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Engaging in social media backfires for Nestle. Due to the Greenpeace protest against the company with regards to how the company uses palm oil in its products, a number of people posted their distaste on Nestle's Facebook page. Unfortunately for the company, the representative in charge of replying to comments was far from being amiable, or even courteous. Sample exchange of comments: Nestle: "You have freedom of speech and expression. Here, there are some rules we set. As in almost any other forum. It's to keep things clear." Paul Griffin: "Your page, your rules, true, and you just lost a customer, won the battle and lost the war! Happy?" Nestle: "Oh please...it's like we're censoring everything to allow positive comments." Social media has significant benefits for companies and how they market the products to consumers. However, if used wrongly, as with this case, massive PR clean-up is inevitable.

Should California based company, facebook, follow the rules in Australia? Should they respond? After the teeageer killed from meeting with her facebook friend, this issue has become a back fire for facebook and australian authority.

BROADCASTERS will be able to air extra advertising on their digital free-to-air channels and erase breaches of the rules governing free-to-air TV if they swiftly correct errors, under significant concessions given by the communications watchdog.

A leak of the requirements made by the Chinese gov to Chinese media outlets on how  to deal with the google affair!

online documents recording legal rulings and disputes.

Developers are not thrilled with Apple's new rules. The restrictions imposed affect the work of developers like Jack Freeman, who here declares himself as a "former loyal developer"

This article gives a closer look at the controversial study that suggests regulating the Net will cost millions. You can even dowload the 23-page of PDF report In interested in Net neutrality the following reading titled "Net Neutrality rules would damage business, says industry-funded study" (26 April 2010) provides complementary information: http://news.techworld.com/sme/3221610/net-neutrality-rules-would-damage-business-says-industry-funded-study/

The US regulator for the communications industry is expected to announce it will extend the rules currently governing telephone service provision to apply to ISPs in a bid to set net-neutrality rules that would bar companies from favoring their own Web content and services.

US court rules that tracking once in public is public information but tracking over time in public is accumulating information usually unavailable to 'the public' therefore requiring a search warrant.

The government's rules on the internet extend beyond websites to individuals. All forum and chatroom users will be required to make verifiable real-name registrations, while internet companies will have to make their search algorithms public to improve transparency.

In 2001, the South Korea''s Ministry of Information and Communication promulgated the controversial Internet Content Filtering Ordinance. In addition, new rules are expected, which will set down relatively rigid provisions requiring news Websites to comply with the same restrictions as newspapers, TV, and radio.

During a speech at the Media Institute in Washington [February 24, 2010], Larry Strickling, President Obama's top official at the Department of Commerce and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), suggested that there should be policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments and key Internet constituencies on issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection and Internet governance. "It's now time to respond to all the social changes being driven by the growth of the Internet," Strickling said. "We need Internet Policy 3.0. We enter this new decade recognizing that we rely on the Internet for essential social purposes: health, energy efficiency, and education. It's also a general engine for economic and social innovation. We must take rules more seriously if we want full participation, but we must keep the need for flexibility in mind."

Surprisingly, a Spanish judge has ruled today in favor of a file-sharing website since P2P networks as a mere transmission of data between Internet users, would not violate, in principle, any right protected by Intellectual Property Law. Furthermore, he decided that "offering an index of links and/or linking to copyright material is not the same as distribution." The decision was based on the notion that the file-sharer doesn't make any direct or indirect profits off the site

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.

A California appeals court allows students to be trialled for hate crimes for posting threatening comments on a fellow student's blog after it was ruled these comments were not protected free speech. Interesting development that narrowss the gap between traditonal schoolyard bullying and cyber bullying.

The US Federal Communications Commission has been dealt a major blow in asserting its right to regulate net neutrality with a district court ruling the FCC had "failed to demonstrate" its authority to interfer with activity undertaken by internet service provider Commcast. Comcast had been moving to restrict the internet access of customers using peer-to-peer sharing software, which uses large amounts of bandwidth and is a common mode of illegal video and music piracy.

A coalition of internet companies are pushing for the US federal regulator responsible for communication industries to reassert control over ISPs by seeking to have internet services re-classified under the same rules as telephone services.

GoDaddy.com, the world's largest domain name registration company is taking similar action to Google by deciding to not conduct further business in China. This decision is a reaction to China now demanding that applicants of domain names are to provide additional personal information, including a full colour head shot photograph. While China maintains forcing applicants to register extensive personal information will curb the creation of unsavoury sites (namely pornography) everyone else outside of the Chinese government believes such detailed personal information will equip the government to target any individual (to what extent - who knows) displaying any content that the government does not support. Is this an invasion of privacy? Should people be able to exercise multiple personas on the internet, or should you be who you are? If a government is to collect such information who will ensure the information it collects isn't abused? Do we answer these questions differently when thinking of China i.e. what would the answers be if Australia was to introduce such a law? At the very least, it's a relief to see companies realising that China is compromising the values of the internet and are reacting suitably by taking their services out of the country. More need to participate in the retalliation.

Gamers in South Korea have been accused of match fixing. It's interesting to see how "real world" problems have entered cyberspace. It raises questions as to what the scope of internet governance should cover, in this case games governance. Should there be rules to govern this kind of act or should a "name and shame" method be introduced?

Canada, alongside France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom have issued a warning to Google on the grounds that the company is ignoring privacy and legislation with respect to launching their products (Google Buzz). This is a clear example of when a company, may appear to attempt to protect their users (Google vs. China) while, in the company's own interest, these rules and regulations may be ignored. How much trust should we put into any company that offers services free to the public, and exactly what liberties do we give up when we sign up for that service?