Saturday Miscellaney

Saturday, Aug. 07, 2004 - 9:05 a.m.

My wonderful little brother has left me high and dry rentwise; he insisted on becoming part of my budget, and now he's delinquent on the rent and we are forced to make huge changes.

We're going to see about getting a loan to last us through the end of the year.

We are not amused.

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Hooray, more people have joined my Keane Diaryring!

Thank you so much!

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Old Buddy Dave wrote a letter to the Orange County Register about my dealings with the Erasure impostor, in the hopes of getting publicity for the fact that AOL does not enforce its Community Guidelines.

Speaking of which, -this- lawsuit will most certainly be worth watching:

An internet surfer has filed a potential class action lawsuit against US online giant Yahoo!, accusing it of sheltering anonymous users who electronically harass message board users.

The action, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court late on Wednesday, alleged that the California-based internet provider protected message board users who anonymously posted abusive and defamatory remarks about others.

Lawyer Stephen Galton sued Yahoo after the company refused to reveal the name of message board posters on its service who allegedly harassed Galton on a message board, the suit showed.

A Yahoo representative could not immediately be reached for comment on the action.

Galton, who wants other users to join him in the suit, posted a message challenging an "abusive" posting by someone using the name "mumioler," only to be subjected to a "barrage of harassing, defamatory and abusive messages" from "mumioler" and other users.

When Yahoo refused his request to identify the unfriendly poster, Galton sued the company in April seeking names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the alleged offenders.

But he only received partial information - some of it false, the suit stated, prompting him to pursue his legal action against the company.

He claimed that Yahoo profits from the free online registration process because it increases advertising revenues and consumer information it collects is used for marketing purposes.

Yahoo asks its customers to refrain from posting messages that are "unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable," the suit states.

However, the boards regularly have postings that break this rule, and Yahoo provides no redress to persons who are the target of such abuse, according to the suit.

Galton is seeking restitution for others who allegedly were abused on Yahoo message boards in the past four years and were allegedly denied help from the company.

Okay -- did you see the line about no provision of redress?

AOL has the same issue.

Thank you, Old Buddy Dave.

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Finally, some Obituary Trivia:

Born James Johnson in Buffalo, he was the nephew of Melvin Franklin of the Temptations. He ran away from home as a teenager and later joined the Naval Reserve, but then deserted and fled to Toronto, where he formed a band called the Mynah Birds with Neil Young and Bruce Palmer, who would later move to Los Angeles and join Buffalo Springfield. The Mynah Birds ended when Mr. James was arrested for draft evasion.

Yeah, that's right. Rick James, 1948-2004. I had no idea about all of that.

Rest in peace, man. God knows you need some.

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