Eich moves to give Jackson Leeds and the bettors of NY State a lawyer to vindicate their rights secured by NY Const. Art, 1 Sec. 3
Technology
Uproar Over Eich May Hurt Mozilla's Web Goals
Controversy May Hamper Mozilla's Bid to Curb Internet's Commercialization
April 6, 2014 7:21 p.m. ET
The controversy that led to
Brendan Eich's
resignation as Mozilla's chief executive may hurt the
organization's efforts to limit commercialization of the Internet,
supporters fear.
Brendan Eich
Bloomberg
Mr. Eich stepped down Thursday, just
10 days after he was named CEO, amid controversy over his 2008 donation
to a California political campaign against gay marriage. That leaves
Mozilla without a clear leader, which had been the case since former CEO
Gary Kovacs
left in April 2013. Moreover, Mozilla's board is down to three
members because three other directors resigned after Mr. Eich's
appointment.
The leadership vacuum makes
it all the more difficult for Mozilla, a nonprofit company, to keep its
Firefox Web browser competitive with
Microsoft Corp.'s
MSFT -0.18%
Internet Explorer and
Google Inc.
GOOGL -0.85%
's Chrome.
The organization is also trying to get its Firefox OS mobile-operating system onto smartphones, competing with
Apple Inc.
AAPL -1.57%
's iOS and Google's Android. A search deal with Google, which
provides most of Mozilla's revenue, is up for renewal this year.
The
controversy over Mr. Eich may have damaged such efforts. Some companies
work with Mozilla because of its reputation as an open, tolerant
organization that is focused on users, rather than profits.
If Mr. Eich had stayed on as chief
executive, building more of these partnerships might have been even more
difficult. Dating site OkCupid, part of
Barry Diller's
IAC/Interactive Corp. online empire, had already asked its customers to stop using Firefox.
Peter Eckersley,
technology-projects director at the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital rights such as online
privacy, said Mozilla is an important check on big, for-profit Internet
companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple and
Facebook Inc.
FB +0.35%
"Mozilla is like green parties in
politics," said
Matt Mullenweg,
founder of Automattic,the company behind the open-source,
online-publishing service WordPress. "Even if they don't win, they force
the ruling parties, in this case Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft,
to be more user-friendly."
Mr.
Mullenweg said Firefox's debut in 2004 prompted Microsoft to update
Internet Explorer, which it hadn't done for several years.
Firefox
was the first browser to implement a "Do Not Track" feature that lets
Internet users tell websites that they don't want their online
activities tracked for purposes of targeting ads. Internet Explorer,
Chrome and Apple's Safari browser later added support for Do Not Track.
"There
are very few organizations of any sort [that] exist solely to fight for
the rights of the humans who use technology and who are able to make
more humane products and put pressure on others to do the same," said
John Lilly,
a former Mozilla CEO and ex-board member who is now a partner at
the venture-capital firm Greylock Partners. He cited Firefox's early
adoption of Do Not Track as an example.
A
Facebook spokesman declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for
Microsoft. Google and Apple didn't respond to requests for comment.
Mozilla
has to balance its user-friendly mission with the need to generate
revenue from commercial partnerships. The organization has an agreement
with Google that makes the Internet giant's search engine the default
option for Firefox. The deal, valued at almost $1 billion over three
years, is up for renewal near the end of 2014.
Google is openly supportive of gay rights, and co-founder
Sergey Brin
has spoken out in the past against the campaign that Mr. Eich
supported. It might have been difficult for Mozilla to renew the search
deal with Mr. Eich at the helm, a former Mozilla insider said.
In
an interview, Mozilla executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker, who
co-founded the organization in 1998 with Mr. Eich, said Mr. Eich
resigned because the controversy over his donation undermined his
ability to lead Mozilla, an organization that relies on volunteers as
well as its 800 employees to develop Web standards and promote a
user-friendly Internet.
"We have certainly been buffeted in the last 10 days or so," Ms. Baker said. "But Mozilla comes together in times of adversity."
Mozilla's
commercial partners, including telecom companies and search-engine
providers like Google, work with the organization because it makes great
products, she said. But, Ms. Baker added, "it sometimes feels like
people work with Mozilla because we feel good."
She said Mozilla plans an announcement Monday on the process for hiring the next CEO.
Write to Alistair Barr at alistair.barr@wsj.com
Stop scratching on holidays
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
HI-
Thanks for
the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy,
if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long
Island Business News
2150
Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma,
NY 11779-7348
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LI Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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