computers-R-stupid

corporate ownership of meme sites

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Like the blogosphere, meme sites are a legacy of the previous decade that were essentially eclipsed by the big corporate "social" silos. In other words, you could experience the meme on "social" without having to go to an originator, or originating aggregator. So the meme sites lost momentum as destinations. (This wasn't the only reason: add uniform boring corporate redesigns and simple exhaustion of the original target audience.) In any case, it makes sense that these old sites would become "properties" that some Silicontrepeneur would try to squeeze "value" from. For the morbidly inclined, the current landscape is confusing, though.

Here, "eBaum's WORLD" is listed as a portfolio company of Literally media:

literallymedia2

What, no funnyjunk or somethingawful?

Clicking the first Literally link takes you to eBaum's WORLD, which shows another company, Viumbe LLC, as owner:

ebaumviumbe

The Viumbe page lists eBaum as a property:

viumbe

So is Viumbe a Literally subsidiary? Is eBaum in transition between owners with dated website info? Or is Literally the "old" owner? Inquiring meme ghouls want to know.

Update: A reader emailed with some answers!

sync this

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There are two kinds of people in the world: (i) the kind who would want all their logins, passwords, cookies, and browsing history to be transmitted to Google's servers for reasons of "convenience" and (ii) everyone else.
If you fall into (ii) you probably don't care much about the recent flap where Google users are involuntarily "logged in" to their Chrome browsers. (Who knew you could even "log in" to a browser?) This occurs whenever users log into a Google "product" such as gmail. The reason for all this logging in is ostensibly so the users' data can be "synchronized" among the Google servers and all instances of Chrome they might be running.
If you fall into category (i) you are either very concerned about this privacy-shredding dark pattern or, you feel it's simply a matter of Google needing to have better documentation.

amazon vs vpn recap

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A reader characterized some recent posts here on Amazon blocking VPNs as "ranting." Just so we're clear, it's actually kind of a hopeful development that Amazon is violating its own "customer convenience is paramount" credo by putting up roadblocks to sign-in: it suggests its business model is challenged by user privacy concerns.
The true rants were aimed at a VPN company that excused its failure to get past the Amazon firewall on the basis of Amazon's need for security. Poor Jeff, everyone should be helping him to be a better monopolist.

the site formerly known as Wikia

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Stumbling upon an exhaustive encylopedic entry on a minor Jack Kirby character led to a Wikipedia article about Wikia, which is in the process of rebranding as FANDOM.
Essentially this is a for-profit version of Wikipedia, harnessing the limitless passion of comic book and anime fans so that some Silicon Valley execs can make $$$.

The tipoff is Fandom's corporatespeak on its about page:

FANDOM has a global audience of over

200 MILLION

monthly uniques

When you see an adjective used as a noun, prepare to be exploited.

amazon's anti-VPN policy: a VPN company responds

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After getting doubletalk and eventual confirmation from Amazon that they are forcing their customers to use 2-factor identification to log in to their accounts -- that is, if the customers are using VPNs to access the site -- I emailed my VPN provider to see what they thought of this.
This has nothing to do with the recent hot issue of people outside the US using VPNs to watch Region 1 videos on Amazon; this is Amazon treating all VPN traffic as suspect.
I received a response from the VPN company, likely robo-generated. Might as well have the letterhead "from the desk of Jeff Bezos":

As we understand you are asking us how to use Amazons Two step verification process. [no, I wasn't --tm]
We do not have the specifics in regards to their verification method, however we are aware that most companies that are very security focused will require additional authentication when you are trying to log in while using a different IP address than what their system is used to you logging in with.
This is done to prevent un-authorized access to your account should someone obtain your log in credentials.
We are not able to circumvent their system. You will need to continue verifying your account as they prompt for it, or set up their Two Step verification feature.

VPNs supposedly offer privacy relief from The Man's intrusive tentacles. Why should anyone be forced to use the same device that Amazon is accustomed "to you logging in with"? Is a web transaction for the seller's convenience only? Does Amazon want this user consistency for "security" or as an aid to geographic-based marketing?
With all that in mind it was a bit surprising to read this enthusiastic defense of the "security policy" of probably the worst monopoly company. Even Walmart doesn't force its customers to use 2-factor, just to order a tube of toothpaste (yet). This particular VPN company promotes itself as techno-libertarian -- kind of a joke.