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We’ve had conversations with UberMedia, the developer of these applications, about policy violations since April 2010, when they first launched under the name TweetUp – a term commonly used by Twitter users and a trademark violation. We continue to be in contact with UberMedia and hope that they will bring the suspended applications into compliance with our policies soon.
A message from Twitter • Revealing that they had temporarily banned some of the most popular third-party apps on their system – Twidroid, UberTwitter and UberCurrent – for their unauthorized usage of Twitter copyright in their apps. UberMedia, which owns all three of these apps, has quickly become the most-powerful third-party developer in the Twitter ecosystem, and recently bought the also-offending Tweetdeck (which hasn’t been shut down). While UberMedia is working hard to fix the problems, the real question is why Twitter had to do this in the first place. These apps helped make Twitter popular. Now that Twitter is huge, all of a sudden they’re going to be the heavies? Not sure how we feel about this, honestly. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Apr 2010 10:50

As you know, the practice described in this article will soon be illegal. The Affordable Care Act specifically prohibits insurance companies from rescinding policies, except in cases of fraud or intentional misrepresentation of material fact.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius • In a letter to health insurer WellPoint regarding a Reuters article that ran yesterday. The article suggested that breast cancer patients were specifically targeted in investigations in an effort to find a way to cancel their insurance. This crappy practice, by the way, is banned in the new health care law, but experts say the bill lacks the teeth to actually stop it. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

Seriously, dude? Seriously? Sometimes, it’s probably best to cut your losses and just admit you screwed up, and in the case of the Vatican, they’re well past that point. During a Good Friday service, Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who has served as preacher for the Papal household since 1980, made the questionable comparison of the Vatican’s troubles to the 2,000-plus-years-strong pains of Jews. We’re mere inches away from a Nazi comparison, at which point Godwin’s Law kicks in – for the Vatican?! source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

The more disturbing part is that they’re expecting us to use their diggbar urls to deceptively push their site to our followers. If I broadcast a link to the New York Times, people expect to see the New York Times when they click that link. They do not expect to land on Digg.
End of Web blogger Matthew Rogers • On a recent change of functionality in the DiggBar, a service we admittedly initially liked. However, the functionality has changed in such a way that the links no longer lead to the source of the content for logged-out users but to the Digg page for that article. Granted, we’ve read some of Rogers’ other posts and feel that he generally comes off a bit hard-line on things, but in this case, we feel that he’s right. • source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 3 Comments • Permalink