The site was easy to use and quick to load, but I was on a 3G network so I do not know how it would load over a normal network.  The visual appeal is not there; it is just a plain site with UNCW colors and a few tabs.  The computer availability tab needs to be improved because it is not being updated regularly.  It showed the last time it was updated was last night, November 8th at 7:11pm.  Another problem I have is it is only showing the availability of just the PC's in the library.  It needs to show the availability of all the equipment you can check out.  The tab also doesn't say if it is the PC's that you can check out or the ones that are in the front of Randall that you can just walk up to and use.

Under the News and Events tab, instead of having the top or newest news, I would suggest you just use all the titles of the news with links you can click on to take you to that article.  It saves room and allows you to put more news and events into that tab.  The last suggestion that comes to mind is rename the "Get Help" tab and add "Contact Us" into it.  The "Get Help" tab suggests that one needs help with the site.

I hope these suggestions help with the improvement with the mobile site.  I am sure as time goes by it will continue to grow and get better.

News Report #5

First Look at RockMelt, a Browser Built For Facebook Freaks by Michael Calore written on November 7, 2010 is the fifth news report that I found.  (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/first-look-at-rockmelt-a-browser-built-for-facebook-freaks/)

Michael Calore discusses the new web browser, RockMelt, that is being introduced by Facebook.  There have been rumors of Facebook creating a browser and November 7 is the release of the limited public beta.  Both founders, CEO Eric Vishria and CTO Tim Howes, demonstrated RockMelt to Wired a few days before the beta was released.

The uniqueness of this browser is that it is based on Google’s Chromium, so it includes Chrome’s features such as it’s speed, look, and functionality.  It is also offered for both Mac and Windows so it is not tied down to just one group of PC users.  

Even though RockMelt is made by Facebook, Calore explains that the browser is not exactly a Facebook browser, but does allow users to post links, videos and status updates to both Facebook and Twitter for right now, but they hope to expand the browsers capabilities.  The most impressive feature the browser has is what is on the sides of the window browser.  

The left side has the users picture at the top, and their friends they interact with the most appear in a list below.  To send a tweet or update your Facebook, you click on your picture, similar to how Facebook works.  To send your friend a message or chat with them you click their photo; again similar to Facebook.

The right side of the browser window has small icons for each of the services RockMelt tracks for you, which like was stated earlier is only Facebook and Twitter.

The uniqueness of the browser is interesting to me, and appears on the surface like a great idea.  With that being said, I do not know how well it will catch on.  The marketing, even for the beta, has not been widely publicized, and other browsers similar to this one that have appeared, such as Flock, the Myspace version, never caught on.  Hopefully, with some testing and especially marketing they can compete with the dominating Internet Explorer web browser, especially with Google on board.  Along with competing with other web browsers they can make the other features Google offers more popular.

NEWS REPORT #4

The fourth News Report that I discovered was titled Ban Violent Books from Prison Libraries, Urges Connecticut State Senator by Beverly Goldberg from the American Libraries web site, posted on October 12, 2010. (http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/10122010/ban-violent-books-prison-libraries-urges-connecticut-state-senator?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AmericanLibrariesMagazine+%28American+Libraries+Magazine+Top+News%29)

This article by Beverly Goldberg discusses the removal of books containing graphic violence from Connecticut prison-library collections.  The out cry for this to happen occurred October 6th when a guilty verdict came back on two defendants in the murder of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, her two daughters Hayley and Michaela, and the brutal beating of their husband and father William Petit.

During the trial in the summer, there had been discussion about what Steven Hayes, the defendant, had been reading while serving time for a prior conviction.  The titles were never disclosed because of a motion his defense team made in court keeping the reading list private.

Senator John Kissel and Department of Corrections Commissioner Leo Arnone confirmed that the corrections department would revise the prison-library policy to prohibit books with materials with graphic and violent language and make the library a place to meet the educational, informational, and recreational needs of the inmates.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy executive director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom states that somebody that is moved to commit a crime has much more going on in their lives than simply having read a few comic books or a novel.  However, the “Prisoners’ Right to Read” interpretation of ALA’s Library Bill of Rights acknowledges that prison libraries may be required by law to prohibit certain books that instructs, incites, or advocates criminal action.

At the end of the article it tell about how in South Carolina, there is a detention center that does not allow inmates to read anything except the Bible.  This has run into a lawsuit that looks to overturn this decision.  

I think that the prison center should have the ultimate authority over what prisoners can read and what is in their libraries.  Prisoners, unlike regular citizens, no longer have the rights they would normally have because they gave up them rights when they committed a crime and was sentenced to prison.  With that being said though, I think prisons like the one in South Carolina has taken it to the extreme, prisoners should be allowed to read educational books, or books about jobs.  Prison is a punishment but also a rehabilitation center to try and prepare inmates for release to the outside world.  Educational books that teach prisoners certain jobs and traits will help further push rehabilitation.  With prisons preventing prisoners from reading anything but the Bible, they are not pushing their main goal.  This needs to be corrected in order to help prevent the prisoner from becoming a repeat offender.  

Reading Assignment #4

The fourth reading assignment given to us was about the situation with students and the online databases offered at universities.  Steven Bell, the author, discusses issues and solutions to these problems that have arisen since Google was created.  Many students still use Google as their major source of information when doing research of any kind, whether it is for a paper, or for a project.  

The article describes using Google as a form of infobesity, the excessive amount of information returned from a search on a topic, that may not even be relevant to the topic someone searched for.  It states that students need to change this and start going on an infodiet, using the aggregator databases offered at the universities.  The reason for students not using the databases offered to them by the university library according to the article is because of the difficulty of the databases.  Most students either do not know, do not want to know, or just do not care about how to use library databases, when they can simply Google something and get instant results, no matter how relevant the results are.  

Steven Bell states that the solution to this is to make the aggregator databases from the library as simple as Google.  Most students today seem to want results right away without having to figure out a new search engine or database, so by making it more like Google, this could help boost the use of these databases.  However, the problem that has occurred is that the companies who own these databases are more focused on the amount of information their database has, so they can appeal to more libraries, rather than the ease of the database, so they can appeal to more students.  Money is the only concern for database companies, which is the reason they have not attempted to make their search engines any easier.  

Another solution that Bell suggested is that faculty must be more involved with the students using the libraries databases forcing them to use it when doing a research project or paper.  If the faculty requires this of students, this could also help boost the use of the databases.

The article brought up really good points and could not have been any more right.  Students already have a large amount of work to contend with throughout the year, and with the free time they do have, they do not feel like having to learn how to use an entire new search engine that is more difficult to use than Google.  As long as the databases the libraries use are as complicated as they are, students will continue to neglect it and go with Google.  Another issue that needs to be addressed, that the article did not discuss, is the advertisement of these databases that the library offers.  Many students do not realize that the library offers these databases for free to students, and it is not highly advertised around campus or in the library.  If it is advertised more, students would have more knowledge of it and probably be more prone to use it.

Reading Assignment #3

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries is an article posted that speaks about the advantages of libraries and how the popularity of libraries may come back in a wave.  The topics the article briefly discusses is libraries getting in fights, librarians know stuff, libraries will give you things for free, open to the public, and good will.

Libraries getting in fights discusses that funding battles occur between libraries and the struggles over sharing information with each other exist.  This section tried to appeal to people by saying that libraries do have sparks of interesting events and it is not all boring.  Librarians know stuff suggests that being a “geek” or “nerd” is no longer a bad thing and does not mean you are not cool.

The green and local section is about how much libraries help with the environment and recycle and use recycled things.  Another section informs us that libraries give you movies and books for free, all you have to do is check it out.  The open to the public section is of course exactly what it says that anyone can go to a library, and it is interesting to see what kind of people go to libraries and the drama you will see while you are there.  Lastly, the goodwill section discusses about the warmth and welcoming atmosphere libraries have.

Even though this is a short article it does try to touch on different aspects of libraries to try to appeal to a wide variety of individuals.  The article is well written, and brings up good points to try an convince people that libraries still exist, they still are interesting and still are exciting.  The author also explains that just by going to the library does not make you uncool because you are smart and that today’s society does not look down on people like that anymore.

“The Library of the future’ begins to emerge” article spoke about how much libraries are changing to suit how society has changed and is constantly changing.  Some libraries are already adjusting to the times, but others are yet to take the leap into the new era of technology.  David Loertscher, a professor at San Jose State University believes libraries will not become obsolete, just reinvent itself.  

The article suggests that librarians will start working predominately online, going to students who need help, and making suggestions.  Libraries will also allow users to download information and technology 24/7.  Even though most of the information will be online, libraries will still exist.  They will still have books, and in addition have other areas such as computer-training centers, conference rooms, study group rooms, etc. because of the space they will have from taking away the majority of books and other forms of information.  In addition, they will start what UNCW has, which is self-check out  and check in on books, movies, etc.

I think what is being explained in the article will eventually occur.  Libraries and librarians need to move with the times and what is coming in the future.  Most people find most of their information online through search engines.  By having librarians online, it will help influence people to go to the online library for help because they can get one on one contact with an actual person who can help them search for information and give them ideas to help with whatever research they are looking for.  This is something search engines do not provide and probably never will.  It has been proven of the success of libraries going digital and making it more of a “at home feel” by how well Santa Clara County Library is doing. 

News Report #2

The new report that I found was about classified U.S. documents to be published by WikiLeaks. The title of the article is “Massive Cache of Iraq War Docs to Be Published by WikiLeaks and it was written by Kim Zetter on September 9, 2010. The source is wired.com (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/iraq-war-docs/).

The news report is about a massive amount of classified information that was leaked by PFC Bradley Manning to a hacker in May, and in turn the hacker gave the information to WikiLeaks. The documents cover over 500,000 events from the Iraq war between 2004 and 2009. The database of information includes reports, dates, and casualty figures. Iain Overton, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit British Organization that is working with WikiLeaks on the documents, said that they are working with major television networks and print-media outlets to produce documentaries and stories based on the cache of information.

When you first read this article it appears to be about the leakage of military information, but the deeper meaning of this story is how dangerous internet information sites can be. Owner and publishers of Internet sites need to know when certain information does not need to be published to the public due to the ramifications it could cause if that information is released. Major news media companies in the United States will work hand in hand with the military to a certain extent, but internet sites have no boundaries. By leaking this information, terrorists can easily obtain classified information with informant’s names, reports on U.S. and friendly force’s missions, and any other pertinent information that will aid them in the fight against the United States and their allies. With leaking this information it could devastate the progress the military has in the war on terrorism.

These are the dangers with internet source sites; they do not work like regular news media companies work. When television networks and new media outlets publish something, for the most part it does not reach the entire world; only people within that region. When web sites post information it is not only on the internet forever, but it is open to anyone in the world to view. Internet sites, especially international web sites do not have any rules or standards to abide by when publishing information, and the information they post also does not have to be truthful. The only upside to this story is at least WikiLeaks are going to redact some of the information to avoid giving certain names for the protection of the informants and their families involved.

An incident like this is a perfect example of how dangerous web sites can be when having free reign to publish whatever they want without having to answer to anyone. There is no solution to this problem because you cannot monitor every web site and set standards for every web site in the world to abide by. The only hope is for people to do the right thing when being handed information that could endanger thousands of people.

Reading Assignment #2

The second reading assignment that was given was about Wikipedia and the success of an online, open-source encyclopedia. The article discusses how Wikipedia was successful and the possibilities of the site having peaked in information and popularity.


When the article was published by Time Online, they stated that up until two years ago people were adding at an exponential rate of 2,200 new articles a day. The amount of information in September, 2007 was two million facts/articles. In August, 2009 it was three million and still counting today, just at a much slower rate. Wikipedia is the most popular online information source and has surpassed the Chinese Yongle Encyclopedia as the largest collection of general knowledge.

Besides reaching two million facts in 2007, Wikipedia started to notice that the information that was being published was starting to level off also. Ed Chi, a computer scientist at California’s Palo Alto for Research Center who lab has studied Wikipedia thought it was only a “blip”. In 2009, they realized that it was an actual issue, and the amount of information being published was in fact slowing down.

There are a few explanations that were listed in the reading as to why the information being published on Wikipedia is on the decline. The reasons listed do make sense and I completely agree with their ideas. One of the reasons the article is claiming that information is not being published as much as it once was is because of the volunteers trying to improve the reliability of the information being submitted and preventing online hoaxes. The example they give is John Seigenthaler who stated on Wikipedia that he was once suspected of assassinating John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. I do not see the issue with the decline in the information being posted. I would rather see a decline on published information, if the reliability is now stronger. When Wikipedia was first published and throughout the years, they were not a dominant site to quote reliable facts.

One of the major changes that were implemented was when someone edits information on a living person; it will be reviewed by administrators for reliability before being posted live, prior to the way it was in the past. Everything in the world has trends and this one peaked just like all other trends do. The great thing is Wikipedia is trying to authenticate more of the information that is being submitted. The decline is real, and like the article states, the site simply hit a natural limit of knowledge expansion. That is true in some aspects. Most of the popular information has been submitted and revised, over and over; so in that aspect the knowledge expansion has hit its limit. However, there is a still massive amount of information that has not been published because it is just not an important issue that someone may want to research or look up or even want to post on Wikipedia.

In terms of information being published, even though Wikipedia is on a decline, people still use their web site as a source of knowledge, especially since the information is being authenticated before going live to the world. I think the information will level off or decline even more, but the people who visit the site will not. Different types of people ranging from middle school students, to college students, to people just curious about a topic rely on Wikipedia, so even though the article is stating there is a decline in information, they neglect to discuss how there is no decline in the amount of users. The information being published daily is not as important as how much truth the information has. That in the long run is what will keep Wikipedia a dominant force on the internet for resource information.

Reading Assignment #1

The first reading assignment was about Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet. This reading was very informative on all the dangers of information on web sites, and the dangers of false web sites in general.


Counterfeit Web sites are the most troublesome of hoax sites because it disguises itself as a legitimate site for the purpose of disseminating misinformation. Even though the intentions of some sites are political, fun, and instructional, there are some sites that cause harm because of the information that is being posted. One example the reading uses is the Martin Luther King Jr., site that depicts King as a plagiarist, communist, and woman beater. This is an issue because the younger generation who maybe doing a report on Martin Luther King Jr., will be misinformed and take it as fact, which will alter their prospective on him and attempt to bring discredit upon the teacher, which the student could then lose trust in. To help eliminate this issue, teachers need to be informed that there are web sites like register.com to help determine validity of a site, and then they need to pass this information on to their students.

News and media are even vulnerable to unverified facts. Disinformation can occur if facts remain unverified, which could become highly problematic, such was the case of the Washington Post issue about the propaganda war of Russia and Chechnya. The way the media is today, they are more focused on becoming the first to break a story rather than researching the validity of a story. News and media need to start having a system of checks and balances before posting any information. Disinformation can cause a spiraling effect that only gets worse, and could possibly lead to major issues. The Russia and Chechnya issue, lead to Serbian Hackers corrupting the NATO site.

Charity scams is one of the few internet issues that deal with people losing money. They appear during disasters and prey on the innocent. Everyone needs to be informed about sites that appear like this because people think they are helping a good cause and are being fooled. Another dangerous issue that arises is false health sites. Misinformation like this can cause helpless individuals to get wrong information about medication that could possibly get them killed. Sites like these need to be monitored by someone and taken down if the information is wrong because of the implications that can arise from this information being disseminated. The people who post this information should be held legally responsible also because they post information they know is not completely accurate. They should be forced to put up a warning or something letting people know that the facts they post are not proven to be true.

Lastly, I think the least dangerous is the parodies and spoofs sites. Most of these sites are for entertainment purposes for people to just get a daily laugh and share with friends. The fact that most sites post warnings, help with the misinformation issue. There are issues with domain grabbing, but I would take that over all the other internet issues that have arisen.

When talking about the different kinds of web sites that appear that causes issues, hacks are an issue for sites that are already up and running. Hackers will always cause issues for web sites out on the internet. For the most part they are more troublesome for the people who own the site than they are dangerous because they force the sites owners to take the site down and work on it, but hackers can be dangerous too, especially when dealing with online banking, and anything dealing with money. The only way to prevent this is better security by the site. Even informing users of the internet about hacking it is still normally extremely difficult to catch a site that has been hacked. There is really no full proof plan of preventing someone from accessing a hacked site.

The countermeasures the reading posts are helpful with the suggestions they give about looking close at the URL, use print sources for verification, and checking suspicious domain names. The best countermeasure the reading did not list is when researching any information; print sources and the library are the best resources to use. Also, the librarians there can probably help you to determine when you have stumbled on to one of the sites listed in the readings. The internet has basically put a damper on libraries, but they are still ultimately the best resource to use for any questions when it comes to research or overall information on any subject or topic.

News Report #1

The news report I found was about prominent web sites on the Internet and companies being sued. The title is “Paul Allen sues Apple, Google over patents.” The date it was reported was August 27, 2010, the author was Tom Krazit, and the source was CNET news (http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20014938-265.html?tag=topStories1).

The article discusses how Paul Allen, one of the co-founders of Microsoft is suing Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples over patent issues dealing with several Internet technologies such as fundamental web technologies first developed at Interval Research in the 1990s. Paul Allen believes his patents are being infringed upon by major e-commerce and web search companies. The only company not citied in the lawsuit is Microsoft, which is Allen’s former company he founded with Bill Gates. David Postman, a representative for Paul Allen claims that all companies were informed that Interval Research held "patents of interest. Interval Research was another company, now out of business, that Paul Allen ran.

The story caught my attention because of the implications it could have if Paul Allen wins the lawsuit. Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, Netflix, and especially Google, are dominant sites on the internet that everyone uses. People may question why Paul Allen has not filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, when the simple explanation is probably because either Microsoft has already paid him off, or because he is still good friends with Bill Gates. Paul Allen could possibly alter the way the internet is now if all of the sites have to change how they are designed and how they have developed their search engines.

Every time something like this appears it always makes me wonder, why now? If what Allen claims, that he filed licensing for patents in the 1990’s, why has it taken so long for him to finally file lawsuits on these companies. It appears to me that Allen is trying to cash in on patents he may have filed years ago because of his greed for money. He waited until each web site became a dominant force in its field on the internet to finally file a lawsuit.

Regardless of his intentions, if he legitimately filed the patents then he does have the law on his side, regardless of whether the web sites had knowledge of the patents or not. Companies have to research things like this before creating web sites. With that being said, I think the courts should look into how long Allen was aware of the companies using his patents. If Allen has had knowledge of this for years, he should not be awarded anything because he waited to capitalize on the opportunity until these web sites were nearing their prime.