A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ".xxx" domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.
Parents would be able to use the system to help block access to porn sites, though because its use would be voluntary, the ".xxx" suffix wouldn't keep such content entirely away from minors. Religious and other anti-porn groups worry that ".xxx" would legitimize porn sites, and the proposal has already been rejected three times since 2000.
But the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the allocation of Internet addresses globally, may revive ICM Registry's bid yet again as ICANN meets this week in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Last month, responding to complaints from ICM, an outside panel questioned ICANN's grounds for the latest rejection in 2007. As a result, board members have been weighing the matter ahead of formal consideration of the ".xxx" bid on Friday, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said in an interview.
Beckstrom said he was not able to give details of those discussions for legal reasons, and he could not say when ICANN may reach a decision.
Stuart Lawley, ICM's chief executive, said he has been the victim of a process that he considered far from open and nondiscriminatory.
ICM, which planned to charge $60 for a site to register a ".xxx" name, first proposed ".xxx" in 2000 as a way to help the online porn industry clean up its act. Those using the domain would have to abide by yet-to-be-written rules designed to bar such trickery as spamming and malicious scripts.
And parents could set up Internet software to automatically block any site ending in ".xxx," reducing the chances that minors and other Internet users would accidentally stumble on pornography online.
Given its voluntary nature, however, ".xxx" would unlikely have much effect on parents' ability to block porn sites. And because a domain name serves merely as an easy-to-remember moniker for a site's actual numeric Internet address, even if its use is required, a child could simply punch in the numeric address of any blocked ".xxx" name.
Anti-porn activists, meanwhile, worry that the creation of a virtual red-light district would serve as an endorsement of the adult-entertainment industry, as ".xxx" would be sitting alongside other suffixes such as ".com" for commercial sites and ".edu" for schools.
Skeptics note that porn sites would likely keep their existing ".com" storefronts, even as they set up shop in the new ".xxx" domain name, thereby expanding the number of porn sites on the Internet.
When ICANN last considered ".xxx," board members also expressed worries that the suffix would leave the agency in the business of regulating content, or the type of material that would find itself there.
The board also questioned whether ".xxx" had the support of the adult-entertainment industry, as many operators of porn sites were concerned that governments would later make the voluntary red-light district mandatory.
ICANN still wasn't swayed after ICM said that the content-regulation role would have been left solely with the company and that ICM would fend off efforts to mandate its use.
Lawley challenged ICANN's rejection before an independent review panel appointed by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution. That panel largely sided with him and concluded that ICANN's decision was "not consistent with the application of neutral, objective and fair documented policy."
The panel said that after ICANN gave the bid preliminary approval in 2005, it shouldn't have revisited some of the key issues already reviewed. Board members had used the new evaluations in deciding to reject the bid two years later, in 2007.
Although the panel's findings are nonbinding, ICANN's board was scheduled to discuss them Friday. It was not clear whether the board would vote on the matter or defer a decision for more discussion.
Lawley said the review panel was supposed to be ICANN's mechanism for accountability, and how the organization responds to the panel's findings "will provide great insight into the true accountability of this vital organization."
He said the process has so far cost his company about $8.5 million.
ICANN tabled and effectively rejected a similar proposal in 2000 out of fear the ".xxx" domain would force the body into content regulation.
ICM resubmitted its proposal in 2004, this time structuring it with a policy-setting organization to free ICANN of that task. But many board members worried that the language of a proposed contract was vague and could kick the task back to ICANN. The board rejected the 2004 proposal in 2006.
ICANN revived the proposal months later after ICM agreed to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules. But ICANN ultimately rejected that bid in what was to be its final consideration.
With this morning’s announcement of Conan O’Brien’s 30-city tour, the former late-night comedian is fully embracing his online fan base, “Team Coco.”
The official poster for the tour re-uses the image made famous on the Internet of a heroic Mr. O’Brien, orange hair aflame, in front of an American flag. The image was produced by Mike Mitchell, an artist in Los Angeles, as a show of support for Mr. O’Brien when NBC tried in January to move “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 a.m. Within days the image and its message, “I’m With Coco,” was a viral sensation, inspiring dozens of pro-Conan groups on Facebook. Several of Mr. O’Brien’s employees even made the image their Facebook profile photo.
Now they have formally adopted the image as their own. Days after Mr. O’Brien signed off of “The Tonight Show” on Jan. 22, one of the comedian’s producers contacted Mr. Mitchell and said that they wanted the “Coco” illustration to be the emblem of a nationwide tour they were planning.
“They wanted it to be the main image,” Mr. Mitchell recalled in an e-mail message Thursday. “They are all such fans of the ‘I’m with Coco’ poster and what it means to everyone.”
Mr. Mitchell met with Mr. O’Brien’s executive producer, Jeff Ross, about a month ago, to talk through a licensing deal.
“Apparently Conan wanted to get me on board for it – obviously I was honored,” Mr. Mitchell said. He said he retains the rights to the widely distributed image; Mr. O’Brien’s team will use it for the tour and for some merchandise sales.
Asked about compensation for the image, Mr. Mitchell said “a fair deal was made for both parties.”
Mr. Mitchell said Mr. O’Brien called to thank him for creating the image. He recalled Mr. O’Brien joking that “I love anything with my face on it, and CONAN in huge bold letters.”
Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines and Joshua Clottey of Ghana
attend a news conference in New York City to promote their upcoming fight
It is 7:13 a.m. in Los Angeles and Manny Pacquiao, the world's best pound-for-pound boxer, is jogging on a public high school track. There are palm trees in the distance, and the low hum of traffic on I-10 is starting to turn into a low roar as the Filipino boxer, clad in a red tracksuit, dashes around the dirt oval despite a painful shin splint. A handful of early-arriving students hang on the chain-link fence surrounding the track and watch him do his work. The Pac-Man is preparing for his March 13 fight against Joshua Clottey, a dangerous but relatively unknown welterweight from Ghana. The $49.95 pay-per-view fight is billed as "The Event" but could easily be called "The Letdown."
Just three months ago, boxing was preparing for its version of the Super Bowl. Fresh from his mega-fight win over Miguel Cotto, Pacquiao had begun negotiations with Floyd Mayweather Jr., a brash welterweight whom non-sports fans know best from his appearance on Dancing with the Stars. The proposed battle was being compared to some of the greatest matchups in boxing history. Even people who had given up on boxing or hadn't really thought about it much were talking about the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, which would probably earn each boxer $40 million, the most lucrative match ever.
But negotiations became so acrimonious that they descended to the level of bad soap opera. Mayweather insisted on Olympic-style random blood testing, which Pacquiao refused, saying that drug-testing rules should be decided by boxing commissions, not individual fighters. Though suspicions were raised that Pacquiao was on some sort of performance-enhancing drug, the Filipino boxer — who has won an unprecedented seven belts in seven weight classes, putting on 40 lb. throughout his career — has never tested positive for banned drugs. He says he is willing to submit to random urine testing.
Pacquiao's camp says the boxer refused the blood testing because he is superstitious and doesn't want to give blood so close to fight time. He was blood-tested a couple of days before his fight with Erik Morales, and lost. "It made me weak," says Pacquiao, who is suing Mayweather for sullying his reputation. There is speculation in some boxing gyms that Mayweather knew about Pacquiao's aversion to pre-fight blood testing and used it as a tactic to duck him. But Mayweather insists that he simply wants to reform the sport's drug policies. "I am taking a stand," he says, adding, "I should get to choose who I want to fight." But by allowing the negotiations to collapse, Pacquiao and Mayweather quickly became defined as the boxers who wouldn't fight each other. "I think Floyd is scared of Manny," says Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer. "I think the public is disgusted by the controversy, but they still want the fight to happen."
To fill the vacuum and assuage dissatisfaction, each boxer decided to take on formidable interim opponents. Pacquiao will fight Clottey, and Mayweather will battle "Sugar" Shane Mosley on May 1. The hope is that if Pacquiao and Mayweather both win their respective fights, they will work out their differences and fight in the fall. "My nails are going to be bitten down to the bone waiting until May 2," says Ross Greenburg, president of HBO Sports, which is hoping to televise the Pacquiao-Mayweather spectacle.
Pacquiao doesn't seem to be taking his current opponent for a pushover. Clottey has a 35-3 win-loss record, and 21 of those wins were by knockout. He stands 5 ft. 8 in. tall to Pacquiao's 5 ft. 6 in. and has a strong chin and the muscled body of a boa constrictor. But Pacquiao came into his training camp in great shape, and his sparring at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood has been crisp and lively; Roach predicts a knockout. Still, it could be a tactically riveting duel, because Clottey likes to lean on the ropes, while Pacquiao will probably try to dive in close, hit him with combinations and then get out of the way of Clottey's uppercuts.
Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) also has a tough opponent. Mosley is a wily 38-year-old who twice defeated Oscar De La Hoya. (Both Mayweather and Mosley have agreed to random blood testing.) Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy, which is promoting the fight, predicts that HBO will sell 3 million pay-per-view buys to make it the biggest fight in boxing history. It will also be shown in theaters nationwide.
While waiting to meet in the ring, Pacquiao and Mayweather will compete at the box office. Pacquiao's last several fights have been at Las Vegas' MGM Grand, a 17,000-seat venue, against marquee opponents. His bout against Clottey will be held at Texas Stadium (45,000 seats for the event, and ticket sales have been brisk). But because Clottey was a last-minute replacement for Mayweather with no natural fanbase in the U.S., HBO declined to feature the fight in its popular 24/7 series (it did so for several of Pacquiao's previous matches), and the media tour was shortened to only two cities. Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, chose not to sugarcoat it. "To be frank, we had to overcome disappointment," he says. "People were looking forward to a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight."
Mayweather's match will be staged in the smaller MGM Grand, but it will get the full buildup with a four-episode Mayweather-Mosley 24/7 series on HBO. Mayweather spent last week on a three-city media tour, generating interest in his bout with outlandish theatrics, which included a shoving match with Mosley. Some of the crowd at the Los Angeles event chanted, "Manny! Manny!," but they were drowned out by "Money! Money!," Mayweather's nickname.
Yet both fighters' handlers, as well as Mayweather and Pacquiao themselves, appear unwilling to compromise on the blood-testing issue. Meanwhile, fans descend upon Pacquiao's training gym every day in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. He has had to spend more time than he wanted answering questions about blood testing, steroids and Mayweather — a nemesis who has clearly gotten under his skin. "I have never seen him so angry," says Roach.
If a Pacquiao-Mayweather détente can somehow happen, it needs to be soon, while the men are still at their prime. Pacquiao, who is 31, is running for Congress in the Philippines and starting to hint at retirement. Mayweather, 33, has already come back from one retirement. If Pacquiao can beat Clottey and Mayweather is victorious over Mosley, then the fight for the two men's legacies will begin again — at the negotiating table.
Ludacris removes his shades as he awaits his lunch at the restaurant in the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He concedes he is a little tired with a concert at the nearby Verizon Center just a few hours away, but he really doesn't have time for rest. The Atlanta rapper also known as Chris Bridges is a busy man.
The Grammy-winning, platinum-selling artist has his hands full promoting his star-studded new album, Battle of the Sexes, out today, while also touring with the Black Eyed Peas and collaborating on current hits by Justin Bieber (Baby), Raheem DeVaughn (Bulletproof) and Taio Cruz (Break Your Heart). On the side, he's juggling a slew of charity and business ventures, including his Disturbing Tha Peace record label and a popular Atlanta restaurant. Parenthood and a thriving acting career also vie for his attention.
"I know I'm working hard, but it's hard for me to think about all I'm doing because I'm constantly on the move," says Ludacris, 32. "How do I do it? I take it one minute at a time. I've got a great team of people around me, I designate my time intelligently, and I'm a great multitasker."
He's also passionate about applying creative tweaks to his latest projects. On Battle, he enlists several female artists to engage him in lyrical conversations on gender. That novel concept initially was hatched for a duet with former DTP labelmate Shawnna, but it was broadened to include a range of female and male artists.
"Hip-hop is such a male-dominated industry," says Ludacris, who has been criticized for less-than-flattering references to women in his lyrics. "There's a female voice that's sometimes kind of missing."
His collaborators welcomed the opportunity to fire back.
"Guys and girls have been having this battle of the sexes from the beginning of time," says newcomer Nicki Manaj, who rhymes on the song My Chick Bad. "So when you put that to the music, it's fun."
Says Eve, who has heard on a remix of the same song: "This is a great concept. I wish I'd thought of it."
Another track, Hey Ho with Lil' Kim, addresses the double standards of promiscuity. Can't Live With You, featuring his cousin Monica, deals with a couple in an edgy though loving relationship, and B.O.T.S. Radio finds him and Shawnna giving callers advice on love.
He doesn't have a counterpart on the current club banger How Low, which went No. 1 on USA TODAY's urban airplay chart and has sold 1.2 million downloads, but it has inspired numerous remixes featuring Ciara and Pitbull, Rick Ross and Twista, and Flo Rida. "Everybody is sending me verses, which is flattering," he says. "We have so many versions of that song it's ridiculous."
Chuck Creekmur of music news site AllHipHop.com says Battle is continued evidence of Ludacris' musical growth after six hit albums and 14 top-10 R&B singles. He has sold more than 14 million albums in the USA.
"He's a real artist who commits to a concept and seeing it through," Creekmur says. "A lot of artists string together a bunch of songs and call it an album."
Ludacris, who got his start in the late 1990s at an Atlanta radio station as DJ Chris Lova Lova, was known as a brash party animal when he made his debut in 2000 with Back for the First Time. But in recent years, he has varied his themes to keep his music fresh. The still playful but more mature The Red Light District came out in 2004 and was followed by the somewhat darker Release Therapy two years later.
"He could have easily fallen victim to some of the traps other artists fall into by trying to stay the same," Creekmur says. "He's grown from kind of cartoonish rapper to a grown-up hip-hop artist. He's very lyrical, but some people forget that because of some of his more pop songs."
Building respect
That's a misconception Ludacris set out to change with 2008's Theater of the Mind, which went gold but was his first album to fall short of selling 1 million copies. It coincidentally came out at a time when he was getting notices as an actor. He calls the cinematically themed opus his favorite album to date.
"With that album, I set out to be respected as a lyricist," Ludacris says. "I feel like I accomplished that because even though I had sold a lot of records, people didn't start calling me a lyricist until after Theater of the Mind came out. I just love to re-invent and challenge myself to do things that I haven't done."
He applies that drive to all his projects. He was already a connoisseur of fine spirits when he was approached two years ago by the venerable French/Norwegian winery Birkedal Hartmann about bringing a new Cognac brand, Conjure, to the USA in a 50/50 venture. He didn't want to simply lend his name to the product's marketing, so he learned everything he could about the company and the process, then went to Europe to see it firsthand.
"We wanted somebody who would be really involved," says Kim Birkedal Hartmann, fourth-generation owner of the Cognac, France-based company established in 1887. "We just didn't want any endorsement deal. It was fascinating to see how interested he was. He wanted to know everything, and our master blender helped him select and blend the Cognacs he wanted."
Ludacris proudly declares that the custom-made liquor "tastes like luxury."
Forging such partnerships is one of the rapper's fortes. He got into business with San Francisco chef Chris Yeo, whose Straits restaurants serve spicy Singaporean cuisine, three years ago after meeting him at a charitable dinner. Straits Atlanta, which opened in April 2008, is now one of the city's more popular upscale restaurants. This year, he signed on with MTV to host and executive produce the Sprite Step Off, a documentary-style series that aired in February and followed step teams from three fraternities and three sororities competing for $100,000 in scholarships.
"I just treat people the way I want to be treated, and I respect my elders," he says. "Relationships are extremely important. Whether it's making records or in business, if we combine our efforts, intelligence and resources, there is no limit to the things we can do."
But time does limit the things he can do, and he has put his film career on hold until he finishes his tour in mid-April. He says his next role may be in the fifth installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise (he was in the first sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious), which is still in development. His acting résumé includes Max Payne, RocknRolla, Fred Claus and Gamer and TV's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and he won a Screen Actors Guild outstanding cast award for Crash and was nominated for another with Hustle & Flow. He says he has been careful not to accept stereotypically thuggish "rapper" roles and even thought of turning down Hustle & Flow until producer John Singleton convinced him that the down-and-out rapper he portrayed differed greatly from his own personality.
"As it turned out, I'm glad that I did do it," he says. "But I definitely want to continue to take roles that people would not expect me to take."
Parenthood in the picture
His face lights up when asked about his role as a parent. He calls his daughter, Karma, 8, "my best friend."
"She rolls with me," he says. "Whenever I'm at the restaurant, she's there trying to help out the servers and she gets paid for that. And whenever I'm acting, she'll come on set and root me on. I'll bring her to some of my shows — the clean ones I do at festivals where there are other kids. She's my road dog and she loves it."
He says he won't be slowing down in the foreseeable future. He already has decided on Ludaversal— a play on Universal Records, DTP's parent company — as the title for his next album, which he says could arrive by year's end. In the meantime, he's ready for any other opportunities that come his way.
"It's just the rush that I get from working toward a goal and really loving what I do," he says. "I love it so much it's almost a crime, because not everybody is so blessed. I will keep going until I can't do any more."
It takes a little extra work to get in touch with Andrea Boland. The Maine state representative answers e-mails and lists her business and home phone numbers on the Web. But unlike many politicians surgically attached to their BlackBerrys, she keeps her cell switched off unless she's expecting a call. And if she has her way, everyone in Maine — and perhaps, eventually, the rest of the U.S. — will similarly think twice before jabbering away on their mobiles.
In March, Maine's legislature will begin debating a bill she submitted that would require manufacturers to put a warning label on every cell phone sold in the state declaring, "This device emits electromagnetic radiation, exposure to which may cause brain cancer." Her warning would continue, "Users, especially children and pregnant women, should keep this device away from the head and body."
For those of you now eyeing your cell phones suspiciously, it's worth noting that both the National Cancer Institute and the World Health Organization say there isn't evidence to support the assertion that cell phones are a public-health threat. But a number of scientists are worried that there has been a dangerous rush to declare cell phones safe, using studies they feel are inadequate and too often weighted toward the wireless industry's interests. An analysis published by University of Washington neurologist Henry Lai determined that far more independent studies than industry-funded studies have found at least some type of biological effect from cell-phone exposure.
Several countries — including Finland, Israel and France — have issued guidelines for cell-phone use. And San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who began researching the issue when his wife was expecting their first child, is hoping his city will adopt legislation that would have manufacturers print radiation information on cell-phone packaging and manuals and require retailers to display the data on the sales floor.
With 270 million Americans and 4 billion people around the world using cell phones — and more signing up every day — a strong link between mobiles and cancer could have major public-health implications. As cell phones make and take calls, they emit low-level radio-frequency (RF) radiation. Stronger than FM radio signals, these RF waves are still a billionth the intensity of known carcinogenic radiation like X-rays.
The wireless industry contends that RF radiation lacks the strength to alter molecules in the human body; the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maximum for cell-phone-signal exposure is intended to prevent RF radiation from heating tissue to the point that cells are damaged. Cell-phone RF radiation's "effect on the body, at least at this time, appears to be insufficient to produce genetic damage typically associated with developing cancer," Dr. Robert Hoover, director of the National Cancer Institute's Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program, testified at a 2008 congressional hearing.
But the body of research is far from conclusive. In 1995, Lai co-wrote a study showing that a single two-hour exposure of RF radiation — at levels considered safe by U.S. standards — produced the sort of genetic damage in rats' brain cells that can lead to cancer. Though subsequent researchers — often funded in part by the wireless industry — failed to replicate Lai's results, a 2004 European Union — funded study reported similar findings.
Dariusz Leszczynski, a research professor at Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Helsinki, has done studies indicating that RF radiation may create a stress reaction in the cells that line blood vessels, leading to a dangerous breach in the blood-brain barrier. "Mobile-phone radiation may be able to indirectly hurt cells, perhaps by interfering with their ability to repair normal DNA damage," he says. "Given the scientific uncertainty, it's premature to say the use of cell phones is safe."
If RF radiation increases the chances of developing brain cancer, it should show up in long-term studies of cell-phone users. But many epidemiological studies have found no clear connection, including a 2007 Danish Cancer Society study of 421,000 cell-phone users, which led many in the media to conclude that mobiles are harmless. To date, "peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a risk," says John Walls, a spokesman for CTIA, a global wireless association.
There are problems with many of these studies, however. For starters, the Danish one — which reviewed the medical records of people who had signed up for cell phones from 1982 to 1995 — didn't include all the business users, who were among the earliest adopters and most intensive users, because they were not billed directly.
Also, the study looked only at tumors that were diagnosed by 2002 — not long after daily use of cell phones became widespread. Brain cancers can take several decades to develop, so it might be many years before a measurable bump in cancer rates shows up. "The latency period we have is far too short," says Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, a cancer researcher at Israel's Gertner Institute whose epidemiological studies have found some connections between cell-phone use and salivary-gland tumors. "And today, people are using the phone much more heavily."
Sadetzki served as Israel's principal investigator in the Interphone study, which was conducted over the past several years by 13 countries, most of them European. The Interphone results initially were to be published in 2006, but the final report has been postponed repeatedly, and the study investigators are reportedly deeply divided. In the U.S., which isn't one of the Interphone countries, the National Toxicology Program is launching studies of the health effects of cell phones. But peer-reviewed results won't be available until at least 2014.
That's a long time to wait for definitive data. The good news is that there are easy ways for those concerned about RF radiation to cut down on exposure. Using your cell phone's speaker or connecting a wired headset — while keeping the handset away from your body — drastically reduces RF exposure. (Bluetooth headsets help too, but they still emit some radiation.) And given the potentially more serious risks for children, who have thinner skulls than adults, parents might want to wait before handing teens their first phone — or at least ensure they use it mostly for texting.
Meanwhile, a start-up, Pong Research, is selling cell-phone cases that significantly reduce radiation exposure by channeling waves away from the head. Says Alfred Wong, Pong's chief scientist and a professor emeritus of physics at UCLA: "I think it's best to avoid as much of the risk as possible until the verdict is in."
That's exactly what Boland and other advocates of warning labels are arguing. It's true that cell-phone use has yet to be linked to cancer risk. "Scientifically speaking, we don't have the proof yet," says Sadetzki. "But as a public-health concern, I'm saying we definitely should adopt precautions."
Corey Haim, a 1980s teen heartthrob for his roles in Lucas and The Lost Boys whose career was blighted by drug abuse, has died. He was 38.
Haim died early Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Los Angeles County coroner's Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said.
"As he got out of bed, he felt a little weak and went down to the floor on his knees," Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. His mother called paramedics.
An autopsy will determine Haim's cause of death. There was no evidence of foul play, police Sgt. Michael Kammert said.
Haim, who gained attention for his roles in "Lucas" and "The Lost Boys," had flulike symptoms before he died and was getting over-the-counter and prescription medications, police Sgt. William Mann said.
"He could have succumbed to whatever (illness) he had or it could have been drugs," Mann said. "He has had a drug problem in the past."
Haim was taken by ambulance to the hospital from an apartment in Los Angeles near Burbank. The enormous complex is known as Oakwood and is popular with young actors, Kammert said.
Haim acknowledged his struggle with drug abuse to The Sun in 2004.
"I was working on Lost Boys when I smoked my first joint," he told the British tabloid.
"I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack," he said.
Haim said he went into rehabilitation and was put on prescription drugs. He took both stimulants and sedatives such as Valium.
"I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck," he said. "But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day."
In 2007, he told ABC's Nightline that drugs hurt his career.
"I feel like with myself I ruined myself to the point where I wasn't functional enough to work for anybody, even myself. I wasn't working," he said.
The Toronto-born actor got his start in television commercials at 10 and earned a good reputation for his work in such films as 1985's Murphy's Romance and his portrayal of Liza Minelli's dying son in the 1985 television film A Time to Live.
His career peaked and he became a teen heartthrob with his roles in the 1986 movie Lucas, and The Lost Boys, in which he battled vampires.
In later years, he made a few TV appearances and had several direct-to-video movies. He also had a handful of recent movies that have not yet been released.
But in 1997 he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing debts for medical expenses and more than $200,000 in state and federal taxes.
His assets included a few thousand dollars in cash, clothing and royalty rights.
In recent years, he appeared in the A&E reality TV show The Two Coreys with his friend Corey Feldman. It was canceled in 2008 after two seasons. Feldman later said Haim's drug abuse strained their working and personal relationships.
The Super Bowl may be long over, but Brand Battle 2010 continues to rage on, as yet another commercial is bit by the controversy bug — this time one of those adorable spots from E-Trade featuring a talking baby named “Lindsay.” According to the New York Post, actress Lindsay Lohan is suing the investment site on the grounds that the man-eating, substance-abusing baby in the commercial is based on her.
Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, is asking that the commercial be taken off the air and every copy of the offending spot be rounded up (which could now be more difficult given today’s coverage). The actress is also asking for $100 million.
According to Ovadia: “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit… They used the name Lindsay…They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”
Ovadia also says Lohan was mistreated because E-Trade didn’t get her approval nor offer her compensation for allegedly being referred to in the ad. Now, the lawyer says her client is owed $50 million in exemplary damages, as well as $50 million in compensatory damages.
Although Ovadia says that the spot — which debuted during the Super Bowl and aired during the Winter Olympics — helped garner E-Trade mucho money, it wasn’t one of the most popular ads to premiere. It didn’t rank tops with either online viewers or couch potatoes (although the talking baby series has racked up a lot of success in the past).
Still, today it joins a cadre of commercials that cleaned up on hits due to controversy — including the Tim Tebow spot, GoDaddy’s rejected “Lola” ad and men’s-only dating site ManCrunch’s similarly punted ad.
One could argue that by suing E-Trade, Lohan is calling even more attention to the ad in question. As of right now, the ad has nearly 2.5 million views on YouTube. It remains to be seen — most likely tomorrow — what effect this lawsuit has on further increasing visibility. But judging from the fact that it’s been cropping up all over the web since the litigious news hit, you can bet Lohan’s legal ire will ensure the vid’s virality for at least the remainder of this week.
Check out the vid below and let us know in the comments whether or not Lohan has a case.
Last week Facebook rolled out a new version of their privacy settings to all users. Privacy settings are something that many Facebook users are regularly confused about. With the new settings rolled out, we thought that now would be a great time to update the guide with the latest changes. In this guide we present a thorough overview of the most important privacy settings which includes previous settings that are still relevant as well as new privacy settings that have been added by Facebook. The majority of the old privacy settings are still relevant, however there’s a chance that you may now be sharing much more information with the whole world. Make it through our new Facebook privacy guide and you’re guaranteed to be safe.
1. Understand Your Friend Lists
Facebook friend lists are the cornerstone of privacy on Facebook. While you don’t need to take advantage of friend lists, understanding this feature will instantly turn you into a “Facebook power user”. Understand that friend lists can take time to configure so don’t expect to breeze through this step. The concept behind friend lists is simple: it’s a way of organizing your friends into various affiliation groups. If you aren’t clear with our explanation, here’s how Facebook describes friend lists:
Friend Lists provide organized groupings of your friends on Facebook. For example, you can create a Friend List for your friends that meet for weekly book club meetings. You can filter your view of each list’s stream of activity separately on the home page. Friend Lists are easy to manage and allow you to send messages and invites to these groups of people all at once.
As I previously wrote, there are a few key things to understand about friend lists:
You can add each friend to more than one Friend List
Friend Lists should be used like “tags” as used elsewhere around the web
Friend Lists can have specific privacy policies applied to them
The most common lists that many privacy experts will refer to are “Friends”, “Family”, and “Professional” however there’s a limitless combination of lists that you can create. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter how many friend lists you create, although I prefer to simplify things as much as possible. The key thing to understand is that your friends’ privacy settings will always default to the most restrictive friend list they’ve been placed in.
For example, let’s say your friend John is someone you met at work but continue to hang out with outside of work. You may have placed them in your “Work Contacts” Friend List and your “Local Friends” Friend List. If your “Work Contacts” cannot see photos you’ve been tagged in and your “Local Friends” can, John will not be able to see photos you’ve been tagged in.
You can configure your Friend Lists by visiting the friends area of your Facebook.
2. Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results
My mom is a teacher and one of the first things she asked me when she joined Facebook is how she could make sure her students couldn’t see that she was on the site. Understandably my mom doesn’t want her middle school students to know what she’s up to in her personal life. There are numerous reasons that individuals don’t want their information to show up in search results on Facebook, and it’s simple to turn off your public visibility.
Within the new search privacy settings page, Facebook has made things extremely straight forward. There are now two settings: one for those people who can find you when searching on Facebook, and one for those searching within search engines (which the next section describes). In order to prevent others from finding you in Facebook’s search results, it’s two quick steps:
Next to “Facebook Search Results” select the “Only Friends” privacy setting.
Strangely enough, Facebook doesn’t require you to click on “Save Changes” anymore, however these new settings should now be set.
3. Remove Yourself From Google
Facebook continues to receive A TON of traffic from displaying user profiles in search engines. Not all of your profile is displayed though. As was the case in our previous Facebook Privacy guide, the information displayed in the search profile is limited to: your profile picture, a list of your friends, and a list of up to approximately 20 Facebook Pages that you have become a fan of.
As many users have found out, your friend information is available in your public listings. To block that information from being publicly accessible you can remove yourself from Google’s index and other search engines. Some people enjoy having their information displayed in search engines, as it makes them easy to find. For those that prefer to err on the side of privacy though, it’s often a good idea to remove yourself from the search engines.
To remove yourself from the search engines, visit the search privacy settings page and simply uncheck the box next to “Public Search Results” which says “Allow Indexing”. You’ll need to wait for Google and other search engines to remove your information from their cache, so don’t be surprised if you still show up in the search engines for a few weeks.
4. Avoid The Infamous Photo Tag Mistake
Many users are getting smarter about their privacy settings, however I continue to hear horror stories of users who have their relationships damaged as a result of photos they’ve been tagged in. More than just having their relationships damaged, some users get fired as a result of photos they’ve been tagged in. There are a number of ways to work around this problem. One of the ways is described later in this guide, however there is an extremely easy way to avoid having compromising photos show up to friends.
Head over to the profile privacy settings page and go to the section which says “Photos and Videos of Me”. Then click on the drop down selector, and click on the “Custom” option. You can then select “Only Me” as displayed in the image below. Keep in mind that this will block all people from seeing any images or videos that you’ve been tagged in. Many users want their friends to see photos they’ve been tagged in though.
So how do you work around this issue without putting your job or relationships at risk? The best way is to take advantage of the friend lists that you previously created (in the first setting) and limit specific people from seeing the images and videos you’ve been tagged in. For example, it’s probably not the best idea to have your professional contacts see the images you’ve been tagged in. If you have a professional list, you can simply enter that friend list under “Hide this from” in the custom privacy dialog box which is shown below.
5. Protect Your Albums
One of the greatest risks on Facebook is that you get tagged in a compromising photo. However it’s important to consider who you really want to have viewing your photo albums. Given Facebook’s custom privacy settings you are able to get as granular as you’d like with the visibility of each album. Thanks to the new publisher privacy settings, you can even get granular with every photo that you post if you really want to have complete control.
What privacy settings you choose for your albums is completely up to you, but if you do want to limit access to your albums, I recommend visiting the photos privacy settings page and limiting the access of each of your albums to “Only Friends” at the least. Unless you are a professional photographer, there probably isn’t much of a reason for making your albums visible so that the whole world can see them.
6. Avoid The Post-Breakup Facebook Effect
Strangely enough, there is a new mating ritual which has evolved on Facebook and often relationship status changes are part of that process. Often times after a female changes her relationship status to “Single”, a whole slew of new “potential suitors” start commenting on the relationship status change and write posts on her wall. Honestly, I see nothing wrong with this process and find it quite entertaining, however it probably is something that you don’t want all of your contacts to know about, especially your professional contacts.
While I’ve chosen to avoid relationship statuses altogether, some users still want to have them displayed. While many people like to let the world know that they are in a relationship, you can avoid having a relationship status change becoming the talk of the town. While Facebook has now removed the feature which lets users control which actions generate news feed stories, you can still protect the visibility of your relationship status.
Simply go to your profile privacy settings page and change the “Family and Relationship” setting to “Only Me”. While it would be great to make that information public, it’s currently impossible to control whether or not a relationship status change creates a news feed story. As such, I believe it’s better to play things safe and block users from seeing your relationship status.
7. Control What Information Applications Can Access
The risk of having applications publish stories without your approval, which we covered in the last Facebook privacy guide, is being eliminated completely. However it’s important to understand what information applications can access. As Facebook writes, when you visit applications, they “may access any information you have made visible to Everyone as well as your publicly available information.” Publicly available information “includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages.”
The more restrictive you make your profile settings, the less information that’s available to applications. While applications must follow your existing privacy settings, your friends can also share information about you within applications. An example would be a greeting card application which uses your birthday to prompt your friend to send a card. Facebook allows users to control the types of information that applications can access when your friends use an application that you have not previously installed.
You can control that information (as pictured to the right) by visiting this page.
8. Make Contact Information Private
I personally use Facebook for professional and personal use and it can frequently become overwhelming. That’s why I’ve taken the time to outline these ten privacy protection steps. Once I began approving friend requests from people that I hadn’t built strong relationships with, I immediately limited the visibility of my contact information so that only close friends could view things like my email and phone number.
If you post any of your personally identifiable information (phone number, email, or address) on your profile, it makes sense to limit who can see it. There are two ways to limit who can see your contact information. The first is to visit the contact privacy settings page. From there you can customize the contact settings as much as you’d like. As I previously wrote, for each contact item that you have in your profile, you should set custom privacy settings so that contacts who you aren’t close to don’t have access to your email and phone number.
The second way to customize your contact privacy settings is directly from your profile. Click on the “Info” tab in your profile and scroll down to the contact information section. Once you mouse over the contact area, you’ll have the option of editing the content. If you click on “Edit” you will notice little lock icons next to each piece of information (as pictured below). If you click on the lock you will be prompted with a box which says “Who can see this?” from which you can completely customize who your information is visible to.
9. Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts
While you may have enjoyed getting wasted with your friends at the holiday party last night, it’s probably not something that you want everybody to know about. Your friends may not use Facebook for connecting with professional contacts, and as a result they don’t think twice about casually posting something that should be kept more private. As such, it makes sense to control what’s visible to others. There are two places where you can configure your wall privacy settings: directly from your profile page and from the profile privacy page.
In order to edit the privacy settings from your profile page, click on the “Options” link directly under the publisher. The image below shows how to control your settings in three easy steps. The most dramatic modification that you can make is unchecking the box which says “Friends may post to my wall”. Most users want to be able to communicate via the wall so disabling this functionality will prevent anyone from communicating publicly with you.
If you don’t want to take the most extreme step by blocking users from writing on your wall, you can customize who can view wall posts made by your friends by clicking on the drop down directly next to “Who can see posts made by my friends?” I recommend preventing all professional contacts from being able to view posts made by your friends.
10. Keep Friendships Private
Yes, I understand that you want the whole world to know that you are popular and have lots of friends! However, not all users want everybody knowing who their friends are and there are clear justifications for blocking others from seeing your Facebook friends. I’ve had a number of individuals visit my profile and then selectively pick off friends that are relevant to them for marketing purposes, or other reasons.
Voyeurism is a key component of Facebook and one of the most frequent activities of users is to browse through other users’ friends. Whatever the reason is, just know that users are doing it. While your friendships can show up in search engines, we’ve already highlighted how to make your profile invisible to search engines in number 3 above. If you want to take things one step further and prevent others from viewing your friends, you can follow these steps:
Go to your profile page
Click on the pencil icon in the top right corner of your “Friends” box
Uncheck the box which says “Show my friends on my profile”
Now you’ve successfully hidden others from viewing your friends. Keep in mind that your friends list is accessible to any Facebook applications you use. It’s also possible for users to view your friends list if they have access to your username (Mark Zuckerberg’s friends list for example). My guess is that Facebook will eventually provide functionality to block users from seeing your friends completely.
Understand The New Privacy Settings
The New Publisher Settings
Yes, last night’s holiday party was a lot of fun but when you post on your friends walls (or your own) you can limit the visibility to just your friends. Configuring your privacy settings effectively is important, but even more important is the ability to use Facebook’s features in a way which avoids any negative repercussions. One of the most important features to roll out with the new privacy settings is the ability to publish content which is only visible to specific friends.
Rather than posting a status update that everybody can view, limit those friends who can access your information. The new content visibility settings are as follows: Everyone, Friends and Networks, Friends of Friends, Only Friends, and Customize. Understanding the new publisher settings is key to protecting your privacy on Facebook.
Note that the image below doesn’t include “Friends and Networks” as not all users have this option. You must be a member of a university or professional network in order to see the “Friends and Networks” setting.
Everyone Literally Means Everyone In The World
Yes, when you select “Everyone” on content that you publish, anybody on the internet will be able to view that content. When Facebook released the new privacy transition tool, the purpose was to get you to share more information with Facebook users, primarily the status updates and links that you are posting. If you are like most users, then you probably just accepted Facebook’s recommendations without thinking about it (if you didn’t accept, congratulations as you clearly understand Facebook privacy). The result of blindly going through the new privacy transition tool is that your status updates and other information is now publicly accessible by everyone on the internet.
If you don’t mind having your content published to everyone in the world by default, then you don’t need to worry about changing anything. I have a feeling that most users don’t prefer to have all their information publicly shared by default however. Instead, users want complete control over their privacy and they want to start their Facebook experience in a protected environment. While it’s possible to debate Facebook’s privacy philosophy, reading through this guide should help ensure that you continue to feel protected while using Facebook.
Update We’ve also included a video below to help you understand Facebook’s new privacy settings.
Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al-Qaeda, in an operation in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday.
The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaeda and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi.
Gadahn was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Gadahn, who is also known by various aliases, including Yahya Majadin Adams and Azzam al-Amriki, grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.
Gadahn moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI, and is said to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant for the group. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004, and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
He has posted videos and messages calling for the destruction of the West and for strikes against targets in the United States. The most recent was posted Sunday, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas.
A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years. He could face the death penalty if convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
In the 25-minute video posted on militant websites Sunday, Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should be a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.
"Brother Nidal is the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes," he said.
Gadahn was dressed in white robes and wearing a white turban as he called for attacks on what he described as high-value targets.
"You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," he said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.
Hasan has been charged in the Nov. 5 shooting that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist remains paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by two civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.
In the latest video, Gadahn said those planning attacks did not need to use only firearms. "As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon."
A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ".xxx" domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.
Ludacris removes his shades as he awaits his lunch at the restaurant in the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel. He concedes he is a little tired with a concert at the nearby Verizon Center just a few hours away, but he really doesn't have time for rest. The Atlanta rapper also known as Chris Bridges is a busy man.
It takes a little extra work to get in touch with Andrea Boland. The Maine state representative answers e-mails and lists her business and home phone numbers on the Web. But unlike many politicians surgically attached to their BlackBerrys, she keeps her cell switched off unless she's expecting a call. And if she has her way, everyone in Maine — and perhaps, eventually, the rest of the U.S. — will similarly think twice before jabbering away on their mobiles.
Corey Haim, a 1980s teen heartthrob for his roles in Lucas and The Lost Boys whose career was blighted by drug abuse, has died. He was 38.
The Toronto-born actor got his start in television commercials at 10 and earned a good reputation for his work in such films as 1985's Murphy's Romance and his portrayal of Liza Minelli's dying son in the 1985 television film A Time to Live.
Facebook friend lists are the cornerstone of privacy on Facebook. While you don’t need to take advantage of friend lists, understanding this feature will instantly turn you into a “Facebook power user”. Understand that friend lists can take time to configure so don’t expect to breeze through this step. The concept behind friend lists is simple: it’s a way of organizing your friends into various affiliation groups. If you aren’t clear with our explanation, here’s how Facebook describes friend lists:
The risk of having applications publish stories without your approval, which we covered in the last Facebook privacy guide, is being eliminated completely. However it’s important to understand what information applications can access. As Facebook writes, when you visit applications, they “may access any information you have made visible to Everyone as well as your publicly available information.” Publicly available information “includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages.”
Yes, I understand that you want the whole world to know that you are popular and have lots of friends! However, not all users want everybody knowing who their friends are and there are clear justifications for blocking others from seeing your Facebook friends. I’ve had a number of individuals visit my profile and then selectively pick off friends that are relevant to them for marketing purposes, or other reasons.
