Web Sites Accused of Collecting Data on Children

"A coalition of nearly 20 children’s advocacy, health and public interest groups plans to file complaints with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, asserting that some online marketing to children by McDonald’s and four other well-known companies violates a federal law protecting children’s privacy."

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Romney uses secretive data-mining in campaign money hunt

"Businesses use those kinds of analytics firms to answer key questions for clients, such as where to build a retail store or where to mail pamphlets touting a new product. The analysis doesn’t directly bring in campaign contributions, but it generates the equivalent of sales leads for Romney’s campaign.

The project relies upon a sophisticated analysis by powerful computers of thousands of commercially available, expensive databases that are lawfully bought and sold behind the scenes by corporations, including details about credit accounts, families and children, voter registrations, charitable contributions, property tax records and survey responses. It combines marketing data with what is known in this specialized industry as psychographic data analysis, which tries to ferret out Americans’ consumer behavior and habits." Link

The 4 Dumbest Rules That Will Kill Your Company's Culture

How about the no cell phones at work rule? Companies say they are concerned that employees will take photos of confidential papers or product designs, so employees are required to check their phones prior to going to their work stations. That’s all fine and good until the nurses office at your child’s school tries to reach you and she can’t. How about eliminating this rule and instead hiring people who are trustworthy? Just a thought.

How about the rule that says you can’t use the Internet on company time? Do you know anyone who hasn’t broken this rule, including the person who came up with this rule? I can understand asking people to limit their time, but forbidding it is just plain stupid.

One of my favorite dumb stupid rules is the "six-month rule." You have to be in your job six months before you can transfer or promote to another position. This might have worked well in the seventies, when Baby Boomers were so happy to have a job that most just went along with the rules. Today’s workforce is different. Employee loyalty no longer exists. If an employee comes up against the six-month rule, they simply go around it. They do so by playing for another team. Maybe that’s something Jordyn Wieber might want to consider in 2016.

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Parts of Apple's Genius training manual leaked

Gizmodo today posted portions of Apple's Genius Bar training manual, an internal document meant to train new employees in human interaction. In the pages that have been posted, this includes the words and phrases used to describe something as basic as a frozen machine.

Just don't use "frozen," it turns out. That's a no-no, according to a snippet that was posted. Instead, things like "unexpectedly quits," "does not respond," or "stops responding," would be better picks. Another such section provides instructions on appearing to feel empathy with someone who comes into the store with a broken -- err nonresponsive -- gadget, using language that will make the Genius sound more sincere.

To be sure, there's seemingly nothing controversial in the book, according to Gizmodo's account of the pages that go unseen. The blog only playfully deems it as something that "could easily serve as the Humanity 101 textbook for a robot university."

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