ARIN6902 Internet Cultures and Governance

NSW Premiere Kristina Keneally is accused of lying on Twitter. She wasn't present at a vote and the Opposition whip suggests she didn't follow requried protocol to be excused. To defend herself she used Twitter. I wonder if this will become a standard means of defence for politicians as more are taking up Twitter, and can reach an audience instantly.

This is the Australian law paper with respect to censorship. It introduces the censorship procedure, including responsible institutions. This paper also present the previous legistative scheme and improved one. This paper is a good way to understand issues around Australian censorship.

The digital divide is also a matter of language and even if the arabic language has progressed in web presence, English has still the wider presence and it is one big fact in the Digital Divide.

Pew study shows the African-American population is more inclined in Mobile Internet and especially Twitter whose awareness has raised significantly

Ahhhh location applications....the possibilities, the privacy issues. Why wouldn't everyone want their GPS location displayed as public record? A good explanation of why only 7% of Americans are currently using location aps. The important things for consumers to know would be who could access their data and for what purposes. Not only who and for what purpose but another question for consideration is who would have policing authority over the data.

A speech by Stephen Collins, member of the EFA Board, that he gave at Parliament House recently to highlight the problems with the mandatory filter.

In an attempt by the government to modernise the 25-year-old Sex Descrimination Act, new laws have been made to protect teenagers from cyber-bullying acts such as sexting and online harrassment. It also protects breastfeeding women and gives men the same protection as women in the workplace when it comes to family responsibilities.

"The invisible shareholders, who are either money launderers, drug dealers or some people using government money, pick the directors of the banks because of their holdings, but have refused to disclose their identities," he said.

The internet community has long been waiting for ICANN to deal with the evolving DNS issues inherent in the decentralised system. The appointment of Whit Diffie as Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography at ICANN should bode well amidst the criticisms of ICANN not doing enough in responding to domain name security hacks and attacks. The Canadian Press has said "While ICANN does not run many of these domain name servers directly, it can press for the use of a security protocol that is meant to verify that the directory information is authentic. The technology uses mathematical techniques similar to encryption.".

The topic of domain names as a commodity isn't new, but the prices auctions are fetching for names is. When $2 million is refused for 'jeans.com' it paints a picture of the cost/benefit ratio of domain investment - where the potential financial benefits are clearly outweighing initial costs. The trend developing is for multinational companies to buy domain names with commonly understood verbs (eg dating.com) or nouns (eg books.com). It strengthens their own branded domain name and targets consumers who are undertaking searches on the net for the thing they want - be it a service or good - as opposed to searching for the company that sells that thing. Does it suggest that searching habits are changing? Is brand awareness and brand loyalty losing power?

Concerns arise again regarding Facebook's privacy invasion as founder Mark Zuckerberg's Instant Messenger correspondence dated back in his College years is exposed. Offering his friend access to users' private details, the entrepreneur-to-be called them a foul name. In this commentary, the author notes the company's attitude toward privacy is reflected in Zuckerberg's early aggressive treatment of users' information.

As a privacy alert, the story reveals that Facebook offers Web sites its users' personal information. As the author explains, if visiting a Web site while logged in Facebook, the user's online activity on it will be memorised through social plugins; custom-designed content based on his preference, accordingly, will be delivered to his Facebook friends who visit afterward, so long as they's logged in, too.

site promotes an exodus from Facebook due to privacy conerns

The chairman of Vanguard believes corporate directors are doing a much better job than they get credit for in terms of governance but offers suggestions for improvement. Brennan believes it is crucial to take an active role in governance, to see yourself in a framework and communicate freely. It remains to be seen whether the 'attitudinal shift' that has been observed over the past 2 decades will continue to become a norm, of it is merely keeping up with the Jones's.

A university in the U.S. has provided an online reputation management program for all its graduating seniors. Since majority of companies are performing background checks on job applicants, this will allow students to clean up their Facebook and Twitter profiles. This step made by the university seems very beneficial, since for majority of the younger generation who don't know how it is not to have the Internet, the separation between online and real-life identities is a fine line. 

Adobe starts an advertising campaign against Apple! 'We Love Choice' - 'We Love Apple' This is getting hotter and hotter. This is the official reaction from Adobe. 

Something about Global Voices 5 years after. It is impressive the way this alternative source of information has expanded. Now, in the Internet Age, the information environment has gone suddenly from a desert to a rainforest. We have moved rapidly from a problem of scarcity to a problem of over-abundance - at least for some kinds of information. Other kinds of information remain rare and harder to find amidst the rapidly proliferating dominant species.

The news discusses about Google's caching (cache) system. Internet users can retrace archived contents over no longer accessible sites. This system has resulted website owners in distress. This issue if not tended well could result in lawsuits.

The research found that posting material about political or social issues on the Web and using social networking sites politically are forms of online engagement that are dominated by the young-especially the youngest adults.

Here is some interestiong statistics about online and offline political participation by their income, internet connection, education,and other demographic differences in the US.