Good-Bye Amazon.com

HERE IS AN ACTUAL E-MAIL MESSAGE I sent to Amazon.com's feedback@amazon.com customer feedback address this morning. If you agree with me, I urge you to send a similar message and stop doing business with Amazon.com until they reverse their recent decision described in the letter.  

Dear Amazon.com: 

My Amazon.com username is ________, and my password is _______. 

Please cancel my account and purge all my personal information from your records. 

You used to be one of the best companies on the Internet. I can't count the number of times I've raved about Amazon.com to friends, family, colleagues and readers. Why? I've always enjoyed the accuracy and usefulness of those e-mail messages you sent, recommending books and other products. I've made thousands of dollars worth of purchase over the years, based entirely on those e-mail messages. The messages, and the brilliant software technology behind it, was, to me, your "secret sauce," the thing that made you awesome. 

But I've just read that you guys have decided to sell those recommendations, and charge publishers a premium price to be listed on your customer recommendation e-mails. In addition to the real recommendations, made by your excellent staff of unbiased editors, you plan to add books that were not necessarily recommended by your staff. Yes, I know you're planning to provide a link on the e-mail messages to a page showing which companies have paid for their "recommendations." But I don't care. You're doing that because you know most customers won't notice or bother. 

If you want to make more money, I wouldn't mind if you raised your prices a bit. You've never been the cheapest place to buy anything, but you've always won my business for one and only one reason: Accurate, unbiased recommendations sent by e-mail. 

From now on, I'll visit www.addall.com instead of Amazon.com whenever I want to buy books. I'm canceling my account and will no longer buy anything from Amazon.com because of this policy. Here's why: 

1. I can no longer trust your recommendations

2. Your policy harms small publishers and more obscure books

3. Your influence in the industry will motivate other e-commerce companies to sell out in the same manner you have. And I'm not going to help you do that. 

Cancel this anti-customer policy, and you will win back my business. But if you continue to sell your customers' trust to the highest bidder, you'll never see another penny from me. 

Thank you for your attention. 

Sincerely, 

Mike Elgan

Americans Tagged to Learn Fat Secret
Americans are being tagged like walruses to figure out why obesity rates keep climbing. Up to 800 Atlanta residents are being outfitted with GPS-based tracking devices to figure out how much they walk and how much they drive. The theory is that suburban life does away with opportunities to walk. We drive to the store, bank, school and work, but rarely walk anywhere. But that doesn't explain the rise of obese children, who U.K. researchers say got that way by watching TV instead of playing outside. All that sitting around, coupled with Big Gulp sodas, Biggie Fries and Triple Cheeseburgers is making people in rich, industrialized countries fatter than ever. Nevertheless, I'm sure researchers will conclude that drugs are the answer. 

Bill Gates: Prince of Liechtenstein? 
Liechtenstein's Prince Hans-Adam II, in a fit of anger at the country's cabinet and parliament over the sharing of power between democratic and monarchist elements, threatened the people to sell the role of Prince "to Bill Gates or anyone else who can afford it" and leave the country. Wait a minute. That's not a bad idea! Bill: Imagine being prince of a country with a shady banking system, well-educated workers (albeit fewer than 32,000 of them) and no justice department! You could run Microsoft out of Vaduz Castle and even establish an army to enforce global software piracy laws!

Spam Begets Spam
Everybody hates spam -- those annoying, unwanted ads that come pouring into our mailboxes. But I recently got spam that made me even more angry than usual. The first sentence in the e-mail read (in all-caps): "10 MILLION HOT E-MAIL ADDRESSES ON CD + FREE BULK E-MAIL SOFTWARE TO SEND YOUR MAILING FOR JUST $99.00." That's right. They're undoubtedly spamming their 10 million e-mail addresses with an offer to buy the whole list.  

Blue Screens of Death In Space
Every time the space shuttle goes into orbit with some new chunk of the International Space Station, I'm tempted to write an impassioned piece about how magnificent it all is. I mean, it's truly incredible that NASA, and the foreign space agencies that work with NASA, actually pull this off. They shoot this airplane-shaped rocket into orbit, catch up to the space station, actually go outside with wrenches and do construction in zero G's. A couple weeks later, they drop into the atmosphere and, after turning the shuttle into a giant, 3,000-degree ball of flames from the air friction, land it like a 727 coming into LaGuardia. Every single mission seems like the greatest thing mankind has ever accomplished. Each time the Space Shuttle goes up, I tune in compulsively to "NASA TV," which broadcasts live coverage of all the Shuttle activities -- including live footage from the helmet-cams of space-walking astronauts. Well, I did that on the evening of February 7th, which is the day the Space Shuttle Atlantis went into orbit with the Destiny Space Lab Module. I was listening to the chatter between the shuttle and Houston ground control, and heard that it was entirely about some errant Windows application on a shuttle laptop. I didn't record the conversation, or write it down. But it went something like this: "Houston, this is Atlantis. We have a blue screen -- repeat, blue screen -- over." "Uh, copy that, Atlantis. We recommend pressing Control, Alt, then Delete." "Roger, Houston. We have a reboot.... Uh, negative, Houston, we have another blue screen, over." "Uh, copy that, Atlantis. Please stand by." "Atlantis, engineers on the ground recommend rebooting again, this time holding the F1 key, over." This went on for an hour. Amazing. The fact that NASA is using commercial laptops and suffering the same Windows-related maladies that you and I do, the whole feat seems even more heroic and difficult. 

Be the 'Big Brother' of Your Family
A software company called SpectorSoft makes "spyware," and markets it for spying on your spouse, children and employees. One product, called Spector, takes "snapshots" of a computer screen as frequently as every second. Later, you can look at the screens to find out what your loved ones have been doing. Another product called eBlaster sends to you via e-mail "activity reports," including web sites visited, applications launched and keystrokes typed. 

How to Automate a Police Report
Two Australian brothers connected a motion-detector to a bedroom PC, and wrote a script that recorded video from the PC Web Cam if motion was, in fact, detected. Six months later, their home was burglarized by the two baseball-cap wearing thieves you see here. The system worked like a charm, and recorded video of the burglary. They called the police, and when they arrived, the brothers handed over a CD-ROM containing video of caper. The brothers also -- why not? -- put up a web site. 

California Prisoners Get No E-Mail
When I first heard that a California state appeals court ruled last week that inmates can't receive e-mail -- including spam -- my first thought was to rush out and rob a liquor store. The ruling prevents prisoners from even getting Mike's List! Now *that's* cruel and unusual punishment! 

Your Tax Dollars At Work
The U.S. Army will soon unveil a Super Truck, with all kinds of gee-whiz gadgets. Called the "Smar Truck," and based on the Ford F-350, it features headlights that stun and disorient the enemy, electrified door handles, smoke screens, and other defensive features. 

Ad Creep
Korean company Duke F.D. conducted a trial last week of an LCD product label that displays not only standard label information, such as branding, but also advertising beamed wirelessly to the label. Nike will reportedly be among the first companies to use the new labels, so we can look forward to sneakers with labels more sophisticated than the computer systems used to put men on the moon. 

Reader Web Site of the Week
Check out reader web site ImagiTrends, a site to support a free newsletter and for-pay "TrendPaks." The web site, which focuses on future trends, has a unique, fresh look. 

Mike's List o' Wacky Web Sites
Here are some wacky eValentines from Modern Humorist. 

Tired of those long, boring Flash intros to some web sites? If so, you'll love this one.

Learn how to grow kittens in tiny glass jars, using the ancient techniques pass down through the centuries. 

It's hard to believe the kinds of things people sell -- and buy! -- on eBay and other auction sites. Very disturbing!

Mike's List o' Numbers
60% - Increase in the number of cars on Silicon Valley's freeways since 1996. (Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority)

20 - The number of miles of Silicon Valley carpool lanes (special lanes set aside for cars with two or more occupants to promote carpooling) backed up each day. (SCVTA)

7 - Average speeds, in miles per hour, of Silicon Valley freeways at "rush" hour. (SCVTA) 

Mike's List o' Required Reading
Confessions of a Software Liar
By Mike Elgan
WinMag.com

Xbox, Xbox, über alles
By Wagner James Au
Salon

Would You Like Ground Spinal Cord With That?
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Salon

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