Posts Tagged ‘advertising’

Google Street View trawls 210,000 UK miles

// March 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Almost an entire country is now in thrall to a single US advertising company. Or put another way, Google has done in most of Britain what it trying to do with books worldwide. It’s taken over. Today, Google sneak view Street View went online from Penzance to the Shetland islands, “encompassing nearly a quarter of a million miles of British roads”, says the Telegraph . The advertising-linked product has been ensconced in 25 cities since last March, says the story, but, “increased coverage makes an additional 210,000 miles of detailed mapping public.” This means the UK will “catch up with other European countries – such as Spain, France, and Italy – which already boast nationwide coverage” the story gushes. Not only but also, “Google believes the service will be a boost for UK businesses, which can embed its maps into their own sites for free.” Google sneaks pictures of people, their homes, the streets where they walk and the places they relax without telling them, or asking if it’s OK, said p2pnet recently, going on, “Then it plasters the results on Street View Snoop-O-Rama sites, claiming the product, an adjunct to its advertising efforts, is a ’service’.” However, “Campaigner Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, is concerned about the privacy implications of Street View after a number of people contacted him with their concerns”, says the Telegraph, quoting him as stating: “For many, Google’s Street View cameras are an upsetting invasion of privacy. People tend not to be asked whether they are comfortable with it coming to their town. “When it arrives somewhere for the first time, those who are concerned about being captured should check it to see if they or their property are now on worldwide public view.” Nor are individuals the only ones worried about Google Sneak View invasions. European Union data privacy regulators “are telling Google Inc. to warn people before it sends cameras out into cities to take pictures for its Street View maps, adding to the company’s legal worries in Europe”, said the Associated Press , going on: “Google should shorten the time it keeps the original photos from one year to six months,” regulators also say, according to the story. Actually, Gargle shouldn’t be allowed to use even one picture unless it’s had permission in advance , a proposition supported by German consumer affairs minister Ilse Aigner. However, “Google said its need to retain Street View images for one year is ‘legitimate and justified’,” said AP. No need to stay tuned. Google trolls are out there in force making sure the appropriate messages are broadcast in- and offline. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi trying to do with books – Google to digitise Dante, Machiavelli, March 11, 2010 Telegraph – Google Street View goes nationwide in Britain, March 11, 2010 p2pnet – EU warns Google over Street View, February 26, 2010 Associated Press – Google warned by EU over Street View map photos, February 25, 2010 permission in advance – Google scoffs at Berlin Street View concerns, February 25, 2010 faces and license plates No Street View! Switzerland tells Google,   August 25, 2009 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? - Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorshiop in your area.

Google to digitise Dante, Machiavelli

// March 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Giant US advertising congolmerate Google wants to own world literature online. And if it gets its way, “someone else could try something similar for music or photographs”, suggests James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School. The Italian government says up to one million antiquarian books — including works by Dante, Machiavelli and Galileo — will be scanned and made available free on Google Books, says the BBC , going on: “There is no copyright issue as all the works were published before 1868. “The Italian authorities welcomed the scheme as budget pressures have cut the amount that can be spent on preserving the collections in Rome and Florence.” However, Google Book Search is  Machiavellian, say those protesting the company’s efforts to gain control of net literature. It gives Google “too much control over a priceless store of information”, say scholars, consumer advocates and business competitors, states the San Jose Mercury News . “Privacy advocates argue that Google could track and retain not only the titles people access through Book Search, but also which pages they view, and the notes they make on the pages” says the story, going on the EFF’s Cindy Cohn told a court hearing the foundation “has repeatedly urged Google to incorporate many of the same privacy standards that public libraries have, such as never turning over library records to police without a warrant”. The “ability to be able to engage in intellectual inquiry without somebody being tracked — it’s an important piece of free expression” the story has her saying. Google, however, wants to “make such decisions on a case-by-case basis”, it says. The company’s efforts to gain posession of literary treasures on behalf of its owners and stockholders has “already spawned a class-action lawsuit, and now, “It really is the most important copyright dispute we’re currently facing,” the story has Grimmelmann saying going on: “I would say this whole controversy has the potential to really affect how we access all kinds of media, not just old ones, but also new ones.” If Google is allowed to rewrite “a major area of copyright law through its proposed settlement of the lawsuit, it would be a “really interesting way to break a lot of logjams in copyright law,” Grimmelmann said. “But are we opening a Pandora’s box?” The Mercury News breaks two other key issues down like this > > > Orphan Books: Copyright holders would be paid under the plan for the right to scan their books, but what about the vast number of out-of-print books whose rights holders can’t be found? Google would not have to share revenues from these “orphan books.” Google and its partners in the settlement, the Authors Guild and the American Publishers Association, say less than 15 percent of the estimated 5 million to 8 million out-of-print but copyrighted books covered by the settlement will be orphans. The plan establishes a Book Rights Registry, funded with $34.5 million, to find copyright holders. Competition: If the plan is approved, Google would have exclusive rights to grant access to its millions of digitized books. Opponents and the U.S. Department of Justice say this could give the company a monopoly, able to set prices and control new business models. The vast amount of information would include the bibliographies to millions of books, as well as their text, which could improve the quality of Google search. That could give Google a huge advantage over competitors, opponents say. Google, however, says scanning books to bolster the quality of search is “fair use” under copyright law. Stay tuned. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi BBC – Google to digitise ancient Italian books, March 10, 2010 San Jose Mercury News – Google’s book project may change copyright law, March 10, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? - Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorshiop in your area.

EU parliament trashes secret ACTA treaty

// March 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- The movie and music cartels have virtual carte blanche in Canada and the US, but the European parliament has told them it, not corporate might, holds sway, voting overwhelmingly 663 to 13 against the entertainment industry inspired Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, aka ACTA. “This Parliament will not sit back silently while the fundamental rights of millions of citizens are being negotiated away behind closed doors”, said Stavros Lambrinidis (GR, S&D) (right) who, with Zuzana Roithova (CZ, EPP) , Alexander Alvaro (DE, ALDE) and Françoise Castex (FR, S&D), made the message clear in their earlier written declaration opposing ACTA. “We oppose any ‘legislation laundering’ on an international level of what would be very difficult to get through most national legislatures or the European Parliament,” he said. And “MEPs will go to the Court of Justice if the EU does not reject ACTA rules, including cutting off users from the Internet ‘gradually’ if caught stealing content”, European parliamentarians told Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Picture, says EurActiv . MEPs can’t take part in the ACTA talks without the consent of the European Parliament, but EU negotiators will now have to “go back to the drawing board and come up with a compromise”, says the report. If it was accepted, “The secret treaty would turn Europe into an entertainment industries’ dream region”, says The Inquirer , going on, “ISPs would become police for the music and film industries and would have to switch off whoever they suspect of filesharing that infringes copyrights. “Europe would be forced to adopt laws like America’s DMCA, which is currently being used by the media companies as a legal tool to stifle rivals, censor the press and suppress political dissent.” However, the victory isn’t total. “EuroISPA, the Brussels trade body for network providers, says that recent leaks from the European Council indicate the EU is considering US proposals on combating piracy which include ‘criminal sanctions, US-style notice and take-down and monitoring of a user’s Internet traffic and services’,” says EurActiv , continuing > > > Though EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht reassured MEPs at a debate yesterday that the EU was not considering all of the measures in the ACTA text, EuroISPA argues this contradicts the most recent leaks coming from the EU and the US. “The Commission has provided no reassurance that it will not introduce the penalties outlined in the ACTA leaks,” Andrea d’Inneco from EuroISPA told EurActiv. Commission officials participating in the talks have signed a non-disclosure agreement and have been reluctant to divulge much information from the talks. A high-ranking official told EurActiv that rumours saying ACTA would rewrite rules on the liability of Internet service providers for pirated content on their networks were untrue. EU rules, which were agreed upon after lengthy negotiations last year, say that ISPs are mere conduits of information and are not liable for pirated content if they take measures to remove that content, the official explained. “The Commission official said this would still be the pretext of EU law and that ACTA would not alter the European safeguards”, the story adds. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi EurActiv – Parliament threatens court action on anti-piracy treaty, March 10, 2010 written declaration – Help the European Parliament fight ACTA, February 24, 2010 The Inquirer – European Parliament gives the US a lesson on freedom, March 11, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? - Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorshiop in your area.

New lawsuit against Google Buzz

// March 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Google is  again in trouble over Buzz, its ’social networking’ application which blasted user data across the Internet. It’s facing a new lawsuit. “Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner, says she has serious concerns centering on Buzz, Google’s disastrous attempt to horn in on rich advertising territory so far staked out by the likes of Fa$ebook” said p2pnet recently, going on > > > In the US, EPIC has gone further, demanding an FCC investigation. Google, a giant US online advertising company with major control issues, set itself up for one or more class actions after its ’social networking’ application splashed private and personal user data across the Internet, generating non-stop negative buzz worldwide. Then, “A class action complaint filed in San Jose federal court alleges that Google Inc. broke the law when its controversial Google Buzz service shared personal data without the consent of users”, said the San Francisco Chronicle . Eva Hibnick “is seeking to bring the complaint on behalf of all Gmail users whose accounts were automatically linked to Buzz”, said the story, going on, “The filing noted there were 31.2 million Gmail users in January and that Google ‘added the Buzz program to most or all of these accounts’.” Now it’s being sued by Gmail user Andranik Souvalian who claims that, “Google intentionally exceeded its authorization to access and control confidential and private information” in violation of the Stored Communications Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, says InformationWeek . “Google, through its Buzz social networking tool, has unlawfully disclosed its customers’ private communications and records, including but not limited to, the automatic and unauthorized importing of its customers’ private e-mail contacts into the Buzz social network”, says the complaint states, also stating: “Buzz has raised privacy concerns including, but not limited to automatic importing of private contacts and showing them to friends and importing without authorization the customers’ private photos onto the Buzz social network.” Stay tuned. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi p2pnet – Google Buzz: Situation Normal … AFU, February 17, 2010 non-stop negative buzz – ‘Fuck you, Google!’ Part Deux, February 15, 2010 San Francisco Chronicle – Local class action complaint filed over Google Buzz, February 17, 2010 CBC – Privacy commissioner reviewing Google Buzz, February 16, 2010 InformationWeek – Google Buzz Stung By Lawsuit, March 8, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? - Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorshiop in your area.

Ads that stop you from reading

// March 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising: - p2pnet has at least three features which, as far as I know, aren’t found on any other site: Kids & Kartels , which highlights just a few of the corporate mind-rape practices used on our children; and, Advertising – speaks for itself Reader’s Writes , when p2pnet readers say what they think about a given topic (or completely out of left field) and which regularly turn up again as posts in their own rights. With the latter two items in focus, “Got sumpin’ on my mind about … ads that pop up and block the entire text you are trying to read” says voxleo in a Reader’s Write to p2pnet’s post on scummy advertising ploys , sparked by Ars Technica’s decision to blind visitors who didn’t want to look at the site’s ads. She goes on > > > I would like to tar and feather the jackass that thought up “in text” ads (kontera is the one that comes to mind, but the other one is mind-bogglingly irritating as well) There aren’t words enough in all languages combined to convey the depth of my hatred for these, as they never behave as they are supposed to, inevitably opening some invariably ASININE, exceptionally USELESS bit of non-info. Sure, they’re not supposed to open until you “mouse-over” them, but as someone who reads quickly, I often surf with the mouse in hand, making accidental passes far more likely. Also, if it opens when moused-over, why not at least close when moused-away from? These damn things abruptly interrupt my reading in mid-sentence and then i must actually move my mouse away from the scroll bar to close it manually. Then I have to start all over again. And often they don’t even wait for the mouse over, but seem to spawn on a whim. They are the MOST intrusive, experience souring, bloody awful idea to ever grace the net (only one step ahead of the damn movies that automatically start playing when the page loads- and always at FULL VOLUME, no matter what my settings were previously!) I turn them off and they still come back. I would spit in the face of the person who puts these on their sites, but as I cannot I usually just end up closing the page as soon as these appear. I tell you what, if there were a tin cup graphic that said “If you liked this, please donate a nickel to keep kontera ads off this page” I would be more likely to do that than to stay or revisit a page that contains those. WHY are the bloody things becoming more popular? Is there a tool that disables THOSE permanently? But, what happens when you can’t close the page? – I wondered , linking to a couple of earlier p2pnet posts, one of which kicked off with: “Online advertising companies such as Yahoo, Google, Fa$ebook, NoSpace, and all the rest of them, spend a fortune trying to find ways to make us watch their ads. “They use spy technologies such as intrusive DPI (Deep Packet Inspection, aka Deep Privacy Invasion ) to ferret around in our personal and private data which, they claim they’d never, ever , do anything bad with.” I went on > > > No one asks us what we think: it’s like we’re mindless drones waiting complacently to be phked by whoever comes along. Now “web-like TV advertising has been long-promised, but will Verizon’s FiOS, a relative latecomer to the party, be the first to deliver it?” – asks Advertising Age , with the bland headline, “Verizon Promises Targeted Advertising By End of Year” just as though it’s something everyone is looking forward to. Shades of what’s to come “The proposed Google-DoubleClick merger is just one in a recent consolidation wave that includes Microsoft’s purchase of ad serving firm Aquantive and ad exchange AdECN, as well as AOL buying behavioral targeting firm Tacoda and Yahoo buying online ad auction network RightMedia and BlueLithium, an online advertising network,” said CNet News a couple of years back. “Behavioral marketing is also spreading to social networks, including the popular Facebook, which recently announced a new ad system that has members up in arms.” And “Behavioral targeting technologies work by anonymously monitoring and tracking the content read and sites visted by a designated unique user or IP as that user surfs the Internet,” explained Search Engine Journal in 2o04. “This is done by serving tracking codes, which are implemented as cookies, on a user`s computer as s/he is served ads from various online advertising networks. Sites visited, content viewed, and length of visit are then all databased and analyzed to predict an online behavioral pattern for such a user, thereby classifying that user by his/her online demographic. Behavioral ad networks then serve targeted advertising related to that user`s behavioral classification, regardless of where s/he then visit.” In other words, they’re sneakily following us around online, spying on our every move so they can try and figure out how to Shanghai us somewhere along the way. Cookies embedded in our PCs keep track, letting their owners know what we’re up to online. And it’s on the way for TV, except now they want to be in your living room, right there with you. Targetting homes The pic (above righty) comes from Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 movie of Anthony Burgess’ book A ClockWork Orange . It, “alludes to the prevention of the main character’s exercise of his free will through the use of a classical conditioning technique,” says the Wikipedia . If you don’t believe you’re being conditioned, think again. “Verizon will start targeting advertising on a household level by the end of the year, allowing advertisers to target homes, rather than shows, or to buy specific demographics and behaviors via the set-top box,” says Advertising Age. Has anyone asked you if you’re OK with that? The assumptions and presumptions are: you’ll be sitting there with your tongue hanging out just dying to be ‘targeted,’ which is to say they’ll use anything their tiny, devious minds can come up with to not only try and make you believe whatever it is they’re peddling has value, but to force it in front of you, whether you want to see it or not. For this to be effective, the adco set-top boxes will have to come complete with some kind of spy technology — TV cookies, in effect –  that’ll phone home with precise details of what you’re watching, when you’re watching, how long you watch for, and so on. Then they’ll know how to “best improve your television viewing experience”. Online, we can protect ourselves to a very considerable extent with various kinds of ad blockers and cookie killers. Will we be able to do the same once web-style advertising hits our home TV sets? “Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, et al , are synonymous with bamboozle”, I said in p2pnet a couple of years ago, adding: “Aretha Frankly said it best. “All we want is R – E – S – P – E – C – T.” Jon Newton – p2pnet - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi scummy advertising ploys – Bad Ads Banned Here, March 9, 2010 blind visitors – In defence of the Ars Technica reader blockade, March 8, 2010 p2pnet – Online advertising and the New Consumer, September 2, 2008 Deep Privacy Invasion – Canada Privacy Commission DPI site, April 6, 2009 Advertising Age – Verizon Promises Targeted Advertising By End of Year, April 7, 2009 CNet News – Target me with your ads, please, December 4, 2009 Search Engine Journal – Behavioral Targeting and Contextual Advertising, September 1, 2004 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. 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Waterboarding for dummies: Salon report

// March 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Politics:- The US Department of Justice gave Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two senior Bush era lawyers (right) a slap on the wrist after finding them guilty of approving the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay. They were “reprimanded” for using “poor judgment” but avoided charges of professional misconduct, according to the Guardian in February. The two “provided legal cover for the CIA to use torture and other harsh interrogation techniques”, it said going on > > > The techniques approved by the lawyers included waterboarding, which Barack Obama has described as torture but the former vice-president, Dick Cheney, insisted was not. In a much-repeated quote, Cheney tried to trivialise it by describing it as a mere “dunk in the water”. “After five years of heated internal wrangling, the justice department has rejected calls by its own ethics investigators for tougher measures against the two men”, said the Telegraph . Now, Salon’s Mark Benjamin has written a “stomach-churning account of the waterboarding practiced at Gitmo”, says Boing Boing , going on: “This fine-tuned torture process repeatedly took its victims to the brink of death (one victim was waterboarded 180+ times) until many of them simply gave up on breathing and tried to allow themselves to drown, only to be revived by unethical medical personnel who collaborated with the war criminals conducting the torture.” In  Salon ’s Waterboarding for dummies , Benjamin says interrogators “pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show”. He continues > > > The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing. The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. And > > > Detainees would be strapped to the gurney for a two-hour “session.” During that session, the continuous flow of water onto a detainee’s face was not supposed to exceed 40 seconds during each pour. Interrogators could perform six separate 40-second pours during each session, for a total of four minutes of pouring. Detainees could be subjected to two of those two-hour sessions during a 24-hour period, which adds up to eight minutes of pouring. But the CIA’s guidelines say interrogators could pour water over the nose and mouth of a detainee for 12 minutes total during each 24-hour period. The documents do not explain the extra four minutes to get to 12. And > > > Should a prisoner stop breathing during the procedure, the documents instructed interrogators to rapidly tilt the gurney to an upright position to help expel the saline. “If the detainee is not breathing freely after the cloth is removed from his face, he is immediately moved to a vertical position in order to clear the water from his mouth, nose, and nasopharynx,” Bradbury wrote. “The gurney used for administering this technique is specially designed so that this can be accomplished very quickly if necessary.” Documents drafted by CIA medical officials in 2003, about a year after the agency started using the waterboard, describe more aggressive procedures to get the water out and the subject breathing. “An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately,” the CIA Office of Medical Services ordered in its Sept. 4, 2003, medical guidelines for interrogations. “The interrogator should then deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water.” (That’s a blow below the sternum, similar to the thrust delivered to a chocking victim in the Heimlich maneuver.) But even those steps might not force the prisoner to resume breathing. Waterboarding, according to the Bradbury memo, could produce “spasms of the larynx” that might keep a prisoner from breathing “even when the application of water is stopped and the detainee is returned to an upright position.” In such cases, Bradbury wrote, “a qualified physician would immediately intervene to address the problem and, if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy.” The agency required that “necessary emergency medical equipment” be kept readily available for that procedure. The documents do not say if doctors ever performed a tracheotomy on a prisoner. And > > > One of the weirdest details in the documents is the revelation that the agency placed detainees on liquid diets prior to the use of waterboarding. That’s because during waterboarding, “a detainee might vomit and then aspirate the emesis,” Bradbury wrote. In other words, breathe in his own vomit. The CIA recommended the use of Ensure Plus for the liquid diet. Concludes Benjamin’s Salon report on Guantanamo Bay waterboard torture: “The memo also contains a last, little-noticed paragraph that may be the most disturbing of all. It seems to say that the detainees subjected to waterboarding were also guinea pigs. The language is eerily reminiscent of the very reasons the Nuremberg Code was written in the first place. That paragraph reads as follows: ” ‘NOTE: In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented: how long each application (and the entire procedure) lasted, how much water was used in the process (realizing that much splashes off), how exactly the water was applied, if a seal was achieved, if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled, how long was the break between applications, and how the subject looked between each treatment’.” (Cheers, RW ) - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi Guardian – Inquiry clears US lawyers who approved torture at Guantánamo Bay, February 20, 2010 Telegraph – Waterboarding memo lawyers will not be disciplined, February 20, 2010 Boing Boing – Stomach-churning details of CIA waterboarding crimes, March 8, 2010 Salon – Waterboarding for dummies, March 9, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. 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Bing censors dirty words

// March 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- “50 years ago boys (let’s face it — they’ll be doing most of the searching) used libraries and medical books (or porn mags found under big brother’s beds) to satisfy their natural curiosity. “In the 21st digital century, they use the net and given that most of them are far more technically adept than their parents, finding feelthy pictures is no big deal. “Bing dishes up porn on a silver platter. Moreover, its search functions are far more efficient than Google’s.” The sentences above are clipped from p2pnet’s post on the fact it’s child’s play — literally –  for anyone to turn off the anti-porn youngster protection (presumably) function in the image search part of Bing, Microsoft’s answer to Google. But a January test of a Bing version “tailored for users in Arab countries” showed it “filtered Arab and English words for sexually explicit content”, says news.com.au . “It also censored queries related to gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender material, said the Open Net Initiative”, according to the story. Searches for this kind of material prompted, “Your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content.” The message “seemed at odds with the fact that while political censorship is widespread in the Middle East, not all countries there mandate filtering of sex, nudity, homosexuality and other such ’social content’,”  it has ONI saying. “Microsoft has signalled its willingness to be at the forefront in protecting freedom of expression around the world”, says the story. Huh! What? When was this? “Bing didn’t impose search settings based on IP addresses indicating where computers are located, so users can get around filters by choosing versions of the engine crafted for other countries”, says ONI. Microsoft “did not return a request for comment”, news.com.au adds. The Open Net Initiative is a collaboration including the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at University of Oxford; and, The SecDev Group which took over from the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge. (Cheers, Andrew aka Comeoncomecast) - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi child’s play – Microsoft Bing: major porn search engine, January 2, 2010 news.com.au - March, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? - Click here to learn what technologies might help you bypass censorshiop in your area.

Bad Ads Banned Here

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Earlier today we ran an item centering on an Ars Techica ‘experiment’ under which it summarily banned readers who were using ad blockers to block ads. I’ve had a couple of apologetic emails from readers saying, guiltily, they use apps such as Dragos Ognean’s Ad blocker ,  but they won’t do it any more. No worries, folks! Carry on! Ad blocker doesn’t affect p2pnet ads and anyway, p2pnet advertisers are as much p2pnet supporters as anything else. Meanwhile, IMHO, the kind of advertisers who are getting blocked deserve all they get. Pop-ups you can’t get rid of? Ads that float across the screen obscuring the text, or obliterating it altogether? Movies playing right alongside the stories you’re trying to read?  That kind of stuff? Does Ars have these kinds of infuriating items? I don’t know. I hardly ever go there and anyway, I use Ad blocker and until advertisers wake up and stop trying to force-feed us, I’ll keep on using it. Smart advertisers will see this as a challenge — part of connecting efficiently with people. They’ll come up with cool, amusing, relevant ads which are appropriate to the net, not magazines, and sites will educate the companies that want to advertise with them, not attack their readers. It’s all part of the shake-out process the net is forcing everyone to undergo. And it’s all good. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi Ars Techica ‘experiment’ – In defence of the Ars Technica reader blockade , March 8, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? -

Ovum solves the online music problem

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view Music | P2P:- How does it go? Someone creates a work of music, intrumental or with words, someone else listens to it and likes it and then pays the creator, happily going home to listen whenever, wherever and on whatever s/he likes? Everyone is happy. The music lover has his/her music and the artist has been paid. And online, it’s much the same, except the music is exposed to potentially millions of people. That’s the way it should be, anway. But thanks to the Big 4 middlemen, France’s Vivendi Universal, the fattest and richest, the other three being Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian), that’s the way it isn’t. Ovum, however, has the answer. In a ’study’ paid for by Universal and called “Is There A Commercial Argument For ISP Music Services” [it forgot the question mark] it says > > > Ovum has interviewed more than a dozen ISPs, platform enablers and web-based operators providing digital music services in the European markets, with the full range of revenue and costs models for the provision of digital music services represented in the sample. This includes advertising-funded, premium subscription streaming and hybrid streaming and download-to-own services. The revenue forecasts assume adoption of a recommended best-practice strategy of a low cost, £6.49 per month service, delivering premium streaming with limited download allocation, and a defined additional retail target per user per month.  It is a medium-level service adoption scenario. It is assumed that the music offerings themselves would be ‘tethered’ to the broadband service as part of a bundle.  The revenue forecasts do not include income from standalone music download or subscription services already in the marketplace, which Ovum estimate to be around £250m. “Ovum interviewed several digital music service providers, content platform producers and ISPs offering digital music services today to examine the economic case for the provision of on-demand digital services by ISPs” says the ’study’, offered up for general consumption by the Big 4’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry).  “Their report concluded that ISPs are a critical channel for the provision of future digital music services”, it says. With that under its belt “Ovum considers the blueprint for success is for ISPs to pursue a strategy based around a subscription streaming service incorporating bundled download-to-own tracks and additional recommendation-driven retail”, it says.  “This would fulfil a strategic objective for ISPs — implementing value-added services to their product portfolios, creating a sustainable way to participate in the demand for rich digital media.” Apparently, Ovum doesn’t understand how the net works, and hasn’t been told there’s no such thing as streaming. Nor did its ’study’ ask online music lovers if they’d go for any of this twaddle. As always, it’s ‘assumed’ they will. Not a bad idea from the labels’ points of view, though. As well as forcing them to act as copyright cops against their own customers, they’d also be distributing corporate  copyright crap, at the same time gaining access to all kinds of priceless ‘consumer’ data. Nice one. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi no such thing – There’s no such thing as ’streaming’: Part II, December 7, 2009 BPI – Digital Music Services Could Earn UK ISPs £100m By 2013 , 8 March 2010 , March 8, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? -

Did Facebook boss hack reporters’ emails?

// March 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // p2p

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- It appears charges that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social advertising site Fa$ebook, hacked the email accounts of two journalists may be accurate. A two-year Business Insider investigation  into the origins of Facebook  alleges Zuckerberg “used inside information taken from an early version of Facebook to access emails between student journalists”, says news.com.au , going on: “The incident was alleged to occur after the Harvard Crimson planned to write a story about rival social media website ConnectU in 2004. The accusation came from an anonymous source and the journalists involved did not comment.” However, instead of issuing a flat, unequivocal denial, “We’re not going to debate the disgruntled litigants and anonymous sources who seek to rewrite Facebook’s early history or embarrass Mark Zuckerberg with dated allegations,” it says, according to the story. “The unquestioned fact is that since leaving Harvard for Silicon Valley nearly six years ago, Mark has led Facebook’s growth from a college website to a global service playing an important role in the lives of over 400 million people”, the statement adds … … which of course has absolutely nothing to do  with whether or not Zuckerberg broke into the accounts. The two journalists concerned are keeping silent, says news.com.au. - … .. … and identi.ca More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi news.com.au – Zuckerberg broke into emails, says magazine, March 8, 2010 Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. Subscribe to - | | rss feed: http://-/feed -? -

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