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According to department of telecom (DoT) sources, an inter-ministerial group meeting has been called on August 20 and will be attended by senior officials from DRDO, the Cabinet secretariat, security agencies, National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT ) and DoT, to review the internet monitoring systems deployed nationwide by C-DOT . It seems there are new requests from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) for internet monitoring systems. Internet traffic in India is monitored at international internet gateways using C-DOT systems. Unlike mobile voice and data traffic, the government does not issue specific warrants for intercepting and monitoring messages on specific targets in case of internet services. The government has access to these through CDOT-deployed systems and can use them to access messages based on the needs of security agencies. Internet traffic monitoring also raises some serious issues of consumer privacy, because unlike mobile telephones , the operator has no role in carrying out specific interceptions.

By the end of last year, China's internet penetration rate - roughly, the percentage of the country that has access to the Internet - had surpassed the global average, according to the China Internet Network Information Center's latest report. They counted 298 million users, 88 million more than at the end of 2007, mostly because of the huge increase in Internet usage in rural parts of the country. As of last month, there were a total of 13,594,604 domain names registered under ".cn."

Forty percent of Americans, according to the Pew Research for the People and the Press, get most of their international and national news from the Internet. This is up from 24 percent in a similar poll taken in September of 2007. This is the first time that the Internet has been more popular than newspapers, which dropped to 35 percent in this most recent poll. Television news, however, is still the most popular source, and is cited as the place where 70 percent of Americans get their national and international news.

April 22, 2009: TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Legislative Yuan ratified yesterday the latest revision of the Copyright Law to empower Internet service providers (ISPs) to "strike out" Internet surfers who have violated others' copyrights and posted unauthorized content on any Web sites.

The Long Tail was a response to an essay by Clay Shirky, a prominent technology writer who also teaches at New York University. Shirky's argument dampened much of the nascent utopianism about blogs, pointing out that the readership of early blogs followed what economists call a Pareto curve, or "power curve": a small number of sites (the "head") attracted a huge number of readers, but most (the "tail") had few or none. This jarred with the utopian notion of the internet as a new kind of democracy. Why bother to participate if our fates were decided for us by a few block votes? So Anderson turned the notion upside down. The blockbuster was over, he proclaimed, and, like a man possessed, he began to see long tails everywhere. It was the Guardian that lauded this logic by comparing Anderson to Copernicus. The implicit message was that the little people would win. Many people were so keen to believe that Web 2.0 would make the world fairer that they rejected any evidence to the contrary. It was only last year, with an exhaustive study of online music sales by the economist Will Page and an experienced digital retailer, Andrew Bud, that a more useful picture of digital markets begin to emerge. Page and Bud found that most of the songs available for purchase had never been downloaded, and that the concentration of hits was more pronounced than ever before. On the file-sharing networks, the same pattern emerged. So, carrying a huge retail inventory, though cheaper than before, was of little or no value. Now, with Free, Anderson has turned to the criticism that the internet destroyed the value of movies, newspapers and music. Firms could, and now should, cross-subsidise this unprofitable activity, he argues. But cross-subsidies aren't new: they have been the subject of decades of observation by economists. Nor are they a panacea. Alan Patrick, co-founder of the Broadsight media and technology consultancy, points out that despite falling marginal costs, th

There are two common assumptions about the relationship between age and technical competency that rear their heads whenever the internet is discussed. The first assumption is that young people have a natural affinity for technology and both understand and use it in ways that older people cannot. The second is that anyone over the age of 60 is not only technically incompetent but also uninterested in the internet, using it only under protest. Both of these assumptions are flawed, yet have worked their way firmly into the public consciousness. Because they seem like 'common sense', these concepts are spread by policy makers, the media and technology companies alike. But if civil society associations take them at face value, they risk forming strategies and policies that are as flawed as the assumptions they are based on.

The global software piracy rate rose to 41% in 2008 from 38% in 2007, costing rights owners an exchange-rate adjusted $50 billion, according to a joint study between the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC released last week. One of the factors driving greater piracy is increased high-speed Internet access, particularly in emerging markets where piracy rates are the highest. Software piracy is rampant on many Internet channels, including peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, auctions sites and websites. On auction sites alone, software piracy is estimated to be between 50% and 90%, according to an earlier BSA report. Other key findings from the May 2009 joint study include: * Even though global software piracy increased overall in 2008, the piracy rate actually dropped in 52% of the 110 countries studied and stayed the same in 35% of them * The impact of the global economic recession on software piracy is so far mixed, as reduced buying power is just one of many factors affecting piracy * Sites offering access to pirated software also spread malware. According to a 2006 IDC study, 29% of websites and 61% of P2P sites offering pirated software attempt to distribute malware. * While the US has the lowest piracy rate in the world-20%-it suffered the largest revenue loss in 2008 due to piracy given its leadership position in the global software industry

All of the Guardian's internet-related coverage.

London: "New regulations that came into force last week - requiring telephone and internet companies to keep logs of what numbers are called, and which websites and email services and internet telephony contacts are made - have left some wondering if investigative journalism, with its need to protect sources (and its sources' need, often, for protection), has been dealt a killer blow."

The strategy contains more than thirty concrete recommendations for improvement, falling into six main categories. First, we will lead by example. Specifically, we will work to ensure that we do not mistakenly purchase or use illegal products. Second, the strategy underscores that this Administration supports transparency. That includes transparency in our development of enforcement policy, information sharing, and reporting of law enforcement activities at home and abroad. Third, we will improve coordination and thereby increase efficiency and effectiveness of law enforcement efforts at the Federal, state and local level, of personnel stationed overseas and of our international training efforts. Fourth, we will work with our trading partners and within international organizations to better enforce American intellectual property rights in the global economy. In that regard, we will initiate a comprehensive review of current efforts in support of U.S. businesses that have difficulty enforcing their intellectual property rights in overseas markets, with a particular focus on China. Fifth, we must secure our supply chain. To achieve this most important goal, we will take a close look at the unique problems posed by foreign-based websites and other entities that provide access to counterfeit or pirated products, and develop a coordinated and comprehensive plan to address them. We will make sure our law enforcement has the authority it needs to secure the supply chain and also encourage industry to work collaboratively to address unlawful activity on the internet, such as illegal downloading and illegal internet pharmacies. Sixth, and finally, we will make sure we spend your money wisely, a process we have already begun. To do that, we have, and will continue to collect and track the amount of money we spend on intellectual property enforcement per year. We will use this information to map out the most effective way to fight this theft.

* Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual both to hold and express opinions and to seek and receive information; it is the basis of democracy; and it is at the core of library service. * Freedom of access to information, regardless of medium and frontiers, is a central responsibility of the library and information profession. * The provision of unhindered access to the Internet by libraries and information services supports communities and individuals to attain freedom, prosperity and development. * Barriers to the flow of information should be removed, especially those that promote inequality, poverty, and despair.

Google has banned subscribers to its Korean blogging platform, Textcube (www.textcube.org), from uploading songs onto their blogs, citing the country's new anti-file sharing provisions aimed at thwarting online piracy. This is the first time that the U.S. giant has disabled its bloggers from posting music files on their personal Web pages. Last month, Google blocked users from posting videos and comments on the Korean site of YouTube (kr.youtube.com), its online video service. This was to avoid the new regulations that mandate Internet users to make verifiable real-name registrations on all Web sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors, which means they have to submit their resident registration codes, the Korean equivalent of social security numbers.

"I think we should permanently cut off the internet access of any company that sends out three erroneous copyright notices. Three strikes and you're out, mate."

We found it rather ironic that, just as French President Nicolas Sarkozy was so adamant about passing a three strikes law to kick file sharers off the internet, he was being accused of copyright infringement himself, specifically for using music from the US band MGMT at an event and in two online videos without securing a license. Now, you might hope that this would cause Sarkozy to rethink his stance on copyright infringement. Instead, it looks like his political party has simply agreed to pay up and make the issue go away, while still pushing for the three strikes law. It sounds like they paid about 30,000 euros, which is a lot more than the single euro that Sarkozy's party initially offered (yes, seriously). No word on whether or not this counts towards the number of strikes on Sarkozy's internet connection.

Accessing the Internet through sms.

China's largest Internet search engine, Baidu, was said to be "responsible for the vast majority of illegal downloading of music in China, deriving significant advertising revenue." But last month China issued an IPR protection plan involving 28 ministries and organizations that had 170 concrete measures to fight copyright infringement. Also, the Supreme People's Court raised compensation for victims from 500,000 yuan ($73,000) to more than 1 million yuan ($146,000). Last year, China closed 192 websites that profited from copyright infringement and uncovered 5719 cases of copyright infringement, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office Tian Lipu said.

The whole proposal is worth reading. But we think Prof. Felten hasn't gone far enough. As Cory Doctorow has suggested, this wonderful idea should also be applied to corporations -- if the Walt Disney Company is accused of copyright infringement 3 times, it should also be banned from the Internet, don't you think?

April 1, 2009: China's powerful State Administration of Radio, Film and TV has tightened its grip on the biz by ordering all online content providers to apply for a license before broadcasting material on the Internet.