The social site application of scripts and bots have been around as long as their have been social sites. There are scripts and bots available for MySpace, StumbleUpon, Facebook, YouTube etc. All have very different applications for very different purposes on each site.  In 2007 MySpace was involved in a publicized battle with the commercial marketers of Bot programs such as Friend-Adder and Badder-Adder These programs automated friend adding and commenting protocols bypassing the captcha safeguards.  MySpace sent cease and desist letters to these companies briefly shutting many of them down.  As the scripts circulated and were improved upon, new companies popped up as fast as the old ones shut down.  With the exception of suing spam king Scott Richter and instituting some onerous captcha and sophisticated I.P.tracking they finally gave up chasing after these bot developers.  The MySpace pursuit logic was that these bots violated state and federal anti-spam laws as they allowed people to bypass the captcha spam safeguards and send tens of thousands of comments to its membership base.  What are bots and scripts?

Bot – A software program that imitates the behavior of a human, as by querying search engines or participating in chatroom or IRC discussions. A bot is a program that performs various computer protocols automatically without human intervention. For ex GoogleBot is a application that surfs the internet and collects all the websites for Google and saves it in a database.  Email Extraction bots surf the internet and scan pages for email addresses to spam.  With regards to Digg, Promote-My-Site provides bot services that allow a person to digg without being at his or her computer.

Script – A simple program in a utility language or an application’s proprietary language. Scripts are usually very small code.  Designers tend to refer to any code in JavaScripts as script. Most webpages including Digg have some JavaScript in them which performs some action. For example the legitimate Digg button provided by Digg  uses a script.  When you click the Digg  button that action is reported back to the server.

So what about Digg?   What is the big deal with the external development of certain scripts and bots that do not impact the Digg servers and do not have any impact on the Digg algorithm?  If you listen to DiggBoss his two external scripts fit the following criteria:  They do not enable spamming or any other illegal activity. They do not allow faster digging. They do not remove or add Digg buttons. They do not bypass any protocols.  They do nothing more than enhance the Digg community user experience. Should not these types of applications be encouraged maybe even rewarded as they are often encouraged and rewarded in the Open Source community?  Why can’t Digg do likewise with API?    Digg allegedly encourages the creating of these programs through its “Application Programming Interface“(API).

The Digg Application Programming Interface (API) has been created to let users and partners interact programmatically with Digg. The API returns Digg data in a form that can be easily integrated into an application or a web site. While the API is available to everyone free of charge, its use is subject to acceptance of our API License Agreement.

The API license reads as follows:

1. GRANT OF LICENSE – Subject to your (“Licensee’s”) full compliance with all of the terms and conditions of this API Agreement (“Agreement”), Digg, Inc. (“Digg”) grants Licensee a non-exclusive, revocable, nonsublicensable, nontransferable license to download and use the Digg application program interface and other materials provided by Digg (collectively, “APIs”) to develop, reproduce and distribute non-commercial applications that interoperate with Digg.com or any other web property owned by Digg (“Digg Applications”). Licensee may not install or use the APIs for any other purpose (including without limit any commercial purpose) without Digg’s prior written consent. For the sake of clarity, the sale of advertising on a website where a Digg Application is hosted shall not alone constitute a commercial use under this Agreement, provided that the advertising is not integrated within the Digg Application itself. Licensee shall not use the APIs in connection with or to promote any products, services, or materials that constitute, promote or are used primarily for the purpose of dealing in: spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code….

Digg’s  data is open to all under creative commons license.  Digg has a systematic way of delivering its data to anyone who is interested in having a look at it as long as they agree to the terms of access. They provide API or “Application Programmers Interface” Rather than write bots a programmer can legally view data that is made available by Digg. The data is read only in nature i.e. you can only view the data, you cannot submit back, edit or delete the data using APIs.

Former Digg power user “DiggBoss”, real name David,  used the API program to create two very useful Digg add-on applications that became extremely popular with the Digg community.  He was banned from the site when his applications became known to Digg. They had become more popular than the ones Digg had developed to enhance the user experience.

The two DiggBoss scripts made use of the API to check if your Digg friends were digging your submissions by making API queries to the digg server. The script would display the result such as 10 / 15 against the friend’s user name. The would mean the friend had dugg 10 of your last 15 submissions.   A very useful feature and a feature one would think would interest Digg. They have a much more basic feature that is extremely cumbersome and time consuming to use.  There was also a feature that allegedly reduced shout spam.   The feature was called “Shout To Friends Not Dugg”. This feature allowed a user to shout only to friends who had not previously dugg a story. There is certainly an argument that this did not reduce shout spam at all.  A person may not have dugg a story because he/she did not want to.  When that person got a re-shout it would be considered spam.  The script worked by sending a query to the Digg API server to find out friends who had already dugg and select the friends that had not this way reducing multiple shouts.

It was not possible for Digg to determine who was using the “who dugg” or  shout management feature. The script made calls to the free Google server where the application was installed and from the Google server to Digg API server.  The user computer with the script made the call to free Google server from Google server to Digg API sever and then back. The user was was never exposed to Digg server. The Digg APIs do not require any authentication i.e. passwords to operate.  If David’s script had stayed under the radar, he may never have been discovered. All Digg API data is open creative commons free for everyone.  It did not incorporate any of the “Easy-Digg” buttons or bypasses used in the scripts that allegedly resulted in his ban from Digg as well as over 100 other “power diggers”.

In March 2008 David did update the “Digg Friends Easy” script. He was then warned by Digg that such scripts were prohibited.  He was  asked to remove the script immediately. He was asked not to promote the script. He immediately removed it from the server.   What was left was the “who dugg”  application and the shout management application.  The “Digg Friend Easy” scripts themselves were not developed by David and are widely available on the web. The most popular one can be found at  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/12708. This  script that adds “Diggit” or “Digg This” button on pages where Digg has not provided for them. This script has been on the internet as open source code since Oct 2, 2007.

In the end it appears getting rid of David was more about protecting the Digg business model and less about evil “Darth Vadar” scripts. The “Who Dugg” and shout management scripts did not even access the Digg primary servers.  In addition  Digg has recently released its own Firefox add-on touted by Kevin Rose on the Digg Blog.  The Diggboss script was a much better developed and more popular form of competition. Maybe they were in no mood for dealing with someone who had developed a better product showing up their  developers.  This seems strange since the  the license agreement gave them ownership of the Diggboss program.  The API license contains the following language:

“Digg shall own all right, title and interest relating to any and all inventions, works of authorship, designs, know-how, ideas and information made or conceived or reduced to practice, in while or in part, using the APIs. Licensee hereby agrees to make all assignments necessary to accomplish the foregoing ownership.”

Digg may have taken a lesson from the MySpace bot market and feared that David would market the program to his own benefit. Once the script was out in the open, it could be refined, improved upon and mutate into a Godzilla like creature devouring Digg profits with each digg.   The problem there is that is that the program needs their API server to function.  You would think Digg could simply shut down the API server to anyone trying to attempt the same thing?

In the end petty turf internal politics and turf wars won out over a better Digg experience.  Better to boot David for whatever reason or no reason at all. They can take his development for later use as their own when he is long forgtten.  Even if it was simply a knee-jerk reaction to the use of the clearly illegal scripts it shows once again that the Digg model is becoming less and less about user experience or community satisfication. It is all about bucks.  That is assuming Digg can ever be monetized to the extent anyone wants to give them bucks.  Google sure didnt.

WHY ARE COMMENTS CLOSED?

Comments are closed because all anybody seems to want to talk about is how I write about Digg because I am a Bitter Banned Digger or about the two”Easy-Digg” Scripts that got people banned. This blog is about  neither. It is about two Diggboss API add-ons that have nothing to do with those two scripts. It is about whether they should be allowed as user-enhancement add-ons.  If nobody wants to talk about that there is no point in opening comments.  If anyone does want to talk about that please email me and I wll post your comments.

Brian Cuban

The game of Data Pinball is the hottest game in the world.  Hundreds of millions internet users are playing at any given moment.  It is a high-risk game. Millions of dollars are made and lost at the touch of a key.  Information flipped into cyberspace being batted back and forth sometimes coming right back to the person who initially started the game.  Sometimes looking nothing like what was sent.  Sometimes with unwanted consequences.

A piece of data put into play will at first flow on its own inertia to its closest intended point.  After that watch out!   It enters the “data pinball zone”.  When it is “pinball flippered” the sender intends it to reach a certain target but just like in real pinball, it often does not get there or hits several bumbers before it does. Each bumper sending it off in an unexpected direction.  When data is “bumpered”  the sender has no idea where it is going or where it will end up.  Each time data hits a “bumper” it is sent off in a new direction with new force and inertia.  Theoretically this will go on as long as a data recipient bumpers or flips it again in a whole different direction. The data pinball is sent off to hit other bumpers, setting off all new bells and whistles, racking up new data pinball points for its new owner.

You see it every day on just about every mainstream and tabloid news site.  Nothing stays a secret.  Whether it is emails, photos, text messages etc.  People receive unwanted attention as a direct result of not thinking before they hit send on their email, text message or voicemail rant.   Just ask  Alec Baldwin.  His data was transmitted through the good old old telephone and ended up pinballing all over the world. His voicemail visitation rant to his daughter will be on YouTube until YouTube is no more or hell freezes over.  Embarrassment is the least of the damage.  Careers and marriages are ended.   What is ironic is that the data itself never changes form but what finally makes it into the mainstream depending on where it ‘bounces” rarely conveys the original message.

The latest version of the game has ensnared Dallas Mavericks star forward Josh Howard as well the racists, bigots and hate mongers who decided to chime in on the controversy.   Josh joined Alec in the data pinball ranks with his impromptu cell phone video commentary on the National Anthem appeared on YouTube.  Like Alec’s voicemail rant,  Josh’s video will unfortunately be preserved there and other social sites for time  immemorial.  After Mark  Cuban made a public statement about how he had handled the situation every racist and hate filled idiot with a computer pulled back the data pinball plunger and let the data fly in the form opinionated hate and racist email tirades sent to Mark.  Little did they know that Mark would jump in on the game. He hit those pinball flippers for all they were worth and posted many of the emails on his blog, email addresses included.  He fired those same emails right back out into the bumper filled blogosphere to be batted around all over the world by anyone else who wanted to jump into the game.  Who knows where those emails containing admissions of closet racism and other forms of hatred will end up.  Maybe with the sender’s neighbors.  Maybe at his or her place of employment.  Maybe with his or her African-American next door neighbor whose children play with theirs.  Mark later removed the post and explained why he removed it and had decided to expose the people behind them.  He stated:

“I also knew that because of the email addresses being included, they would be receiving the same level of hate, ignorance and judgment that Josh and I had. They would get the same type of ignorant email threats of “I wont do business with your company again”, from people who have never done business with their company. The “I’m going to email your boss and all your sponsors” threats, because that’s the way people try to shout down other people these days.”

No explanation was  necessary.  Mark did the right thing in posting them. I would have left them up  What I found  amazing in exploring various blogs commenting on the subject is that many people actually think that when they send an unsolicited email to someone with whom they have no legal relationship or even know at all, they have some legal or other god given right to privacy in what they sent.  No wonder people make email idiots of themselves.

Good for Mark in exposing hate, racist idiocy and hypocrisy when given the opportunity.  It is my hope that everyone of those emails is “pinballed” to an ultimate destination where it will end up having a  profound effect on the original sender.

Ah yes.  The game of data pinball.  Where’s my quarter?

Mark Cuban wrote  an interesting piece called “The AIG-Lehman-Merrill Lynch Link“.   In that article he asks in a comparative  way whether there is a link between the failures of Merrill Lynch, AIG and Lehman and their large corporate stock buybacks.

“3 Companies facing cash crunch oblivion. A bankruptcy, an desperation sale and pure desperation. What do all 3 companies have in common ? Share buybacks. Billions and Billions and Billions in share buybacks over the last 18 months”

He goes on to state:

” …..think all 3 companies could have used that cash they spent trying to pump up their stock prices ? All that cash going to people who sold the stocks, huge losses going to those who held the stock. Thats why dividends are far better than share buybacks. At least in this case all shareholders could have gotten something back other than “the bag” remaining shareholders continue to hold.”

Why do companies engage in stock buy-back campaigns?  There are various reasons. There is the school of thought that buybacks show confidence in the stock and the company.  Of course company CEO’s are not using their own money to buy the shares.  Is it a show of confidence or simply a “slight-of-hand”  means of driving up the price of the stock and make it look more attractive to analysts, investors and employees?   The plights of the the “Wall Street Three” make one suspicious that it is the latter.   So is there a direct correlation between large buybacks and a companies financial stability?

I decided to put his implied theory to the test using a company that is in serious trouble but has not yet failed at least in a bankruptcy sense.  For the last year I have been writing about the downward spiral of once mighty retail giant Sears Roebuck now known as Sears Holding Corporation(also including Kmart).  Sears has been on a brutal financial no brakes down hill freight train ride.  SHLD stock has gone from a 52 week high of 152.91 to a low of 67.36.  It is currently fluctuating in the mid to upper 90s. Their retail same store sales number have been in steady decline. They are losing market share in asteroid size chunks.   Over the last 3 years SLHD has also engaged in large stock buybacks.  Let’s take a look.  The following are press releases available on the SHLD web site.

Sears Holdings Reports Second Quarter Results(2008)

During the 13- and 26- week periods ended August 2, 2008, we
repurchased 5.6 million and 6.0 million of our common shares at a total
cost of $437 million and $477 million, respectively, under our share
repurchase program. As of August 2, 2008, we had remaining authorization to
repurchase $206 million of common shares under the share repurchase
program. Share repurchases may be implemented using a variety of methods,
which may include open market purchases, privately negotiated transactions,
block trades, accelerated share repurchase transactions, the purchase of
call options, the sale of put options or otherwise, or by any combination
of such methods. Timing of repurchases is dependent on prevailing market
conditions, alternative uses of capital and other factors. Since the third
quarter of fiscal 2005, when our repurchase plan was first approved, we
have repurchased approximately 38.7 million of our common shares at a total
cost of $4.8 billion pursuant to the program. As of August 2, 2008, we had
approximately 126 million common shares outstanding.

It probably not fair to say this in itself is the sole predictor of financial doom. When we add  massive talent defections, plummeting sales with no end in sight, skyrocketing inventory, massive markdowns and “red light”  clearance gimmicks and real estate holdings worth a fraction of their original value, the correlation certainly strengthens.

Is SHLD going the way of  “The Wall Street 3″ ?  If it does I do not think we will be seeing a federal bailout. From the looks of the suits Barrack Obama wears I do not think he shops at Sears. Maybe their online preesnce will save them. You can bet John McCain will not be hitting their web site.  I hear he is still shopping from a 1960 Sears Roebuck Catalog.

The City of Farmers Branch, Texas continues its quest to drive illegal aliens out of the city.  Just like their previous attempts to craft legislation towards this goal, their latest attempt has been rebuffed by the Federal Courts.   On September 13, 2008 U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle issued a temporary restraining order barring the city from implementing its latest ordinance aimed at halting housing rentals to illegal immigrants.  The law if it had taken effect would have required all, apartment and home renters to obtain a city occupancy license by stating that they were U.S. citizens or were in the country legally.  Farmer’s Branch mayor Tim O’ Hare stated:

“I think the will of the people of Farmers Branch is not being carried out,” he said. “I think you’ll ultimately see this matter resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

While not the first to try it, the Dallas suburb of Farmer’s Branch,Texas is the latest to test the Constitutionally perilous waters of limiting the right of those not in this country legally to rent housing and obtain other basic services. It is primarily a Hispanic issue in Farmer’s Branch but the ban would apply to any person in this country illegally.

The controversy started back in May of 2007 when Farmer’s Branch passed a law targeting illegal immigrants by barring them from renting apartments. Ordinance 2903 would have required apartment management to obtain proof of citizenship or legal immigration status before entering into or renewing leases or rental agreements.  The only exception to the ban would have been that mixed-status families could stay if they were already living in the apartment, the spouse or head of household is a citizen or here legally, and the household includes the head of household and spouse and their minor children or parents.

While the Farmer’s Branch statute has not worked its way that far up the federal court ladder, a permanent injunction on the original ordinance was granted by Federal Judge Sam Lindsey blocking the enforcement of the ordinance pending a full trial.  In issuing the injunction Lindsey focused on the Federal Preemption and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

I agree with the Federal Courts.  Whether you agree or disagree with the basic premise of regulating certain rights of those in this country illegally, it  is  not a local or state issue.  The Federal Government has already spoken on this issue and when the Federal Government speaks the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution listens and shouts back.  The Supremacy Clause is shouting that we already have the Immigration and Nationality Act in place speaking loud and clear.  No arm chair legislation needed or wanted.