Facebook parent company Meta has responded to a coordinated series of lawsuits (list of states and the complaint below) which include one filed in Federal court on behalf of 33 states and state Attorneys General, and 9 other related suits each filed in individual states in state court.

If you were on the Internet in 2005 or 2006, you almost certainly also received spam for an herbal weight loss supplement called ‘Hoodia’, among others, and, if you received spam for Hoodia, then it’s also almost certain that Brian McDaid was behind it. In 2007, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) nabbed McDaid, a chiropractor from Thorndale, Pennsylvania, and charged him with false and deceptive business claims, and several violations of the Federal anti-spam law, CAN-SPAM.

Wow, it must really suck to be a student in Pennsylvania (at least the south-eastern part of it). First Montgomery county’s Merion school district spies on its students, now we find out that right next door, in neighboring Bucks county, they hire teachers who hate their students, and blog about it! Witness the tale, and blog, of one Natalie Munroe. Natalie Monroe is a high school teacher who clearly has even less respect for her students than they have for her.

One of the burning questions of the entire “school spying on a student in his own home through the webcam in the school-provided laptop” fiasco – which was followed closely by the “school accuses student Blake Robbins of improper behavior in his own home based on photos taken through the webcam” debacle – is just what was the improper behavior with which they confronted Blake? Read on… (Hint: It has to do with his friends, Mike and Ikes. Yes, it’s true.) P.S. Folks in the area are already calling this “WebCamGate”.

Ok, sure, it makes perfect sense, but still we were surprised to learn that a state entity – in this case the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and more specifically the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of General Services State Surplus Property Division – not only sells things on eBay, but is a genuine, bona fide eBay power seller. With 869 positive feedback responses in the past year, five neutral, and four negative.