Italy vs. Google

Wired.com: Does Italy?s Google Conviction Portend More Censorship?

from CyberLaw Blog

Google Hit With Antitrust Investigation in Europe

from Mashable! by Adam Ostrow

Google executives convicted in Italy web case

Serious threat to the web in Italy

In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that’s where our involvement would normally end.

Italy?s harmful conviction of Google ? Los Angeles Times

Italy?s harmful conviction of Google ? Los Angeles Times: ?Editorial

February 24, 2010

In September 2006, four students at a school in Turin, Italy, beat and humiliated an autistic classmate. A fifth student captured the incident on her cellphone camera, then posted the digital footage to Google Video. It spent two months as one of the site?s most popular clips before Google took it down at the request of Italian police.

Google faces new EU antitrust probe

Three price comparison websites, Foundem, ejustice.fr and Ciao! have accused Google’s search engine of burying their ads at the bottom of websites because their products were in direct competition with Google.

Lobby Group Says Open-Source Threatens Capitalism

from Mashable! by Barb Dybwad
Social Networks are Both Personal and Mass Media
TMC Net
A new study by Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University, suggests social networking sites cannot increase the

Highlighting E-Readers

Colleges release analyses of major experiments with Kindles — and find students use less paper with the devices, but want better note-taking ability. more

A well-made guide to bypass YouTube ban in Turkey:

5 More days to 666 for YouTube in Turkey

It has been 660 days. Turkish block of YouTube, which was instituted at the direction of a court after it found that a Greek video hosted on the site violated a law against ridiculing the country and its leaders. It is illegal to criticise either Ataturk or Turkishness in Turkey and the prosecutor?s office in Istanbul acted despite YouTube?s agreement to take down the offending videos.

Muslim Brotherhood’s mysterious Wikis

In case you needed another proof that one doesn’t have to be a pro-Western, pro-secular, and pro-democracy liberal to take advantage of opportunities offered by new media, here it comes. A recent article in Al-Masry Al-Youm discusses efforts by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to document their own history on the Web. And what are the tools they’ve chosen to do it? Wikis!

ACTA “internet enforcement” chapter leaks

Someone has uploaded a PDF to a Google Group that is claimed to be the proposal for Internet copyright enforcement that the USA has put forward for ACTA, the secret copyright treaty whose seventh round of negotiations just concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico. This reads like it probably is genuine treaty language, and if it is the real US proposal, it is the first time that this material has ever been visible to the public. According to my source, the US proposal is the current version of the treaty as of the conclusion of the Mexico round.

EU: Implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles

EU ? Implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles: (Europa)
On 9 February 2010, Safer Internet Day, the European Commission has presented the findings of an independent assessment of the implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU. Download the overall report and see how each signatory has implemented the Principles.

Internet Freedom: Beyond Circumvention

Secretary Clinton?s recent speech on Internet Freedom has signaled a strong interest from the US State Department in promoting the use of the internet to promote political reforms in closed societies. It makes sense that the State Department would look to support existing projects to circumvent internet censorship. The New York Times reports that a group of senators is urging the Secretary to apply existing funding to support the development and expansion of censorship circumvention programs, including Tor, Psiphon and Freegate.

Is Google News helping or hindering newspapers?

The man behind Google News page – criticized by news publishers for offering their content for free – thinks Google is simply helping them monetize their news content.

How much does an article cost?

How much would you pay for an opinion article by Paul Krugman? How much would you shell out for an article on a new RNA discovery?

Media Development Needs Unified Research for Digital Age

Not so long ago, some Western governments and private donors decided that investing in the media was a good way to support the development of democracy in other countries. Over the years, media development has become a vast enterprise, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment every year.

The paradigm was straightforward enough: provide training, equipment, and management support to foreign publishers and broadcasters to improve their journalism and, in the process, spur political and economic progress.

What does Foursquare mean for newspapers?

“What’s happening?” asks Twitter. “What’s on your mind?” asks Facebook. A question that’s fast becoming more important to smartphone users, though, is simple: “Where are you?” And that’s exactly what a new social network, Foursquare, aims to answer.

CLU and EFF on school where spy-laptops were mandatory

Non-profits and eyewitnesses: the changing face of journalism awards

T. Christian Miller of the independent, non-profit news organization, ProPublica just recently won the prestigious 2010 Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. Editor & Publisher reports that it was a collaboration between The Los Angeles Times and the non-profit news outfit that produced Miller’s winning report into abuses of insurance coverage for private contractors in war zones.

Google Buzz Not a Twitter or Facebook Killer, Says Google Exec

from Mashable! by Pete Cashmore

How Smartphones, E-Readers And Tablets Are Changing The Game

from CyberJournalist.net by Jon