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Wait a minute....

With new technologies being introduced, the function of libraries is changing.

More on the new remarketing offer from Google. This is a good effective way to market to consumers, however companies do still need to be mindful of their audience, especially if Google are now on board, and this does get the publicity around being creepy. What is currently an effective way to advertise, could turn sour.

As mentioned in the tutorial: Sharleen spent 16 years under 24/7 house arrest in NSW. No one is actually sure what legislation she was detained under. Many other people were, and still are, doing exactly what she did. However, she broadcast the fact on national television and became a scapegoat. The intersection of media and politics, the forcing of action and then lack of transparency around the forced actions are very reminiscent of the Internet Filter and Black List debate.

Google shows in this maps the requests that different governments have done to remove contents from their services, including the Australian government. A more than respectable effort on transparency.

Google says that this is very much a trial and they don't give details about the requests, mainly all 'legitimate', in the interests of maintaining debate out about internet governance. The site however is launched the same day that 10 governments officially complain to Google about privacy breaches and lack of general accountability, mainly in relation to maps and buzz. I feel there's less transparency than there is positioning!

Four US senators express concern about Facebook's recent changes which enable a user's friends to follow them to websites they've visited and know how they rated them. This is also enabling third parties to gain access to user data which was once private.

If you are going to look at copyright on the internet, you really can't go past this settlement. This is Google's next step at world domination: control of our intellectual property. No one likes it, but everyone is going ahead with it because Google has them over a barrel ... The basic deal is that Google wants to digitise every book ever written and make them all searchable online by google customer. On the surface this is all shiny; it seems commonsense that all material should be digitised - we have to keep up with technology. The problem arises when you get to the sticky situation of copyright - generally with books, owners get royalties every time someone buys a copy. With the digitisation, Google wasn't too keen on the idea of pay-per-view. Ideally, they would have loved to present all that information free and just reap the benefit ... well, however Google reaps benefits. There was litigation all round - publishers were against it, yahoo and other internet giants were against it (because it wasn't their idea) and it went to the doors of the US Supreme Court, but not quite to trial. Google's rivals were not too sure that they wanted to go to trial, because the outcome was a little on the uncertain side. So the Google book settlement was drawn up, objected to, fought, signed up to, taken to the US Supreme Court for approval, rejected, modified, fought over a bit more, and sent back to the judge. The last move was in Feb 2010; we're still waiting for Critics argue that the deal gives Google too much power over digital books and will not benefit customers in terms of cost, possible censorship issues, privacy. Copyright owners will also lose out, as Google's royalty policy cuts them out of the system and reduces their royalty - and they are automatically included in the agreement unless they 'opt out' (even if they have not 'opted in'). Really, Google is the only party that seems to benefit, and yet for all of the fighting, the settlement seems

China is looking to strengthen already tough laws on telco and internet companies, forcing them to inform the Government about customers who discuss state secrets. A pertinent article for those who believe that mandatory internet filtering in Australia will only ever be just that. This shows how the reins can so easily get tighter and tighter...

google revealed information about government agencies' requests for removing searched contents from google, Australia is the ninth.

Article discusses a new "panic button" which can be used to report on safety issues or sexual behaviour onlne. A click takes users to a website where they get advice or get directly in contact with the police. The British Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP) has invented this button and wants facebook to integrate it. Facebook wants to refer users to its own Safety Center.

The increasing use of 'free' webmail services, and indeed full office suites, from online providers by business and governments means an increasing amount of funding for encryption and ad free internets. This potentially leads to a new digital divide. The corporate or private internet of the wealthy, and the hyper surveilled commercial internet of the many.

This looks at the new atmosphere of sharing all the mundane details about our lives, facilitated by sites such as Blippy, which broadcasts details about shopping habits, and Foursquare, that uses GPS to alert contacts to your location. A fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union said, "People are not necessarily thinking about how long this information will stick around, or how it could be used and exploited by marketers." Concerns are also raised about potential identity theft and whether accessing every scrap of data left behind by users is actually valuable.

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?

"Google sees 'everything'"\nLooks at cloud computing, benefits, and risks to security. Interesting point around search practices with Google "..everybody is constantly asking Google about the things they're working on. In effect, we're putting a tremendous amount of faith in Larry and Sergey and their claim that they don't do evil".

"Information wants to be free" (IWTBF hereafter) is half of Stewart Brand's famous aphorism, first uttered at the Hackers Conference in Marin County, California (where else?), in 1984: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

Google announced to use SSL to secure user's data, keep it hard for hackers and government to spy on users' searches.

This article discusses how cyberbullying is not limited to strictly school children, or students rather teachers are also victims of cyberbullying. As students create social network hate groups, secretly film or photograph their teachers, and post embarassing moments online. identities of the victims are stolen, and then are used for either harassment, or illegal activity online. Though Facebook has mentioned that they will remove any content regarding teachers if reported, it brings to light a new issue. If laws need to address how we conduct ourselves online, should we compromise our freedom of speech (any jurisdiction that has constituted it) because the content is online?

The popularity of ipad has raised book piracy issue. Since dowloading books is relatively fast than downloading a movie or a song, publishers are seriously facing a problem of online piracy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, is depicited as an borderline autistic conniver in the up coming black comdedy about Facebook. Just added another drama to Facebook currently facing piracy crisis.

Google has mistakenly collect private unsecured Wi-Fi payload data from their street view car that was meant to collect mapping data. It may be hard for google to earn back our trust after this event.