An apology…

Until Gizmodo publicly apologizes to Gray Powell, this is going to be in my /etc/hosts and in all of the DNS servers under my control:

127.0.0.1 gizmodo.com 127.0.0.1 www.gizmodo.com 127.0.0.1 m.gizmodo.com 127.0.0.1 gawker.com 127.0.0.1 www.gawker.com 127.0.0.1 m.gawker.com

The person at fault is the shithead who stole the phone, not some overworked engineer drinking beer.

Please vote with your attention and do the same. Thanks!

(Thanks to @sebastianlewis for the idea.)

Update: I can’t believe there are some people defending Gizmodo’s actions. Let’s put the shoe on your foot:

You’re drinking beer with some friends. You leave your wallet behind at the bar. Some stranger finds your wallet and opens it up. Inside is a naked picture of your partner. That stranger finds a website that wants to post the picture and they sell your wallet intact for $1. Your partner finds their naked body on the Internet. Shit hits the fan. HARD. The site that posted the pictures looks at the ID in the wallet and calls up with an offer to return the wallet. “Don’t worry, all the money’s still there!” Then that website posts another article saying how dumb you were for leaving your wallet behind. And instantly millions of people associate your name with a stupid mistake.

How do you feel now?

Update: If you’re the kind of person who forgets that you edited your hosts file, use Marco Arment’s IP address of 66.135.33.106 instead of 127.0.0.1.

Update: For those of you who don’t feel comfortable with the Terminal, here’s a Cocoa application that runs an AppleScript to block Gizmodo. Thanks @digdog!