Facebook to Pay $20 million and Amend its Terms of Service

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The Sponsored Stories feature combined a user’s name and photograph with an advertiser’s logo, along with a statement that the user “liked” the company.  The Plaintiffs asserted that “liking” the product or service was not tantamount to consent to use profile photos for marketing purposes.
The court considered the enormous size of the potential class and direct payment issues.  Residual funds remaining after direct payments and attorneys’ fees are disbursed will be held for the benefit of consumer protection and online privacy organizations.
The settlement notwithstanding, it remains unclear whether the plaintiffs could show they were harmed in a meaningful way.  The court believed that there was a  “substantial hurdle” to proving a lack of consent on the part of plaintiffs, noting that Facebook argued that its users chose to indicate on Facebook that they liked certain entities or activities.
In the settlement agreement, Facebook agreed to provide greater disclosure and transparency regarding how names and profile pictures will be used and provide “additional control” over the program.  However, concerns exist regarding proposed changes to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and many believe that this should have put an end to the Sponsored Stories program, or mandated opt-in participation.  It is presently an opt-out program.
The court stated that “the implication underlying many of the arguments is that any imposition on the privacy interests of Facebook members is per se wrongful.”  The court ultimately cited Facebook’s position that the service is meant as “a platform for sharing information,” that users join voluntarily and that, despite costing the company millions of dollars to provide, its services are free.
“While it does not follow that Facebook has carte blanche to exploit material belonging to, or regarding, its members in any fashion whatsoever,” the court said, “neither is it foreclosed from adopting a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that is not as “pro privacy” as some may prefer.”
Amongst the most aggressively argued objections to the settlement related to perceived flaws regarding the protection of minors.  Specifically, arguments were advanced that the agreement should have required parental consent prior to a minor’s name and likeness could be used in the program.  The court believed that even if state law imposes a parental consent requirement for minors older than thirteen, the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act may preempt such a requirement.  COPPA’s express preemption provision, coupled with its decision to require parental consent only for children younger than thirteen, could bar any attempt to impose a parental consent requirement for teenagers upon Facebook.

Richard Newman is an Internet Lawyer at Hinch Newman LLP specializing in advertising, intellectual property and digital media matters. His practice includes conducting legal compliance reviews of advertising campaigns, representing clients in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, commercial litigation, advising clients on promotional marketing programs, and negotiating and drafting legal agreements.

Google: That Mozilla Penalty Only Impacted One Page Out Of 22 Million

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

We reported yesterday that Google penalized Mozilla over user generated content. Today we learn that it was a really really small penalty that only impacted a single page out of Mozilla’s ~22 million web pages.

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, added more to the Google thread explaining that this manual penalty was applied in a very granular way. In fact, it only impacted a single page on Mozilla’s domain name, blog.mozilla.org/respindola/about.

Matt Cutts wrote:

In this particular case, it was the url http://blog.mozilla.org/respindola/about/ that we took action on, and that was because it was so defaced with spam comments. I checked the URL this morning and it was over 12 megabytes (!) of spam from 21,169 different comments. When a page like that lands in our search results, it’s the sort of thing that users complain to us about, so we are willing to take action.

Besides for that being an incredible number of spammy comments on a single page, it is upsetting to see how confused Mozilla’s webmaster was over Google’s penalty notification. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Google getting more detailed in their Webmaster Tools penalty notifications. But as you can see from our coverage of the penalty and Mozilla’s questions about the penalty, it appeared that this was a little larger than just impacting a single page on this massive site.

This is a similar situation for when the BBC was penalized and it turned out to be a penalty on one page.

Related Topics: Google: SEO | SEO: Spamming | Top News

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

Connect with the author via: Email | Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn

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Simmons Firm Secures $2.86 Million Jury Verdict Against RT Vanderbilt for Family of Mesothelioma Victim

NEW CASTLE, Del. – A Delaware jury awarded a $2.86 million verdict today to the family of Michael Galliher, who died from mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer caused by exposure to asbestos fibers. Simmons Firm attorneys Randy Cohn, Conard Metcalf and Bill Kohlburn represented Galliher’s family, including his wife, sons and four grandchildren, against RT Vanderbilt In re Asbestos Litigation Michael Galliher, No. 10C-10-315 (Del. Super. Ct., New Castle City.). It is the largest asbestos verdict against a single defendant in Delaware in over a decade.

Michael Galliher, of Mansfield, Ohio, was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in August 2010. He died months later on Feb. 3, 2011 at the age of 62. While working at Crane Plumbing Fixtures Factory for nearly 40 years, Galliher used a talc powder contaminated with asbestos fibers to dust large molds of sinks, bathtubs and other ceramic fixtures. The asbestos fibers came from a mine in Gouverneur, N.Y., owned and operated by RT Vanderbilt Company, Inc.

Expert testimony during the trial linked Galliher’s exposure to talc dust containing asbestos fibers. RT Vanderbilt did not list the proper safety warning on the talc powder, Simmons Firm attorney Randy Cohn said.

“The magnitude of Mr. Galliher’s exposure is immeasurable,” said Cohn. “Like many Americans, he worked hard his entire life so he could enjoy retirement with his grandchildren. Instead, it caused him to be exposed to asbestos and develop a deadly cancer.”

Six years before his death, Galliher retired to spend more time with his grandchildren, family members said. His three local grandchildren would visit him and his wife almost daily. He taught them how to garden and play baseball. He would also take them on regular trips to a local lake or mushroom hunting. He passed away just two weeks shy of his 33rd wedding anniversary.

“This outcome is not about the money,” said Galliher’s wife, Darcel. “This is about the fact that a jury has held RT Vanderbilt responsible for its actions. We just hope no other family has to go through the pain and loss we have experienced.”

Founded in 1916, RT Vanderbilt is a mining and manufacturing company that sells more than sixty categories of minerals and chemicals used in over 800 products in industries including the rubber, plastic, petroleum, ceramic, cosmetic, and household products industries. 

The verdict applies 100 percent liability to the company. Cohn said the decision reinforces that companies will be held responsible for knowingly using substances containing carcinogens like asbestos fibers without adequate safety warnings.

“No amount of money can replace these kids’ grandfather. However, his family can rest assured that the ones responsible have been held accountable,” he said.

About Simmons Browder Gianaris Angelides & Barnerd LLC:
The Simmons Firm, headquartered in Alton, Ill., is one of the country’s leading asbestos and mesothelioma litigation firms. With additional offices in St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the firm has represented thousands of patients and families affected by mesothelioma throughout the country. The Simmons Firm has pledged nearly $20 million to cancer research and proudly supports mesothelioma research. For more information about the Simmons Firm, visit http://www.simmonsfirm.com.

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31 million cars on Britain's roads

26/03/13

By James Martini

More than 31 million vehicles are on Britain's roads, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

One in three of those have been on the road for at least the past decade, while the average age of a car in use in the UK stands at 7.44 years.

Worcester is the most 'patriotic' city in the UK, with more than a quarter of the vehicles on its streets being British built.

The latest SMMT census data showed there to be 31,362,716 cars, vans, trucks, buses and coaches on roads around Britain.

More than 11 million vehicles have been on Britain's roads for at least 10 years, with 6.27 million registered between 2000 and 2002, and 5.28 million registered before the new millennium.

Unsurprisingly, London and the South East possessed the largest amount of vehicles on the road in the UK, with 9.79 million vehicle owners in 2011.

The South East was closely followed by the West Midlands (3.17 million), while silver replaced blue as the most popular car colour in all regions of Britain over the last 10 years.

Traditional colours such as black, red and grey remained popular choices among British motorists in 2011, but drivers in Ipswich held the record for the biggest concentration of pink cars in the UK.

Northern Ireland recorded the highest increase (5 per cent) of vehicles on the road in 2010/11, although usage in the North West slumped 2.9 per cent over the same period.

Since the SMMT census data was compiled in 2011, there were 2,044,609 new-car registrations last year, with London (632,000) and the West Midlands (274,000) featuring prominently.

Nissan made more than 510,000 vehicles on British soil in 2012, followed by Land Rover (305,000), Mini (207,000), Honda (165,000) and Toyota (109,000).

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Simmons Firm Secures $3 Million Asbestos Jury Verdict Against Crane Co. For Family of Mesothelioma Victim

BUFFALO, N.Y., Oct. 25, 2012 – Simmons Browder Gianaris Angelides & Barnerd LLC, a nationwide leader in asbestos litigation, announced today that a New York jury has awarded a $3 million verdict to the family of Gerald Suttner, a pipefitter who died from mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused by asbestos exposure. For more than a decade, Suttner was exposed to asbestos used in valves manufactured by the defendant, Crane Co.

Simmons Firm attorneys Myles Epperson and Perry Browder, along with co-counsel Michael Ponterio and Joseph Kremer of Lipsitz and Ponterio of Buffalo, N.Y., represented the wife and dependent adult daughter of Suttner in Suttner v. Crane Co., (No. I2010-12499, N.Y. Supreme Ct., County of Erie). 

Suttner, formerly of Tonawanda, N.Y., was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in October 2010. He died twelve months later at the age of 77. Suttner worked as a pipefitter at the GM Powertrain Facility in Tonawanda for 36 years. From 1964 to 1979, his work included repairing valves manufactured by Crane with asbestos gaskets and packing materials.

Expert testimony during the trial established there is no safe level of asbestos exposure, and Suttner’s exposure to the asbestos in the valves led to his mesothelioma diagnosis.

The dangers of asbestos have been known since the early 1900s. Crane knew of the hazards of asbestos as early as the 1930s, but the company continued to use asbestos well into the late 1980s without placing warnings on its products.

“The defendant’s use of asbestos and failure to warn workers and consumers of its dangers is inexcusable,” said Browder. “On behalf of Mr. Suttner’s family, we are proud to have won and held Crane responsible for its decision to use this lethal material in its products.”

Suttner retired from the GM Tonawanda plant in 1997. He and his wife, Joanne, also cared for their adult daughter who is disabled.

“Mr. Suttner worked hard in order to provide for his family, and he always played by the rules. Born out of wedlock and raised by his grandparents, he was determined throughout his life to help other people struggling under difficult circumstances. It appears that this jury sent a strong message to defendant Crane Co., that it, too, should have played by the rules that govern honorable behavior by warning Mr. Suttner about the dangers of handlings its products,” said Michael A. Ponterio, a partner at Lipsitz & Ponterio.

As a national officer in the Shriners organization, Mr. Suttner was an active volunteer for the Shriners Hospital in Erie, Pa. He drove children back and forth to the hospital, often traveling multiple hours each way.  He also wrote articles for the organization’s national magazine and played in a band that traveled around the country to raise money for the hospital.

“Jerry was a good man who worked hard his entire life to take care of his family and make his community a better place. He gave selflessly to people whom he had never met, because that’s the kind of man he was,” Epperson said. “His death, which could have been prevented, was a significant loss both to his family and to so many others whose lives he touched.”

The trial lasted nearly three weeks. The jury deliberated for two days and held Crane liable for Suttner’s mesothelioma, as well as 17 other asbestos manufacturers.

Crane, founded in 1855 in Chicago, manufactures industrial engineered products and employs 10,000 employees worldwide. In 2011, the company reported net sales of $2.545 billion.

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Ariix-$23 million sales in the first year

According to sources close to the Ariix management the company has millions in the period July 2011 - July 2012 about $23 and is up to $2 million per week do sales until autumn 2012.
Ariix is a startup and 2011 by Fred Cooper - CEO, Jeffrey Yates, Mark Wilson and Riley timmer was founded. MLM guru Tim Sales came in July 2011.
Much of the research for ARIIX is in the House by the company products own scientists, however, ARIIX also rely on top-class research universities around the world support the findings and information about the latest breakthroughs in nutritional science.
Ariix is open in 9 countries, including mainland China

One Million Dollars, The Hard Way

Me, when Cobalt got bought out by Sun
in 2000, with my employee number and a
fake bar code marked on my arm. There are a lot of readers on this blog–perhaps you–who recently started reading. Lately I realized that as a new reader, you may not know much about me, who I am, or my history. You probably know that I “sold a business for $1.1 million at age 26?, since that’s in my sidebar. But what happened before that?
I grew up in a small farm town in Indiana. I first got online in 1995. My parents had given me a computer, but everything else I had to buy on my own. I got an allowance, but my parents refused to pay my burgeoning Internet connection bill (which was dialup, and since it wasn’t a local number, billed me by the minute!), so I took jobs to get by.
I worked Internet jobs all through high school, starting in 1997, when I took a job at an SEO firm, working from home, submitting sites to search engines. (Back then, SEO was all about how many search engines you could submit your site to…how things have changed!) I got paid pretty well, and learned how to fly through copy-and-paste.
When the first check arrived in the mail from the SEO company, my mom took me to the bank to deposit it, and then gave me a lecture on bad checks and bounced checks. She had a tough time believing that I had a real job online–but I did. I continued to work for that company through high school.
All this time, I was learning how to build and fix computers. Living in a small town, we didn’t really have a computer repair shop, so I did repairs myself. Later I found I could also repair my neighbors’ and friends’ computers–which I did in exchange for small amounts of money, or sometimes just for a good home-cooked meal.
In 1998, I got a job at a web design firm for the summer. I found the job by hitting up the local Yahoo directory (for Cincinnati, Ohio–the nearest city to where I lived!) and emailing every web design firm in that directory. I had a showcase of various websites I had built.
From those “cold emails”, I got two interviews. One of the interviewers laughed at me when I came in and he found out I was a 16-year-old kid. The other firm saw potential. They gave me just above minimum wage and hired me out to their clients at $75/hour. I was their staff HTML “programmer.” I also taught myself Perl using the books they had around their office (and various websites) and built things like contact forms for their customers. I was just happy to have a job doing what I loved, which was building websites. I continued to work for other web companies throughout high school.
In 1999, I graduated high school and moved to Silicon Valley. I knew Silicon Valley was where I wanted to be. I only applied to two schools–San Jose State and Santa Clara University. I was accepted to both, but Santa Clara University wouldn’t let freshman choose their course times, and I wanted a stable part-time job as well, so I went to San Jose State.
I went on craigslist and hit up companies in the Valley, looking for a job as a web designer. I didn’t find much–until I got a phone interview. I closed the deal, getting hired on as their “Marketing Manager” for the whopping sum of $15/hour, part-time. (With promises to increase that salary in the future!)
When I walked in to their office in Silicon Valley to meet them for my first day at work, they found out I was an 18-year-old college kid. They fired me pretty shortly thereafter.
I tried again, hitting up craigslist and looking for web design jobs. I didn’t find any, but I did find a job doing desktop support at a startup company called Cobalt Networks. That has, so far, been my all-time favorite job. Even though I didn’t get paid much, I thrived. I was able to use my hardware and software troubleshooting skills to help people, and I got along well with everyone in the office.
Cobalt was a shop that made Linux-based servers. I had some familiarity with Linux, but begged the engineers at the company to teach me more. I remember going up to one of the engineers after work and asking “What’s a ‘for loop’?” The engineers, most of whom were only a few years older than me, thought it was pretty neat that a young, cute girl was trying to learn bash shell programming. They brought me piles of books and gave me advice on how to code well. I spent many late nights at the company, absorbed in books and websites on programming and system administration.
At Cobalt, I learned an up-and-coming language called PHP. Cobalt engineers were fans of PHP (back then, it was either PHP or Perl, and PHP was a lot easier and more friendly to program in.) My boss, seeing my interest in programming, asked me to make an intranet for the company. I wrote it in Perl and then switched to PHP.

Cobalt Halloween party, 1999. I’m the cheerleader on the left.
Up until then, I’d never considered myself a “programmer”. Programming was uninteresting to me–the only programming class I’d ever had, in high school, taught useless, out-of-context things like how to build a fake cash register. But when I was introduced to web programming, I thrived. Now I could build interactive websites that people would actually use! I launched our intranet proudly. I’d built the whole thing myself, with self-taught knowledge.
In 2000, Cobalt was acquired by Sun Microsystems, and I learned that Sun would only accept employees who had full-time jobs. At the time, I was still working part-time. I realized that to jump into Sun, I’d have to be a full-time employee. So I made the decision–not an easy one–to drop out of college.
My boss at Cobalt said it was the worst idea he’d ever heard.
My mom, when I told her, started crying and said it was the worst decision I’d ever made.
I went ahead with the decision, and my parents cut off all financial support. (They’d been paying for my classes, monthly cell phone bill, and dormitory housing. I was responsible for everything else.) After 1.5 years of college, I was done–and truly on my own.
Sun did hire me–because I was again aggressive about getting my foot in the door. I hit up their internal job portal, found all open jobs that had anything to do with web development, and called people until I got interviews. I got 2, and, impressed with my initiative in building the intranet, both teams offered to hire me. I took the full-time job that I felt had better resume potential (as I felt I would need a great resume with no college degree) — as one of the 6 core developers behind Sun.com.
Then, my grand plans hit a snag. I had a low salary at Cobalt because my main job was still doing desktop support. I had consistently asked for raises, and I’d gotten up to just above $22/hour. Sun inherited that salary of mine, and then–so my boss claimed–they couldn’t raise me more than 10% above my existing salary.
I was devastated. $22/hour was fine when my parents were paying my dorm rent, but now I was done with that. I had to pay my own way. This was in Silicon Valley, during the dot-com bubble. To give you a sense of how crazy rents were, I watched a new apartment complex get built near our office. I drove by it every day, and one day a sign popped up: “Waiting list now available.” I found out that not only were rents $1800+/month for a tiny apartment, but that they had an 8-week waiting list at that price.
One of our summer interns (older than me) at Cobalt moved to the Valley to take a job for the summer and ended up literally living under his desk because he couldn’t find a place to live. We had showers in the building, and he ate a lot of take-out. That’s how insane things were.
I eventually found a place–a shared bedroom in an old lady’s house–for $950/month. Even today, that number seems crazy to me. I had no kitchen privileges, but the area did have its own entrance. I set up a toaster oven and ate out a lot. My boyfriend ended up paying for a lot of my meals because he felt bad.
My friends urged me to quit and find a better job, but right around the time I got drafted on to Sun, the bottom fell out of the Valley economy. Now rents were starting to drop–but there were no jobs to be had. I clung to my Sun job for dear life.
My job moved to San Francisco, where I couldn’t afford to live. I found a tiny 1BR apartment 35 miles east of San Francisco. I took the BART (train) in to work every day. My rent went from $950/month to $1475/month. The train was about $9/day. Buying a sandwich for lunch in San Francisco was $9. (Most people have no idea how expensive San Francisco is until they live there.) I was starting to have massive credit card debt.
There was another girl, a couple years older than me, doing pretty much the same job I had. When I found out her salary was $72,000/year for the same job I was doing for $22,000/year less, I threw a fit. I took it all the way to HR, who basically said “Take it or leave it.”
I cried one day on the way home when I read the paper and realized that the person driving the BART train had a higher salary than I did.
There were pros to my job at Sun. I took a week-long Solaris system administration course, which gave me a deep insight into how UNIX servers worked. I helped build a Linux-based intranet at Sun, after one of the directors there saw what I had done at Cobalt. But mostly, for an entire year, I was miserable.
I did not stop taking action, however. Every day, I used Sun’s fax machine to fax resumes to companies that were looking for web developers. I had heard somewhere that faxes got read more than emails, so I faxed nonstop. My boss told me to stop abusing the fax machine. I didn’t. I wasn’t making ends meet, and every month I was getting deeper into debt. I didn’t have a choice. I needed a better job, and I knew Sun wasn’t going to be able to provide it.
Finally, a breakthrough came. A friend of mine saw my PHP skills and was suitably impressed. His company (in a cheaper area of the Valley) was hiring. He invited me in for an interview.
The interview was with his boss. The guy scowled at me when I came in. “You know, from your resume alone, I would never have even given you a second look,” were the first words out of his mouth to me. “But Mike said you’re good, so I did him a favor and called you in.”
I just sat there, not really knowing what to say.
The boss ushered me into a conference room with a white board. A couple other men were sitting around a table. “Okay, show us in PHP how to make a database connection to MySQL and select rows from a table,” he said, gesturing to the pens in the whiteboard tray.
This was not an open-book test. There were no books or websites. I had to have it memorized.
Little did he know that, besides faxing resumes all over the place, I’d also been working every night on my own website–for my fledgling hosting company. And just last night, I’d written that exact code. So it was fresh in my mind.
Without hesitation, I picked up the marker and began to write. On the right side of the white board, I drew out a MySQL “users” table. And on the left side, I began to write, perfect flowing lines of PHP code.
“Do you want me to select everything from the ‘users’ table?” I asked as I wrote. I was met with shocked silence. Taking that as an affirmative, I continued to write. When I was done, I turned around. Their expressions were a mixture of grief and amusement.
It was then that it hit me–they’d set me up to fail. (I found out later that they had interviewed 12 people for that position, and every single one had completely failed that task.)
I had passed their setup with flying colors–and now they had no idea what to do with me.
The rest of the interview was a lot of paper-pushing, mumbles, and “We’ll call you.” I left with high hopes. I had aced their test!
I prayed so hard for that job. It paid $74,000/year, which might as well have been $1,000,000/year from where I was sitting. I prayed nonstop. I knew I wanted to start my own business, but wouldn’t it be so much easier with no debt hanging over my head? Without sweating how I was going to pay bills?
They called me back a few days later. Would I–the only one who had passed their test out of so many candidates–get my “dream job”?
No.
They chose not to hire me, because, as the boss man said, I had stated in the interview that I wanted to start my own business, and he didn’t think I was going to stick around the company very long. “We want someone who’s going to be here at least 4 years,” he told me.
Of course, you and I know that he never wanted to hire me to begin with. Whether it was because the company was almost entirely male, and I would have been the only female in the department, or because he just didn’t like some young kid showing him up–we’ll never know that.
(Ironically, he left to start his own business less than four years after that. Yeah, I kept tabs on him.)
I was devastated. I felt like the world was stacked against me.
Sun finally got wind that I didn’t want to be there, and put me on a “performance improvement plan.” That meant I was on a 90-day watch. I had to do better, or I was out of there.
While signing the plan, I noticed a loophole. A paragraph in the long document said that if I chose not to take part in the plan, I could get paid severance to leave. Immediately, I knew that was my “out”. Total pay, including vacation time, would be about $8,000. That was enough to live on for about three months. I could make it.
I told my boss I wanted out. He said that wasn’t the intent of the plan. I told him I didn’t care; that I was done. We conferenced with HR. The HR person said I didn’t have to leave. I told HR I wanted out immediately. (They ended up paying me for 2 weeks’ severance and then asking me to hand over my keys right away, it was so clear that I didn’t want to be there any more.)
On my way out the door, my boss said the #1 most insulting thing anyone’s ever said to me: “Well, I guess when you’re gone, we’ll just replace you with an intern.”
I shut out all the noise and continued building my hosting company website. I launched my business a few months after I left Sun, in July 2001. Of course, it didn’t end up paying my bills for years. I did contract PHP programming for years, mostly finding gigs on craigslist. I built shopping carts, merchant account integrations, and even entire content management systems for my clients. (This was long before the days of WordPress.) And mostly, I scraped by, still with credit card debt, but most months coming out about even.
I took any extra money I had and and poured it into buying servers for my hosting company. And it grew, slowly but surely. (The rest of my story running my business can be found at Sharing My Journey to One Million Dollars, which was written just after I sold my business, but while I was still “embargoed” from talking about the sale, and The End of An Era, where I speak candidly about my 10-year journey through Silicon Valley.)
The moral of this long-winded story is this: Everyone talks about (and remembers) the big moments. Like the day when I signed those papers to sell my business, on September 7, 2007, for $1,104,000. Or the day when I quit my job in 2001 and walked out of the door into the blustery winds of San Francisco, and almost cried, because for the first time in a year, I felt free.
But it’s easy to forget what it takes to make those moments. I never stopped fighting…not even for a second. And I never stopped learning. I was self-taught in everything I do. I am a graduate of the school of “Everyone said I couldn’t do it, and look, here I am.”
After my parents cut me off, I was determined to prove to them that dropping out of college wasn’t a mistake–that I could be successful anyway. And I blew them away. But I still haven’t stopped fighting. Now I’m passionate about helping others–whether that’s by hiring people or whether that’s doing cat fostering and rescue (which is one of my hobbies.) And writing this blog, which I do because I’m passionate about helping you succeed.
I said back in December 2007, when I turned my personal blog into “erica.biz”, that I started this to help figure out why I was successful when so many others aren’t. And, as the years have passed (I’ve been blogging here nearly 4 years now), I realize there’s another, deeper purpose: To give you the strength, determination, and grit you need to succeed.
This world does not hand you success. It certainly doesn’t hand you a job. I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve had in this life. I’ve taught myself what I need to know to be successful. And, if you see yourself in any of this, my message to you is: You can do it, too. Just don’t expect it to be easy.
I’ve avoided many of the “easy” routes to making money on my blog, too. I could have sold a bunch of cheap, crappy “make money now!” programs–and probably made some money. But I didn’t feel right in doing that. (If you’ve been around a while, you’re probably surprised at how few affiliate promotions I run on this blog, whereas the predominant theme in Internet marketing is to email your list a new promotion every day. Garbage, I say, garbage.)
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about how to help you even more. My 30-day “no email” trial was a success in many ways, but also a failure in an important way: it cut me off from communication with you, my readers. I know many of you are looking for an honest way to succeed. And in cutting off email, I cut off your questions and a way for you to share your successes with me. That was my mistake, and I apologize.
So today, two things are happening:
One–I’m opening email back up. If you receive emails from me (as part of my email list), you can just hit “Reply”, type your response, and I’ll read it. (Note: If you’re planning to write me vitriolic hate mail, save your breath and just unsubscribe instead. That will make both of our lives better.)
Two–I’m introducing an exclusive, limited program for those of you who would like more personal access to me. Now, I’ll be upfront about this: This won’t be cheap. I’m looking for a small group of people I can help mentor.
You probably know how many people are out there teaching this “how to make money online” stuff. Chances are, you’ve even bought a program or two, and perhaps you haven’t been so happy with it. (That’s another big reason why I don’t promote that stuff much any more.) And if you know that, you know how rare it is when someone who’s actually made over $1 million online, in a legitimate business (not hawking “how to make money” crap products), opens up mentoring spots. In fact, in all the four years I’ve run this blog, I haven’t done it, either.
But I feel that now is the right time, especially with the economy the way it is. I started working from home online in 1997. I have a lot of knowledge I’d like to distill–everything from figuring out the right niche to go into to in-depth business strategy and growing your business to new heights. I even have some “ready to go” business ideas that I think can make a mint, in the hands of the right person. So if you’re not sure what you want to do online, this may very well be your chance to really “go big” with a business idea that’s already been vetted and tested by someone who’s made millions online.
As I said, this won’t be cheap. But if you think you might be interested, and want more information, just put your name and primary email address in the box below, and I’ll let you know more details. (And if you’re struggling with money, I will likely offer a scholarship to at least one person, so put your name and best email address in there as well, and I’ll let you know about that, as well.)
There’s no obligation, so go ahead now:
Building an online business isn’t easy, but it’s worthwhile. I’m ready to work with you to achieve similar heights to what I achieved. I believe you can do it. And just like I had people to ask about programming, you may just need someone to help you get clear on what to do and how to get there. I’m happy to be that person for you.
Put your name and primary email address in the box below, and I’ll follow up with you with more information about my mentoring program within the next few days (remember, there’s no obligation, so if you’re interested in finding out what I have to offer, go ahead!)
(If that form above doesn’t load, click here to subscribe.)

Saudi cuts oil output in May to at 9.8 million bpd: source

DUBAI | Sat Jun 9, 2012 6:54am EDT
DUBAI (Reuters) - Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia pumped 9.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in May, an industry source said on Saturday.
May's oil production was lower by 300,000 bpd from April when the Saudi kingdom pumped 10.1 million bpd, its highest for more than 30 years, as it bids to meet growing demand and curb oil prices.
Members of the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet on June 14 in Vienna to review output policy.
(Dubai Newsroom)

Average income of super rich: $202.4 million

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The 400 tax filers at the top of the income scale hauled in an average of $202.4 million in 2009 -- a 25% haircut from the prior year, according to the latest tax data from the IRS.
The agency recently released its latest annual analysis of the tax returns from the 400 filers with the highest adjusted gross incomes.
Their average AGI was down from $270.5 million in 2008. But their actual incomes may have been higher, since AGI doesn't include tax-exempt income, such as interest from municipal bonds.
The average federal income tax bill among the top 400 in 2009 came to roughly $41 million, down from nearly $49 million the year before.
Overall, the top 400 as a group paid an average effective tax rate of 19.9%, up from 18.1% a year earlier. The average effective tax rate is a measure of one's total income tax bill divided by AGI.
Individually, however, about 40% of them paid an effective rate higher than 25%. But close to a third paid an effective rate below 15%, which is also the case for the majority of Americans.
Lower-income households have very low effective tax rates thanks to a host of credits, deductions and exemptions that cancel out much if not all of their tax bill.
Many of the highest income households enjoy low effective tax rates because they often make a lot of their money from investments, such as capital gains, which typically are taxed at a much lower rate than the 35% top tax rate on ordinary income.
Plus they tend to take far more itemized deductions, such as those for charitable contributions, than everyone else.
The composition of income for the top 400 in 2009 -- the biggest portion of which came from capital gains -- offers a mixed picture.
Their salary and wage income averaged $22.3 million, down from $28.4 million the year before.
Their dividend income rose, but their income from taxable interest, capital gains and partnerships and S corporations fell.
At the same time, their net business income rose a bit and their business losses dropped.
The very wealthy claimed less in itemized deductions than they did the year before.
And their average charitable contributions, which made up nearly half of all deductions claimed, dropped by 28% relative what they'd been the year before.

Best in Blogs: Hologram Tupac, The $5 Million Wristwatch, and TIME's Most Influential

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

If you told a music fan 50 years ago that Tupac Shakur would be performing by hologram at Coachella, he would have said: "I don't know what any of those words mean." But it happened, sort of. The rapper, who was murdered in 1996, "rose from the dead and stole the show at Coachella, performing alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. 'What the f- is up, Coachella?' a hologram of the rapper asked the audience," The Daily Beast reports. The virtual Tupac "interacted with Snoop Dogg and the audience before performing two songs and disappearing in an explosion of light. Coachella marked the first time a hologram has given a performance that was not delivered during the singer's lifetime." Video of the performance is around the Web but being taken down faster that warring gangstas -- it seems to be still standing here at Break.com. What made the performance unbelievable was how believable it looked. "The life-size Tupac was amazingly realistic, down to the late rapper's signature tattoos, Timberland boots, jewelry and movements," said MTV News. Sadly, the scientists were unable to resurrect a holographic shirt for Tupac.

One guy who worked on the project said comparable projects "could cost anywhere from $100,000 to more than $400,000 to pull off." But, once built, the technology is easy to reuse, so there have been rumblings about full-blown holographic tours. Says Kimbee Jabber: "Blogs have been aflutter since Sunday with predictions of a Tupac hologram tour--and a BIG tour, and a Nate Dogg tour, and an MJ tour, and even an Elvis tour." Popdust cracks that it's irrelevant because "in 2013, the audience will all be holograms too." Tupac 2.0 looked realistic because it wasn't actually a hologram. It was prerecorded 2D video, projected and reflected onto a transparent screen on the stage. "It's called Pepper's Ghost and it works by partially reflecting light off a piece of glass from a hidden room," says TechLand. "You might have recognized it from the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland; at Coachella, they achieved the effect by rigging up a custom, 30-foot by 13-foot screen that could be lowered in seconds."

Despite it not being a legit holo, hologram gags are funny, so a Star Wars fan remade that famous scene where R2-D2 projects a holographic e-mail message from Princess Leia, subbing in a profane Tupac clip instead. "Combining the holographic return of Tupac with the classic atmosphere of this galaxy far, far away is like a delicious slice of chocolate cake at the end of long day of Portal," says Slashgear. (Even that seems like a hidden message -- wasn't the cake a lie?) College Humor pulls together bogus appearances of the ghostly Tupac in scenes from Harry Potter, the Power Rangers, and CNN. Best Roof Talk Ever contemplates the recent 3D re-release of Titanic and says: "let 2012 be remembered as the year we brought the mid-nineties back to life with overpriced tickets to 3D renderings of things I thought I forgot about. "

New technology is keeping other seemingly deceased things alive, like the wristwatch. At crowdfunding site Kickstarter, the latest project to break the all-time fundraising record is Pebble, a stylish smart-watch that talks via Bluetooth with a smart phone. It hit $5 million in money raised this week, with plenty time left on the clock to solicit more pre-orders. The Kickstarter blog notes that "12 projects have held the title of Kickstarter's all-time most-funded project" and two of them have been wristwatches. "It begs the question: Why?," says Treehugger. "Why do we want a watch that basically puts the same functions as our phones on our wrists? Weren't we working to move toward dematerialization and ending redundancy of electronics?" Yeah, right! This watch looks cool and runs apps! GigaOM says never mind the money, it's a viable new hardware platform that could create a software market. "While the artists and creators are usually the only direct beneficiaries of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Pebble project has the potential to be a money maker for many other developers." But, wait, you said never mind the money...? Razorianfly wonders if Pebble's plans to distribute tools via a "watch app store" will conflict with iTunes's desire for total app domination.

Finally, speaking of Time pieces trying to remain relevant, Time Magazine has published its non-awaited "100 Most Influential People in the World" list, which "is kind of ridiculous. Or perhaps it's quaint and recalls a time when the publication was at the center of the culture," says MarketingLand. "The list should probably have been called, 'The 100 most interesting people according to our editorial staff and some other folks we consulted.'" In technology, no Google execs made the cut. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg but not founder Mark Zuckerberg made it. "And why is SNL comedienne Kristen Wiig on the list? Sure, she's funny and had a successful film (Bridesmaids) but is she truly "influential"? That goes for talk show host Chelsea Handler too." "It's unclear why Time chose Rihanna , whose occupation the magazine gives as 'superstar,'" says Gawker. "Is it because she challenges us to give second chances to those who don't deserve them? Because she entertains us by dancing topless in a field?... Last year's list of influencers included Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively. Sounds like they need a better vetting process, all-around." Who knows, maybe next year holograms will be eligible.

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