France suspends three-strikes copyright law after massive data-leak

TMG, a private contractor that administers France’s HADOPI copyright system, has been hacked, resulting in a temporary suspension of HADOPI. Under HADOPI, people who use an Internet connection where one or more users have been accused of multiple acts of copyright infringement lose their Internet access for a year. TMG was in charge of storing the entertainment industry’s enemies list of networks that had been used by accused infringers, and their security was basically nonexistent. The hack resulted in a dump of administrative material and IP addresses, and the head of the HADOPI agency announced that they would not gather IP addresses while they got their house in order. The UK has a plan to gather the IP addresses of networks used by accused infringers as well — will they pick a better contractor to administer it than France did?

How Microsoft Will Change Skype

by Christina Warren

Internet Freedom Discussed at the Council of Europe

When governments and companies assemble on an international level to discuss “Internet freedom,” EFF’s policy experts go on alert. All too frequently, government-level discussions about Internet freedom turn into opportunities to discuss tangential issues, many of which have negative implications on online freedom: laws and policies promoting censorship and surveillance on the Internet. With that in mind, EFF attended the Council of Europe (CoE) meeting on Internet Freedom: From Principles to Global Treaty Law? to ensure that European countries? fundamental values–human rights, democracy and the rule of law–are upheld. EFF went in prepared to fight any attempt to promote pervasive spying proposals or government attempts to control the Internet. The Council of Europe largely succeeded in fostering a positive, rights-centered tone at the meeting. However, EFF remains concerned about the demonstrated support for a dangerous “cybercrime” initiative that invites online surveillance abuses.

Facebook vs Google?

Facebook has been caught secretly paying a top public relations firm to plant negative stories about Google in the US media, the Guardian reported.

It first appeared that someone hired Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm, to get some US news outlets to publish anti-Google stories to highlight its privacy flaws, specifically regarding one of its tools, Social Circle.

How did Osama bin Laden email without the US discovering?

by Xeni Jardin

Facebook outed as source of anti-Google PR smear campaign

by Xeni Jardin

Steven Levy on Facebook’s ironic privacy charge against Google

Steven Levy (whose new book, In the Plex, looks like a very good account of Google), has on the spot analysis for Wired about the revelation that Facebook had hired a PR firm to run a sleazy whisper campaign about Google and privacy, a pot/kettle/black moment if ever there was one:

America’s net censorship bill is back and worse than ever

COICA, the proposed US Internet censorship bill, has been reintroduced under a new name. Now called “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property” (PROTECT-IP), the proposed legislation takes an even more extremist approach to assisting a small group of copyright companies improve their bottom line by enlisting other industries to fight on their behalf, regardless of the cost to the public and the public interest.

Human rights and social media ? you?ve never been so important

Gaining Authority in the Age of Digital Overload

by Erica Swallow

It?s an important day for us as we publish our latest annual report ? The State of the World?s Human Rights Today.

And it?s not just important for us here. It?s a big day for any of us who, possibly for the first time, felt we could truly get involved as events such as the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa or the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. As social media went fully mainstream, images and videos that would hardly have been visible to an international audience before were suddenly available to anyone searching minutes after they were uploaded.

Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy, Tiziana Terranova | Sendika.org