Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

From the Archive of Half-Baked Ideas

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I appear to have about 200 partly-written posts I've written over the years but never published. The oldest, dated 2003.10.16, has the headline “Karl Auerbach Thinks the Internet is In Danger” but all it says is,

CaveBear Blog: SCO and Verisign, the Techno Bobbsey Twins?

The second oldest, from 2003.10.18 says,

current_new.gif
I've added a graphic that illustrates the current “Threat Level” as based on information uploaded from the Dept. of Homeland Security every two hours. Of course, the whole concept of an official “Threat Level” (whether color-coded or not) is easily one of the dumbest ideas ever to come out of any White House.

One of the goals of a terror campaign is to get the target to waste resources doing silly things. I would like to hear the argument that we have not fallen into that trap.

The graphic didn't last long here – it bothered people as they saw it as an endorsement of the insanity. Now I'd like to hear President Obama or Secty. Napolitano saying they've killed the whole stupid thing.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on From the Archive of Half-Baked Ideas

Web Design Tips for the Harried

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I've recently been heavily involved in web design for a project I hope to be able to unveil fairly soon. We hired a professional, and I think the final result will be both functional and elegant.

But, alas, I made all the crucial decisions before reading this essay on 10 things a web designer would never tell you. It's amazing how few of these things I figured out myself. I'll be better prepared next time.

Posted in Completely Different | 5 Comments

An Insight Into Obama’s Vetting Problems

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

My law school classmate Richard Painter is guest blogging up a storm over at Chez Volokh. This has been a reminder that Richard thinks very differently from me.

I found this remark about Team Obama's vetting troubles insightful:

the nominees who have been problems have not been from the President's Chicago inner circle but other Democratic party stalwarts, many of whom did not work for his campaign until he got the nomination. Contrast this to the problems with the inner circles of Nixon, Carter (remember Bert Lance!) and Clinton and other presidents who brought to Washington some people from their home states who should have stayed home.

One commentator suggested it was because the old guard had already been thrown under vehicles during the campaign, but I don't think most of the few cause célèbres would have up for jobs anyway.

Posted in Politics: US | 18 Comments

Thomas Tamm Wins a Prize

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Thomas Tamm, whom I wrote about in Wouldn't It Be Nice if Obama Pardoned Thomas M. Tamm? has been awarded a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for truth-telling.

But no words on whether Justice will bring charges or not….

Posted in Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

Legal Background to AIG Bonuses

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

There's a very interesting contrast between this news story, Cuomo Says Some A.I.G. Bonuses Will Be Repaid and the legal opinion AIG got on March 16, 2009 regarding its obligation to pay the bonuses (source: the American Lawyer).

This letter is going to be the fodder for a lot of law courses. The question it answers is artfully narrow; what it leaves out, and why it leaves it out, are fascinating issues that will engender many discussions in Professional Responsibility and Corporate Law.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 1 Comment

Naive or Predatory?

Posted on March 24, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I own a very small number of .com domain names, one of which is a very nice memorable English word with no particularly commercial overtones. I use it for a bunch of private servers that handle my news feeds and some other web-based stuff I've set up to make my life easier, all stuff that moving wouldn't be that hard. There is a web page there, but it is just a silly image acting as a placeholder.

Every so often someone offers to buy it. I am amenable, but no one has ever offered serious money — the offers usually top out at the very low four figures — so I have held on to it.

Today I got the most ridiculously low offer yet:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am contacting you on behalf of a small web development firm with which I work.

We have just recently instigated a development plan whereby we are slowly but surely building a large network of simple, information based websites. The intention is to create a Wikipedia style encyclopaedia of information. The difference is however that rather than be located on one central domain, we intend to develop these sites on individual, keyword rich domains. Our aim is to create a network such that if you want information on 'Childrens Birthdays' for example, then you can simply type in childrensbirthdays.com and find all the information you need. At the moment search engines like Google provide an unnecessary middle man. We aim to make finding what you want even simpler than it already is!

We are contacting you with regards to the domain name [NiceWord].com. Having completed a check of the whois database we obtained your details as being the owner/administrator of said domain name. We are interested in purchasing this domain name from you as it is an ideal domain name for our development.

We would be prepared to offer you 50 USD for your domain name. If this is acceptable, please do let us know and we will provide information on how we may proceed. We do not consider ourselves naive or unknowledgeable, and appreciate that some domains are being used for other things than websites: email for example, and again we appreciate that you may simply not want to sell your domain. If this is the case we ask that you let us know such that we can pursue alternative domains.

Independent of your decision, I thank you for your time and wish you all the best. Thanks

Jennifer

I don't know if they are just fishing, hoping to find a deal, if the recession is much worse than I thought, if this a lo-ball opening bid, or what, but the initial offer was so low it almost makes me mad.

On reflection, the “Dear Sir/Madam” bit, given they claimed they looked me up on whois and the nice word isn't in fact all that suitable for a search engine — more the reverse — makes me suspect a form-letter-based attempt to grab (at absurdly low prices) single word domains that don't appear from the outside to be in use for much.

So my reply suggesting their offer is risible probably will not produce anything.

Posted in Internet | 3 Comments