“Two of the largest companies – Google and Verizon – have reportedly agreed to abandon consumer protections, filter content and limit choice and free speech on the mobile Internet. If true, the deal is a bold grab for market power by two monopolistic players. Such abuse of the open Internet would put to final rest the Google mandate to ‘don’t be evil.’
Archive for 2010/08/05
Reported Verizon-Google Deal Means FCC Must Act to Set Public Interest Policy
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Blocking, File Sharing, Google, Public PolicyEuropean Commission chooses iPhone, HTC over BlackBerry
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Public PolicyThe search for a new smartphone began in 2008 when the Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, was deploying a new synchronization tool, prompting it to evaluate different devices on the market, including BlackBerrys. The EC has been using PDAs made by Q-Tek (later HTC) since 2003.
“Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged as the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices. As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms,” spokesman for the EC wrote in an e-mail statement sent to CNET on Wednesday.
Internet Governance Forum – 2010 Workshop Proposals
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Public Policy- 134. Child online protection in northern Europe – Different national approaches
- 90. Maintaining the Open Architecture of the Internet
- 147. Who controls Internet routing? Self-governance and security at the core of Internet operations
- 49. Internet Governance and the Wider World: Building Relationships between the Internet Governance and Other Domains
- 80. International Trade and Internet Govenance
- 83. Political Balance in Internet Governance
- 114. Digital inclusion: reaching the most socially excluded people in society
- 17. Network Neutrality: What is Appropriate in Managing the Network
- 40. Intellectual Property Protection in the Internet
- 42. Personal Data Protection and the Internet
- 111. Freedom of expression and Internet intermediaries: Where do we go from here?
Full list of proposals: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/workshop-proposal
Dutch Telecom regulator OPTA forced cable providers such as UPC and Ziggo to open up their infrastructure to telecom operators such as Tele2.
Now Tele2 is offering services to the public which it says are equally good but much cheaper than the services UPC and Ziggo are providing. UPC and Ziggo deny this and have now filed for a preliminary injunction.
Dutch language article: http://www.nu.nl/internet/2306528/ziggo-en-upc-dagen-tele2-rechter-misleiding.html
Answering to the police for ReTweeting someone else’s death threat?
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Legislation, Public PolicyDutch Media are reporting that a journalist had to go to police headquarters to explain and justify the fact that he retweeted a threat previously tweeted to Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The reporter retweeted in such a way that it was clear the original tweet wasn’t his.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office demands that the reporter removes his tweet from Twitter.
The reporter has to go back to the Dutch police on 11th August. He stated “The Public Prosecutor says that retweeting a twitter threat is illegal, even when one is including information which shows you have not tweeted it yourself but just want to report on something newsworthy, something that in itself should be covered by the freedom of opinion. Nice. We’ll see.”
Original article in Dutch: http://www.nu.nl/internet/2306487/journalist-moet-retweet-verantwoorden-bij-politie.html
See also:
E-mail Users Fear Spam and Its Impact on Online Identity
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsMarket research form Harris Interactive conducted an international survey to gauge the sentiments and habits of global e-mail users regarding spam on behalf of Cloudmark, a global leader in carrier-grade messaging infrastructure and security solutions. The survey polled more than 6,500 online adults in the U.S., France, Germany, Great Britain and China
The Future of 4G: A View of WiMAX and LTE and What They Mean for MSM
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Bandwidth Management, Education / Awareness, Mobile tech, Tech EvolutionThe current 3G networks have to deal with more data than ever before and are suffering from serious capacity constraints. 4G enables the necessary data support for devices and is much better equipped to handle the way smart devices communicate in small bursts. Therefore, even with 4G networks we must pay attention to the way applications consume data. An efficient way of reducing the bandwidth requirements of 4G devices, from how applications communicate with their back-end services to software management operations, must be implemented to ensure we don’t quickly run into the same constraints the industry is seeing today on 3G networks. Bandwidth is not free and is not limitless.
LinkedIn has announced its intention to acquire mSpoke. The professional network company wants to take advantage of mSpoke’s expertise in making media more relevant through their recommendation technology. mSpoke provides offerings for content publishers, research analysts and individuals
‘Chaos’: the New World of Work; the Implications for Service Providers
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionGartner analysts predict an increasingly chaotic organizational environment between now and 2020. That this going to have some clear implications for providers of communication services, including demand volatility, hyperconnectedness, and a further blurring of the lines between collaboration within and outside an organization
Cable TV Loses Market Share to Satellite and Internet Alternatives: IDC
Posted: 2010/08/05 in New Business Models, Stats / reportsE-Guide Services, a provider of E-GuideTV, a fully customized television channel guide, together with VMH Media, an advertising rep firm specializing in the sale of place-based digital out-of-home video advertising, announced the results of an independent Arbitron study of its new E-GuideTV
Norton Study: One-Third of Top-Trending Search Results are Malicious
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Cybercrime, Education / Awareness, Network Security, Privacy / Data Protection, Stats / reportsA new Norton study conducted by global Internet security, systems management and storage specialist Symantec has found that more than one in three of today’s top-trending search terms resulted in a greater than 10 percent rate of malicious results. Such results have been known to place both personal information and computers at risk from cybercrime and its perpetrators.
The study examined the top 300 trending search terms returned by a major search engine, analyzing the top 30,000 search results on a daily basis from February to May 2010. Search topics examined included such far-ranging topics as sporting events to criminal-case results. It was determined that hackers were “poisoning” search-engine algorithms, redirecting Internet searchers to misleading applications. Accessing such “poisoned” results could result in significant security breaches such as exposure of personal information and infection of users’ PCs-
Based on a survey of 45 different companies, the “Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study” discovered that cybercrime cost an average of $3.8 million per organization per year. That number was driven by more than one successful cyberattack each week.
http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/94247-cost-cybercrime.htm
The stunning performance of Silicon Valley’s PayPal alumni…
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, UncategorizedWhen EBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002 it triggered an investment boom by PayPal alumni that led to Youtube, Facebook, Tesla and much more…
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/the-stunning-performance-of-silicon-valleys-paypal-alumni/1451
Mitnick’s lawyer, who declined to be interviewed, advised his most famous client that wire fraud statutes can be broadly interpreted such that any interstate commerce (phone calls) conducted to defraud someone, even if it is part of a contest, could be construed as a violation, according to Mitnick
Amazon Kindle Store Opens Shop for Brits with 400,000 Books
Posted: 2010/08/05 in New Business ModelsEveryone Has Something To Hide: Why Privacy Is Important Even If ‘You’ve Done Nothing Wrong’
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data ProtectionEveryone has something to hide. Privacy is relational. It depends on the audience. You don’t want your employer to know you’re job hunting. You don’t spill all about your love life to your mom, or your kids. You don’t tell trade secrets to your rivals. We don’t expose ourselves indiscriminately, and we care enough about exposure to lie as a matter of course. Among upstanding citizens, researchers have consistently found that lying is “an everyday social interaction” (twice a day among college students, once a day in the Real World). Remember the disasters that befell Jim Carrey in that movie plot that left him magically unable to fib for even one day? Comprehensive transparency is a nightmare.
Ross Pruden alerts us to an LA Times story about a company called OpenSky that is apparently helping authors implement additional business models by helping them find tangible products they can sell in association with their books
Unlike that other filter, The great Firewall of Australia, which will control access to the internet, parental lock is entirely uncontroversial, as it is not government but parents who decide, in their own homes, if they want to switch it on or not
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/05/australia_compulsory_parental_lock_digital_tv/
Rupert Murdoch is betting big on the iPad, claiming it heralds sales of “hundreds and hundreds of millions” for tablet computers, and a revitalised newspaper industry
Dutch neighbouring rights collector SENA loses 35 million euro’s
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / AwarenessFrench CPD will send first warnings to downloaders by late September
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Public Policy, Three StrikesYu stresses that copyright as it exists in many countries is indeed a freedom right; it gives creators sovereignty over their creations and contributes to an independent creative sector. Before copyright was introduced artists were dependent on state sponsorship or wealthy patrons. Artists were then often under pressure to meet their maecenas’ needs, tastes and ideas about artwork. Those who dared to insult their patrons by applying new techniques and ideas were taking considerable risks and sometimes risked their lives for the sake of art
As part of the deal, Verizon would agree not to selectively throttle Internet traffic through its pipes. That would not, however, apply to data traveling over its wireless network for mobile phones, the report says
Schmidt: Society not ready for technology
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Google, Privacy / Data ProtectionSchmidt said he sees a balance eventually coming with society and governments coming to terms on how to regulate the collection of information. The end result, he said, will be that computers will be able to do what they are good at–store and recall information, while humans focus on intuition and problem solving.
“That separation of power is a reasonable one,” he said.
On balance, Schmidt said that technology is good, but he said that the only way to manage the challenges is “much greater transparency and no anonymity.”
Schmidt said that in an era of asymmetric threats, “true anonymity is too dangerous.”
NanoStudio For iPhone Puts a Recording Studio In Your Pocket
Posted: 2010/08/05 in New Business ModelsClear’s iSpot Is a WiMax Hotspot For iPhones and iPads
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech EvolutionApple Allows iTunes Streaming to iPhone With iDisk
Posted: 2010/08/05 in New Business Models, Tech EvolutionSam’s been testing this out, and it works like a charm over Wi-Fi and 3G alike, with “decent” audio quality
http://gizmodo.com/5604272/apple-allows-itunes-streaming-to-iphone-with-idisk
MintyBoost Cracks the Secrets of Apple’s Charging Methods
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / AwarenessThe Dark Knight iTunes Extras Gets You Blu-ray Extras Without the Blu-ray
Posted: 2010/08/05 in New Business ModelsWhich ISPs Hand Private Surfing Info Over To Secretive Private Group Who Monitors It For The Feds?
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data ProtectionAccording to Uber, one of Project Vigilant’s manifold methods for gathering intelligence includes collecting information from a dozen regional U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs). Uber declined to name those ISPs, but said that because the companies included a provision allowing them to share users’ Internet activities with third parties in their end user license agreements (EULAs), Vigilant was able to legally gather data from those Internet carriers and use it to craft reports for federal agencies. A Vigilant press release says that the organization tracks more than 250 million IP addresses a day and can “develop portfolios on any name, screen name or IP address.”
The Force Is Strong In Public Ridicule: Lucas Backs Down From Threats Against Wicked Lasers
Posted: 2010/08/05 in Education / Awareness“We are aware that, during this time you have made several statements to the media insisting that your product is not intended to resemble a lightsaber and is not marketed by your company as either a lightsaber or as having any connection with ‘Star Wars’ or Lucasfilm.”
