The last time we discussed Hugo Boss, the famed upscale clothier based out of Germany, it was when the company sent a C&D notice to Boss Brewing, which makes beer. While there can be no doubt that Boss Brewing would have won any dispute on the merits, given that the two entities are simply not playing in the same marketplace and there was zero chance of any kind of public confusion in commerce, Hugo Boss got its pint of blood by getting the brewery to change the name of two of its beers in a barely perceptible way.

In other words, there was no real or potential harm done to Hugo Boss over the target of its dispute, but these sort of trademark actions are more reflex than logic.

And here we go again, with Hugo Boss sending another notice to an artist who decided to trademark a phrase he uses to conclude his art lessons with for use on merch.

Father-of-one John Charles was hit with a threatening legal letter from lawyers representing the luxury fashion brand after he applied to trademark his 'Be Boss, Be Kind' clothing and hat designs.

The slogan, containing the word 'Boss', which in Scouse slang means 'very good' or 'great', was used by Mr Charles' at the end of his online art lessons - which he launched during lockdown.

"Be Boss, Be Kind" is not "Hugo Boss". In fact, given the part of the UK where Charles is from, "boss" is very much a common slang term for "awesome" or "the best". That his following, those that enjoy his art lessons, would somehow suddenly think he had anything to do with Hugo Boss is absurd on levels rarely seen.

As for the contents of the letter, they weren't overly aggressive. It states that Hugo Boss plans to oppose Charles' trademark application, but would drop the matter entirely if he agreed to drop his application. The company has also stated publicly that they're looking for an amicable resolution to all of this.

Except that no resolution is needed. There's no confusion to worry about here. No trademark infringement. Charles is an art teacher who teaches children remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. As plenty of people have shown through public comments, this is nothing.

Hundreds of people have since spoken out in support of John.Many have since said that it's 'easy to see' that Be Boss Be Kind has no connection to the German fashion giant. Other residents also agreed with John that the word 'boss' is a Liverpool saying.

On Facebook, Anne Porter commented: 'Boss' is a word 9/10 Scousers use with no connection to Hugo.'

PoliteScouser added: 'Boss is a Liverpool slang word for the best. He has as much right to use the word from his local dialect as any other person place or thing.'

Despite this, Hugo Boss' letter claims that its brand's "goodwill" will be threatened if Charles gets his trademark. In my view, it sure seems like its the opposition that is hurting any goodwill the brand might have.

Summary: Talkspace is a well known app that connects licensed therapists with clients, usually by text. Like many other services online, it acts as a form of “marketplace” for therapists and those in the market for therapy. While there are ways to connect with those therapists by voice or video, the most common form of interaction is by text messages via the Talkspace app.

A recent NY Times profile detailed many concerns about the platform, including claims that it generated fake reviews, lied about events like the 2016 election leading to an increase in usage, and that there were conflicts between growing usage and providing the best mental health care for customers. It also detailed how Talkspace and similar apps face significant content moderation challenges as well -- some unique to the type of content that the company manages.

Considering that so much of Talkspace’s usage includes text based communications, there are questions concerning how Talkspace handles that information and how it protects that information.

The article also reveals that the company would sometimes review therapy sessions and act on the information learned. While the company claims it only does this to make sure that therapists are doing a good job, the article suggests it is often used for marketing purposes as well.

Karissa Brennan, a New York-based therapist, provided services via Talkspace from 2015 to 2017, including to Mr. Lori. She said that after she provided a client with links to therapy resources outside of Talkspace, a company representative contacted her, saying she should seek to keep her clients inside the app.

“I was like, ‘How do you know I did that?’” Ms. Brennan said. “They said it was private, but it wasn’t.”

The company says this would only happen if an algorithmic review flagged the interaction for some reason — for example, if the therapist recommended medical marijuana to a client. Ms. Brennan says that to the best of her recollection, she had sent a link to an anxiety worksheet.

There was also a claim that researchers at the company would share information gleaned from looking at transcripts with others at the company:

The anonymous data Talkspace collects is not used just for medical advancements; it’s used to better sell Talkspace’s product. Two former employees said the company’s data scientists shared common phrases from clients’ transcripts with the marketing team so that it could better target potential customers.

The company disputes this. “We are a data-focused company, and data science and clinical leadership will from time to time share insights with their colleagues,” Mr. Reilly said. “This can include evaluating critical information that can help us improve best practices.”

He added: “It never has and never will be used for marketing purposes.”

Decisions to be made by Talkspace:

• How should private conversations between clients and therapists be handled? Should those conversations be viewable by employees of Talkspace?
• Will reviews (automated or by human) of these conversations raise significant privacy concerns? Or is it needed to provide quality therapeutic results to clients?
• What kinds of employee access rules and controls need to be put on therapy conversations?
• How should any research by the company be handled?
• What kinds of content need to be reviewed on the platform, and should it be reviewed by humans, technology, or both?
• Should the company even have access to this data at all?

Questions and policy implications to consider:

• What tradeoffs are there behind providing more access to therapy in an easier format and the privacy questions raised by storing this information?
• How effective is this form of treatment for clients?
• What kinds of demands does this put on therapists -- and does being monitored change (for better or for worse) the kind of support they provide?
• Are current regulatory frameworks concerning mental health information appropriate for app-based therapy sessions?

Resolution: Talkspace insists that it is working hard to provide a better service to clients who are looking to communicate with therapists, and challenges many of the claims made in the article. Talkspace’s founders also wrote a response to the article that, while claiming to “welcome” scrutiny, also questioned the competency of the reporter who wrote the NY Times story. They also argued that most of the negative claims in the Times piece came from disgruntled former workers -- and that some of it is outdated and no longer accurate.

The company also argued that it is IPAA/HITECH and SOC2 approved and has never had a malpractice claim in its network. The company insists that access to the content of transcripts is greatly limited:

To be clear; only the company’s Chief Medical Officer and Chief Technology Officer hold the “keys” to access original transcripts, and they both need to agree to do so. This has happened just a handful of times in the company’s history, typically only when a client points to particular language when reporting a therapist issue that cannot be resolved without seeing the original text. In these rare cases, Talkspace gathers affirmative consent from the client to view that original text: both facts which were made clear to the Times in spoken and written interviews. Only Safe-Harbor de-identified transcripts (A “safe harbor” version of a transcript removes any specific identifiers of the individual and of the individual’s relatives, household members, employers and geographical identifiers etc.) are ever used for research or quality control.

We've detailed for a while now how both Republicans and Democrats are mad online about how the internet works -- though often for reasons that directly conflict with each other. We've also highlighted how Donald Trump and his administration are actively encouraging Republicans to focus all of their legislative and grandstanding firepower on attacking the internet.

What I cannot understand is... why are the Democrats helping?

In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Democrats initially seemed to recognize that plans to subpoena various internet CEOs (AGAIN) were little more than a dog and pony show for Republicans working on their Trump-directed culture war against the internet. Senators Cantwell and Blumenthal both stated that they knew this was all a grandstanding ruse to pressure social media companies to leave up their misinformation and propaganda:

Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on Wicker’s panel, said she resisted his initial subpoena request over fears that such a move would chill the companies’ efforts to tackle “lies, harassment and intimidation” ahead of the election.

“I am not interested in using our subpoena power to try to play or game the refs days before an election, which is clearly what Republicans are doing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said this week. “The timing shows that these subpoenas are clearly calculated to chill efforts to get misinformation or falsehoods from abroad or domestic groups [removed].”

But take a wild guess what came next? You got it. They ended up supporting the subpoenas unanimously. Why? Because Republicans told the Democrats that while everything they feared about this nonsense was true, the Democrats can also grandstand over their own bullshit misleading culture war issues. It's a win-win for politicians on both sides of the aisle and a lose-lose for the public and the internet we rely on. I mean come on:

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the panel, urged caution amid her colleagues' complaints of anti-conservative bias. Last week, as Wicker had been pushing internally for the subpoenas, Cantwell said she feared Republicans sought to "chill the efforts of these companies to remove lies, harassment, and intimidation from their platforms."

On Thursday, Cantwell said she was pleased to move forward with the subpoenas after Wicker agreed to include the topics of Big Tech's impact on media and privacy as issues of concern.

"What I don't want to see is a chilling effect on individuals who are in a process of trying to crack down on hate speech or misinformation about Covid during a pandemic," she said at Thursday's markup.

Neither party seems interested in dealing with real problems. Both parties seem to want to waste time focusing on the internet rather than any of the actual problems facing the country and the world these days. What a waste.

Orange County (CA) sheriff's deputies are the worst at law stuff. If the goal was to hire the stupidest, most plausibly-deniable candidates, the OCSD has hit the mark.

Deputies for this department have managed to achieve the impossible: turn local prosecutors against them by continuously mishandling evidence. Evidence must be managed carefully since it's the thing prosecutors use to secure convictions. In the hands of deputies, evidence is just something that must be handled, however haphazardly, at whatever point they get around to it.

Since they can't handle the job of correctly booking evidence, deputies have been faking reports, claiming evidence is booked in when it actually isn't to avoid getting reprimanded for taking too long to process seized property. One deputy, Bryce Simpson, never did the job correctly. In 74 cases audited, 56 had no evidence booked at all and the other 18 only had some of the evidence booked.

Now, Deputy Bryce Simpson -- along with Deputy Joseph Atkinson Jr. -- are being given a pass by the special prosecutor presiding over the grand jury convened to decide whether these two slackers/liars should face criminal charges. According to the prosecutor, the deputies did nothing wrong because -- wait for it -- they didn't know falsifying official documents was wrong.

Atkinson and Simpson told grand jurors during Mora’s hearing that they had never been trained on a Penal Code section making it illegal to falsely write in their reports that they had booked evidence — typically guns, drugs, money and photos.

Special prosecutor Patrick K. O’Toole told grand jurors that he gave the plea deal to Atkinson and Simpson partially because they had not been informed of the Penal Code section for lying on a official report.

“So I let them plead to the less serious charge because I thought it was justified under the circumstances,” O’Toole told the jurors. “And I think you will recall also their testimony that, not that ignorance of the law is any excuse, but they had never heard of this government code section before, or I don’t think any of these people ever thought the Penal Code section applies to them in what they are doing.”

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Even if we believe the deputies -- and there's no reason we should -- there has never been a case ever in any situation where falsifying official documents has been considered the right thing to do. That the deputies may have been unaware these actions could result in criminal charges is beside the point. The mens rea is the knowing falsification of documents, which has never been considered OK under any circumstances. And that's even when the threat of criminal prosecution isn't readily apparent.

And their testimony contradicts the Sheriff's Department spokesperson, who says both deputies received training on the filing of evidence -- training that presumably included the warning that faking these documents could result in criminal charges. If they didn't pay attention to the criminal charge part of the training, that's hardly an excuse. Ignorance of the law doesn't help civilians. It shouldn't aid and abet criminal actions committed by law enforcement officers.

But this is just more in the sad, stupid history of this department, which has abused tax dollars to mold an abusive, moronic thin blue line that can't even keep crime in check inside of its own department. A few years ago, the sheriff actually claimed deputies were unaware it was wrong (not to mention criminal) to lie in court. The deputies claimed they didn't know what they could testify about regarding a criminal database, but rather than seek advice from the city's lawyers, they chose to lie about their knowledge of the system.

No one is being served and/or protected by this group of deliberately obtuse officers. And they'll continue to be underserved if this is how illegal misconduct is handled by those who are supposed to be seeking justice, rather than shielding officers from the consequences of their actions.

Okay, this post is going to be quick because, none of us should be wasting our time on this this week. We've now got FOUR new bills JUST THIS WEEK seeking to undermine Section 230 (and that's after one more last week). Obviously, it appears that Congressional Republicans have taken to heart the Trump Administration's demand to make attacking Section 230 and the internet companies a key focus between now and the election.

Not counting all the other anti-230, anti-open internet bills from earlier this year (and last year), in just the last week we had Senator Lindsey Graham introduce the Online Content Policy Modernization Act, which was actually just a mashup of the bill he cosponsored a few weeks earlier with Senators Roger Wicker and Marsha Blackburn, combined with a dangerous copyright bill, the CASE Act.

This week, we've already seen Senators Manchin and Cornyn release their "force companies to snitch on everyone" See Something Say Something Act, and then on Wednesday we had two more anti-230 bills, including Senator John Kennedy's "Don't Push My Buttons" Act and then in the House there was Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Ann Wagner pushing their version of the EARN IT Act, which would attack both Section 230 and encryption in one single blow.

And the latest is that Rep. Jim Jordan, famous for dodging ongoing accusations of a rather horrific scandal and for constantly screaming nonsense about "anti-conservative bias," has thrown his hat in the ring with the "Protect Speech Act." Jordan has been pretty vocal in a few Congressional hearings (often having nothing to do with content moderation) about how "big tech" is "censoring conservatives." He goes back to the false claim that Google threatened to pull ads from The Federalist over the site's conservative views, ignoring of course that plenty of others sites -- including Techdirt -- have dealt with the same issue repeatedly.

Jordan's new bill is really just a mashup of two other bills. One is the Graham/Wicker/Blackburn bill, along with the DOJ's own proposed anti-230 bill which came out last week as well, because apparently THE ONLY THING THAT CONGRESS NEEDS TO FOCUS ON THESE DAYS IS SECTION 230.

The bill is both lame and unconstitutional, but I'm not going to go over why, because you can just go back to my older analysis of the Wicker/Graham bill and the DOJ bill and recognize that all of the problems with those bills are also in this one.

Even in a normal year, this would be crazy. Having so many bills, all seeking to undermine the open internet, all coming out at once, would be just generally exhausting. But the fact that it's happening at this particular moment in time -- when the open internet is a key part of what is keeping people connected and able to work and socialize, in the midst of a pandemic that Congress is mostly ignoring -- is just positively preposterous.

Congress is regularly seen as out of touch with Americans. This is why. They're playing politics and grandstanding to distract from all their failures, by trying to destroy one part of our daily lives that's actually working right now.

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Back in June, there was a well-documented hubbub about the NY Times Opinion editor's decision to publish a horrific op-ed by US Senator Tom Cotton defending turning the US military on US citizens who were protesting police brutality. Eventually, after widespread protests, including from journalists and staff within the NY Times, the paper admitted that it probably should not have published the piece, and the head of the opinion pages, James Bennet (who admitted he hadn't even read the piece before approving it) stepped down. Many supporters of President Trump and Senator Cotton argued that this was an example of "cancel culture" or an "attack on free speech." Or that it was a sign that some were "unwilling to listen to the other side." However, that was all nonsense. As I explained at the time, the "discretion" part of editorial discretion is important.

The NY Times is not social media. It is not a place where just anybody gets to post their crazy uncle crackpot theories. They have an editorial staff and editorial standards for a reason. And part of that is that people expect them not to publish absolute garbage, such as the Cotton op-ed. It's not about "hearing all sides" or about "free speech." It's certainly not about "cancel culture." It's about recognizing that there are standards for what kinds of things you want to put your own stamp of approval on.

It appears that the folks at the NY Times opinion pages (even without Bennet) have not learned that lesson. For reasons I will never understand, it has decided to give its editorial stamp of approval on the most disgusting op-ed I've seen. A Chinese government official, Regina Ip, was given the prestigious NY Times opinion pages to write a sickening defense of China's crackdown on freedom in Hong Kong. It's sickening. It's garbage. Just to give you a taste of what propagandist nonsense this was:

Something had to be done, and the Chinese authorities did it.

The scale and frequency of antigovernment protests has now subsided — thanks to a national security law for Hong Kong promulgated in Beijing on June 30.

Several prominent democracy advocates have since announced their retirement from politics, disbanded their parties or fled the city.

The West tends to glorify these people as defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms, but they have done great harm to the city by going against its constitutional order and stirring up chaos and disaffection toward our motherland.

Last year’s prolonged unrest dented Hong Kong’s reputation as one of the best places in the world in which to do business. In March, the Heritage Foundation downgraded the city to second place in its Economic Freedom Index for 2020, citing “ongoing political and social turmoil”; Hong Kong had ranked first since 1995.

This leaves out that people in Hong Kong were protesting attempts by China to do exactly what ended up happening: clamping down on their freedoms and liberty. To say that China had to stamp out liberty because people were protesting for their liberty is... quite a take.

It's also one that does not belong on the pages of the NY Times. This is what editorial discretion is about. Publishing this nonsense is not about free speech. It's not about "hearing both sides." Again, the NY Times is not an open social media platform on which just anyone can post. The value in the brand is supposedly in its discretion and ability to find reasonable intelligent voices to publish their opinions.

And, quite reasonably lots of people are pissed off about this as well... including Senator Tom Cotton, who is correctly calling this decision by the NY Times out as utterly despicable:

I agree with him, but whereas it feels like he thinks they should publish his piece and not the Chinese propaganda, the real answer is that the NY Times shouldn't be publishing either piece. Both were authoritarian claptrap propaganda, pushing dangerous defenses of governments cracking down on public protests and free expression.

I totally understand why many of Cotton's supporters are making similar statements and calling out the Times for hypocrisy, but I do wonder if the NY Times admits it shouldn't have published Ip's piece, will they suddenly rush out to call it "cancel culture" and "anti-free speech" and an "unwillingness to hear both sides"? Or will they recognize that the NY Times shouldn't be publishing this garbage whether it comes from a US Senator or a Chinese government official or anyone. Editorial discretion means not letting obvious garbage to be endorsed by a paper with a reputation like the NY Times. Because continuing to do so only serves to tarnish that reputation even more.

42 million Americans lack access to any broadband whatsoever. Another 83 million American consumers can only get access to broadband from one ISP, usually Comcast. Tens of millions more are stuck under a broadband duopoly, usually comprising of Comcast/Spectrum and some apathetic telco that refuses to upgrade or repair its aging DSL lines. Data makes it extremely clear the end result of this lack of competition is some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world, and some of the worst customer service of any industry in America.

Instead of tackling the corruption and regulatory capture that has allowed geographical monopolies to dominate the sector (harming consumers, competition, and technical innovation alike) America enjoys taking the opposite approach: namely lying about the scale of the problem, then routinely kneecapping and defunding the regulators tasked with trying to improve things. The end result: more of the same problems. New data from Fairshake estimates that 20 million American households have unresolved complaints against their ISPs in just the last year. The complaints are the usual fare: overbilling, slow service, crappy customer service, and misleading bogus fees. All told, the outfit estimates that 40 million U.S. homes had filed a complaint about their ISP last year alone:

"In our survey, 37 percent of respondents said that they had had an experience with an ISP in the last year in which they were unfairly charged for service, or otherwise treated unfairly. That’s more than one-third of respondents. And when you extrapolate that finding to the 110.57 million U.S. households that had fixed broadband access in 2018, that’s more than 40 million households with a complaint against their ISP in just one year — 40,446,500 of them, to be exact."

Half of those complaints went completely unresolved. The survey also found that many angry customers considered taking legal action, but many couldn't afford to do so or couldn't figure out how to make the FCC complaint process work in their favor:

31 percent of respondents said they stopped pursuing legal action when they found the process to be too expensive.

31 percent stopped because they simply weren’t sure how to proceed.

22 percent of respondents said they wanted to pursue legal action, but the process was too complicated.

16 percent of respondents said they needed help pursuing legal action, but couldn’t find the help they needed."

Granted Fairshake's entire business model is focused on streamlining complaints against corporations. Their efforts to streamline the lopsided and broken binding arbitration experience in particular has pissed off companies that have spent the better part of the last thirty years weakening regulatory oversight, weakening antitrust enforcement, and slowly but surely eroding consumer legal rights via Congress, regulators, and the courts.

Even then, Fairshake politely avoids explaining why the U.S. telecom sector is so problematic, and, in many ways, getting worse thanks to mindless partisanship and our collective gullibility.

One, monopolies don't have to care, that's why they're monopolies. Two, instead of focusing on policies that crack down on monopolization, increase competition, and enforce existing rules to protect consumers, the Trump FCC effectively self-immolated at telecom lobbyist behest, creating a massive consumer protection void. Not only that, the FCC actively worked with telecom lobbyists to try and ban states from being able to protect consumers either. Superficially, this was supposed to "drive massive investment" to the U.S. broadband sector, something data proves very clearly never happened.

In reality, it created a consumer protection vacuum nobody wants to fill. And nobody wants to fill it because, if you haven't noticed, America routinely prioritizes quarterly revenues over common sense, healthy markets, or giving a shit. It's why we throw $42 billion in tax cuts at AT&T in exchange for 41,000 layoffs and an investment cut. It's why we throw countless billions in subsidies at AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Spectrum in exchange for next-generation networks that, mysteriously, somehow always wind up half deployed.

U.S. broadband is a monopolistic con propped up by captured regulators and feckless lawmakers, and until we're capable of acknowledging that obvious reality in a way that can break through misleading industry-sponsored noise, we're going to keep making the same mistakes.

We've pointed out just how ridiculous it is that Congress seems wholly focused on destroying the open internet by gutting the Section 230 protections that enable the open internet to exist in its present form. We're in the midst of a variety of pretty major issues, and yet Congress is introducing new anti-internet and anti-tech bills like it's last call before the bar shuts down.

The reason for this is not that hard to grasp, really. As Politico reports, the Trump administration has decided that a culture war against the internet is the best election strategy right now:

The Trump administration is pressuring Senate Republicans to ratchet up scrutiny of social media companies it sees as biased against conservatives in the run-up to the November election, people familiar with the conversations say. And the effort appears to be paying off.

In recent weeks, the White House has pressed Senate Republican leaders on key committees to hold public hearings on the law that protects Facebook, Twitter and other internet companies from lawsuits over how they treat user posts, three Senate staffers told POLITICO. They requested anonymity to discuss private communications.

As the article notes, most of these new anti-internet bills are coming from Republican Senators who are engaged in big political fights and want to retain the backing of the President. The focus on "big bad tech" serves to accomplish multiple goals:

1. Culture war: These are always popular during election seasons. Politicians need to get people riled up while pretending that they're "doing something." So starting culture wars is a common past time during election seasons.
2. Distraction: We're still in the middle of a pandemic in which thousands of people are dying. We're still in the middle of an economic crisis with record unemployment, and massive impacts to people all around the country. We're still in the middle of a social upheaval as more and more people are speaking out against police brutality. We're still in the middle of huge climate issues, including devastating wild fires up and down the west coast and devastating hurricanes in the south. Fighting with internet dweebs is a distraction.
3. Fundraising: It's common knowledge in DC for politicians that if you need to bump up your coffers, you introduce important legislation about an industry that is doing well, because it leads them to suddenly start throwing money into the campaign funds of folks on all sides of the issue. Tech is an industry that has been doing well, so why the fuck not?
4. Working the refs: A key strategy of Republicans lately has been to try to use this "oh, poor us, we're the victims" snowflake mentality to pressure social media companies to treat them with kid gloves when it comes to handling the propaganda and misinformation they're posting on social media. Continually attacking tech companies has worked so far, in at least getting Facebook to give Trump and friends more leeway to post nonsense, so why not keep pushing that button over and over again.

Note, of course, that none of this actually helps the public even slightly. Apparently, that's not what's important to the White House or folks in Congress.

Indeed, at a time when technology and the internet has become that much more important due to the pandemic that the President seems to want to ignore, it seems that much more damaging to focus on destroying and hammering the open internet. It's positively backwards. Sure, let's attack the one sector that is helping to keep a bunch of stuff afloat, and helping to keep people at home, rather sending them out to risk their lives in the midst of a pandemic.

And, of course, all of this seems to be coming directly at the request of the President himself who is desperately looking for any issue to draw focus to other than all of the things that make him look bad:

“There’s hardly a conversation I have with the president where this doesn’t come up, where Section 230 does not come up, usually raised by him,” Hawley said in an interview. “It is much on his mind and I think his strong stance on this issue has had a big effect in opening the eyes of some of my Republican colleagues to realize this is a major issue.”

Spoiler alert: it's not "a major issue." It's a half-baked, made up, hyped up issue for all of the reasons above, having nothing to do with actual problems in the world.

I get that culture wars are the way politics is done. I get that demonizing successful industries is something that lots of politicians do for political reasons. But it seems kind of batshit crazy that in a time when literally hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake, we're still seeing Congress and the White House play political games rather than focusing on actual issues.