EFF provides the 2nd volume of E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy v2

EFF’s E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy v2

MENA: Voicing Support for Arrested Bahraini Blogger Ali Abdulemam

By Jillian C. York

Ali Abdulemam at the Arab Bloggers’ Workshop in Beirut, 2009

Outrage over the arrest of a Bahraini human rights activist has sparked an outpouring of support from bloggers and human rights advocates around the world.

On September 5, Global Voices Advocacy reported the arrest of Bahraini blogger and Global Voices contributor Ali Abdulemam for allegedly ?publishing false news? on BahrainOnline.org, the platform he co-founded in 1999 (the site is currently down and it is suspected that authorities have gained control of the password).

Google Instant Search Goes Live

from Mashable! by Ben Parr

danah boyd: Craigslist’s “Adult Services” takedown actually hurts victims of abuse, sex trafficking

In a Huffington Post op-ed, danah boyd argues that pressure to censor Craigslist, which recently resulted in the company’s removal of its “adult services” section for users in the United States, actually “helps pimps, child traffickers and other abusive scumbags.”

Warez raids in Europe hit close to Wikileaks

Police in Europe shut down 49 servers and detained 10 people in 13 countries in a coordinated raid against an online movie-pirating network, according to a statement today from the Belgian prosecutor’s office.

Beyond “Censored”: What Craigslist’s “Adult Services” Decision Means for Free Speech

On Saturday, after years of pressure from law enforcement officials, Internet classified ad web site Craigslist bowed to demands to remove its “Adult Services” section which critics charged encouraged prostitution and other sex-related crimes. Or it least it appears that it did. Without explanation, following the latest in a series of open letters from state attorneys general decrying the third party content permitted on the site, Craigslist replaced the “Adult Services” link that formerly appeared on the front page of the site with a white-on-back “censored” bar. Whether this move will substantially affect the rate of illegal prostitution across the country remains to be seen. Many, even some of Craigslist’s critics, appear to have their doubts. If nothing else, however, this latest turn in the AGs v. Craigslist saga underscores the misguided nature of the AGs’ tactics as well as the fundamental disagreement that we (and Congress) have with the AGs’ vision of how the Internet should operate.

Will Robots Be ‘Generative’?

I don?t know that generativity is a theory, strictly speaking. It?s more of a quality. (Specifically, five qualities.) The attendant theory, as I read it, is that technology exhibits these particular, highly desirable qualities as a function of specific incentives. These incentives are themselves susceptible to various forces?including, it turns out, consumer demand and citizen fear.

The law is in a position to influence this dynamic. Thus, for instance, Comcast might have a business incentive to slow down peer-to-peer traffic and only refrain due to FCC policy. Or, as Barbara van Schewick demonstrates inter alia in Internet Architecture and Innovation, a potential investor may lack the incentive to fund a start up if there is a risk that the product will be blocked.

Digital Media and the Changing Nature of Authorship

from DML Central by jbrazil

The New Economics of Social Media Tactics

As social media becomes a bigger part of how companies do business and return on investment (ROI) becomes more important, an area that will be more scrutinized is the cost of social media tactics.

European Parliament Asks EU ACTA Negotiators to Protect Citizens’ Fundamental Rights

In a victory for democracy and transparency, the European Parliament adopted Written Declaration 12/2010 (WD 12) on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement earlier this week. WD 12 calls on EU negotiators to ensure that ACTA does not weaken citizens’ fundamental rights of freedom of expression, privacy, and judicial due process, and will not require Internet intermediaries to act as copyright police at the behest of the entertainment industry. WD 12 also calls on EU negotiators to make the ACTA negotiation texts public, and to ensure that ACTA’s proposed border measures do not interfere with access to affordable medicines.

Google Instant: What It Means To Website Owners

Yesterday Google unveiled what is considered by many the biggest game changer the search industry has seen in years. It?s called Google Instant, and it basically shows search results in real time, as you type letter by letter. Here is a quote from the official Google Instant page:

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

Google Instant, behind the scenes

Yesterday we introduced Google Instant, a change to make search fast and interactive by showing you results instantly as you type. With Instant we?ve turned search from a static HTML page into an AJAX application, just as we did with Google Maps and Gmail. You can learn more about Google Instant in yesterday?s blog post, but we also wanted to share a peek behind the scenes into some of the engineering challenges we faced in design and infrastructure.