• Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole
• MySpace, Facebook and a half dozen other companies just screwed up. Big time.
• Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers

Ok, having said and read all that, I'm calling BS! Targeted advertisement has been around since almost the start of advertisement. Advertisers do not want to waste money by showing an ad for a Yeast Cream to a man. I believe Google has been one of the first, if not the biggest example in today's world of targeted advertisements. When you do a search on their flag ship product, Google Search, what do you see above and to the side of the search results? Ads. Are those ads relevant to what you searched for or are they completely irrelevant? That's right, they use your search query to query for the most appropriate advertisements for you. This does three things, first it reduces costs to the advertiser because they will not be showing ads to the wrong people and getting charged for them. Second, you as a consumer, is more likely to be interested in an ad if it's something you are looking for. Lastly, it gives tracking information to Google and the advertisers as to what works.

Great, we've now realized that targeted advertisements based off user data has been around for a long time. Now to the other side of the equation, privacy. Do you really think you browse the Internet privately without leaving any traceable data? If you do, you should really get off line now! Sure there are ways to truly be anonymous when surfing the Internet, but 99% of all users don't know how to or don't really care to. Do you want to know what data I know about you from just reading this post? Well, check it out:

Well, does that change your mind about online privacy? You didn't even have to tell me anything about you and I already know what Operating System and Browser you are using, what your current IP Address is, where that IP Address is registered and approximate location of it, and where you came from to get to this page. This is just the base information that EVERY website can collect about it's viewers. Plus, websites can use Cookies to track you across their entire site and track your browsing habits on their site. And most likely, that Cookie will still be validate when you return to the site, so guess what they can do? You guessed it, they can tailor what Ads they show you based off your tracking Cookie.

Bottom line here is you must take ownership and reasonably of your own data and privacy online. You can not blame applications / services you sign up for when they use the data you provide them for other things. Most all Social Networks provide ways to restrict access to your private data, Facebook being one of the most extensive Privacy Control systems I've seen in an Online Application (read about setting it up from MacLife). If you don't read about, understand, and configure the Privacy Settings offered to you, don't go crying foul when your data is world readable. You should always try and read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy of anything you sign up for online. If you don't, it's your own fault for giving them your private data and allowing them to use it.

Now it's time to get ready for work tomorrow but before that, I'm going to work on uploading some photos.

I took a look at apple.com and found the new version of the Mac laptop, the MacBook and MacBook Pro. If I were to get a Mac system, I'd go with a MacBook Pro 17" system. The power behind the system before I even customize it is just amazing! The 17" model has this as the default system setup:

* 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 1680 x 1050 pixels
* 2GB memory
* 160GB hard drive
* 8x double-layer SuperDrive
* ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 256MB SDRAM

WOW, what a setup! I'll just have to wait and see how I feel a little later on after working with this PowerBook G4 for a while more. I've been able to get just about every piece of software that I need in a Mac version and have found new software out there that is for the Mac to do the same thing that software on the PC does. I'll post an update later on as to what step I take ...

On another note, because of the new job and the move I won't really be able to put alot of time into anything code or website related. Hopefully after everything settles down and I get into the hang of things, I'll be able to finish what I started!

On another note, I've completely moved servers to DreamHost now. I've started to learn to use their Control Panel and things are moving more smoothly now. I've got many projects / ideas that I need to work on, so I'm going to have to put some updates on hold for the time being. I hope to have some new things poping up soon.

A while ago, I had signed up to Beta test Ether and I never got around to publish my service. So I just added a button to my Contact Me Page so that you can call/email me for Tech Support. If you view my Ether listing you will see what exactly I can help with. It is a pay service and the rate is $10 for 30 minutes.

I have setup and enabled Text Link Ads on this site. Once ad space is bought, they will be displayed along the left hand side of the pages. This looks like a really good thing and I'm enjoying the system right now. Let's just see how well they work!

This new theme is a bit buggy right now. The topmenu only works in FireFox right now (a good reason to get/use FireFox!) so I'll have to work something out with IE.

This post I'm writing with the WYSIWYG editer on. I just wanted to see how it would turn out like. If it's any good, I'd need to get my LMB^Box Smileys plugin updated to add a button to the WYSIWYG system. That's about it for right now ...

At this point I was freaking! I couldn't believe that I just received a call back, let alone an interview request! I have been looking for a full time position for over 2 years now and now I finally there is some interest in me.

Well 10 minutes later ... after freaking out the whole time ... she calls back with the news that at 11am today I have an interview for the position. All yesterday I was a little out of it after that ... and this morning I couldn't sleep, I was up at 6am ... let's see what happens today! It's time to review everything that needs polishing and to get ready ...

I'm going to be working on updating my WP install to the latest version and my theme & plugins to work! That's good news to who ever has been waiting for me to make an update and release for some of my plugins (LMB^Box Smileys and FilePress). I'm also going to be getting my main site www.lmbbox.com back online. Soon that will be the main place to find my works/plugins/code and this blog will become completely personal.

I'm hoping to complete all this within the next couple of weeks ... can't wait for that day so I can ...

Hello Thomas Montague,

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on
the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google
AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an
effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.

A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including
but not limited to clicks generated by:

- a publisher on his own web pages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the
layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Terms
and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further
participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The
earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected
advertisers.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Now I don't know where they are coming from, but I never made an fake clicks on any of the ads! I first opened my AdSense account in March of 2004 and since then I have not received any payment from them! In fact this month I finally hit the $100 mark so that I would receive a check/deposit next month! Are they just ripping me off? The first month that I hit that $100 mark and about 10 days later ... my account is disabled! It's not like I'm $100 every month (like alot of people do), this would have been my first payout from google since I opened and started using Google AdSence over 2 years ago!

Since I started this blog, my AdSence page impressions when from almost nill to about 50-100 page impressions and 5-20 clicks a day if I was lucky. By the way, these stats are from resent months ... it's been like that since the like Oct/Nov of 2005. I did receive an email from Google about my donation page and my ad listing on the left of the pages. I'm not allowed to ask for visters to click on the ads to support the site or have a label like "Sponsors: Please Click To Help Support Site!" ... I removed the violating material as soon as I received the email from them! I've sent a reply to the email sent asking for details as to why but from what I've read elsewhere, I'll most likely never receive any responce! Not sure what else to do ... I'll most likely just either not worry about any ads or look for other options. I remember reading some good posts about different ad placement programs and I guess I'm going to look into them now. This just sucks! A side note ... even if I do get my account reinstated, I wonder if I would get my 2 years plus of profit!

[UPDATE]
So it's been a few days since this happened ... I had sent a reply email to AdSence and got an answer stating that I can file an appeal by senting an email to the appeal email address with all the info that was requested. So I did do this ... waited a day ... and I received a reply back ... they still find invalid clicks! So my Google AdSence account is disabled and will never be reactivated ... I've lost the small amount of profit from a 2+ years mistake. Just george!
[/UPDATE]