Here's how it works:

Get up one morning, check your email on your iPhone. There's a message from PayPal confirming your 100 Euro purchase of services from Skype.

Whoa. I didn't order 100 Euros of anything. And in Euros?

You go to your computer, wake it out of its sleep, and an alert window from Skype is waiting for you.

"Your Skype password has been recently changed. You need to sign in again with your new password in order to use Skype. This is a security measure taken in order to prevent your Skype Account from being abused."

Hmm. I didn't change my password.

You try to login to Skype. You can't. You visit your PayPal account. 100 Euros has been taken out of it to purchase Skype services. You think fast, cancel the agreement you had between PayPal and Skype
to pay a $3 monthly fee for SkypeOut. You send a fraud report to PayPal. You send a fraud report to Skype.

In both reports you summarize the issue: someone hijacked your Skype account and stole 100 Euros (about $142) worth of Skype services from you. Nothing authorized by you at any point. It's called theft. All will be good, right?

PayPal takes four days to make a determination.

Quote: "A PayPal claims specialist has reviewed the case and determined that the claim does not meet the criteria for unauthorized use, so the case is now closed."

Are you kidding? According the the "specialists", theft is not unauthorized use. Skype gets to keep its 100 Euros that was stolen from you.

You think, "I'll just appeal this..where's the 'appeal' link?" You find there is none. You have to write PayPal a letter. Yes, a letter. To Omaha, Nebraska. A letter asking for the documentation they used to make the determination. An Internet company insists you write them a letter.

OK, surely Skype will help out. That is, if they ever write back. They take nearly two weeks to get around to assigning a human to the case.

Skype writes back in 10 days. "Patrick P. is on the case. Patrick says: "In your case it appears that someone has succeeded in fraudulently obtaining your PayPal account and purchasing credit."

You think, "great, somebody understands."

Patrick goes on:

"First, you are not liable for this transaction in any way. "

Sweet. You'll just appeal to Skype and... Wait. You read further.

"We suggest that you submit a Transaction Dispute via Paypal.com."

Great. Back to square one.

Patrick sends another email a couple of days later. It's about that money that was stolen from you to buy services from them that you didn't authorize.

"Skype can not refund the money you might have lost due to this incident. Every user has to take care of his/her security systems on private computers."

"Money you might have lost?" You did lose money...and by the way, it's your fault, loser.

(Photo by Joi)

More precisely, Wal-Mart family money. Madrone Capital Partners, which manages venture-capital investments for the heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, led Cuil's most recent $25 million financing round in April. Madrone's Greg Penner, who married Carrie Walton, Sam Walton's granddaughter, is on Cuil's board. And on Wal-Mart's.

Penner, who lives in Atherton, has ensconced himself in Silicon Valley society, despite an atypical background for the liberal Bay Area: His parents are evangelical sex therapists who believe in counseling gays into heterosexuality. He is a protege of Stanford Business School's Jack McDonald, and served as an executive at Walmart.com, a short-lived dotcom spinoff of Wal-Mart backed by Accel Partners and later folded back into the retailing giant.

Most significantly, he's also a board member of Baidu, a Chinese search engine which is eating Google's lunch in that country. The Waltons' investment in Cuil could be written off as simply an attempt to make money. But with Penner involved in two prominent Google's rivals, it's hard not to wonder if the Bentonville gang isn't hoping to do more than just add to its pile.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I wouldn't have been able to get any of these jobs out of college. I didn't finish with a 3.8, do a year of service in Nicaragua or file any patents during my sophomore year. But the worst part of this list is the fact that the people taking these jobs did. To paraphrase Dan Lyons, there's something distinctly evil about the way Google and the other companies listed below hoard the world's best and brightest and put them to work on creating more efficient text ads or, worse, tasking them with taking phone calls from angry customers.

Follow the link for each job to see a picture of their locations, a list of key responsibilities, first hand accounts of why each job is so bad and how much they pay.

• Tech's ten worst entry-level jobs
• Online sales and operations account manager, Google
• Support engineer, Washington-Seattle, Amazon.com
• Content Acquisition Intern, IODA
• Customer support specialist, Fox Interactive, MySpace division
• Database administrator (temporary), Google, contracted through WorkforceLogic
• Support professional, product: Windows, Microsoft
• Executive admin to Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore
• Analyst, user operations, Facebook
• Operations finance, analyst intern, Yahoo
• Part-time guide, Mahalo

(Top photo by star5112)

Hi [Redacted], We sincerely apologize for this issue and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I recommend disabling fan photos through the Photos application editing interface by selecting "Do not allow fans to add photos". This will hide any current fan photos from view. We'll let you know as soon as we have more information. Thanks for contacting Facebook, Jack Customer Operations Facebook

When I had submitted my license last fall, I originally was using the upload-form they provided within Facebook, but that upload form was defective, and customer support told me back then to directly email them. I did. A real person at Facebook had a scan of my license in their inbox since the upload-form system wasn't working properly the week they launched the service. A real person could've caused all this.

Why, precisely, is Craigslist trying to dilute eBay's stake? Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka speculates that Craigslist is looking for an outside investor. Nonsense; as Kafka himself points out, Craigslist doesn't need the money. Far more likely: Newmark and Buckmaster are angling to issue more shares to themselves so they don't have to share as much of the company's profits with eBay.

Here's Foley's description:

Albany consists of 2007 version of Office Home and Student; Office Live Workspace, Microsoft's collaboration-service complement to Office; Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft's consumer security/backup service; and three Windows Live services — Live Mail, Live messenger and Photo Gallery. The bundle will be delivered via a single installer. When Microsoft releases new versions of any of these software or service components, Albany users will get the latest versions pushed to them automatically for as long as they are paying for the Albany subscription.

• Office-productivity software that can be had for $119 at Amazon.com, but is likely already installed on a user's computer.


• A "collaboration" service most home users will have no need for


• Windows Live OneCare, a PC-security and maintenance service which Microsoft already sells as a subscription


• Three Web services Microsoft already offers for free

Microsoft hasn't specified what they'll charge, but lets assume they don't plan to lose money. A discounted copy of Office runs $119; OneCare costs $49.95 a year. Office Live Workspace is in beta, so Microsoft's not charging yet. Still, let's call it $15 a month. I can't see consumers paying that much for a package they mostly already have.

In "Albany," Microsoft has picked a perfect codename: a byword for bureaucratic waste, dysfunction, and corruption. As in New York's capital, someone needs to clean house. And as in New York's capital, it's not going to happen.

Tonight the Geek Squad is going to hold a moment of silence at 8:01 pm to remember the venerable Arthur C. Clarke (in army time, that's 20:01). Memo's regarding Mr. Clarke's passing have been posted at Geek Squad precincts around the nation...See below for the memo the Agents created...best...CK

ARTHUR C. CLARKE
1917 - 2008

Yesterday, the worlds of science and science fiction lost one of their true visionaries, the inestimable Arthur C. Clarke, author of seminal works like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama. Through the writings of Mr. Clarke, all these worlds are yours.

It isn't easy to overstate Mr. Clarke's contribution to increasing the public's fascination with science and technology. In fact, Mr. Clarke's imaginative fiction, profoundly insightful futurist thinking and boundless optimism played no small part in shaping the formation of our company, Geek Squad.

Out of the deepest respect for Mr. Clarke, Geek Squad personnel will be observing a moment of silence this evening at 20:01 military time. Many thanks for your understanding. The sky is filled with one more star tonight.

Chris Kooluris
Ketchum
1285 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10019

The Harvard hearing, a rare outside-the-Beltway event, ended disastrously for all involved. The hearing had many more attendees than were expected, with the room running out of space well before the hearing began. As a result, dozens of members of the public and opposition groups were refused entry. Comcast's ruse was detected when some of its fresh hires fell asleep.

The FCC will take no official action against Comcast over the held seats, but relocating the hearing to Stanford is punishment enough. Net-neutrality crusader Larry Lessig teaches there, and the Valley's Comcast-hating engineers may actually be provoked enough by the seatwarming episode to pry themselves away from their keyboards. And best of all: Stanford would get to one-up Harvard by showing it knows how to run a meeting.

(Photo by AP/Stephan Savoia)

That would be Google's karmic role. Hodson's blog carries ads from Google. And where better for a Go Daddy ad to appear than next to a blog post which concludes, "GoDaddy — you suck"?

There is nothing wrong with the products so we aren't accepting returns from customers ... [Customers] understood that there were two competing formats and understood that one of them would probably prevail ... so they made the decision to go with HD-DVD... [Toshiba will] assist customers in understanding the benefits of the products.

Southwest Airlines Bringing the Internet to the Sky Via Satellite DALLAS, Jan. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Southwest Airlines will be the first US carrier to test satellite-delivered broadband Internet access on multiple aircraft. With this innovation, Southwest Customers with a wi-fi enabled device will have full access to the Internet including e-mail, music, shopping, and virtual private networks (VPN) via a high-speed connection. Southwest Airlines is partnering with Southern California-based Row 44 and hopes to begin testing Internet capabilities on four aircraft this summer.

"Southwest Airlines is pleased to announce its partnership with Row 44, and we intend to deliver the highest bandwidth available to commercial airlines in the United States," said Dave Ridley, Southwest Airlines' Senior Vice President of Marketing. "Southwest's selection of satellite technology will offer a more robust experience for more Customers per aircraft versus other solutions available in the marketplace."

"Southwest is looking for the best solution for our Customers not only for Internet e-mail access, but for additional inflight entertainment as well," Ridley said. "We look forward to exploring this cutting-edge technology with Row 44 and hope this will keep our Customers productive and entertained inflight."

"We're excited to partner with Southwest Airlines to keep passengers informed, in touch, and entertained," said Gregg Fialcowitz, President of Row 44. "This service will set the standard for excellence in inflight connectivity."

After almost 37 years of service, Southwest Airlines continues to differentiate itself from other airlines-offering low fares and a reliable product with impeccable Customer Service. Southwest Airlines is the most efficient airline in the sky and offers Customers a pleasant traveling experience. Southwest recently updated its gate areas and improved its boarding procedure to make flying Southwest productive and convenient. Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), the nation's largest carrier in terms of domestic passengers boarded, currently serves 64 cities in 32 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,300 flights a day and has more than 33,000 Employees systemwide.

Row 44 is the fast, global, fleet-wide solution for inflight broadband services — high-speed Internet, video entertainment, cell phone support, and airline operational services. The system offers wide-body, narrow-body and even regional jet support along with flexible service deployment options. And its cost effective because installation is quick, the hardware is light, and the service leverages existing satellite networks.

Finally he came back and told me that the system has a glitch and is dropping all iPhone data plans (whether this is only for GoPhone or whether this is a general iPhone problem he didnt say). He reversed the charge. He said they have no ETA for the fix, but are working on it. He said the next time i use the web I will be charged at the same rate until they fix the glitch.

(Photo by oskay)

Friday morning. The $399 charge went through last night, and is no longer "pending". No sign of a refund/reversal aside from an "I'm sorry" mail from billing. I was a bit upset, but understanding that accidents do happen, and until the charge left the "pending" state, no harm had been done. Now that it's gone through, I'm *not* happy. I don't want you to be "sorry", I want that charge reversed, and my money back. Now.

Apple already lets users voluntarily cap their volume. But this is Apple taking matters into its own hands. The libertarian in me worries about the implications. I live in Massachusetts — we're the only state in the country to ever repeal mandatory seat-belt laws. Who is Apple to tell us how loud our music is?

Actually, this is a clever solution to a real problem. Just because the iPod can be turned up to 11, should it be able to? The European-spec iPod is restricted to 100 decibels of output, perhaps due to the EU's stringent consumer-protection laws, but the stateside version isn't. In fact, Apple was sued for not having "adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss."

Parents will like being able to protect their children's hearing and the kids probably won't notice any difference — and what they don't know won't hurt them, right?

(Photo by powerbooktrance)

An anonymous administrator of Vonage Forum, the independent discussion board where gripes were aired, reports that Vonage claims to have resolved the issue this morning, but users continue to report problems.

So why isn't the blogosphere taking notice as it did for the recent Skype outage? Despite Vonage's attempt to stay relevant with heavy advertising, the only ones who seem to care about the failing company are the numerous telephone carriers suing the company into the ground for patent infringement — and the suckers who bought into Vonage's late night television pitch.

This shouldn't surprise iPhone owners, because of course they all read Apple's terms of service before agreeing to it:

When you interact with Apple, we may collect personal information relevant to the situation, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and contact preferences; your credit card information and information about the Apple products you own, such as their serial numbers and date of purchase; and information relating to a support or service issue.

CHECK YOUR SECONDARY EMAIL NOW. Make sure you can access it if you ever lose access to Gmail.

And if someone named popsnap@gmail writes to you, it might not be me.

Gambling and porn are two of the most consistent moneymakers in the world. Porn is, for the most part, perfectly legal and can be purchased online with a credit card. Gambling, including sports betting and poker, is a little more tenuous. In the United States, most credit-card companies will not allow betting to be made on a credit card, forcing players to use overseas services such as Neteller instead. Because of the lack of regulation, if players are cheated, they have little or no recourse. Some online gambling sites are publicly traded on European stock exchanges — here in the U.S. though, the offline casino monopoly is enforced through fiat by the government. (Photo by AP/Joe Cavaretta)

Our tipster tells us "the employee got the password and then met up with his friend who was mad at the girl because she turned down his offer to take her to his prom."

Now, before you judge, remember that you, too, were once an angsty, hormone-riddled youngster like the kind employed in droves at Facebook. Of course, you didn't have access to 50 million user profiles. Or $240 million in cash from Microsoft to flush down the toilet. Just tissues and a lot of illegally downloaded emo music.

Truth be told, I'm a little skeptical of our tipster's tale on one count. Facebook employees are young, but do they still have friends going to proms?

But here's the problem for Facebook. After learning that at least some Facebook employees do chart the social graph for their own pleasure, it will be hard for Facebook users to believe any of the company's assurances. A good place to start restoring trust? A thorough revision of Facebook's privacy policy, which, as best I can tell, only guarantees against third-party disclosures, not employee misuse.

And then there ought to be some very noisy firings of employees who break the rules. Facebook is hiring another 400 people through the end of next year. It won't be hard to add a few extra to replace the rulebreakers.

Facebook has a history of protecting profiles from outsiders. The site once sent cease-and-desist letters to two of Valleywag's sister blogs for publishing certain student profiles.

The site does not allow regular users to see which profiles other users have seen. While one third-party application lets users voluntarily make their profile-visiting known, no application allows one to "spy" on the activity of an unknowing user.

Checking who's viewed a profile may be how Facebook found the tipster who violated their terms of service by sending Valleywag Steve Ballmer's profile. But were they violating their own terms?

Well, Facebook's privacy policy doesn't explicitly reserve or waive employees' right to check out your profile for any reason. Of course, the practice still reeks of skunkery — it's one thing to check profiles in the course of business, but these people are looking up records for kicks. This is a company with $150 million in projected revenues this year and a gigantic ad deal with Microsoft, not a corner video store. The privacy of millions is at stake. Google clearly promises not to crawl through mail or search records with anything but a computer program, and even AOL apologized for releasing semi-anonymous search data and violating its privacy policy.

We have no idea what else employees can see. Do they look at your messages? Your private gifts? Who knows? (Really, who knows? Email me or the tipline. Unlike some, we'll protect your identity.)

Boucher basically told Comcast to cut the crap:

Comcast has made a major mistake in attempting to hinder peer-to-peer file sharing as an aspect of its network management. The inability of customers to [share files] significantly diminishes their ability to utilize the Internet for one of its most important applications, which is user-to-user content.

We're not big on regulatory solutions, and apparently, neither is Boucher. Surprisingly for a Democrat, he rejected calls for net neutrality regulations and wants to fix the problem through competition and market forces. That's about right. You don't like it? Go lay your own fiber, bub. Or, better yet, dump them for another ISP. That's Comcastic!

(Photo by AP/Douglas C. Pizac)

Thank you for your message. My name is Lindsay, and I appreciate you taking the time to contact Comcast.

I understand you have some concerns over recent web gossip that has suggested Comcast is blocking or hindering customer access to BitTorrent. I will be happy to assist you. We do not block access to any P2P (Peer To Peer) applications, including BitTorrent. We respect our customers' privacy and don't monitor specific customer activities on the Internet, or track individual online behavior, such as which websites are visited. Therefore, we do not know whether any individual user is visiting BitTorrent or any other site.

Additionally, Comcast does not "throttle" bandwidth (limit throughput on the network). Comcast also is not traffic shaping or packet shaping. We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our
customers have the best broadband experience possible. That means we use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality experience for all Comcast subscribers. This is standard practice for network operators around the world. I do not have specific information to provide to you regarding the details of how we manage our network, or vendors that may be used.

If you have any more questions feel free to reply to this e-mail, or you can chat with one of our Online Customer Support Specialists who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at

http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat

To assure the proper tracking of this issue, we have created the following customer service ticket: ####.

Please refer to this number should you contact us regarding this same issue.

Thank you for choosing Comcast.

Sincerely,

Lindsay
Comcast Online Customer Support

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the New York State Attorney General's office are two possible candidates for a fraud lawsuit. A fraud charge could hinge on the manner in which Comcast is disrupting traffic. The technology, provided by a company called Sandvine, tricks computers into shutting down BitTorrent connections. Comcast is, in effect, pretending to be the customer in order to prevent data from being transferred. In New York, it is criminal impersonation in the second degree to "(impersonate) another and ... act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another."

Somehow we doubt if Comcast will cave to mere bad press — they get kind of a lot of it. Nor are mass customer defections likely. A lawsuit is probably the only measure that would stop Comcast.

Unlike our blog brethren at Gizmodo or The Consumerist, we'd be all in favor of a broadband provider doing anything it likes with its pipes. You don't like it? Go lay your own fiber, bub. And I'm sure AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and the rest are doing all kinds of naughty things with their customers' Web connections. The problem here? Comcast got caught. That's the real no-no.

Comcast is apparently using technology from Sandvine to prevent uploading of "torrents," the special file format used by BitTorrent. Comcast sends faked packets of data to interfere with the transfer. While not illegal, it is a bit sleazy — and in this case, makes Comcast look like it's against the spreading of the Gospel.

Said BitTorrent COO Ashwin Navin to the AP, "They're using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use that money to improve service." Navin should consider himself lucky, though. The AP could have run the test by trying to share the violent fiction of former BitTorrent CEO Bram Cohen. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

A tipster writes:

I just called AMEX about the $200 iPhone credit at their Return Protection Line (800) 297-8019 (9 minute wait time). I was told by the agent at this time they are accepting iPhone claims, but not processing them, they have yet to make a final decision. Apparently their official price protection program was discontinued several months ago, but they handle claims on a case-by-case basis.

They are aware that news has hit the web about the $200 credits.

I don't have a preteen child, but instead, a husband who views "Harry Potter" with much the same excitement. So, last Saturday, I checked Amazon.com's site for the tracking information. Delivered, UPS claimed, to the front door. Curious, since I was sitting about 20 feet from my front door. I called UPS's automated information line and discovered it had been delivered to my former work address. So downtown I went, and by luck, a former colleague was at the office to let me in. No "Harry Potter" to be found, even though a UPS deliveryman had called on the building that morning. I called Amazon.com, which was good enough to refund my money and send a new copy, which wouldn't arrive until Wednesday.

The book did show up eventually — but by U.S. Postal Service on Monday, not by UPS. How a book can simultaneously be delivered to an office's front door and entrusted to the USPS for delivery is a feat of magic beyond my understanding.

Amazon.com, of course, did the right thing in issuing a refund. Occasionally, the company fulfills Jeff Bezos's tired promise of being "customer-centric" — in this case, recognizing that the book didn't have much value to me delivered late. (I had to rush over to a physical bookstore and — oh, the indignity! — purchase the book by handing it over the counter to a human being to have it rung up.) It will incur some expense, but leave the incident with its reputation intact.

But UPS? UPS is just screwed. Its vaunted electronic-tracking system has been revealed as full of lies. The data, after all, is only as good as the people who enter it. Kottke speculates that his deliveryman entered in false information to avoid trouble from supervisors who wanted delivery to go off without a hitch. And, perhaps, to avoid having to make Amazon good on the cost of its refunds.

Instead, though, it's been caught out. And now, I'm not inclined to trust anything UPS tells me about any delivery. How do I know that its personnel aren't fudging the data to make their jobs easier, or save their bosses a buck? If we can't trust UPS with the simple delivery of a book that's precious to kids — and more than a few adults — why would we ever put our businesses in its hands?

Adderton, who left the troubled carrier last month, has returned to the States from Australia. And how does he plan to build on his business reputation after blowing through $350 million at the money-losing Amp'd? Why, by selling the content-distribution platform Amp'd built to Qualcomm, the San Diego-based wireless chipmaker, and then getting brought in by Qualcomm to run the business. Sounds like that decision would be up to a bankruptcy-court judge and Qualcomm, not Adderton, but that's what he's been telling people in the industry.

The Ooma Hub looks slicker than the PhoneGnome Box, which retails for $99. And of course, PhoneGnome doesn't have a Hollywood star hawking its device, while Ooma does in the form of "creative director" (read: overpaid spokesman) Ashton Kutcher. Despite the surface difference, Ooma's feature list — 911 calls through regular phone lines, free calls to "members" — is so similar to PhoneGnome's that we can't help wondering if Ooma founder Andrew Frame, desperate to launch his long-delayed startup, didn't just crib Ooma's product plan from PhoneGnome. And jack up the price fourfold. Because everything costs more in Hollywood, of course.