Group items tagged

ONE, the NGO led by, among others, Bono, has been an influential voice in international lobbying for some years now. As the British election comes close, the organization has launched a campaign to incite voting and, once the new government is elected, pressure the winner to support issues concerning Africa and other development issues. It all sounds good, but.... how and why can an international NGO influence internal politics in a country, when does it cease to be intervensionism? 

Hosted by the Sydney Law School, is a seminar to discuss the very modern challenges of private international law jurisdiction in cyberspace. Very apt for this week's topic of Borders. When: 6pm-7.30pm, Tuesday 4 May 2010 (registration and refreshments from 5.30pm) Where: Sydney Law School, New Law School Building, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown Campus Registration: $77 incl GST (full-time student concession $44 incl GST)

Law School talk on legal challenges of the interwebs tomorrow: The Sydney Law School will tomorrow host a seminar to discuss the very modern challenges of private international law jurisdiction in cyberspace. "Trade and commerce have become increasingly international - we no longer live in a world where merchants typically do business with others located in the same country. Businesses are just as likely to look to potential partners overseas, and will frequently conclude their transaction over the internet… without ever meeting or speaking to each other," says Associate Professor Chester Brown.

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology (IJIPT)

There is a widening gap in the digital divide, especially in minority communities in the developed world.

The digital divide is being decreased - but there are still widespread inequalities. Within one continent there are countries with radically different percentages of citizens online. There are great benefits from once isolated communities in terms of sharing their heritage online, as well as accessing healthcare.

A BBC article that provides us with international data and figures about the digital divide.

GRI is the organisation that has pioneered the development of a sustainability reporting framework. Its aim is to make the disclosure on economic, environmental and social performance as commonplace and comparable as financial reporting. This seems to be a start towards making an industry standard in digital financial reporting, perhaps towards being compulsory one day. Currently, it's comply or explain, but businesses would be wise to get used to a digital system before it is standardised, and hopefully regulated.

International network, local lawsuit and regulation. The Australian Government is asked to justify the business deal with Google for it's privacy issue. Since google revealed to mistakenly capture private information from it's street scanning.

An group of academics formed in 2004 geared towards the establishment of international governance for the internet. Contains many critical articles on the current state of the internet and attempts/strategies to govern the internet.

As per DeNardis, the first question is who is the board, then what are their interests, how are they funded, who do they represent, by what process are decisions made and implemented, are objections public etc. If, as the press release suggests, this is the first of many more simple and stringent security and safety features, then what are they and who decides? "The Facebook Safety Advisory Board comprises five leading Internet safety organizations from North America and Europe that serve in a consultative capacity to the company on issues related to online safety. The organizations on the board are Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). "

This is a blog that deals with everything to do with games. This post talks about Australian classification laws applying to international games companies when they choose to allow Refused Classification games into Australia. The question of borders comes to mind when reading this somewhat long and unedited post, but it certainly gets us thinking about the scope of Australia's antiquated classification laws...

The government has decided to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (the only binding international treaty on cybercrime). It will require Australia to implement legislation dealing with offences against the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data; computer-related offences, including forgery and fraud; content-related offences, including child pornography; offences related to the infringement of copyright and other related rights. The decision could have some baring on Australia's position vis-a-vis the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?

Government and industry leaders in the US call for international cooperation on internet security. The three-day conference discussed issues ranging from cyberterrorism to organised cybercrime. Measures suggested included "cyber defense exercises" and enlisting the support of the private sector.

The conversation first looked at internet censorship from an international perspective covering issues of internet governance from and internet freedom. Unfortunately one or two members of the panel were prone to regurgitating policy rather than engaging in an actual debate. Towards the end inevitably the discussion was drawn to the proposed filtering laws within Australia. The general consensus from the panel members was that education had to be an essential part of policy when addressing online safety. Interestingly the government representative, the Minister for Home Affairs, was a keen supporter of this policy stance.

n remarks at a news conference Thursday, Clinton said the United States will hold talks with the United Arab Emirates over its decision to suspend some BlackBerry services due to security concerns. "We are taking time to consult and analyze the full the range of interests and issues at stake because we know that there is a legitimate security concern," she said. "But there is also a legitimate right of free use and access. So I think we will be pursuing both technical and expert discussions as we go forward."

Ilse Aigner, Germany's minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection, who usually concentrates on issues over rotten meat, genetically engineered corn and imitation cheese, recently took on a different kind of issue: the Internet and data privacy. Suddenly Aigner finds herself facing online giants Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google. Soon Google plans to send cars equipped with cameras out onto Germany's roads once again for the company's Street View project. Aigner is now insisting that Google should ask permission before violating the privacy of German citizens. The minister's attack and the following discussions reveal just how divided the German government is when it comes to the online world. The debate revolves around questions of national security and individual self-determination on the Internet. But it also concerns the power of the large giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and MySpace, as well as the question of what these companies are doing with the records of our everyday data, and how they will be able to obtain information from us, influence us or perhaps even control us in the future. It seem like, once again, a German politician is exploiting the popular issue of internet privacy and censorship in a superficial way in the hope of scoring political points.

Nobel prizewinner Shirin Ebadi accused German engineering giant Siemens and Finnish telecoms firm Nokia of supplying Iran with technology to help it suppress democratic dissent. The European Parliament also supports that arguement and strongly criticised international companies, in particular Nokia Siemens for giving Iranian authorities the tools needed for censorship and surveillance. Both companies argue that they could not be blamed for the misuse but that their technologies "play a significant role in the development of societies and the advancement of democracy"

This is the Iranian government's answer to US anti-internet censorship groups who aim to undermine the regime's strict filtering rules through funding from the CIA. It brings up questions of international involvement in extreme national governance of the internet.

This is a blog posting discussing the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) which recently added Indonesia, Brazil and India to its 'Special 301 Watchlist' which marks nations as a threat to intellectual property for encouraging their government departments and companies to use open source software

Anyone interested?

Creepy: airport checks might now include checking the files in your laptop. 

Australian government is planning to accedeto the concil of Europe's Convention on Cybercrim, to further govern online content. several opinons appeared, one is saying that "age-appropriate" filtering is more effective than compelling ISPs to provide access to stored electronic communications for foreign law enforcement pruposes.