Yeah, I am too, nubian. I had written to them asking them to cancel my (6+ years) account on Friday and cited this as the reason. And I'm a 5+ discs at a time person, with two separate queues (one for me, one for housemate).

whew. did they cancel your account yet?

Nope. I wrote an email to customer service telling them that I was going to cancel my account at the end of July, directly due to their deletion of profiles.

[link]

New Computer Repair Law Affects Both Company Owners and Consumers

* Every repair technician in Texas must have private investigator's license

* Licenses are obtained with criminal justice degree or 3 year apprenticeship

* Violators can face up to a 4K fine and 1 year in jail

by Pelpina Trip

KDAF33 News at Nine Intern

June 26, 2008

A new Texas law requires every computer repair technician to obtain a private investigator's license. Violators can face a $4,000 fine and one year in jail, as well as a $10,000 civil penalty.

Unlicensed computer shops will have to close down until they obtain a private investigator's license.

A private investigator's license can be obtained by acquiring a criminal justice degree or by getting a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed private investigator.

The new law also impacts consumers. Consumers who knowingly take computers to an unlicensed company for repair can face the same penalties.

Many computer forensics companies in big cities like Dallas and Houston employ licensed investigators. They provide litigation support to large law firms. However, many independent repair companies in other areas do not have a license.

If small computer repair companies are not allowed to repair computers, rural residents may have to ship their computers for repairs at computer forensics companies.

Copyright © 2008, KDAF

Maybe I'm too out of it to understand, but I don't get what the rationale is for such a law. Does the state want the repair people to look for kiddie porn?

eta: After reading comments at Slashdot, I'm still confused. Apparently some states like TX like to require licenses for all sorts of different occupations/businesses....

eta²: Oh, and the law only applies to people who read data on hard drives. So data retrieval = license required, but if you're just a tech sticking in RAM for customers, maybe not.

eta³: OK, this is what falls under the definition of PI work (thus requiring a PI license):

(b) For purposes of Subsection (a)(1), obtaining or furnishing information includes information obtained or furnished through the review and analysis of, and the investigation into the content of, computer-based data not available to the public.

Does that apply to data on a customer's computer hard drive? Maybe. But somehow I doubt the intention of the law was was to require repair folk to get licenses.

eta: I shouldn't be reading text of laws while not sober. But it's not a new law; it's an amendment to an existing law - it enlarges the existing definition of a PI work to include getting computer data on folks (non-public data that's not available through google, etc.)

I wonder if this is a hoax - someone stretching the interpretation of a law for dramatic effect?

[On Edit] - No apparently lobbied for by the influential Private Investigators Lobby.

[Further Edit] This interpretation is by a right wing group filing a lawsuit against the law. No one has been prosecuted: it is the defending legal group that is informing people they are in violation of this law. I'd be curious to hear what the state AG has to say about this.

[link]

State Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, said that routine computer repairs are not affected by the law, which he said was passed to increase protection of consumer privacy.

"They've gotten people who run computer shops out of sorts for no good reason," Driver said. "If computer shops want to repair computers, there's no problem."

Not so sure the right wing group is wrong to file the suit though. Sounds like it was very sloppily worded: better to get it clarified either by the legislature or courts rather than leaving it around to be abused at some later time. But it also sounds like the self-described "merry band of litigators" are enjoying causing panic among computer repair shop owners - so they are still assholes.

Car stereos are getting pretty cool. When we bought our new-to-us car for my wife, one of the things she wanted was to have a radio that wasn't limited to regular audio CDs. The radio I ordered can play MP3,WMA,ACC off a CD; it has a USB connector on a cable that I intend to run into the ash tray to have a cubby for a flash drive; it can play, control, and I think charge an iPod; it has Bluetooth to connect to her cell phone for hands free answering and dialing; and it has an auxiliary port for whatever. It has a bunch of other outputs and inputs for stuff like amps, subwoofer, cd changer, and other stuff I'll never use and don't really care about.

Much cooler than what was available the last time I bought a car radio.

Yep.

I remember when I thought car cassette decks were so much cooler than 8-track decks....

My car radio has an on/off button. And it can switch between AM and FM. And it has this little doohicky that lets you change channels.

I remember when I thought car cassette decks were so much cooler than 8-track decks....

I was seeing radios that were even doing away with CDs to only play music from USB, iPod, and memory cards.