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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade organization which represents the interests of U.S. recording industry distributors, says that Google isn't doing enough to prevent copyright infringement and piracy. In a recent report, ... the RIAA claims that Google has done very little to prevent people from pirating music -- despite the fact that the search giant promised to focus significant attention on discouraging piracy roughly six months ago. RIAA: Promises Remain Unfulfilled And while RIAA lawyer Steven M. Marks says that the RIAA does "recognize and appreciate that Google ... (view more)

A recent Facebook outage not only prevented logged-in users from accessing the social networking site, but other sites as well, including Gawker, CNN, Mashable, and The Washington Post. The glitch occurred Thursday, February 7, 2013. It lasted just ... a few minutes and only affected those people who were logged into Facebook at the time. However, the issue didn't just affect access to Facebook -- instead, users reported being unable to view many other sites. Facebook Users Unable to Access External Sites According to reports, when users tried to visit sites like ESPN, Gawker, and CNN, they were ... (view more)

Insiders say it now looks as though Google will not be punished for allegedly favoring its own web sites when compiling its search engine results pages. Rival firms are already complaining such an outcome would allow Google to retain an unfairly-won ... advantage over them. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been looking into a series of allegations that Google abused its dominance of the Internet search market by unfairly favoring its own websites when compiling its search results. However, observers say the punishment the FTC could inflict on Google is unclear, even if the regulatory agency ... (view more)

At the request of many users, I've put a link to this page on our tab menu (near: Home, Archive, Contact, etc), which is accessible on every page of our site. Refer back here any time you need to. This article was originally published November 22, ... 2012, and has been amended. Article Summary: This article describes our current financial situation, as well as instructions on how to support Infopackets using Amazon. Your support is greatly needed and appreciated and allows us to continue publishing. Update 2012/11/23: I've added links to Amazon.com (USA), Amazon.co.uk (UK), as well as Amazon.ca ... (view more)

Web hosting company GoDaddy suffered an outage this week that knocked thousands of small business websites offline. It appears hackers may have been responsible, but at the moment it's unclear exactly who was behind the attack. GoDaddy is best known ... for helping users register domain names, also called URLs or website addresses. However, GoDaddy also hosts millions of large and small websites, physically storing the data for the site's pages on GoDaddy's computers. GoDaddy Sites Down For Hours GoDaddy's customer websites and email services began suffering "intermittent outages" on ... (view more)

Update 2012/11/13: Save $150 with this special, limited-time version of Windows 7 that is licensed for / can be installed on up to 3 separate PCs. Low stock warning! As expected, stock for the discounted Windows 7 Family Pack is quickly diminishing ... as we inch closer to the Holiday season, and as more unfavorable reviews of Windows 8 are being published online. More about that, plus why this special Windows 7 discount is an excellent bargain is below. First, here's what you need to know. After much research, we firmly believe Amazon is currently offering the best deal for the Windows 7 Family ... (view more)

Google has announced it will punish websites accused of piracy by moving them lower in its search results rankings. However, there are some questions flying around the Internet about whether Google's own YouTube video site will get special ... treatment. The changes include a minor tweak to the way Google decides how high or low specific sites should appear in a search results list. The search giant says its automated system considers more than 200 factors, but doesn't say how much emphasis it gives to each one. The new ranking method takes effect this week. Afterwards, search results will ... (view more)

A government agency wants to overhaul the rules limiting how websites collect personal data about children. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says the changes would make the rules much clearer and more effective. The current regulations stem ... from the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), which took effect in 2000 and currently applies to sites aimed at children under 13 years of age. As the rules stand, websites must clearly explain to both children and parents what data they will collect about children and how they plan to use it. Such sites must also get parental ... (view more)

Attempts by British courts to stop illegal file-sharing by blocking access to The Pirate Bay site appear to have failed. A major Internet Service Provider (ISP) has revealed that the amount of Pirate Bay file-sharing returned to typical levels just ... a week after the block took effect. Issued just over two months ago, Britain's court order to block access to The Pirate Bay was highly controversial. It was only the second time a UK court had ordered such a block on copyright grounds, and came despite the fact that The Pirate Bay does not host any actual files. The key to the case was that while ... (view more)

According to Google, Microsoft asked the search service to remove more than 500,000 links from its results pages because they directed people to sites containing pirated software. The revelations come via Google's "Transparency Index", which lists ... requests from governments and corporations to censor information in its databanks. (Source: blogspot.co.uk ) The figures cover only complaints specifically relating to the Google search index, not to other Google-owned sites, such as YouTube. They also cover only requests made online, rather than through fax or postal mail. During the past month, ... (view more)