Web Site’s Bill of Rights

As the web has a de facto monopoly in Google, and as the web has grown to be an indispensable technology to every day's life, we need new rules of the road.

We MUST ask that Congress recognizes the existence of web sites as internet citizens within their own rights!

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Web Site's Bill of Rights
(draft)

Article the first [Not Ratified]

After the first issuance of a domain name, there shall be one web site citizen and one representative for each domain name legally issued.



Article the second [Not Ratified]

No law, varying the compensation for the services or content of the web site citizens or its representatives, shall take effect, until a web site citizen or its representative shall have intervened.



Article the third [Not Ratified]

Web site citizens or its representatives shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; orthe right of the people, web site citizens or their representatives peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.



Article the fourth [Not Ratified]

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free Internet, the right of the people, web site citizens or their representatives to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.



Article the fifth [Not Ratified]

No robot of any kind shall, in time of peace be quartered in any web sserver, without the prior consent of the web site citizen or its representative, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.



Article the sixth [Not Ratified]

The right of the people and web site citizens or their representatives to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, web site servers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shal not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article the seventh [Not Ratified]

No person, web site citizen or its representative shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of aGrand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of the life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himslef, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Article the eight [Not Ratified]

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the withesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Article the ninth [Not Ratified]

In Suits at commonlaw, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jusry shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of common law

Article the tenth [Not Ratified]

Excesive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Mr. Obama, put an end to the internet wild west era!

Newspapers are going out of business by the day as the perception that content of any kind should be free on the internet. During the past decade we have had an internet wild west were the google cowboys made a killing on the back of the small web site/content operator. To add insult to injury, on April 8, 2009 Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt issued an order to news sites operators to do what they are told or else. For Mr. Schmidt who has been making loads of money, the business model is really easy: take everything you can from a content operator for free, including brand name, content, brand associations and brand definition then turn around and benefit from the free stuff you were able to gather. No web site would dare revolt as s/he would risk losing to their competition – blackmail at its best. So now, in the best impersonation of the bandit in the Godfather movie, Schmidt goes to newspapers and says: you are doing business in ‘my’ neighborhood and you have to pay me. Schmidt the genius or Schmidt the crook..

Google dominates over 65% of the internet so Mr. Schmidt’s neighborhood is quite large..For more than a decade Schmidt’s cowboys have absolutely destroyed the internet content business model reducing to either google it or die..Some of the major web site operators have resisted the onslaught and they are making some money from google. But unless you are AP or News Corp. google would not even bother to talk with you. Google would take your brand and mess it up any way they want, including description, content associations and any brand value you can think of. You’ve got it, you work hard to build it, you spent money to create an image for it.. well google doesn’t give a banana for it..

Web businesses everywhere have become hostages to one business model: google. Content innovation and new business model have all but disappeared. Like in the old wild west, as long as the google bandits are in town, nobody moves.

Mr. Obama, please put an end to the internet wild west!! We need new rules for the road for a new internet era. If you are serious about having a knowledge based economy, then it should not start 65% of the time from google.. that is not an internet economy that fosters innovation, growth and business ventures. The google deception over brands all over the world MUST STOP.
Web site owners, brand owners and content creators all over the world UNITE!
Let the internet revolution begin! Let the Google monarchy forever end! Let the FREE content market place begin!

Mr. Obama’s bubbles..

Do you remember the huge crowds going to see Mr. Obama deliver his campaign speeches? I do.. do you think those were ‘bubbles’? Do you remember how much money Mr. Obama raised online? I do.. Do you think that was another ‘bubble’?

Has Mr. Obama become afraid of bubbles all of sudden?.. Remember when they wanted his blackberry? His answer was that he didn’t want to live in a ‘bubble.’
So far so good.. bubbles everywhere.. so why would Mr. Obama be afraid of creating another bubble in the economy? Or the stock markets?

Mr. Obama, Sir, we are soooo far from being in a ‘bubble’ that you cannot believe it. With assets being at the lowest levels in years, with home values going down every day, with the stocks of the major banks selling for pennies on the dollar, with 401k’s and college endowments dropping 40-50%.. should I keep going? The entire world lost nearly 50% in wealth over last year.. No bubbles here Sir. So why even bring that up in today’s speech?
By the way, China has been growing at over 10% per year for decades – they didn’t mind the ‘bubble’..so don’t be afraid of bubbles Mr. President. Go ahead and create one, and then create another one and another and another. WE LOVE BUBBLES, SIR! Just make sure that they come one after another, if you get my drift here.. or make sure that the entire world comes to invest in the US stock markets because they can make money taht way! Not just bonds Sir, actual stocks. Then you can start talking about actually balancing the budget rather than mortgaging the future of our kids because of your administration inability to balance the budget as they are afraid of ‘bubbles’. When you go in front of the world and ask for $ trillions it really takes something to turn around and lecture us about ‘bubbles’..
Go ahead, Mr. Obama, show us bubbles, lots and lots and lots of bubbles. WE LOVE BUBBLES!!

Words do matter Mr. President – remember that?

We all remember the debate around the words vs. experience issue that Mr. Obama had during the campaign. He kept telling us that ‘words do matter’ .. and he continued to be very carefully crafting words for all of us.. and his stock continued to rise.. For a person who understands the value of words, I have to say, this Obama administration is so negligent with the way it is using words that attack ‘our’ stock markets. I mean, everything that the Obama people who are in charge of touching anything to do with money starts and ends with how bad everything is and how bad everything is going to get. I mean, if things were extraordinarily good and the continuous attacks with ‘words’ of our stock markets would bring everything down. ENOUGH ALREADY!!
Have you seen the markets, what we would consider good stocks, collapsing 10-20-30% in a day? The attacks on our stock markets continue at an extraordinary pace, unprecedented in recent history.
Things may be bad.. but Mr. Geithner and company (i.e., the Obama gang), when you go to Congress to borrow the huge amount of money you are about to borrow have the decency to end on a positive note, have the decency to tell people that whatever was wrong is getting fixed and that the markets do not need to worry anymore..
We may be in a recession, we may be about to borrow huge amounts of money, we may be going to major social transformations as a society.. but when it comes to words, Mr. Obama, words do matter!
If you were careful with words for your own benefit during the political campaign, there is no reason for your administration to continue the negative attacks on our economy. As you can see, it brings the stock markets down indiscriminately.
Enough is enough, Mr. President order your troops to be careful with the way they use ‘words’!!

We need wealth creation, we love wealth creation!

When the president expresses confidence in the stock markets we all listen..It does matter when you hear the administration not only asking for money but also showing us some hope for all that money.
Let us be clear about this: we need strong stock markets as soon as possible! Forget the politics, forget whatever budget fights we are going to see.. without strong stock markets other countries (China anyone?) will seize the leadership. China is not alone in focusing on its internal market so it doesn’t rely on exports as much in the future. A lot of countries have just realized that the most affluent consumer in the world, the American consumer, might not be able to spend anymore.
Mr. President, we’ve heard encouraging words about the stock markets the other day. Don’t stop now! Keep going! As wealth creation is the main driver out of this mess.. Wealth is the magic of America and without it there isn’t a lot of anything else.. We need wealth creation, we love wealth creation and we all must work together to create wealth in America. Wealth is something that everyone around the world dreams of, but America has the best engines in place to create it at faster speed.
I know that the financial markets have failed us this time around. But let us not desert the most important instrument we have: wealth creation.
It is never too early to start creating wealth. We’ve seen a timid start the other day, but Mr. President, keep going! We might just see that by creating wealth we can start again to hope for a ‘balanced budget’..
Mr. President, tell us more about opportunity in the stock markets.
We need wealth creation, we love wealth creation!

Is it time to bring in a Wall Street guru?

Where is the ‘confidence’ of this administration?
There is long term strategy and there is tactics. Stock market is about both. The problem this new administration doesn’t get is a simple math problem: you can’t borrow your way out of problems. Sooner or later you have to create ‘wealth.’ The numbers these people are throwing around are staggering. Yet, none of them is capable to instill the confidence in the markets that they are in control of the situation, and that they will turn this thing around. They don’t seem to walk the walk..On the one hand they keep saying we have to borrow these huge amounts of monies.. on the other hand, they claim that they can’t monitor the stock market on a daily basis. Go figure.. where do you guys think that money is coming from?

Why can't you keep an eye on the market? It is time to bring in a Wall Street guru. You have to keep an eye on the market, because you don’t live in a lab.
The math that most investors know by now is pretty simple: if the stock goes down from $10/share to $1/share that is a 90% drop. But to bring it back to $10/share the market would need a 900% jump.
So take care of the long-term strategy while taking care of the stock market. Stop pretending that things will take care of themselves.. and Start giving this stock market the confidence that you are doing the right thing. The markets, along with all its stake holders are demanding it.

A secular change in asset valuation

What’s going on with the stock market? For one thing, the master of the spoken word, Mr. Obama’s refuse to say the words ‘wealth’ or ‘balanced budget’ alongside the words ‘investments’ and ‘change.’
However, I believe that there is something else going on: a secular change in asset valuation. What does it mean? It simply means that what we used to value at healthy multiples will not be like that going forward. After all, the entire financial system that supported the old valuation system has just collapsed. So who is there to credibly support that the old-type assets deserve the multiples of the past? Not very many players.
We are witnessing a major overhaul of the asset valuation system. It is happening right here right now. Will there be survivors? Yes. But the industries of the 20th century are about to fundamentally change.
If anything, there are new expense items that will show up on future balance sheets: carbon credits, market adjustments to financial assets, transportation costs, new taxes per a new tax code, and more.
More, the new administration looks to recognize that we are part of a global economy. What the direct financial implications of that recognition are we still have to see. But we can suspect that foreign vs/ local labor costs will change, foreign vs. local manufacturing will change, tax incentives for foreign vs. local operations will change and will be tariffs.
While the stock market overall will rebound (eventually), we should not expect that the winners of the past will be the winners of the future – no matter how low the stock prices seem to be today.
The Obama administration made it very clear that change would be coming. And change is coming as we speak. And it alters the asset value in ways that we have not seen in generations..

Mr. Obama’s socialist state

There is no question that with the announcement of the budget today, Mr. Obama has started the road to a socialist state. I’ve listened to his top economists. Not one, not one single soul has mentioned anything about ‘wealth creation’ or ‘balancing the budget’.
I am not disputing what Mr. Obama intends to do – it all sounds nice and dandy. I am disputing how Mr. Obama wants to pay for what he wants to do. Not even mentioning wealth creation or balancing the budget?

We can easily see now that for all the talk about ‘change’ and ‘special interest’ Mr. Obama has proven that his and his party’s interests come first. Not the nation's. I don’t buy that his interests are in rebuilding the nation. He could have said something like: we will balance the budget in 4 years or in 6 years or in 10 years.. but no talk about that. He could have said something like: this country has lost so much wealth over the past few years, we will recoup all that lost wealth in 4 years or in 6 years or in 10 years.. no talk about that either the day he announced his budget.
We did hear a lot of talk about how hard the times are, how difficult it is and all the social programs that we must do. That kind of confirms that the journey to a socialist state has started doesn’t it..
Unfortunately, now we can see clearly why there was all that talk during the campaign about Mr. Obama's significant inexperience in the matters of state.. Capitalist state that is..
I can guess that Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid will not demand that Mr. Obama balances the budget. Will the congressional republicans demand a balanced budget? I hope they do it.

Mr. Obama’s quiet social revolution

Make no mistake about it, Obama’s speech last night represents the start of a quiet social revolution. His plan as outlined last night sets the US on a path to social transformation never seen before in the US history.
His plans for energy, healthcare and education are ambitious. What strikes me is not what he wants to do, but how little he bothers to tell us how he is going to pay for what he intends to do. We will most likely find out when the budget comes out, but it surely sounds like a massive financial re-organization, taking money from current projects and redistributing it to the new and ambitious plans. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that what he wants to do doesn’t sound good because it does. It’s how he goes about doing it that doesn’t sounds right..
I guess Mr. Obama is taking Rahm Emanuel’s saying that you don’t ever let a major crisis go to waste to an extreme. So Mr. Obama is using the current major crisis to implement and pass through one of the most radical social reforms in history. The problem I see there is that the way he wants to it defies common sense. It is not natural. Taking money from one place and putting it in another place is not just a simple action of moving line items around in a budget. That action means disruption and disruption means pain.
Unlike Bill Clinton and Al Gore who first worked on creating wealth, Mr. Obama’s first mission is to re-distribute the current money. That is not common sense. If he is smart, if he is powerful, if he represents ‘change’, he first needs to focus on creating NEW wealth. Only after you make the money you think about how to spend the money..that IS common sense, that is the natural way of doing things.But if Mr. Obama is concerned at all with creating wealth remains to be seen. For now, he continues to attack Wall Street. Like it or not, with good and with bad, Wall Street is the MAJOR engine for wealth creation in the US and Mr. Obama must stop the attacks and start working with Wall Street as soon as possible. Otherwise, Mr. Obama’s quiet revolution will be painful. Quite painful.

Mr. Obama, the stock market is “everything”

When Mr. Obama goes to Congress today he will tell us how hard the times are, how hard his job is, how he cannot balance the budget, how he cares about 95% of the people and how he doesn’t watch the stock market..
True, Mr. Obama has not had a lot of time in office. True, there are a lot of hard and complicated issues he has on his plate. Did anyone tell him that being president of the US was an easy job? I hope not..We hire presidents because we are a complex country. The job is not “easy” Mr. President! And it will not get any easier either..
But the complexities of the job should not limit our potential, opportunities. In a dynamic economy such as ours no president can afford to minimize the importance of the stock markets in our economy.
We’ve heard the other day that the president will not even attempt to balance the budget within his first term. That is bad. It is bad behavior, not healthy for anyone.
We’ve also heard from his press secretary that the president is not watching the stock market. Forgive me for asking, but if you do not raise taxes and do not cut spending to balance the budget, how do you make money to pay for the adventure Mr. President?
Like it or not Mr. President, the stock market is “everything”. You will have to watch it like millions and millions of Americans do.. and you will have to treat the stock market as it was the most important thing in your presidency. Not if you can ‘find time’ for that.. not ‘after’ you take care of other ‘important’ issues.. The stock market is the engine of growth in our economy. Americans invest their own money to make their own destiny and yes, to ‘profit’. As profit is not just for the 5% of the people of this country. Profit is our way and it defines ‘all ‘100% of US.
So when you go to Congress today Mr. President, please acknowledge that we need more than a stimulus package. We need a strong stock market. A strong market cannot exist without confidence about the future economic growth. And if we are talking about trillion dollars investments. And if you truly believe that those ‘are‘ investments, give us your word of confidence Mr. President. Address the stock market as if it were the most precious gift you have received. Because it is.
Mr. Obama, the stock market is “everything”

Mr. Obama, BALANCE THE BUDGET ASAP!

I am not sure how a president can say with a straight face: I will reduce the deficit from $1 trillion to half of that in about 2-3 years.. please.. as a nation we have been playing this farce forever.. who needs a ‘reduction’ in the deficit? Do you need that? I don’t. In fact, I don’t really care.. so why reduce it at all?
I mean, if Mr. Obama really wants to do something serious he needs to tell the world that we as a nation will balance the budget within his first term in office. Not in the second term and not in ten years. Within his first term! Why is it sooooo difficult for our presidents to balance the checkbooks lately? We haven’t seen that kind of talk since Bill Clinton was in office.

Why can’t our presidents balance budgets? Or better yet, why aren’t the US presidents even interested in balancing the budget?
I believe that most of us think that there is only one way to balance the budget – one way for each party that is: democrats have to raise taxes and republicans have to cut programs.
Isn’t that view bringing us back like 100 years or so?
Why can’t we as a nation find ways to balance the budget the right way: by having a strong economy based on a strong stock market that fuels wealth creation.
Bill Clinton and Al Gore proved that was possible. We have the recipe – maybe Mr. Obama needs to talk to Bill Clinton and to Al Gore once in awhile..

I say we should demand that our presidents balance the books – just like everyone else on this planet!
Mr. Obama, BALANCE THE BUDGET ASAP!