EU rejects ACTA, but fight is not over.

Good news for anyone making money online in an honest way. ACTA, the controversial trade agreement that was drafted in secret between the US, Canada, Japan, the EU and a few other countries, was rejected by the EU Parliament after a long anti-ACTA campaign by online activists.

As Dave Neal from The Inquirer wrote:

This is a victory for everyone except corporate cartels

Open Rights Group:

This victory was thanks to your continued pressure which helped ensure that at every step of the way Europe's representatives voted to reject the provisions within ACTA. We know that MEPs have been inundated with emails and calls from people who, just like you, have fought tirelessly in the defence of our freedoms

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, was officially intended to fight online piracy, but as liberty advocates, privacy groups, bloggers, lawyers, quickly pointed out, the overly broad language of ACTA would have made it possible for politicians to use ACTA against political opponents and activists. ACTA would also have allowed major corporations to harass and ultimately shutdown its smaller competitors through the use of questionable patents. And it would have made it possible for corporations or politicians to silence news outlets when those outlets wanted to release information damaging to the corporations or politicians.

No matter how hard the pro-ACTA lobby tried, it could not stop the waves of opposition that the draconian treaty attracted and as more and more people protested so it became harder for supporters to convince anyone that ACTA should be approved.

Now What?

We will have to remain vigilant. EU commissioners like the Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht have already stated that they will not let this slide. Chances are the Commission will reintroduce ACTA, possibly with some tiny cosmetic changes, on a later date. Apparently, the internet and the freedom to communicate, exchange ideas and do business with people all over the world, is so threatening to the EU Commission that it is willing to ignore the will of the people.

Mail-order houses

Until round 1940 it was possible to buy a house by catalog. In 1908, Sears Roebuck started to offer house kits in their catalogs. The kit, which included the entire house, with numbered parts and instruction booklets, paint and nails. The first mail-order house is credited to Aladdin Company, who started offering the houses in 1906. I wonder if someone is selling house kits online these days.

Twitter Marketing Myths Exposed

You don't get instant Twitter traffic from a huge follower count unless you are a somebody and people actually read your tweets. In the short run, you get traffic from Twitter with retweets. In the long run, tweets containing your urls will help you rank your site in the SERPs.

Going on twitter and adding a ton of people (who you hope will add you back) is an idiotic strategy. You will have all of these people shitting up your stream, so you probably won't read anything they are saying. They don't read their stream, and you don't read your stream, so who exactly are you knuckleheads actually talking to?

If you don't read the people you are following, you can't build relationships. No relationships, no one is reading you, clicking links, or retweeting.

Twitter marketing takes time and work. You can't treat it like spammy fire and forget link building project if you want to get a real benefit from it. You have to put in time, work and dedication.

PayPal Bans BitTorrent Friendly VPN Provider

According to TorrentFreak, TorGuard, a company that offers VPN and proxy services, has been banned from using the payment processor because of "its affiliation with BitTorrent". Thousands of dollars belonging to the company have been frozen.

In response to new Internet surveillance initiatives there is a growing interest in privacy enhancing services such as VPNs and proxies. TorGuard is one of the many companies catering to this demand. As the name suggests, TorGuard has several plans specifically targeted at BitTorrent users who prefer to hide their IP-addresses from the rest of the world.

Being a BitTorrent-friendly VPN appeals to a wide audience. However, the company has also learned that it has a downside. Without prior warning or detailed explanation, PayPal decided to ban TorGuard for promoting their services to BitTorrent users.

The following email was sent by PayPal:

When we reviewed your account, we noticed that your activity violates some of the agreements you have with us. Because of this, we've limited your accounts and can no longer offer our services to you. You'll still be able to log in to view your transaction history, but you won't be able to send or receive money.

Apparently, PayPal is going down the same route as Apple, where everything related to BitTorrent is simply a no-go. Over the past years the payment processor has already thrown out many cyberlockers and BitTorrent trackers that linked to infringing content, but to our knowledge this is the first time that a VPN service has been banned.

Despite the setback, business continues as usual for TorGuard and TorGuard's owner Jason commented:

Those who are serious about private payment solutions should consider one of the many alternatives like Prepaid VISA cards, OKPAY, Bitcoins, and other ewallet services.

Google plans to shut down Meebo

Just 5 days after buying social-messaging and advertising company Meebo for a rumored $100 million, Big G is beginning to shut down the company's various products.

On July 11, Meebo Messenger, Sharing on Meebo, Meebo Me, and all of Meebo's mobile apps will be shut down, according to a blog post on Meebo.com. Google is folding Meebo's staffers and technology into its fledgling Google+ social network.

It may seem a waste to buy a company for $100 million just to shut it down, but from Google's perspective it makes perfect sense. Google has been struggling to get its social media platform off the ground. At a time when people are already starting to count Google+ amongst Google's other failed projects (who even remembers Google Audio Ads, Google X or Google Lively?) and no one besides a few Google employees and clever SEO specialists seem to be using Google+, buying up the competition and shutting it down may be one of the only moves Google has left.

Remove Facebook Timeline Scams Still Target Dissatisfied Users

Every time when Facebook makes a big change, a good portion of the user base freaks out for a little while and then scammers try to take advantage of that. this time it's the Facebook timeline feature. a lot of users don't like it and now scammers are targeting them with "tools to remove the timeline".

According to WebProNews:

A recent survey showed that many users (up to 88%) are concerned about their privacy with the new Timeline, and another survey suggested that an overwhelming percentage of comments surrounding the Timeline on Facebook have been negative.

No wonder scammers continue to use the timeline to target victims.

Peter Shumlin at it again

Peter Shumlin, the no-new-tax Democratic Governor of Vermont, who signed the online affiliate tax bill (that he had indicated he would not sign) is now taxing dentists for giving away free toothbrushes to children.