Google is taking a novel approach to global censorship by asking US trade officials to treat Internet restrictions as international trade barriers, similar to other hurdles to global commerce
Recognising the threat of China’s growing online community, Chinese President Hu Jintao called in January for the Internet to be purified
, and the government has since launched a number of online crackdowns. One cannot truly say that the Internet in China is becoming more and more free, because at the same time as the development of citizen journalists, the government finds ways of blocking or censoring content,
said Julien Pain, who monitors Internet freedom issues for Reporters Without Borders
Some ISPs are resorting to a new tactic to increase revenue: inserting advertisements into web pages requested by their end users. They use a transparent web proxy (such as this one) to insert javascript and/or HTML with the ads into pages returned to users. Neither the content providers nor the end-users have been notified that this is taking place, and I’m sure that they weren’t asked for permission either — via Slashdot
The founder of Creative Commons, the Stanford lawyer behind the Eldred vs Ashcroft
case, and the author of ‘Code’ has spent the last 10 years working tirelessly on behalf of limited copyright terms, net neutrality, and the public domain. Tuesday, Lawrence Lessig announced on his blog that he has decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism
from fighting the good fight for the public domain to fighting the good fight against corruption and the influence of big money’s effects on legislation in general — via Slashdot
Want to know how much your boss earns? Or whether your daughter’s fiance is in debt? For Swedes, it takes just a few clicks on the Internet to find out. But many feel the Web has taken things too far, and proud though they are of Sweden’s unusual history of openness, they have pressured providers to put some limits on a service that allowed Swedes to snoop through each other’s finances anonymously and free of charge
Bruce Schneier: The recently publicised terrorist plot to blow up John F Kennedy International Airport, like so many of the terrorist plots over the past few years, is a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press
A new report puts Google in last place when it comes to privacy protection. Despite recent moves to anonymise server logs and other pro-privacy gestures, Privacy International called the company an endemic threat to privacy
. Only Google earned the dismal black
color bar from the group, which has just issued a report on Internet privacy that took six months to assemble (see the rankings [PDF]). The current report is preliminary; final results will be released in September. The report rated top Internet companies on privacy issues and distilled the various results into a single color bar. Microsoft was two ranks up from Google, earning a curry-colored serious lapses
rating. Amazon scored one level higher with its yellow notable lapses
rank, and eBay did even better, earning a coveted blue bar. No company earned a top mark, however
China should not punish people for expressing their political views on the Internet, Yahoo said on Monday — one day after the mother of a jailed Chinese reporter announced she was suing the US company for helping officials imprison her son. Yahoo criticised China in a brief statement that didn’t specifically mention the case of jailed journalist Shi Tao, whose mother visited Hong Kong on Sunday. Shi was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2005 after sending an e-mail about Chinese media restrictions
Activists from Binary Freedom Boston have launched a campaign calling on the BBC to release their content online without DRM or proprietary formats. The BBC asked about this earlier and even though the public chose not to use DRM by a landslide, they still decided to use it. EMI and Amazon have already ditched DRM. How long before the BBC does? — via Slashdot
Amnesty International has warned that the internet could change beyond all recognition
unless action is taken against the erosion of online freedoms. The warning comes ahead of a conference organised by Amnesty, where victims of repression will outline their plights. The virus of internet repression
has spread from a handful of countries to dozens of governments, said the group. Amnesty accused companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of being complicit in the problem
There are no privacy issues with Google Street View, a Maps-based project that offers 360-degree panoramic views of various streets in cities around the US, according to Google Australia’s head of engineering. At the Google developer day in Sydney last week, Lars Rasmussen denied that privacy was an issue when it came to Google Street View because, he said, the images are all taken in public areas
A couple of former Yahoo execs are trying to create the next MySpace by aggregating fanfiction on a website called FanLib. But the fanfic writers recognised that exploitation was written all over the idea and they’ve refused to participate. Instead of creating the Myspace of fanfic since the launch two weeks ago, FanLib.com sparked a white-hot Internet firestorm. The meltdown is a hard lesson in how not to conduct business on the Internet. But it’s a firestorm of FanLib’s own making because, in spite of the Yahoo pedigree (or maybe because of it), they ploughed in like china shop bulls — via Slashdot
Korea has just finished negotiating a free trade agreement with the US that is a complete disaster on copyright. Korea has agreed to give up all fair use to copyrighted works, and has agreed to shut down many of its web-hosting businesses. So much for Korea’s power as a global Internet leader. It was nice while it lasted — via Boing Boing
With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple’s new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user’s full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you
Internet Jihadists have declared war on LiveJournal, ostensibly for the sake of the chiiiiiiiiildren. The bampots at Warriors for Innocence claim to be dedicated to hunting pedophiles where they fester
but in reality, they hate fandom and fan fiction. At least the effect of their actions has been to shut down a number of fannish communities devoted to writing about romantic trysts between fictional characters. Most badly affected has been Harry Potter fandom, even though Harry Potter has been over the age of consent in the country in which the stories are based since book five
Sydney faces more disruption from the APEC leaders meeting in September, with the Prime Minister announcing three major bilateral meetings will be held in the city either side of the summit. A public holiday has been declared on the opening day of the APEC meeting, Friday, 7 September, and large areas of central Sydney will be shut down during the three day meeting. The New South Wales Police Minister, David Campbell, says police will try to keep disruption to a minimum. He says Sydney residents will be advised of any security arrangements for the leaders’ extended stay. But he says no plans beyond the APEC summit days have yet been prepared
In an unanimous decision released today, Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is ineffective
. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention of effective technological measures
. The legislation is based on EU Copyright Directive from 2001. According to both Finnish copyright law and the underlying directive, only such protection measure is effective, which achieves the protection objective
A state-controlled broadcast center in Russia has just seen the result of censorship restrictions imposed by the Kremlin. In a rare show of protest a group of journalists all resigned stating that they could no longer work under the harsh restrictions imposed by the state
Nine people involved in a community portal Napisy.org were held for questioning by the Polish police force. They will be probably be accused of publishing illegal translations of foreign movies, which is forbidden by Polish copyright law
At least 25 countries around the world block Web sites for political, social, or other reasons as governments seek to assert authority over a network meant to be borderless
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