Group items tagged

Two of the three richest men in the world derive their fortunes, in large part, from the information business: Carlos Slim (king of Mexican telecommunications) and Bill Gates (well, we all know what he does). How much power do these two hold over the architecture, policies and whereabouts of the web?  NOTE: the fact that the richest man in the world comes from a country with 80 million poor people is in itself a worthy discussion topic. 

One of the Acts under which the exact laws are outlined in regards to telecommunications providers and their responsibility towards the consumer and state. Dry and very 'Legal' but useful.

South Korea is the country with the fastest internet connection. The reasons for this can be found in the existence of a competitve market, the encouragement of the use of computers propelled by the government, the "shared" telecommunications insfraestructure, the density of the population and the broadband policy existing for more than 10 years now

Wow. Read it and weep. Tim O'Reilly is promoting this article. I haven't read anything quite so scarily propagandist since Caberet. What do I mean? (and who is this 'state'?) Courtesy of One Economy Corporation "If e-mail lives in the cloud, who owns that information?" says State Department's Alec Ross. Cloud computing is a double-edged sword in the fight for Internet freedom, a top State Department official said on Wednesday." "During a major policy speech in January, Clinton announced that Internet freedom would become a strategic priority for the United States in 2010. In March, State revived the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, a Bush administration initiative that worked to harmonize policies departmentwide on protecting free speech. The renamed NetFreedom Task Force met on March 4, when 19 telecommunications and information technology companies discussed the corporate sector's role in facilitating Internet freedom."

Video conferencing and telecommunications could soon be instantaneous thanks to research being carried out by University of Sydney postgraduate student, Trung Duc Vo.

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."

The "Digital Economy Bill" has been passed by the Lords and is now expected to be rushed through the Commons before the general elections. Despite criticism by the UK's major telecommunication providers and global internet giants like Google, the government said it was still committed to giving courts the power to block websites which are infringing copyright. The bill is mainly aiming to tackle internet privacy. Some of it's paragraphs however could lead to internet censorship.

My most recent blog entry, looking at the implications of the increasing digital literacy among younger generations.

Following a Facebook user's invitation for people to submit drawings of Prophet Mohammed and the ensuing condemnation from individual Muslim's and Muslim groups, The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has extended a ban on Facebook until May 31, and has also applied the ban to popular video sharing website YouTube and restricted Wikipedia. Depicting the prophet in a perceived blasphemous manner is considered sacrilegious. Over 100,000 people had become fans of the page on Facebook. Thousands of protesters have held multiple public rallies against Facebook, with anti-America and anti-European sentiment high.