material

Fri
06
Aug
John Lister's picture

Nations Ranked For Online Censorship

At least 175 countries have some form of online censorship according to a newly-published study. The degree varies wildly, however, and is somewhat dependent on definitions. The report comes from Comparitech, which ranked the 175 countries for ... "censorship" in six categories of Internet use: file sharing torrents, pornography, political media, social media, virtual private networks and apps for messaging or voice over Internet protocol (such as Skype). For each category it gave the country one point if it had some form of legal restriction and two points for an outright ban. That ... (view more)

Wed
16
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Explicit eBooks Prompt Scandal in UK

An ebook firm has suspended sales of all self-published books in the United Kingdom, regardless of their content. It follows a media scandal over titles involving explicit material. The scandal began when a national newspaper ran a front-page story ... accusing a major retail chain, WH Smith, of carrying particularly illicit material. The headline of the story turned out to be something of an exaggeration. The material wasn't being sold in stores, but was available online. It also turned out to involve the content of books rather than images or movies. eBooks Unappetizing But Not Illegal The ... (view more)

Fri
13
Sep
Dennis Faas's picture

Pirates Spend More Cash On Legal Downloads: Survey

A new survey has found that people who regularly download pirated material spend more money on legitimate downloads than individuals who don't download pirated material. The same survey also revealed that about one in every four downloads breaches ... copyright in some way. The survey was carried out by a media company working for Ofcom, the United Kingdom's equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The researchers spoke to a total of 21,745 Britons over the course of a year. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) The figures are all based on survey responses rather than actual activity data, so ... (view more)

Fri
24
Aug
Dennis Faas's picture

Facebook Censors Internet to Prevent Violence

Freedom of speech online is once again the topic of heated debate, this time in India. That country's government has now urged major sites like Facebook to remove threatening material that may have provoked a mass exodus from some regions. The issue ... stems from religious disputes in Assam, a region in the northeast of India where long-time residents have clashed with immigrants from nearby Bangladesh, leading to dozens of deaths. In the past week, angry residents of Assam have used the Internet to threaten the immigrants with violence. The threats have reportedly caused "tens of thousands" of ... (view more)

Tue
27
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

Google in Privacy Trouble with UK, French Officials

Google is currently getting grilled by French officials over the way it handles customer privacy. At the same time, the search giant is also facing stern criticism from British politicians regarding the way it deals with complaints involving illegal ... websites. The French authority that governs data handling in the country, the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertes, (CNIL) has even slapped the company with a deadline of April 6, by which it must answer to the Commission. The CNIL is currently leading a Europe-wide probe into Google's recent changes to its privacy policies. ... (view more)

Mon
13
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

Google Bows To Indian Court Over Religious Content

Both Facebook and Google have removed online material alleged to pose a risk of social unrest in India, following legal threats to block the sites completely. The two companies are among 21 firms hit with a civil lawsuit regarding offensive content. ... The lawsuit, brought by a private citizen, claims the material involves religious issues that could provoke unrest. Google's problems appear tied to its sites Blogger and YouTube. Google says it has taken down the material pursuant to a court request, its standard policy regarding legal issues, regardless of country. The material has been removed ... (view more)

Fri
18
Dec
Dennis Faas's picture

Australian Gov't Approves Internet Censorship Plan

Australia's federal government has announced that it is proceeding with controversial plans to censor the Internet after government-commissioned trials found that using a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down web use. ... Critics, including Google , Electronic Frontiers Australia and Greens communications argue that the censorship policy is fundamentally flawed and the trial results are not surprising. Stephen Conroy, Australia's Communications Minister, will introduce legislation just before next year's elections designed to force ISPs to block a blacklist of refused ... (view more)

Wed
28
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

'Project Caterpillar' Set to Rival YouTube

After countless threats of legal action and allegations of a carefree approach to copyrighted material, two of the most powerful media companies are embarking on a joint venture that will showcase their own material on some of the Internet's biggest ... websites. The move puts the two media giants in direct competition with YouTube and the other online video-sharing sites that hold no copyright for the material they provide. The News Corporation and NBC Universal will distribute their latest content, like television episodes and movies, on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. It is estimated that 96 ... (view more)

Thu
15
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

Microsoft Criticizes Google's Stand on Copyright Issues

Recently, Microsoft publicly attacked rival company Google Inc., criticizing them in regards to their carefree approach when dealing with copyright issues. Microsoft's harsh comments came shortly after Google signaled their intent to move into new ... media markets in an effort to further expand their corporate influence. Microsoft argued that Google's latest venture would come at the expense of those who hold copyrights on many books, videos and software. In a statement addressed to several media correspondents, Microsoft representative Thomas Rubin went so far as to imply that Google is acting ... (view more)

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