Richard says:

I have swapped several emails with Stephen Toulouse, the Microsoft staffer who seems to be responsible for the press briefings on this (he was the one who gave the followup story to Kotaku). Firstly, he confirmed my enforced change was /not/ because my tag is the same as my name and /was/ because my tag is deemed to be offensive. I've sent him the following as an email querying a few more details.

Ah, good. Thank you for clearing that up. I also noticed last night that I cannot enter my last name in the Real Name field of my Xbox profile, although I can put it in the Bio section — does it become less offensive a few inches further down the screen? I tried Heterowood and Homowood too (both were barred) but Straightwood was allowed, oddly. Even the words "Unix" and "Linux" seem to be barred from the Real Name field, which I find rather bizarre. I also note that this was a system generated response, and not the result of a complaint about me.

So, what about the international issues? Wanker is quite a common surname in Germany, and is very rude to British people but (I understand) doesn't have as strong a connotation to the Americans — I'm pretty sure I've heard it on the Simpsons. Would that be allowed? What about swear words in foreign languages, how do you handle that case?

Basically, because of the international issue I think Microsoft haven't thought this through. I am conducting a bit of investigative journalism along those lines: getting two friends to register a gamertag that is outrageously obscene but in an obscure-ish language, then getting someone else to file a complaint about it. Want to bet the complaint will be ignored? I think MS are adopting a US-centric point of view here and I don't think that is acceptable for an international service like Live. If you're going to start censoring words you have to do it in all the languages active on Live.

Ball's in your court, Microsoft.

Here's Varun's letter:

Today, I discovered I couldn't connect to Xbox Live. After calling "Shanya" at Xbox Live (could not understand her, despite trying very hard), I was told that the Xbox Live service was down. How odd - everybody else, including my flatmate, on the same console is able to connect.

So I called back and "Ryan" answered. Ryan spent 35 minutes diagnosing my issue, making me connect, disconnect, reconnect and otherwise delete, undelete and trash my account. All the while, I explained to him that it clearly was NOT an issue with the connection, and not an issue on my end. After struggling to read his script, he finally took pity on me and followed my instructions to see whether there was anything wrong with my account. Sure enough, there was.

The system had tagged my Gamertag as offensive. What was my Gamertag? First name + last name.

What?!

That's right - my first name + last name is an offensive combination to the people who run Xbox Live. I asked Ryan what to do and he suggested changing the name order around.

So I've been forced to change my Gamertag - which means all the time that I've been using Xbox Live (about 30 months), my name has been offensive and apparently in violation of their terms, but they didn't bother to check or notify me or... well, do anything, really, except disconnect me today. I note that they updated the terms in 2005, twice in 2006, once in 2007 and somehow, I was in compliance with those terms all this time. Yet despite no change in the terms since June 2007, I am now in violation of those same terms. Explaining all this to the supervisor, "Lawrence", on the phone resulted in long, unintelligible mumbles (it was as if he arbitrarily picked words and letters out of the dictionary, strung them together, and then ran the whole gibberish through a randomizer), I was told that it was for my own security and protection they had decided that my name was offensive. Oh and the name that I had spent a while building an identity around? Yeah, there's no compensation for that. Nor did my preferences transfer over. In fact, I'm completely SOL...

Oh, for pete's sake, Microsoft.

An employee in the franchise office told Wade about what the woman had said. Wade said, "The employee had stated to her, 'Imagine if you saw a snake or a spider, how would you respond?' And that employee said she understood that. And I said, 'That's unbelievable. I am a human being.'"

"How could you compare the fear of a snake and spider to a human being? That makes no sense to me," Wade said. "I've seen kids kind of react like that. Understandable. But grown adults to act like that? That's just not acceptable."
 
The restaurant deferred comments on the matter to the franchise office.
 
The person who answered the phone at the franchise office when WYFF News 4 called said the only people who could discuss this case are the franchise's attorneys, insurance company and the owner, but they refused to give out any of their names.

After WYFF spoke to a media spokeswoman at the corporate level, the franchise owner, Cynthia Samour, released a statement saying, "We take these matters seriously and do our very best to serve our customers with the utmost care and respect."

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

The woman slept most of the flight, but awoke about 20 minutes before landing when the pilot announced the plane was on descent into Los Angeles. When the woman opened her eyes, she saw that an unknown man had moved into the seat next to her and was staring at her as he masturbated, the suit states.

The woman turned toward the window in embarrassment and in an act of nervousness began to run her fingers through her hair where she noticed "a substantial amount of an extremely sticky substance in her hair," the suit states.

The woman began to cry and tried to get the attention of a flight attendant, but was unsuccessful, the suit states. Finally a passenger in the row in front of the woman comforted her and verified the semen in her hair, the suit states.

When the plane landed, employee called airport police and the man was arrested.

(Thanks to Rob!)

"Woman files lawsuit against AMR because passenger next to her masturbated while she slept" [Star-Telegram]
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

(Photo: Getty)

A T-shirt sold at Kmart stores that shows a boy pushing down a girl and calls the action "Problem Solved" drew more than 50 protesters to the sidewalk in front of the chain's Alexis Road store yesterday afternoon.

Spokesman Kim Freely said: "We've heard and respect the opinions of our customers and the item is no longer available at Kmart. And we have no plans to reorder it."

She said Kmart had received a few complaints from other areas; the T-shirt was sold nationwide. But Toledo was the only city where she'd heard about a protest.

Demonstrators protest 'problem solved' T-shirts [Toledo Blade]

PREVIOUSLY: Kmart's "Domestic Violence" T-Shirt Irritates Shoppers

"It is never our intent to offend any of our guests through the merchandise we carry," Target said in a statement. "We have made the decision to remove this item from our shelves and we sincerely apologize for any discomfort this situation may have caused our guests."

Oh, the irony of "Che" consumerism. —MEGHANN MARCO

Target stores pull Che Guevara CD case [Reuters]

"I thought that shirt was very offensive, and I'm sure people who made that shirt thought it was cute," District Attorney Evert Fowle said Friday. "But when you prosecute 728 domestic violence cases a year, it's not cute."

The shirt was removed briefly after a customer protested, but later returned to shelves. As it stands now, the final word from Kmart corporate is that the t-shirt will continue to be sold.

"We respect the opinions of our customers," [Kmart] said in a statement issued from corporate headquarters. "However, we believe these attitude Ts are meant to be light-hearted in nature."

We think the shirt is in poor taste, and we are the taste-makers when it comes to potentially offensive t-shirts sold in big box stores... in case you were wondering. —MEGHANN MARCO

Store takes heat for selling 'Problem Solved' T-shirt [Kennebec Journal]

"Several stations rejected the spot from Dennis Mitsubishi, which boasts that sales representatives wearing "burqas" - head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women - will sell vehicles that can "comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back."

"We firmly believe the ad does not in any way disrespect any religion or culture, but we feel, I guess, that maybe poking a little fun at radical extremists is fair game," dealership president Keith Dennis said on Saturday. "It was our intention to craft something around some of the buzzwords of the day and give everyone a good chuckle and be a little bit of a tension reliever."

Unfortunately for Keith, the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wasn't laughing.

"Using that as a promotional pitch when so many are dying from the criminal activity of suicide bombers, that's not funny," chapter president Asma Mobin-Uddin said. "I don't think it's appropriate when it causes real pain. It exploits or promotes misunderstanding in terms already misunderstood or misused."

Here are a few more choice quotes from the rejected radio spot:

"Our prices are lower than the evildoers' every day. Just ask the pope!"

"Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies."

Oh dear.