Government & Policy
08 September 2010
US Inquiry Zeroes In on Google Deal Wall Street Journal
Plan to Buy Travel-Search Software Firm ITA Raises Two Competition Issues With U.S. Regulators
ACTA: Piracy setback for movie giants Sydney Morning Herald
The movie giants appear to have lost key political backing in their international efforts to police illegal downloading through ISPs, throwing the legal spotlight back on to the long running piracy case launched against iiNet in Australia.
07 September 2010
British Advertising Regulator Making Itself Felt Online New York Times
In the digital world, the most effective advertising is not always advertising in the traditional sense. Instead of buying ad space or time on a Web site, many marketers prefer to build their own sites or mobile applications or to promote their brands using social media, encouraging consumers to spread the word.
04 September 2010
Net Neutrality: The Struggle for What We Already Have New York Times
For something that seems so simple and straightforward, "net neutrality" has sure created one big mess.
03 September 2010
FCC asks for public comment on net neutrality proposals BBC News
American net users are being asked to help decide what ISPs can do to the web traffic flowing over their networks.
01 September 2010
ASA to regulate UK social media marketing The Guardian
Marketing messages that appear on company websites and social media services such as Facebook and Twitter are to be subject to the same regulations as adverts that appear on television, newspapers or other media.
30 August 2010
Waiting on a missed connection: government intervention required for Australian high speed broadband Sydney Morning Herald
Government intervention will be required to give Australian households super-fast fibre, writes Lucy Battersby.
29 August 2010
Opinion: Google's 'open Internet' proposal looks disappointingly conventional Los Angeles Times
The company's stance on net neutrality shows it's trying to monopolize a market just like a conventional, Microsoft-style Bigfoot would, with corporate guile and misdirection.
27 August 2010
Internet Exploiter: Jon Stewart Isn't Afraid of Google -- Watch Now! The Daily Show
Google may want to secretly decide what we can and can't see on the Internet, but they don't get to make laws, right? Jon Stewart covers the ongoing war over net neutrality in this report from a recent edition of The Daily Show.
25 August 2010
Online Gambling Banned in South Africa Business Day
According to the Gauteng Gambling Board which has fought a long-running battle with online casinos, it is now illegal to gamble using digital products inside South Africa.
22 August 2010
The Google/Verizon framework by Jonathan Zittrain Future of the Internet blog
I've been trying to figure out what the Google/Verizon announcement means. It's not easy to do, in large part because the announcement doesn't precisely announce anything. It's titled a "legislative framework proposal." That is, on its own terms it's not an agreement between two companies -- neither is bound to do anything by it, which I guess is how they could deny last week's New York Times report about a "deal on web pay tiers" -- but it does represent a meeting of the minds between them about what ought to happen in the world, in particular what American (and presumably others') law should become here.
20 August 2010
Talks Resume on Internet Traffic - AT&T, Microsoft Are Among Companies Taking Part in Latest Round Led by Industry Lobbyists Wall Street Journal
Internet and telecommunications lobbyists restarted talks to develop a proposal for how Internet traffic should be managed.
18 August 2010
Internet Challenges Overwhelm German Government Der Spiegel
Google has been talking about introducing its Street View service in Germany for years. But now that the launch has officially been announced, the German government appears to have been taken by surprise. It's just another example of how the authorities are struggling to meet the challenges of the Internet age.
17 August 2010
Australian opposition's 'technical ignorance on a national scale' on wireless and broadband Sydney Morning Herald
Experts have again ridiculed Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's sheer lack of knowledge surrounding broadband and labelled the Coalition's policy "technical ignorance on a national scale".
US bill seeks to make electronics accessible to blind, deaf Washington Post
Blind and deaf consumers, who have fought to make home phones and television more accessible, say they are being left behind on the Web and many mobile devices. Touch-based smartphone screens confound blind people who rely on buttons and raised type. Web video means little to the deaf without captioning.
Four Democrats urge U.S. to act on net neutrality traffic Reuters
Four Democrats on a U.S. congressional panel called on regulators on Monday to press ahead with their own Internet traffic rules instead of relying on a proposal from two communications companies.
16 August 2010
Apps and games to face censor, says Australian government The Australian
The Labor Party has flagged it will shut down a major loophole in the mobile phone industry.
A Better Way to Keep the Net Open and Accessible New York Times
Neutrality has been great for Switzerland -- and it could be for the Internet, too, say supporters of the idea that broadband providers should give equal priority to all digital traffic, from e-mail to bandwidth-hungry video.
Google Plan Disillusions Some Allies New York Times
On Friday at lunchtime, as Google employees dined al fresco, a hundred protesters descended on the company's Silicon Valley campus. A group called the Raging Grannies sang a song called "The Battle Hymn for the Internet," and others carried signs reading, "Google is evil if the price is right."
15 August 2010
Net neutrality: No, these are special puppies - Google has joined Verizon in lobbying to erode net neutrality The Economist
Two firms want to redefine the internet. Or so it seems, judging by the "legislative framework proposal" that Google and Verizon, an American telecoms operator, published on August 9th.
14 August 2010
Editorial: The Google/Verizon Payment Plan New York Times
For months, the Federal Communications Commission's efforts to guarantee nondiscriminatory access to broadband Internet have met opposition from the companies that provide broadband service and from their allies in Congress. On Monday, Verizon and Google created a stir by jointly proposing an alternative set of rules as the basis for new legislation governing the Internet.
13 August 2010
EU joins FTC in Apple business investigation CNET
Regulators from the European Union are getting involved in the Federal Trade Commission investigation of Apple's business strategies that was opened up in June, according to a New York Post report on Tuesday.
12 August 2010
Facebook Breaks With Google on Net Neutrality New York Times
When Google teamed up with Verizon on Monday to announce a set of proposed rules to govern Internet access, Google's former allies in the years-long campaign for net neutrality were among its most vocal critics.
Australia's national broadband network to offer 1GB per second ABC News
Labor says its National Broadband Network will deliver internet speeds 10 times faster than first thought, at 1 gigabit per second.
Banning porn sites ‘virtually impossible’ for Indonesian government Jakarta Post
The only thing the government must learn from its attempt to block all pornographic websites is that it is virtually impossible and could misfire, an Internet providers association says.
