May 23, 2010: On beyond Newspeak Over the Sun, LLC would like to teach you a new language. They've invented it themselves. Or at least the support infrastructure for it; the basic concept is approximately as old as writing. It comes with an EULA, of course. Some highlights: You may only have one user account and must provide the Company your legal first and last name, a user name, your email address, your preferred language, and password at the time of registration. you shall not use the Services to transmit any content that is: unlawful, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, lewd, offensive, defamatory or otherwise objectionable; you shall not use the iConji characters with any other software program or through any other medium; modify or create derivative works of the iConji characters; or copy or publicly display the iConji characters other than in connection with the use of the Services for the purposes set forth and as permitted per the terms of the end user iConji application license agreement; and For example, iConji characters used to identify a particular brand of product or service may be created by and paid for by the owner of such brand. The Company tracks the use of the iConji characters by users, including use of branded iConji characters. The Company may share, sell, license or exchange the nonpersonally identifying, aggregate information it collects about such use, including information about the date, time, and location of use of the iConji characters to the brand owner. BY YOUR USE OF THE SITE OR SERVICES, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THE COMPANY MAY INTERCEPT, COLLECT, STORE, DISCLOSE, SHARE AND SELL THE AGGREGATE, NONPERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR USE OF THE ICONJI CHARACTERS IN THE MESSAGES THAT YOU SEND USING THE ICONJI APPLICATION. (Capitalization theirs). iConji characters may be changed, modified, altered, deleted or removed at any time by the Company. The iConji software application on your mobile device will update your library of characters from time to time. you may submit requests to the iConji character team at www.iconji.com/support/ requesting alteration or removal if you believe the character is lewd, obscene, vulgar, defamatory, or in any other way infringes your rights. You expressly agree and personally submit to binding arbitration, to adjudicate and resolve any dispute with the Company, its affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, contractors, officers, members, managers, telecommunication providers and content providers or in any other way relating to the Site or the Services. Any arbitration claims shall be submitted to binding arbitration before the Judicial Arbiter Group, Inc. (“JAG”) located in Denver, Colorado. The parties shall mutually agree to an arbitrator within 10 business days of submission of a claim for arbitration with JAG. If the parties cannot agree to an arbitrator within such time, JAG shall appoint an arbitrator. The initial filing fees shall be paid by the party filing the claim for arbitration. Thereafter, the costs of the arbitration shall be shared equally by the parties, and each party shall be responsible for his or her own attorney fees and costs. YOU HEREBY IRREVOCABLY WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL OR TO CLAIM THAT THE STATE OF COLORADO IS AN INCONVENIENT FORUM TO HEAR CLAIMS AND DISPUTES. These Terms are subject to revisions by the Company at any time in its sole and exclusive discretion. You agree to be bound by subsequent versions of these Terms as posted on the Site. You should check regularly to ensure that you are aware of any changes to the Terms. So, let me get this straight: their system tracks every character you send so they can get their usage counts. You're not allowed to use the language with any other software. They may edit the language at will. They give every impression that they WILL edit the language to remove concepts - based predominantly on the impression that they are objectionable in some manner or might be subject to lawsuits. Their own software auto-updates. You agree not to involve the courts in any disputes. They may change not only the language, but the rules which you submit to arbitration under, at any time they please. And if I pay a fee to them to have them make a 'Deekoo' glyph, I can then be told when and where everyone using iConji to talk about me was at the time. Probably to GPS resolution, since that's what the target devices provide. I wonder if they support glyphs for longer concepts? If this were in widespread use, I expect that pressure groups and cults would register terms they care about to attempt to detect enemies, sympathizers, and apostates - targeting within GPS resolution is enough to identify a specific person if a term is in infrequent use and you know who'd be likely to use that term in that region. (Hmm... and I suspect that sub-GPS resolution may be attainable over time, though I don't know for certain.) Identifying vulnerable targets does not necessarily require high resolution, either - if I know that one person in a one-block radius probably believes in the Magic Bean From Jupiter, flyering the whole block with invitations to a Magic Bean From Jupiter seminar is a lot more efficient use of my marketing effort than flyering an entire city. If I know that a given bar has a high rate of communications related to gay sex, I can be reasonably sure that sending a squad of twinks to flirty-fish or a squad of jackbooted thugs to start the auto-da-fe is likely to be productive.

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