Research

The concept of the "participative web" is based on an Internet increasingly influenced by intelligent web services that empower the user to contribute to developing, rating, collaborating on and distributing Internet content and customising Internet applications. As the Internet is more embedded in people's lives "users" draw on new Internet applications to express themselves through "user-created content" (UCC). This study describes the rapid growth of UCC, its increasing role in worldwide communication and draws out implications for policy. Questions addressed include: What is user-created content? What are its key drivers, its scope and different forms? What are new value chains and business models? What are the extent and form of social, cultural and economic opportunities and impacts? What are associated challenges? Is there a government role and what form could it take?

The Life online report, looking as it does toward a vision of the Web in the year 2020, aims to provide an outline and analysis not only of projected technological developments but also their social, political and economic implications. What will the Web look like in 2020? What will it do? Where will it be? How will we use it? SIRC's starting point has been the notion that the Web in 2020 will meet human needs more fully than it does at present, with many resulting social and political implications. It will have come to provide a renewed forum for social cohesion and democracy as well as continuing as a platform for information, entertainment, communication, shopping, etc. But will it, as some predict, provide a digital alternative to 'real life', with the distinction between Human and machine becoming ever-more blurred? Or will it, as we believe, be not so indistinguishable from the Web we know today.

This article argues that domain names for forum web sites are comparable to the titles of expressive works, and points out how existing principles defining and governing the regulation of non-commercial speech should apply when mark owners challenge incorporation of their marks into domain names for gripe sites and other forum sites that target the mark owner. Unfortunately, courts have generally ignored the Supreme Court's definition of noncommercial speech in this context, and the First Amendment implications of prohibiting the defendants' use. In particular, courts are equating commercial speech with the Lanham Act's recently expanded commercial use requirement. While the commercial use requirement has served in the past to ensure that Lanham Act protection is consistent with First Amendment principles, its recent expansion has seriously undermined its effectiveness to do so. The article also examines the interface of First Amendment protection with the Anticybersquatter Consumer Protection Act, focusing particularly on how the courts are construing and applying the forth and fifth factors that the Act lays out for determining whether a defendant has the requisite bad faith intent to profit from the plaintiff's mark. The article notes several concerns, including a tendency of courts to undermine the purpose of the fourth factor's safe harbor for noncommercial fair use by: 1) relying on recent expansion of the Lanham Act's commercial use requirement in infringement and dilution cases to find that the defendant's forum site use was commercial; 2) focusing on the defendant's intent to harm the plaintiff, rather than his intent to profit; and 3) defining profit to include non-financial interests, such as the defendant's personal satisfaction from airing his criticism of the plaintiff. The article also points out pitfalls in the courts' construction of the fifth factor, and suggests alternative constructions that are more consistent with First Amendment precedent.

Three of the leading figures trying to solve the technical aspect of IDNs -- Internet domain names containing non-ASCII characters, such as those used in Arabic or Chinese -- have been alternately hopeful and pessimistic recently. Vint Cerf, chairman of the ICANN board, says he's more optimistic about finally deploying a globally workable IDN solution than he's been in a year. Cary Karp, director of Internet strategy and technology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, paints a darker picture of disingenuous and cynical maneuvering by parties with axes to grind. And John Klensin, former chairman of the Internet Architecture Board, says his outlook on one of the global Internet community's most vexing and longest-running problems depends on the developments on any given day.

Abstract: The Internet is often portrayed as a novel, uniquely disembedded technology, floating free of territory and traditional place-based constraints. In this paper, we contribute to a growing body of literature which challenges such imagery. To do so, we use quantitative techniques to examine the determinants of spatio-temporal variations in the Internet and older communication technologies, namely, mail, the electric telegraph and telephones. Our results reveal striking similarities in the country-bound factors - income, education and trade openness - influencing rates of uptake. We conclude that, contrary to claims of novelty, the Internet is unfolding unevenly across geographic space according to conventional territorial and relational attributes.

Abstract: Why is there international trade in newspapers? Why do even very small countries both import from and export to large nations? New trade models founded on transport costs and increasing returns fail to explain the high degree of bilateral trade in cultural goods like newspapers and periodicals. I argue that immigration is complementary to newspaper trade, with small cosmopolitan countries having the largest trade as a percentage of GDP. These predictions are empirically confirmed, with a 10% increase in bilateral immigration inducing a 4.4% increase in newspaper trade between nations. While increased immigration has lead to greater trade, this effect is decreasing in internet usage. The trade-immigration elasticity is 8.5% smaller for high-internet usage countries, reflecting the fact that immigrants increasingly get their foreign news fix online. These results suggest that cultural goods need not be protected from trade as a country's economic presence on the global stage creates a market for its products.

The experts in computer security and Internet law have failed to deliver us from fear, resulting in overbroad prohibitions, harms to civil liberties, wasted law enforcement resources, and misallocated economic investment. This Article urges policymakers and partisans to stop using tropes of fear; calls for better empirical work on the probability of online harm; and proposes an anti-Precautionary Principle, a presumption against new laws designed to stop the Superuser.

Abstract: Much of the advocacy of legislatively-mandated network neutrality is based on a simple fallacy - namely, that differing charges to suppliers of content to the Internet for correspondingly differing speeds of delivery are inherently discriminatory. They are not; and an attempt to prohibit them would prevent the Internet's offering a full range of services, with widely diverging tolerances for latency. Preservation of the open end-to-end character of the Internet may well, however, require vigilant prohibition of vertical squeezes and other unfair methods of competition and authority of an antitrust agency to compel interconnections.

Abstract: Network neutrality is a policy proposal that would regulate how network providers manage and price the use of their networks. Congress has introduced several bills on network neutrality. Proposed legislation generally would mandate that Internet service providers exercise no control over the content that flows over their lines and would bar providers from charging particular services more than others for preferentially faster access to the Internet. These proposals must be considered carefully in light of the underlying economics. Our basic concern is that most proposals aimed at implementing net neutrality are likely to do more harm than good.

Abstract: This paper explores the future of Australian content quotas in light of digital television and emergent, internet-based television services. Part II describes the current system of broadcasting regulation in Australia, focusing in particular on the interaction between economic and cultural goals. Part III considers the challenges to existing regulation presented by digital television and the distribution of programming via broadband internet. Finally, Part IV examines some of the solutions that have been proposed to achieve adequate levels of local Australian content in the digital media age, including a consideration of a possible solution not yet fully explored in the Australian context: the introduction of a public service publisher, or a PSP. Also considered is how this and other policy responses might be limited by Australia's recent entry into a free-trade agreement with the United States.

Abstract: The term 'Cybercrime' is now widely used to describe the phenomenon of the wide variety of criminal, or unauthorised acts which may be committed remotely from the target area, or country, as a result of internet technologies. With regard to the foregoing, this article will present and examine a dominant European international measure for combating Cybercrime - the European Convention on Cybercrime ('ECC') - and some EU complementary measures. Having done that, issues concerning the implementation of these international measures will be examined from the perspective of one of the new member states of the European Union - the Republic of Latvia - so as to comment on the relative effectiveness of the adopted measures in that country to limit, deter and punish Cybercrime following the lead of the ECC and the EU measures.

By the usual indicators, daily newspapers are in a deepening downward spiral. ... A far more hopeful picture is emerging for newspapers. In this scenario the mainstream press, though late to the party, figures out how to make serious money from the Internet, uses the Web to enrich traditional journalistic forms, and retains its professionalism -- along with a readership that is part print, part Web. Newspapers stay alive as hybrids. The culture and civic mission of daily print journalism endure. Can that happen? Given the financial squeeze and the shortsightedness of many publishers and investors, will dailies be able to navigate such a transition without sacrificing standards of journalism? Or will cost-cutting owners so thoroughly gut the nation's newsrooms that they collapse the distinction between the rest of the Internet and everything that makes newspapers uniquely valuable? Which newspapers are most likely to survive? And, while we are at it, why does the survival of newspapers matter? In an era when the Web explodes the monopoly of the print newspaper as authoritative assembler of the day's news and invites readers to be both aggregators and originators of content, what remains distinctive about newspapers?

The fourth and latest release in a series of publications on the impact of media and changes in societal culture in Asia, this book provides a study of the subnational conflicts across Asia and the global "War on Terror." The authors examine the condition of free press, access to media, and diversity in news reporting to explore how media is used as a tool to facilitate ideological coalition, shelter populations, and maintain political stability.

Abstract: This study examines the degree to which Wikipedia entries cite or reference research and scholarship, and whether that research and scholarship is generally available to readers. Working on the assumption that where Wikipedia provides links to research and scholarship that readers can readily consult, it increases the authority, reliability, and educational quality of this popular encyclopedia, this study examines Wikipedia's use of open access research and scholarship, that is, peer-reviewed journal articles that have been made freely available online. This study demonstrates among a sample of 100 Wikipedia entries, which included 168 sources or references, only two percent of the entries provided links to open access research and scholarship. However, it proved possible to locate, using Google Scholar and other search engines, relevant examples of open access work for 60 percent of a sub-set of 20 Wikipedia entries. The results suggest that much more can be done to enrich and enhance this encyclopedia's representation of the current state of knowledge. To assist in this process, the study provides a guide to help Wikipedia contributors locate and utilize open access research and scholarship in creating and editing encyclopedia entries.

Abstract: This paper assesses the development of emerging computing applications that fall under the family of digital applications and technologies. These applications and technologies -- Internet 2 based technologies for short -- enable new ways of connectivity for networking, interfacing and producing content. They have the capacity and the force to disrupt existing social and economic relations and thus have major impacts on society. Hence, the term 'e-ruptions': emerging e-trends with potential disruptive power. This paper investigates the socio-economic impact of emerging e-ruptions, in an attempt to try and contextualise their implications and relevance for policy formulation.

Information technology and broadband are major drivers of economic change, restructuring businesses, affecting skills and employment, and contributing to growth and consumer benefits. This volume describes recent market dynamics and trends in industries supplying IT goods and services and offers an overview of the globalisation of the information and communication technology sector and the rise of ICT-enabled international sourcing. The OECD Information Technology Outlook 2006 analyses the development and impact of the changing global distribution of services activities and the rise of China and India as significant suppliers of ICT-related goods and services. ICT skills across the economy are also examined to provide insights into the dynamics of job creation and international sourcing. The 2006 edition also looks at the increasing importance of digital content in selected industries and how it is transforming value chains and business models. The potential of technological developments is examined: ubiquitous networks, location-based services, natural disaster warning systems, the participative web and the convergence of information technology with nanotechnology and biotechnology. Finally, this volume analyses changes in IT policies in OECD countries and the emergence of new priorities to meet new challenges.

This document quantifies ccTLD registrations and demand; trends in administering ccTLDs; current and ongoing policy and technical issues such as internationalised domain names, Whois, or security, and ccTLD managers' institutional relationships.

ABSTRACT: Increasingly, governments are regulating the "Net" - that is, the Internet and people's activities over it. Because the Net is global in nature, governments are turning to intergovernmental organizations to iron out common approaches. Taken together, these international Net initiatives foray into all areas of government traditionally dealt with by domestic regimes - addressing foreign commercial relations, jurisdiction, infrastructure, security, monetary authority, property, relations between private parties, and citizenship. In agreeing to participate in these federated, power-sharing arrangements, governments are gradually constructing an entire framework for governing the networked world. Given the importance of these rules for the future, those who hold freedom dear must work to build democratic values into this emerging international system.

This story tells of a bright future in which emerging technologies are applied to the benefit of all humanity. History suggests, however, that technology can also be used to limit rather than to promote human rights and dignity. Thus, it is important to consider how these technologies may promote or thwart the realization of infoethics goals. Conclusion: The most important part of coming to terms with this "far more connected, global computing and information-sharing" paradigm that the Information Society is entering is that (1) everyone must understand it, and that (2) each piece ultimately shares responsibility (a) for the success of the system as a whole, and (b) for the fact that a person's actions have ramifying and amplifying effects on people far away that he might not even see. It is a challenge to educate all people to be able to live in a world like that. There are huge benefits and shared risk. To a greater extent than before because of technology, organizational heads do not represent the best knowledge to address problems. There is a systematic bias to ask only the heads to be in the room for decision-making. However, children aged 0-20 are much more aware of cultural and technological issues than older people are. They are more knowledgeable about evolving cultures than older people who assume the children will resemble them. (They will not.) Therefore it is important to incorporate children in decision-making processes more. If society cannot let them vote, it should at least listen to what they are saying and honestly try to understand the people who are adjusting to new technologies at a rapid pace. Places where de novo adoption is occurring are the places to learn. Those people are appropriating new technologies without prior constraints - and they may show the rest of the Information Society what is possible or what is useful. The $100 Laptop is a nice example: It will teach about cultural adaptation to technology. The Information Society must recognize that the scale of things is larger and the reach of things is longer systematically. People need to learn to focus not just on local phenomenon but on global phenomenon.

Latinos comprise 14% of the U.S. adult population and about half of this growing group (56%) goes online. By comparison, 71% of non-Hispanic whites and 60% of non-Hispanic blacks use the internet.

Abstract: This paper analyses a problem in computer network security, wherein packet filters are deployed to defend a network against spoofed denial of service attacks. Information on the Internet is transmitted by the exchange of IP packets, which must declare their origin and destination addresses. A route-based packet filter verifies whether the purported origin of a packet is correct with respect to the current route map. We examine the optimization problem of finding a minimum cardinality set of nodes to filter in the network such that no spoofed packet can reach its destination. We prove that this problem is NP-hard, and derive properties that explicitly relate the filter placement problem to the vertex cover problem. The paper identifies topologies and routing policies for which a polynomial-time solution to the minimum filter placement problem exists, and prove that under certain routing conditions a greedy heuristic for the filter placement problem yields an optimal solution.

Mobile commerce is a promising market both for consumers and businesses. However, consumer troubles and complaints are increasing and can sometimes become serious, including issues for minors. Member countries' experiences show that we should ensure that consumers benefit. In particular, countries may review their instruments with regard to a more effective scheme for information disclosure, liability protection over SIM and RFID cards, effective notice to excessive consumption, and the importance of consumer education. Businesses may also consider more effective consumer protection schemes.

At a recent legal presentation attended by prominent intellectual property lawyers and law professors, a loaded question was posed to the audience: "By a show of hands -- and be honest, now -- how many of you read the terms and conditions presented in an end-user license agreement?" Of the nearly 100 people in the auditorium, not a single hand was raised. Shocking? Only if such an admission is unexpected. It really isn't.

Abstract: Net neutrality policies could only be implemented through detailed price regulation, an approach that has often failed, in the past, to improve consumer welfare relative to what might have been expected under an unregulated monopoly. Regulatory agencies often settle into a well-established pattern of subservience to politically influential economic interests. Consumers, would-be entrants and innovators are not likely to be among these influential groups. History thus counsels against adoption of most versions of net neutrality, at least in the absence of refractory monopoly power and strong evidence of anticompetitive behavior - extreme cases justifying dangerous, long shot remedies.

This thesis studies the design of member-maintained online communities, systems where many members help perform upkeep. A key design challenge is motivating members to contribute toward maintenance. Social science theories help to explain why people contribute to groups. We use these theories to design two general mechanisms for increasing people's motivation to contribute.