Back in December, we noted that Google had gone to court to try to stop a ridiculously broad subpoena issued by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. For quite some time now, Hood has been publicly attacking Google, based on what appears to be near total ignorance of both the law and technology. Oh, and maybe it also has something to do with the MPAA directly funding his investigation and authoring the letters that Hood sent.

Either way, Google pointed out that the broad subpoena that Hood issued to Google clearly violated Section 230 of the CDA in looking to hold Google accountable for other's actions and speech. It pointed out other problems with the order as well -- and while Hood insisted that his subpoena was perfectly reasonable, it appears that a federal court isn't so sure. Today the court told Hood that he's granting a temporary injunction on the subpoena, noting that Google's argument is "stronger."

This certainly is nowhere close to over, but it does highlight that Hood's repeated arguments that he has every right to hold Google accountable for the fact that sometimes people use the search engine to find illegal stuff, isn't particularly convincing to at least one federal judge.

While the FCC may have buckled to public demand and voted to finally approve tougher net neutrality rules last week, if you thought that meant an end to the hysterical over-reaction to what appear to be some fairly basic consumer protections, you're going to be gravely disappointed. From editorials lamenting the FCC's attempt to "strangle startups in their cribs", to claims the agency is murdering "innovation angels", we're clearly entering an entirely new, bloody chapter when it comes to divorcing net neutrality reality from rhetoric.

At the vanguard of this assault are ISP-loyal politicians, who intend to throw everything but the kitchen sink at the FCC over the next few months in the hopes of if not destroying the rules -- at least delaying them -- while publicly flogging the FCC for good measure. That apparently starts with FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly lagging on providing their dissenting edits so the rules can't be released, followed by a gauntlet of at least five potential hearings over the next month aimed at shaming the FCC for destroying the Internet.

A letter from the House Judiciary Committee Members (pdf) to FCC boss Tom Wheeler complains that the FCC is pursuing the "most oppressive and backward regulatory option possible," which is odd since a growing list of companies that actually sell broadband -- like Cablevision, Frontier, Sprint and Sonic -- all say the rules won't impact their businesses in the slightest, since most of the heavier utility-components of Title II won't be applied. So why is the House Judiciary Committee fighting the rules? Because they're just super worried about the health of the Internet:

"We will not stand by idly as the White House, using the FCC, attempts to advance rules that imperil the future of the Internet. We plan to support and urge our colleagues to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving the “Open Internet” rules. Not only will such a resolution nullify the ‘Open Internet’ rules, the resolution will prevent the FCC from relying on Title II for any future net neutrality rules unless Congress explicitly instructs the FCC to take such action."

Of course any measure that makes its way to the President's desk will be vetoed -- and a Congressional Review Action still requires a presidential signature or enough votes to override a veto, both of which are extremely unlikely. The only real way to overturn the agency's new laws is either via lawsuit (which the FCC has gone to great length to avoid losing this time after the courts repeatedly told them they needed to classify ISPs as common carriers to be on solid footing) or through a party change (and therefore an FCC leadership shift) in 2016.

Until then, the House Judiciary Committee hopes to keep the hysteria momentum rolling by flinging around some now well-worn falsehoods, like claiming that the White House acted improperly when it publicly proclaimed it preferred Title II rules:

"We are also troubled by the manner in which the ‘Open Internet’ rules were formulated. On November 10, 2014, President Obama urged the FCC to impose Title II regulations on the Internet. Shortly thereafter, you began making statements in support of a Title II approach. Certainly, the timing of your support for Title II following the President’s recommendation calls into question the degree, if not the existence, of the FCC’s independence from the White House."

Yes, because the "timing" of things is enough to make them illegal, right? You'll note the letter falls well short of claiming the White House broke the law, because despite whatever disdain the White House has for the law on a wide variety of topics, they did nothing wrong here. As we've noted previously, it's perfectly routine and legal for the White House to express its policy desires to the FCC, and every President in the last thirty years has done so (like when George W. Bush pushed the FCC for weaker media consolidation rules, or Bill Clinton urged the FCC to ban hard liquor ads on TV).

Republicans were already planning a rewrite this year of the Communications Act, and you can be dead certain that effort will be rekindled with a keen and aggressive eye on making regulators as ill-equipped as possible when it comes to doing anything about the nation's stagnant telecom duopoly. You know, for the health of the Internet.

Over the years, many folks in the broadcast and entertainment industries have made it increasingly clear they'd love to see tools like VPNs or proxy services made illegal. Sure, both are perfectly legal and have a myriad of valid purposes, but because they can allow users to dodge anti-piracy snooping efforts (like the not-really effective U.S. six strikes program) or geo-blocks (like say watching Netflix in unsupported countries) -- apparently they should be outlawed entirely. You know, like in Iran -- and now Russia.

Canadian law professor Michael Geist notes that several Rogers, Bell and Shaw executives recently gathered for the Content Industry Connect conference in Toronto. There, Rogers Senior Vice President David Purdy spent some time complaining that VPNs "aren't fair" and -- according to at least one attendee -- suggested that the government should think about banning them. You know, just because:

Purdy - need the govt to shut down VPNs, enforce copyright then can have a viable business #cicto

— Kelly Lynne Ashton (@klashton27) February 26, 2015

Purdy: if gov not willing to stop piracy, VPNs, BitTorrent not fair #cicto

— Marcia Douglas (@Marcia_Douglas) February 26, 2015

Rogers' "me too" streaming video service Shomi isn't really resonating with consumers, and blocking Canadian VPN/Netflix users would certainly be easier than actually competing. As Geist is quick to note, it's unlikely that the Canadian government is going to want to wade into the minefield of banning VPNs, so all Purdy managed to do is make him and his company seem somewhat narrow-minded and unnecessarily aggressive:

"If Rogers is upset over VPN use to access U.S. Netflix, it should take it up with Netflix. Instead, focusing on consumer VPN use by suggesting that the solution lies in blocking legal technologies in order to stop consumer access is a dangerous one. Countries like China have tried to regulate VPNs, while Iran and Oman have tried to ban them. A Canadian attempt to do so would be subject to an immediate legal challenge, particularly since virtual private networks are widely used within the business community and play a crucial role for consumers in preserving user privacy, enabling access to information, and facilitating free speech."

After Geist posted a number of attendee Tweets citing Purdy's disdain for VPNs, a Rogers spokesperson denied that Purdy said anything of the sort, lamenting that it's "hard to communicate a discussion via Twitter." I've yet to find a transcript of the comments (and Purdy doesn't appear to be responding to media inquiries), but given Rogers' ugly history as a front-runner when it comes to net neutrality violations, quietly dreaming of a ban on VPNs certainly wouldn't be out of character for the company.

Your law enforcement panic of the day: an app that automatically uploads recorded footage and forwards it to the ACLU.

New Jersey's ACLU branch put together "Police Tape" back in 2012, an app which allowed anyone to record cops with a press of a button. The app then hid itself while the recording continued. If the recording was interrupted, the app would automatically send the recording to the ACLU. The app also advised those confronted by cops of their rights in various situations.

The app is apparently no longer available, but ACLU-NJ reported 30,000 downloads within the first few months of its availability. Widespread coverage of this police accountability app led to a somewhat overwrought response from (of all places) the Burbank, California Police Department.

"OFFICER AWARENESS," the bulletin yells, before heading into a brief summation of the app's capabilities. It takes a turn for the truly absurd when Lt. Eric Deroian attempts to portray the app as potentially dangerous to officers.

Both apps [including the "stop and frisk" app developed by ACLU-NY] will notify other app users within a defined area if someone has activated their app, with the exact location of the police action. This may result in officer safety issues if community groups are able to pinpoint various police actions, and respond to the location in the form of a flash mob.

First off, let's deal with the why of this app's existence. It is only because officers have routinely (and illegally) confiscated, shut down or deleted recordings from civilians' cell phones that an automatic archival process is needed. Despite being told repeatedly by judges, the DOJ and their own internal policies that citizens have the right to record police officers in public areas, many cops still seem to believe this isn't actually a right but a privilege completely subject to any recorded officer's willingness to oblige.

Because cops doing bad things hate to be held accountable for their actions, they often turn on those recording their actions. And because officers have power, weapons and the benefit of a doubt eternally on their side, it's usually pretty easy to shut down recordings. The tide is slowly turning, but civilians are still severely limited in their options when confronted by a cop who doesn't want to be recorded.

That's why apps like these even exist, and cops have only themselves to blame for this situation.

Now, let's address the inadvertent hilarity of the "flash mob" claim. Even if there were enough people with the app installed in the area, it's highly unlikely a coordinated (and apparently threatening) response would be mounted. The thing about successful flash mobs is that they're usually coordinated ahead of time. The best ones are, anyway. There are some that gel unexpectedly, but flash mobs usually require participants to be at least a little prepared.

Being suddenly alerted about some unexpected police bullshittery isn't generally going to provoke anything more than additional cameras and angry voices. I've seen tons of police video captured by citizens and I have yet to see crowds physically attack officers no matter how much of a beatdown they're putting on some unlucky individual. A lot of yelling and swearing? Yeah. But nothing more "threatening" than that. Even when a cop is choking the life out of someone, everyone stands a few feet away and hurls nothing more dangerous than epithets and criticism.

Here's the other thing: You know who else can "notify [others] in their area" and "pinpoint various police actions?" Cops. And their "flash mobs" usually arrive at high speed with sirens blaring, and armed to the teeth with a variety of lethal (and slightly less-lethal, depending on application) weapons. This "mob" has the force of law behind it, as well as a large number of options citizens don't have -- like departments and unions willing to justify nearly any amount of misconduct, as well as various levels of legal immunity should the "police action" result in a civil lawsuit. They'll also be acting out of "fear for their safety," so the occasional kidney punch/emptied gun magazine will be almost instantly forgiven. All the unfriendly citizen flash mob has is… well, their voices and their cameras. Nothing like bringing a Galaxy 4 to a gun/Taser fight.

Bottom line: there's nothing to fear from police accountability apps like these except the accountability. This is what Lt. Deroian's warning is really about. He closes it by noting that a "suspect" had the app installed on his phone, but leaves the details of this person's crime wholly up to the overactive imaginations of the officers reading this "alert."

A better "Officer Awareness" memo might have addressed the fact that citizens have a right to record and that patrolling OFFICERS should be AWARE their actions have a good chance of being recorded, so try not to violate too many rights/beat down too many "suspects." And be careful out there.

Last week we noted that while AT&T has been trying to match Google Fiber pricing in small portions of several markets, it has been busily doing it in a very AT&T fashion. While the company is offering a $70, 1 Gbps service in some locations, the fine print indicates that users can only get that price point if they agree to AT&T's Internet Preferences snoopvertising program. That program uses deep packet inspection to track your online behavior down to the second -- and if you want to opt out, that $70 1 Gbps broadband connection quickly becomes significantly more expensive.

While most people thought this was rather dumb, AT&T actually received kudos on some fronts for trying something new. Apparently, the logic goes, AT&T charging you a major monthly fee to not be snooped on will result in some kind of privacy arms race resulting in better services and lower prices for all. While sometimes that sort of concept works (Google and Apple scurrying to profess who loves encryption more, for example), anybody who believes this is a good precedent doesn't know the U.S. telecom market or AT&T very well.

As Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM notes, it's not as simple as just paying AT&T a $30 to not be snooped on. AT&T actually makes it very difficult to even find the "please don't spy on me option," and saddles the process with a number of loopholes to prevent you from choosing it. In fact, you're not even able to compare prices unless you plug in an address that's in AT&T's footprint, but currently doesn't have AT&T service. Meanwhile, according to Higginbotham's math, even if you're successful in signing up, that $30 privacy fee is actually much more depending on your chosen options. If you just want broadband, opting out of AT&T snoopvertising will actually run you $44:

"Gigabit service costs $99 per month under the Standard Plan plus a $7 monthly fee modem rental fee and a $99 one-time activation fee, that nets out to a monthly cost of $114. The Internet Preference Plan waives the one-time activation and monthly modem fee which means you pay only $70 a month, giving you a true cost of $44 a month if you choose the privacy-preserving option."

It's worse if you want to sign up for television services:

"The Standard Plan has a higher cost of $149 per month plus the $7 monthly fee and a one-time $49 activation fee. Only you also add in a $10 monthly service fee for HD TV and a $16 monthly fee for HBO Go which are included in the Internet Preference Plan. So the comparable plan nets out to $186, which costs $66 more than the $120 you’d pay for letting AT&T sneak a peek at your home broadband web surfing habits."

So no, AT&T isn't opening up some brave new frontier here where consumers have greater control of privacy. It's charging you a huge premium just to opt out of deep packet inspection, and making it as expensive and as confusing as possible to do so.

As per its usual method of releasing news it would rather not talk about, on Friday evening the White House released the news that it had, once again, gotten a rubberstamp approval from the FISA Court for the NSA to collect in bulk basically all your phone records. As you probably know, this is just the latest in a long series of reapprovals by the FISA Court, which needs to reauthorize the program for limited periods of time each time the previous rubber stamp "expires." What hasn't made much sense in all of this is that President Obama announced a year ago that he wanted to end the bulk collection program, and as many people pointed out, there was an easy way to do so: just don't ask the FISA Court to renew the authority. But, rather than do that, the administration just keeps on asking (and getting) approval.

The excuse given in the released statement is that the White House wants Congress to force its hand to stop asking:

As the White House said [link to WH statement], the Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January.

And, yes, the official announcement says "[link to WH statement]" -- because, hey, they're posting on Friday evening and might as well start the drinking early or something. It's not like this stuff matters. The rest of that claim is similarly misleading. The metadata program has not been shown to be important in any way. In fact, basically everyone who has looked at it from outside the intelligence community, including two separate government review bodies has admitted that there aren't any examples of the program actually being useful. So, it's hard to see what's so "important" about it.

But, really, this is all ridiculous. This is the same White House that is getting criticized all over the place for a variety of moves to take "executive action" where Congress is deadlocked. And, yet, here's a situation where literally the White House has all the power in the world to stop the program it claims it wants stopped -- and it says it needs Congress to act? That's not even close to believable.

The one "noteworthy" aspect to this latest rubberstamping is the end date. The newly approved authority runs until June 1, 2015, which is the date at which Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act sunsets and would no longer be law. This program exists under Section 215, so the government can't continue to collect those phone records after June 1, unless something happens. That "something" is the renewal of Section 215, and you better believe that the next few months are going to be a full on fight by the intelligence community and its supporters to spread as much fear as possible about why this program absolutely must be renewed. As you hear the scare stories, just remember that despite using this program for almost a decade there still isn't a single example of it being useful.

As Techdirt has reported on the increasingly active world of commercial spyware, one name in particular has cropped up several times: Gamma, with its FinFisher suite of spyware products. In October last year, we reported that Privacy International had filed a criminal complaint against the company with the National Cyber Crime Unit of the UK's National Crime Agency. There's no update on that move, but it seems that a parallel action has had more success (pdf):

British-German surveillance company Gamma has been condemned by a human rights watchdog for its failure to adhere to human rights and due diligence standards, after a two year investigation into the company's sale of surveillance technology to Bahrain.

Here's what Privacy International says was happening in Bahrain:

The complaint alleged that Gamma sold its notorious FinFisher intrusion software product to Bahrain as early as 2009, after which time it was used by the Bahraini government to violate the human rights of three Bahraini nationals and human rights activists, Ala'a Shehabi, Husain Abdulla and Shehab Hashem.

You're probably wondering what the penalty is if you are found in breach of human rights in this way -- clearly a serious matter. Well, here it is:

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s UK National Contact Point (“"CP") concluded today that Gamma International should make changes to its business practices in order to ensure that in the future it respects the human rights of those affected by the surveillance technologies it sells.

Yes, you are told to do better next time. However, looking at things more positively, Privacy International points out:

Today's decision is the first time that the OECD has found a companies selling surveillance technologies to be in violation of human rights guidelines, and one of the most critical decisions ever issued by the OECD. In it, the NCP sets out in strong terms that Gamma has no human rights policies and due diligence processes that would protect against the abusive use of its products.

In other words, just as with the recent court victories against the UK government over its surveillance activities, what's important here is not so much the punishment -- or lack of it -- as the fact that for the first time a company selling invasive surveillance tools was condemned in this way. At the very least, it puts such companies on notice that they are being watched and will be hauled up before these kind of bodies for public shaming. Well, it's a start.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

This week, the Komodia/Superfish scandal got even worse. So bad, in fact, that the only appropriate response was sheer sarcasm, which Rich Kulawiec provided in our most insightful comment of the week:

Oh, come now, this isn't so bad

It's not like they did something really bad, something so destructive and damaging to the privacy and security of millions of people that it required immediate attention from federal law enforcement agencies combined with the threat of aggressive prosecution that could result in decades in prison...something like, oh, I don't know, downloading scientific research papers?

Meanwhile, when we looked at the creative abuses of wireless data caps, TheResidentSkeptic took second place for insightful by boiling it down to basics:

A different viewpoint

the most ham-fisted abuse of usage caps is simply that they exist.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we'll look at two other examples of people abusing power, the law, the market or all of the above. First up, after Total Wipes decided the word "download" meant infringement and proceeded to abuse the DMCA to take down all kinds of innocent sites, That One Guy opined on the inevitability of it all:

Natural result of a one-sided law

When a system or law has absolutely no penalty for abuse, it will be abused, and to expect anything less is foolish. Companies who file clearly bogus DMCA claims face no penalty whatsoever for doing so, even if the claims are blatantly false, yet the ones receiving them are still forced to treat them all as valid, unless they want to face harsh legal penalties.

If the DMCA was intended to be even remotely balanced, then there would be hard penalties for sending such obviously false claims, but as it stands, it's working exactly as it was intended to, completely favoring one side, at the cost of the other.

Next, though NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers said a lot of pretty worrying things about the NSA and privacy this week, Jason zeroed in on what might be the most offensive statement of them all:

Of everything said in that interview, what I personally found the most offensive was this:

“Be grateful that you live in a nation that is willing to have this kind of dialogue,” Rogers told the audience.

(from here)

We don't. We're having "this kind of dialogue"---such as it is---only because the government and intelligence community has been dragged, kicking and screaming and pronouncing the immediate doom of us all, into it.

I cycle through a lot of emotions as I keep up with all this... concern, mistrust, whatever. But comments like that make me genuinely angry.

Over on the funny side, we start out by returning to the Total Wipes story, where one anonymous commenter won first place with a different take on the whole situation:

What about me?

I have a site with a download link. Am I not important enough? Can I sue them for discrimination?

Next we head to the post about our brief Twitter exchange with revenge porn jerk/king of irony Craig Brittain, who is on a crusade against Google's supposed copyright infringement. Among the many amusing hypocrisies and general stupidities in his position, Somedumbgeek pointed out that his request for our coverage of the Perfect 10 lawsuit was among the most amusing:

So...

At the end, when he asked where he could read about it. Did it never occur to him that he could just google it?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start by circling back to the story about wireless data caps, where orbitalinsertion gave an excellent name to the practice of letting big companies buy "sponsored data" to route around caps (and block smaller competition):

Deep Pocket Inspection.

Last but not least, we've got an anonymous commenter who has daringly taken the side of government officials demanding a magical, un-abusable backdoor key to encrypted devices. The engineers have insisted such a thing is fundamentally impossible, but clearly they were just too lazy to hammer out the code:

It's so simple

if (guy = good){
key.golden.letIn(True)
else
key.golden.letIn(False)
}

(There appear to be some syntax errors there, including the use of an assignment operator instead of a comparison one, which would make every "guy" register as "good" automatically. Which means this approach should be just about as secure as any genuine attempt would.)

That's all for this week, folks!

Five Years Ago

This week in 2010, we continued following the story of the school caught spying on students through webcams in their laptops, and the details were not looking good. Especially when we discovered the student in question was only guilty of eating candy.

This was also the time of ACTA negotiations, and when the internet chapter leaked, we got a look at how sneaky the negotiators were being. We learned which countries were fighting hardest against ACTA transparency, and European officials were getting concerned about the agreement. Meanwhile, the UK was supposedly backing down on the three strikes provisions of its Digital Economy Bill, but it turned out this was really just an exercise in rebranding and the bill still allowed for disconnection (that would last as long Peter Mandelson felt it should.)

You know that famous "I'm on a horse" ad for Old Spice, which the company continues riffing on to this day? Well, this was the year it originally aired during the Olympics (which, sidenote, was busy trying to get paid for tweets) leading us to hold it up as an example of how advertising is content. In a weirder attempt to enact that principle, EMI got State Farm to sponsor the embedding of OK GO videos (which were otherwise blocked), while the band's singer stepped up to point out that a lack of embedding hurts everyone.

Other upsets to the internet this week in 2010 included: the (secret) settling of the lawsuit between Perfect 10 and Amazon, the conviction of four Google executives on criminal charges over a YouTube video, the overblown freak-out over PleaseRobMe, the consideration of internet addiction for inclusion in the DSM and, perhaps most significant of all, the temporary takedown of the original Rickroll video.

Ten Years Ago

Looking back to 2005, you can clearly see the debates and practices that would lead to today's net neutrality battle. The vicious attacks on muni broadband by lobbyists were blatantly self-serving, and some companies went even further to outright prevent it. One group, fresh off of taking a Techdirt quote completely out of context to trash muni WiFi, went on to attack the idea of broadband-over-power-lines as well.

Lexmark got smacked down in its attempt to abuse the DMCA to block third-party ink cartridges, while HP was accused of building an expiry date into its cartridges. Apple, having recently launched its retail stores, was sued by Apple resellers and accused of unfair practices. And Google was accused of threatening French culture with its book scanning project by focusing on English books.

People were really beginning to realize how attached they were to their phones — and that losing them could mean losing friends. The rise of SMS was even threatening the greeting card industry. But, despite assumptions, constant texting seemed to be improving kids' language skills.

Fifteen Years Ago

If you do any work with web analytics today, you know that conversion rates are a key metric — but back in 2000 they were the new kid on the block. Then again, so were colour screens on PDAs and plenty of other high tech toys for grownups (though apparently not as many for kids).

British Airways announced that it would charge more for paper tickets, and we wondered if it would back down the way Delta did on a similar initiative. Palo Alto was experimenting with fiber to the home. Various magazines were looking at the state of things like digital currencies and weblogs like Techdirt (yes, still "weblogs"). And Techdirt itself briefly disappeared thanks to a DNS issue.

Eighty-Eight Years Ago

On February 23rd, 1927, Calvin Coolidge signed the new Radio Act into law, establishing the Federal Radio Commission that would, less than a decade later, become the FCC we all know so well.

Let me start this post off by noting that I'm a huge fan of crowdfunding and think that it's an amazing force for all sorts of good things in art, culture and innovation. That's part of the reason why we do a weekly awesome stuff post highlighting interesting (and sometimes awesome) crowdfunding projects. But, it should be noted that crowdfunding projects don't always turn out great. There are plenty of horror stories to go around -- some involving what appear to be outright fraud, certainly -- mostly just because project creators are way overly optimistic on their ability to achieve their goals. I've backed a few dozen projects, and I can only think of a handful that were delivered on time. To be honest, this doesn't bother me so much. What's much worse is that as projects go bad, the project creators tend to disappear, not updating people with the bad news, leading people to get angrier and angrier.

Kickstarter, for one, has long tried to make it clear that it is "not a store," but rather that you're backing a project, and there's risk associated with that -- including the risk that a project may fail. However, it's still disappointing to back a project and have it be totally disappointing. So, this week, I thought I'd ask people about the most disappointing crowdfunded projects they've seen or backed. And I'll reveal mine. Back in the summer of 2013, on one of our awesome stuffs I wrote about the HOT Watch, a new smart watch that had some interesting features, including the ability to hold your hand up to your ear and use your hand like a phone. The video for the project was super cheesy/infomercially, which scared me off, but I'd become somewhat fascinated with the possibilities for smartwatches, and at the last minute bought into it. The backers of the project swore up and down, left, right and center, that the project would ship in time for Christmas in 2013. Right up until basically the end of the year the company insisted it would be shipping. It's now February of 2015 and I still don't have mine. Because I just don't care any more, I've asked them for a refund and they haven't replied, which is pretty much what I expected. Some people appear to have received theirs -- but I haven't and it's now 15 months late, and the market for smartwatches has moved way past the HOT Watch.

Lesson learned: crowdfunder beware.

Another, similar project, which (thankfully) I did not back is the Lima, which was a little device that was supposed to enable you to very easily set up your own personal cloud with USB devices at home. That presentation was super slick, and I was tempted to back it, but the pricing seemed a little steep, and I'm glad I didn't because while it also promised delivery by December 2013, at last check, it also has not delivered at all, and there are tons of people demanding refunds. I had mentioned the Lima in another awesome stuff post, and the company reached out to me saying the team wanted to send me a postcard (?!?!) as a thank you. I told the person not to bother, but the company still found our office address and sent it anyway. It seems like, rather than sending out post cards to people who don't want them, they could have put time into working on the product.

Anyway, this isn't to knock crowdfunding, or even these two projects in particular. It's just to note that there are risks associated with crowdfunding, and certain projects turn out to be flops, so you need to be aware. In the meantime, would love to hear about crowdfunding flops that you have backed (or luckily avoided...).