Gobble gobble: Biggest turkeys of 2007

In honor of the coming holiday (and before we all lapse into a tryptophan induced coma) I’d like to honor the tech industry’s turkeys: the individuals and organizations who truly need to go get stuffed.

Like the holiday bird, they invariably come with side dishes – partners in malfeasance and stupidity who share equally in the dishonor. So today I’m introducing a new Cringely award: The Gobblers. Here are the winners for 2007:

Comcast and Cox. For months, Comcast has blocking Bit Torrent connections without telling any of its customers. Its response – a flat denial, followed by a weasly explanation (the traffic was merely “delayed”) was even worse. Now it seems Cox Cable has been doing the same thing to eDonkey traffic, though it calls the practice “traffic prioritization and protocol filtering.” So much for “unlimited Internet access.” Hey it’s their network, they can do what they want. But if you’re selling a moped, don’t call it a Harley.

Star Simpson and the City of Boston. When Star Simpson walked into Boston’s Logan airport wearing a LED-festooned breadboard around her neck, she established a new baseline for college-level cluelessness. But the reaction of Boston authorities – to detain her at gunpoint and act like she was the second coming of Osama Bin Laden – doesn’t qualify them for any advanced degrees. Simpson’s attorney is petitioning to get the charges dropped; prosecutors have vowed to pursue their “infernal machine” prosecution. Trial date is set for December 3. Expect more schoolyard behavior before this saga ends.

TJX Company and Visa. For years, TJX played WiFi roulette with customers’ credit card numbers, until hackers camped out in the parking lot outside one its TJ Maxx stores stole 95 million of them. Now it turns out Visa knew how lame TJX’s security was back in 2005 and gave them a free pass on fixing it until Jan 1, 2009. I think a new slogan is in order: “TJX and VISA: Our IQs are as low as our prices.”

Jammie Thomas and the Jury. As the first file swapper to take the RIAA to trial (and lose), Jammie Thomas established several unfortunate precedents. The “a stranger parked outside my house and used my WiFi connection to download files but somehow managed to guess my exact user name” defense is certainly one of them. But the jury’s decision to award damages of nearly $10,000 per song was equally brain dead. The Free Software Foundation has established a fund to pay for expert witnesses in future RIAA trials. So at least one person in the courtroom will know what they’re talking about.

Prince and Web Sheriff. It’s one thing for faceless corporations to don the curly mustache and play Snidely Whiplash. But when a beloved pop icon does it, that’s the mark of a true turkey. Yet Prince sicc’d Web Sheriff on his fan sites — the people who stuck with him through his whole ridiculous “Artist formerly known as” phase — ordering them to take down photos of His Purpleness or face the wrath of a copyright suit. It seems Prince’s handlers may have realized this, as they are now negotiating with the sites in question. Good thing: somebody needs to put a leash on this guy.

Don Kerr and the telecoms. It’s still not entirely clear what the country’s number 2 spook was trying to say when he equated Net surfers with the Lone Ranger and Tonto, but Donald Kerr’s overall message was clear enough: Your data is our data. The nation’s biggest telecom carriers were more than happy to bend over backwards to accommodate NSA spying, no warrants necessary. Here’s a good stiff kick in the giblets to them all.

Yet despite all this I do have things to be thankful for. One is an industry that moves so quickly I can’t even keep up, let alone write about it. The other thing I’m thankful for is you, the Cringe faithful, whose emails and comments have livened up this blog considerably since it launched last spring. A heartfelt thanks to you all. Now please pass the potatoes.

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