AFP points out that “[t]his week, the world will mark an anniversary that has changed the face — and other anatomical regions — of email inboxes everywhere: the first known spam email was sent 30 years ago on Saturday. But the message sent on May 3, 1978 by a marketer for the now defunct DEC computer company to around 400 people on the west coast of the United States wasn’t called spam, and the sender dispatched it without ill intent. But the message sent on May 3, 1978 by a marketer for the now defunct DEC computer company to around 400 people on the west coast of the United States wasn’t called spam, and the sender dispatched it without ill intent. How things have changed.”
The Washington Post reveals that “America’s spy agencies for the first time would be tasked with gathering intelligence on threats to the nation’s computer networks under a policy that could be detailed by the White House as early as next week, a senior administration official said Wednesday. Speaking at a security conference in Washington, the official said the Bush administration wants to harness the intelligence community’s offensive capabilities in defense of government and civilian computer systems. ‘We’ve never looked at how all the unique things this government wages against others could be used to inform our defensive posture,’ said the official, who asked not to be named because the White House has not yet released details about the plan. ‘We really need to move from [the reality that] the advantage is always with the attacker to how we can have our offense better inform our defense to shrink that gap.’”
PCMag.com asks whether the tech industry is “recession-proof.”
CNetNews.com reports that, “[a]s expected, Amazon.com is hitting back at New York over a new law requiring online retailers to collect sales taxes from customers residing in that state. In a complaint filed on April 25, Amazon asked the New York State Supreme Court to declare the recently passed law ‘invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional.’ (Wired.com, which reported the lawsuit earlier this week, has posted a PDF of the document.) New York has long required vendors to collect taxes from customers in its state if they ‘solicit business’ there, according to Amazon’s complaint. But a few weeks ago, the state passed a new law, as part of its state budget, that expanded the meaning of ‘solicit’ to include any company that pays New York-based entities for ‘directly or indirectly referring customers’ to its retail business, or risk ‘hefty civil and criminal penalties,’ Amazon wrote in its complaint.”
Internetnews.com today has an article discussing “the great question of the day for internet entrepreneurs”: where’s the money in user-generated content?