Tech

MTA Enhances E-mail Alert System for NYC Commuters

MTA, New York City, New York Subway, Tech


Associated Press – January 26, 2010 5:35 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) – The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced improvements to its e-mail and text message system that alerts New York City commuters to subway, bus or commuter rail service disruptions.

The MTA on Tuesday says commuters can now update their accounts to receive only the information they want. Previously, commuters who had requested only planned service changes had also received additional, unwanted alerts on unexpected service delays or disruptions.

The MTA also says its 70,000 subscribers can suspend the alert service while away or on vacation.

On the Net:

MTA Alert Service: http://www.mymtaalerts.com


What Exactly is the Problem Over at EBAY?

Ebay, Meg Whitman, Omidyar, Paypal, Skype, Tech

Fixing eBay

Salon Dot Com

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The answer to fixing eBay is easy: fire John Donahoe and get somebody in there who understands what eBay founder Pierre Omidyar understand in the 1990s – EBAY IS A COMMUNITY AND 90% OF ITS USERS ARE HONEST.

EBay has made it impossible for members to be part of a community by its rigging of the contact system. Meg Whitman and John Donahoe’s Ebay had this fear of losing money if it let sellers and buyers actually communicate with each other easily. And don’t tell me Big Brother eBay doesn’t monitor what emails it allows.

The company has raised selling fees to the point of insanity. It has zero telephone support. It’s support emails are worthless and are written by robots. Nobody can get an honest answer and, sorry Mr. Donahoe, but SKYPE was one of the stupidest endeavors ever. 100% of eBay users already had phone service of some kind or another. Who the heck wants to switch to an Internet provider when there’s always a good chance your Internet connection is going to conk out? Does anybody really want Skype to replace their cell phone? Why does anybody need two phone service providers?

The new rule wherein Sellers can’t leave negatives for Buyers is as dumb as dumb gets, which makes Mr. Donahoe a very stupid man. He’s a total failure as a chief executive. He’s wimpy and wishy washy and clueless. He’s also idealess, unless it’s a bad idea.

The other new rule wherein PayPal is the only thing that can be mentioned as payment is another dumb idea. The raise in fees, the no-negatives-to-Buyers dictate, and the PayPal only declaration has done what nothing else could. IT SENT SELLERS AWAY FROM EBAY IN DROVES.

The company knows it. It knows sales are down. It knows why. No one at eBay has the guts or the backbone to admit the truth.

Donahoe has failed the company. It has made eBay a nasty, suspicious, demeaning place on which to do business – at least for Sellers – and, what? It wants to blame the economy for its problems? Baloney.

EBay dug its own hole by the way it treated Sellers and now it’s paying the price. Almost everyone who posted on eBay’s chat rooms and boards the past two years predicted that eBay would eventually kill its Golden Goose. Well, it has.

To succeed, eBay needs to go back to basics. GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING. It needs to poll EVERY SINGLE SELLER and ask what’s wrong. EBay has the email capacity for that. But, I think they’re terrified of the negative response it will receive.

Once again, the technocrats destroyed a good websites. Techies who think they know better. Techies who think that because they can think it up, it’s going to work and help. Once again, these techies learned the hard truth. You can’t cock up a site with tech features and expect people to be happy or to keep caring. Everything became too complex. SIMPLICITY SHOUTS.

And when you’re nasty to the people that made you rich, the people that made you rich will tell you to kiss-off.

I used to sell thousands upon thousands of dollars of product each year on eBay. I don’t sell there anymore, and I hardly bother to buy. EBay doesn’t even advertise anymore. It’s a wounded company, limping towards irrelevance because of what it did to its Sellers.

I now pay $40 a month to a local antique mall for a showcase in which I put my items to sell. I do very well. I no longer need, want, or care about eBay. You know why? Because eBay hurt my feelings. It made my feel unwanted. That’s why.

— Jude Estlin

Yahoo to Shorten Logs of User Activity to Three Months

Computers, Internet, Tech, web 2.0, Yahoo

what-a-dayWASHINGTON (AP) – Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) (YHOO) said Wednesday that it will shorten the amount of time that it retains data about its users’ online behavior – including Internet search records – to three months from 13 months and expand the range of data that it “anonymizes” after that period.

The company’s new privacy policy comes amid mounting concerns among regulators and lawmakers from Washington to Europe about how much data big Internet companies are collecting on their users and how that information is being used. Yahoo’s announcement also ratchets up the pressure on rivals Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT) to follow its lead.

In September, Google said it would “anonymize,” or mask, the numeric Internet Protocol (IP) addresses on its server logs after nine months, down from a previous retention period of 18 months. And Microsoft, which currently keeps user data for 18 months, said last week it would support an industry standard of six months.

Under Yahoo’s new policy, the company will strip out portions of users’ IP addresses, alter small tracking files known as “cookies” and delete other potential personally identifiable information after 90 days in most cases. In cases involving fraud and data security, the company will anonymize the data after six months.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo also said it will expand the scope of data that it anonymizes to encompass not only search engine logs, but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. That information is used to personalize online content and advertising.

Yahoo will begin implementing the new policy next month and says it will be effective across all the company’s services by mid-2010.

Anne Toth, vice president of policy and head of privacy for Yahoo, said the company is adopting the new policy to build trust with users and differentiate it from its competitors. Yahoo also hopes to take the issue of data retention “off the table” by showing that Internet companies can regulate themselves, Toth said.

European Union regulators have pressured Yahoo, Google and Microsoft over the past year to shorten the amount of time that they hold onto user data. And Congress has begun asking questions about the extent to which Internet and telecommunications companies track where their users go online and use that information to target personalized advertising.

Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, praised Yahoo for setting a new standard on privacy protection and said Google, Microsoft and other companies will now be compared against that standard.

Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil liberties group, agreed that Yahoo’s new policy is “step in the right direction.” He added, however, that he would like to see more clarity – and more standardization – from the industry about what it does with Internet users’ data. He noted, for instance, that while some companies delete full IP addresses, other delete only parts of IP addresses or simply encrypt them.