Fingers in the Cookie Jar?

I don’t usually comment on internet stuff,  since I leave that to the more learned individuals out there,  but I can’t help myself. 

 

Google fined over Safari cookie privacy row

Google has agreed to pay the largest fine ever imposed on a single company by the US Federal Trade Commission.

The firm agreed to pay $22.5m (£14.4m) after monitoring web surfers using Apple's Safari browser who had a "do not track" privacy setting selected.

Oops.  

You can read the article here, if you’re remotely interested,  but that snippet above pretty much sums it up.  I think fining Google 22.5 million would be like fining the rest of us a hundred bucks. That’s just my opinion, but I imagine it’s not much more than a minor annoyance for them.  They’ll probably appeal.  Doesn’t everyone?   Oh wait,  they said they “agreed”.  *pfft* They can still appeal.

 

Opting out of ‘tracking’ cookies in Apple’s Safari is supposedly the default choice (if I read that article right)  but apparently the Mother Ship thought it OK to add a little code to get around that.  Tut tut.

I know that we’re being tracked by the Mother Ship,  but just the same,  I have a little add-on called Do Not Track Plus that has blocked about 40,000 tracking cookies since I installed it a couple months ago.  I’m not paranoid,  but I don’t get those annoying ads in my Hotmail account anymore for some reason.  That works for me.

 

Not much else going on today in Wienerland.  Weather’s just about perfect,  and I apologize if yours isn’t.   No humidity,  no bugs,  and just enough clouds in the sky to keep it from getting too toasty in our lofty perch.

I think there’s a sky segue in there.

 

 

Ooh lookee,  see?  Clouds.

Always best to be on the lookout for potential falling objects.

The cranes (sorry,  State Symbols)  make a distinctive whirring sound when raising or lowering potential Bob-crushing items.   I haven’t seen anything fall yet,  but maybe I’ve just watched too many YouTube videos?

I don’t even know what the heck that thing was,  and the first thing that caught my attention was the Dude on the street with the walkie-talkie.   No clue where the crane operator is.  Probably in the courtyard.   Don’t say, “in the cab” either.   Most of the State Symbols are radio controlled from the ground.  Saves all that climbing up and down.

 

Travelling Companion is out to dinner tonight,  so muggins here is off the hook dinner wise.  They had some sort of training session for non-financial Managers to learn about finance.  Or something.  Seems like a good plan to me,  since the object of business typically leans towards the idea of making some money,  and that usually involves some sort of “finances”.   Seems blatantly obvious to the rest of us,  I know. 

 

Anyhoo,  she’s off to chow down with 25 or so of the participants in the course.  She was the impetus behind this whole “bringing everyone up to speed”  thing,  so she has to go along as a gesture of solidarity.   Plus,  I think she has to pay the bill.  That part is kind of important.  It’s always the highest ranking person at the table who pays.   Thems the rules.   I’ll explain that if you don’t quite get it.

 

Not a day goes by that I don’t see tourists hoofing it down the street after coming in from the airport.

Good luck I say.  These two were really booting it too,  or I might have offered some directions. By the time I got the camera out,  they were already into telephoto territory. They seemed to have a bead on where they were headed.

Youth is certainly on their side,  but just the same,  when I came to Europe for the very first time as a (poor) student,  the person I was travelling with and I made sure we had a few Francs set aside for a cab ride to our hotel.   The scrimping and saving could start RIGHT AFTER we got to that hotel.  We had no desire to try and find our way from the airport to the Fifth Arrondissement in Paris after an all night flight.  Youth might have been on our side,  but I wasn’t as brave as those two.   Screw that!

There’s something to be said for sitting in the relative comfort in the back of a cab,  knowing you’ll arrive at your destination.  I say “relative” as Parisian taxi-cabs are a might smaller than the somewhat spacious things we had in Canada at the time.  Still are, I believe.  And yes,  we had a vague idea as to where we needed to go,  so it wasn’t like Pierre or Louis was going to take us on a big detour. 

 

Hope you’re enjoying your day.

 

Thanks for coming on by.

 

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