Archive for 2011/04/07

The National Crime Squad of the Dutch National Police has threatened to shut down Public Intelligence if they do not remove the issues of Inspire magazine which are available on their site

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Enforcement

Notice describes the magazine’s content as “illegal” under Dutch law: “Due to the content of this magazine which is considered illegal according to the Dutch law due to the inciting content related to Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, we would like you to remove this magazine from your website.”  The notice goes on to state that if the content is not removed from this site, the Dutch police “will under the force of circumstances take down your website on the dedicated server in the Netherlands according to Dutch Law.”

More: http://publicintelligence.net/dutch-police-threaten-to-shut-down-public-intelligence/

Lawmakers tell Google to do more on antipiracy

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Google, Illegal File Sharing, Public Policy

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20051248-261.html

Dish Network announced today that it will be acquiring the Blockbuster movie rental chain for $228 million

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Tech Evolution

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20051170-17.html

Who is Epsilon and why does it have my data?

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20051038-245.html

Google is reportedly plotting a YouTube overhaul that would focus on premium channels and professional programming

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Google, New Business Models

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/googles-youtube-attempts-to-go-premium/47004

Californian senator proposes bill for obligatory ‘do not track’ function in browsers

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

http://www.futureofcopyright.com/nc/home/blog-post/2011/04/07/californian-senator-proposes-bill-for-obligatory-do-not-track-function-in-browsers.html

ACS Law UK Goes Before Disciplinary Tribunal for ISP File Sharing Threat Letters

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Litigation

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/04/06/acs-law-uk-goes-before-disciplinary-tribunal-for-isp-file-sharing-threat-letters.html

KickassTorrents Ditches .Com Domain Over Seizure Worries

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Blocking, Education / Awareness

http://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-ditches-com-domain-over-seizure-worries-110406/

In a ruling in the Czech Constitutional Court, the country’s data retention rules have been ruled illegal, saying that it’s a clear privacy violation

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Privacy / Data Protection, Public Policy

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110404/00003913757/czech-court-says-no-to-data-retention-rules.shtml

Harvard Business Review Explains How Big Content Is Strangling Innovation

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Copyright, Education / Awareness, Stats / reports

with their braindead, backwards-looking, protectionist approach to anything that changes the market they’ve been in for years

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110401/03091713726/harvard-business-review-explains-how-big-content-is-strangling-innovation.shtml

Apple has ordered a gargantuan 12 petabytes of storage from Isilon – the recent EMC acquisition – to support its iTunes video service, according to report citing an “inside source”

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Tech Evolution

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/apple_isilon_order/

British bank shuts website until April 2012

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/halifax_shuts_site_for_a_year/

Londoners can now tune into Ofcom’s own radio station, which is transmitting for a week or two to let people know they shouldn’t be

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, New Business Models, Public Policy

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/ofcom_radio/

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has rejected calls for UK regulators to investigate Google’s search business practices

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Google, Public Policy

Tory MP Dominic Raab asked Vaizey to comment on why the Office of Fair Trading or indeed the Competition Commission hadn’t undertaken their own probes into Google’s search product, which currently has a 95 per cent share of the European market.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/net_neutrality_foundem_google_uk_probe_rejected/

Viagogo Ltd has been ordered to supply the names, addresses and credit card information of people who used their website to advertise and sell England rugby match tickets

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Jurisprudence, Privacy / Data Protection

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/online_ticket_company_ordered_to_release_data_on_ticket_sellers/

A businessman has been ordered never to improperly reveal confidential information belonging to a company where he used to be a director

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness, Jurisprudence, Privacy / Data Protection

Not allowed to help rivals with the skinny on golfing trolley device

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/06/ex_director_given_permanent_ban_on_revealing_confidential_info/

University students from around the globe reported feelings of isolation, distress, confusion, and addictive feelings when asked to do without any form of media for a day

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/hand-over-the-gadgets-students-distressed-isolated-without-internet.ars

As Congress considers new legislation to block “rogue” websites, it’s also considering whether private companies would have the right to pursue such blocks on their own. Google couldn’t be more opposed to that idea

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Blocking, Education / Awareness, Google, Legislation, Public Policy

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/google-private-web-censorship-lawsuits-would-create-trolls.ars

Previously:

Autocomplete, the feature that fills in words for you while typing searches, will no longer complete words that are closely associated with pirating and copyright infringement
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/google-gets-tough-on-copyright-infringement/?news=123
http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-bittorrent-rapidshare-and-more-110126/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110127/01360912852/will-googles-new-hamfisted-censorship-autocomplete-raise-questions-human-meddling.shtml

Google has admitted that it uses whitelists to manually override its search algorithms
http://vrritti.com/2011/03/11/google-has-admitted-that-it-uses-whitelists-to-manually-override-its-search-algorithms-more-than-a-year-after-its-european-corporate-counsel-denied-the-existence-of-whitelists-when-defending-the-comp/

“We have confirmed that Google’s webspam team is willing to take action manually – for example, if we get a spam report, off-topic porn, things like that,” Google’s Matt Cutts said in a video posted to the web
http://vrritti.com/2011/02/20/we-have-confirmed-that-googles-webspam-team-is-willing-to-take-action-manually-for-example-if-we-get-a-spam-report-off-topic-porn-things-like-that-googles-matt-cutts-said-in-a-vi/

100 classic Atari games for iOS out now

Posted: 2011/04/07 in Education / Awareness

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/100-classic-atari-games-for-ios-out-now-icade-cabinet-coming-in-june.ars