Pirates Rejoice: RIAA Drops Lawsuits, Makes Deal with ISPs December 19, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAccording to a report in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has finally realized the folly of its anti-piracy strategy and decided to abandon its mass lawsuits against those who share files over P2P networks. This strategy will now be replaces by a three-strikes rule, where ISPs will be notified of infringements by the RIAA. A number of ISPs have agreed to “reduce the service” of these file sharers if they continue to distribute files after receiving a first warning. After a third or fourth warning, the Internet service might be cut off completely. It is not clear which specific ISPs have entered into this arrangement with the RIAA.
One good aspect of this deal is that the ISPs will not have to report the identity of the alleged copyright infringers to the RIAA. This doesn’t mean that the RIAA is planning to completely stop its lawsuits, however. According a report by CNET, the RIAA will still sue those who download “5,000 or 6,000 songs a month” (of course, it is important to point out that nobody has ever been sued for downloading files, only for sharing them).
This arrangement was brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and, at its core, resembles the RIAA’s deal with a number of colleges.
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Maryland Court Weighs Right To Sue Vs. Right To Speak December 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentJudges of Maryland’s highest court heard arguments this week about whether courts could order news organizations to reveal the names of people who posted online comments that were critical of a local business owner.
The judges are still considering the case, but at least some of them appeared to be poised to rule that the owner’s right to sue the commenters for defamation outweighs the users’ First Amendment right to speak anonymously.
“If there’s no First Amendment right to slander somebody, you can’t slander someone anonymously,” Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. of Maryland’s Court of Appeals said during the argument.
The case stems from comments posted to NewsZap.com, community news sites operated by Independent Newspapers, Inc. In one post, a commenter described a Centreville, Md. Dunkin’ Donuts owned by local business person Zebulon Brodie as “one of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen,” according to court papers.
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Online Privacy: IAB Pushes For Self-Reg September 22, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe Interactive Advertising Bureau continues to push for an industry self-regulatory body to police consumer online privacy, but it’s unlikely that the entity would actually be housed within the IAB, Mike Zaneis, vice president, Public Policy of the IAB said at the conclusion of OMMA Global’s “Bad Science” panel. If the industry fails, regulators will pass new public policy forcing it to, a top federal regulator warned. “The IAB takes the self-regulatory program very seriously,” Zaneis said, adding that conversations continue with various other trade organizations–presumably alluding to the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers. “You need everybody sitting at the table–advertisers, agencies, others,” he said, adding: “I don’t have an announcement today, but we continue to move along in the discussions.” Zaneis said the IAB “probably is not the right organization” to actually administer the program, and that it would be better to have it affiliated with an entity that has “a connection to law enforcement.” The current debate mirrors a similar, now-defunct debate of the late 1990s concerning “online profiling,” said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission. The “big difference,” she added, is, well, “everything.” READ THE REST OF THIS GREAT MEDIAPOST ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE
Facebook Lexicon Now Tracks Personal — and Political — Sentiment September 22, 2008
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Pulse of political insight?
Facebook’s new version of Lexicon sports features that let its user base play with aggregated data from.
Lexicon was introduced last April as a way for users to gauge the “buzzworthiness.” Lexicon searches all Wall, group and event posts for relevant words or phrases, then produces charts of their popularity.
In a nod to privacy advocates, Lexicon does not incorporate terms from messages, one-on-one chat, searches, or other private data.
Additions to the new Lexicon:
- Dashboard reflects the total number of unique users that mention a topic, the percentage of the Facebook user base that mentioned it, and the total number of posts.
- Demographics follow trends over time between users of different ages, genders and countries.
- Maps display where people are talking about a topic within different countries. It is currently limited to the US, Great Britain, and Canada.
- Sentiment shows how much people like or dislike a given topic. It also compares topics based their emotional appeal.
- Associations lets users see words and phrases closely associated with a topic in different points in time.
- Pulse highlights keywords that frequently show up in the profiles (Interests, Music, etc.) of people discussing the topic.
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Google Reduces Length of Time it Stores User Search Data September 9, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBRUSSELS — — Google Inc. said Tuesday it will further cut the amount of time it keeps users’ data logged on its search engine to meet EU privacy demands.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy adviser, said the company will reduce the time it stores search information from 18 months to nine. Google introduced an 18-month limit in 2007.
“With the new policy today we will anonymize the IP addresses on our server logs after nine months, so that is a significant improvement in privacy terms and it puts us ahead of the rest of the industry,” Mr. Fleischer told Brussels-based reporters via a telephone link.
He said the change will apply to Google’s search Websites worldwide.
Mr. Fleischer also announced that additional changes are being made to Google’s “Suggest” application which allows users to make searches faster when the feature offers suggestions of search items in real-time. He said Google only logs two per cent of data collected on such searches but said they will all be erased after a 24-hour period starting later this month
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Google ends its policy of trademark protection in the UK. August 28, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentCompetition between advertisers has always been intense but a change being implemented by Google will give companies the chance to hijack each other’s brands online.
From Monday, it will become possible for J Sainsbury to place an advertisement that appears anytime someone in Britain types Tesco as a search term, as Google ends its policy of trademark protection in the UK.
The move is already unsettling some big-name advertisers, with Tesco pledging to take the “moral high ground” and not bid against rival brands on Google, in the hope that it will not face aggressive competition.
Other brand owners are more unhappy still, with Ian McCaig, the chief executive of lastminute.com telling Channel 4 News that he was considering legal action. “We believe that Google’s policy change is a big problem and we object to it. We are investigating with vigour the legal position and if that investigation concludes positively then we will pursue a legal case, no question.”
Google is the most-visited site on the internet, accounting for more than a third of UK traffic. Consumers increasingly use the search engine to find even the most familiar brands – making any change to its policy critical.
David Kyffin, managing director of direct/digital at WPP’s Group M, said many clients were concerned about the change. “They would like to see more competition to Google in the UK but Google is so dominant that it is not possible to buy enough adverts on Yahoo! or MSN to reach as big an audience.” Google’s only concession to brand owners is to ban attack advertising and to ensure that nobody misuses a competitor’s trademark.
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Embarq Pleads the Fifth on Disclosing NebuAd Test to Customers July 23, 2008
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In response to a Congressional inquiry about its pilot test of NebuAd’s services, internet service provider (ISP) Embarq insisted it revised its privacy policy at least two weeks before it integrated the platform.
NebuAd partners with ISPs to serve ads to users based on their aggregate online activity. The behavioral ad firm sparked a debate over privacy in the Senate earlier this month. Amidst the fracas, it lost a planned liaison with Charter Communications.
“Embarq followed the industry practices of the most similar business model, that of online advertising networks,” wrote Embarq SVP David Zesiger of regulatory policy and external affairs in a letter to Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas).
“It appears that industry standards in this area are evolving rapidly toward a more robust form of notice and choice.”
Lawmakers last week demanded to know whether Embarq tested NebuAd’s services without notifying subscribers directly. Its response — that it changed its privacy policy two weeks prior — lends the sense it did not.
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YouTube to keep user details away from Viacom July 15, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSOURCE STORY HERE
Viacom has backed off its demands to gain access to the viewing habits and personal data of YouTube users, information it had originally asked for in its copyright infringement lawsuit against the video-sharing website.
The two sides agreed on Monday that any material YouTube was ordered to hand over would be stripped of personal information, including user ID, IP address and visitor ID.
“We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users’ viewing histories and we will not be providing that information,” YouTube wrote on its company blog Monday. The company also posted a copy of the stipulation to the order on its website.
Viacom, which owns several U.S. television networks including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, had originally asked for the information as part of its $1 billion US lawsuit against YouTube, which is owned by internet search giant Google Inc.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the English soccer Premier League and music publisher Bourne Co. Viacom and the other plaintiffs alleged in the suit, launched in March2007, that almost 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming are available on YouTube. Those clips have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times, Viacom charged.
It argued Google wasn’t doing enough to keep its copyrighted videos from television shows such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report off YouTube.
It had originally asked for access to the user histories to prove that copyright-infringing material is more popular than user-generated videos on YouTube.
Two weeks ago a U.S. federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over this information, a decision San Francisco-based privacy advocacy group The Electronic Frontier Foundation said was “a setback to privacy rights.”
Viacom issued a statement Monday, saying it never asked for personally identifiable information and only wanted the data as evidence in its case.
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FCC to Comcast: Throttling Broadband is Unlawful July 14, 2008
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FCC to Comcast: Throttling Broadband is Unlawful
Comcast’s attempts to throttle user bandwidth have been ruled unlawful by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — a coup for ‘net neutrality proponents.
Throttling broadband, the practice of slowing internet service down for heavy users, is an unpopular means of discouraging peer-to-peer filesharing. Last year the media panned Comcast when it confessed to throttling access to torrent sites, and in March 2008 it vowed to seek less controversial alternatives to serve users. Three months later, it piloted a slower service for those that consume more bandwidth than others — regardless of what they use it for.
FCC Chair Kevin Martin called the FCC ruling “a good first step.” He added that it would “set baseline protections for consumers that we can build upon.”
Last week Martin recommended the FCC rule against Comcast on the topic of throttling, arguing it violates the principle of treating all web traffic equally. The recommendation required that Comcast stop slowing certain types of traffic. It must also disclose its network management practices. The company was not charged a fine.
Comcast remains unapologetic.
“Comcast does not block any Internet content, application, or service,” said Senior Director Sena Fitzmaurice of Comcast’s corporate communications. “The carefully limited measures that Comcast takes to manage traffic on its broadband network are a reasonable part of Comcast’s strategy to ensure a high-quality, reliable Internet experience for all Comcast High-Speed Internet customers and are used by many other ISPs around the world.”
Court: FCC Should Decide Net Neutrality Issues July 8, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentA federal judge in California has suspended proceedings in a subscriber’s lawsuit against Comcast while the Federal Communications Commission completes its investigation into whether the company violated net neutrality principles by slowing traffic to peer-to-peer sites.
U.S. Judge Phyllis Hamilton stayed the case on the grounds that the FCC was already considering petitions against Comcast filed by online video company Vuze, as well as net neutrality advocates Free Press and Public Knowledge.
“The FCC is already using its recognized expertise to consider some of the exact questions placed before the court here, in an effort to promote uniformity in internet broadband regulation,” Hamilton wrote in a ruling quietly issued late last month.
In the ruling, Hamilton said the FCC has “well-established” authority to regulate broadband companies’ services. “The reasonableness of a broadband provider’s network management practices has … been firmly placed within the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission,” she wrote.
Last year, an investigation by The Associated Press revealed that Comcast was slowing traffic to peer-to-peer sites. The report triggered complaints to the FCC that Comcast was violating 2005 net neutrality principles, as well as a putative class-action lawsuit by California resident Jon Hart.
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