News release: "The Federal Trade Commission warned marketers of six mobile applications that provide background screening apps that they may be violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The FTC warned the apps marketers that, if they have reason to believe the background reports they provide are being used for employment screening, housing, credit, or other similar purposes, they must comply with the Act. According to the FTC, some of the apps include criminal record histories, which bear on an individual's character and general reputation and are precisely the type of information that is typically used in employment and tenant screening."

News release: "The Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA), the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), a member of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank today launched enviacentroamerica.org, a free online tool to compare and make transparent the costs of remittances from the United States to six Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. The website provides detailed and updated monthly information on how much it costs to send money from the U.S. to Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Costs are calculated based on amounts of US$200 and US$500...Enviacentroamerica.org provides information on the costs that different operators charge in five major remittance-sending hubs in the United States (California, Florida, New York, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts) to Central America and the Dominican Republic as well as on the costs to wire money from Costa Rica to Nicaragua."

via SEC: Facebook, Inc. Form S-1, February 1, 2012

• "We had 845 million MAUs as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 39% as compared to 608 million MAUs as of December 31, 2010.
  
• We had 483 million daily active users (DAUs) on average in December 2011, an increase of 48% as compared to 327 million DAUs in December 2010.
  
• We had more than 425 million MAUs who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011.
  
• There were more than 100 billion friend connections on Facebook as of December 31, 2011.
  
• Our users generated an average of 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day during the three months ended December 31, 2011."
  
• Reuters: "It's the year's hottest initial public offering, but some wealth managers find themselves having a hard time recommending Facebook to their clients."

Implementation of the Consumer Credit Directive: "The study examines the state and the main difficulties of the implementation of Directive 2008/48/EC on credit agreements for consumers using the examples of fourteen Member States of the
European Union. The analysis focuses on fully harmonised aspects of the Directive as well as on the provisions for which the Member States were given a wide margin of appreciation in achieving the objective of the Directive and options provided by the Directive. Furthermore, new regulations and regulations requiring interpretation are dealt with. Finally, the study analyses the regulation of credit agreements which fall outside the scope of the Directive."

The rise of in-store mobile commerce - "During the holiday season, 25% of cell owners used their phone inside stores to gather price comparisons; 24% used them to look up online reviews. And 19% of those who searched for a better price on an in-store product eventually bought the product online." Aaron Smith Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet Project, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, January 30, 2012.

News release: The European Commission has today [January 24, 2012] a comprehensive reform of the EU's 1995 data protection rules to strengthen online privacy rights and boost Europe's digital economy. Technological progress and globalisation have profoundly changed the way our data is collected, accessed and used. In addition, the 27 EU Member States have implemented the 1995 rules differently, resulting in divergences in enforcement. A single law will do away with the current fragmentation and costly administrative burdens, leading to savings for businesses of around €2.3 billion a year. The initiative will help reinforce consumer confidence in online services, providing a much needed boost to growth, jobs and innovation in Europe."

ACLU: "Yesterday evening, Google announced a new privacy policy effective March 1. The new policy is consistent across the vast majority of Google products...the new privacy policy makes clear that Google will, for the first time, combine the personal data you share with any one of its products or sites across almost all of its products and sites (everything but Google Chrome, Google Books, and Google Wallet) in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of you. And there’s no opting out. This comes on the heels of Google’s new Search, plus Your World, a feature combining search results from the public web with private information and photos you have shared (or that have been shared with you) through Google+ or Picasa...The head of Google’s privacy for product and engineering explained on Google’s blog that integrating an individual’s profiles across Google’s sites will help Google “figure[e] out what you really mean when you type in Apple, Jaguar or Pink,” provide more relevant ads, “provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day” (thanks, Mom), and “ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends’ names, are accurate...this data aggregation is not just about what ads you see, but as ACLU of Massachusetts describes, it creates an even larger treasure chest of personal information ripe for government picking."

"Fat paychecks, sweet perks, fun colleagues, and over 70,000 jobs ready to be filled -- these employers offer dream workplaces. Like Google, which reclaims the top spot this year to become a three-time champion. Meet this year's top 100."

Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period, Lee Rainie Director, Pew Internet Project

EPIC: "Bloomberg News has reported that the Federal Trade Commission has expanded its antitrust investigation of Google to include Google's social networking service, Google+. The report comes after Google announced that it would include personal data gathered from Google+ in the results of users' searches, a move that led EPIC to urge the FTC to investigate the company. EPIC said that "Google's business practices raise concerns related to both competition and the implementation of the Commission’s consent order," referring to a settlement that the FTC reached with Google that establishes new privacy safeguards for users of all Google products and services and subjects the company to regular privacy audits. Google first confirmed the FTC’s antitrust investigation in June 2011. Recently, the Senate held a hearing on Google's use of its dominance in the search market to suppress competition, and EPIC urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's use of Youtube search rankings to give preferential treatment to its own video content over non-Google content. For more information, see EPIC: Google/DoubleClick and EPIC: Federal Trade Commission."

The Book Depository is not Amazon - although it was purchased by the latter, it remains an icon driven, illustrative and content rich site to explore and from which to discover new titles, inexpensive older ones, read reviews and share ratings, and learn about upcoming releases. This site sells books and e-books, and you can also watch "The Book Depository Live - Thousands of customers all over the world enjoying our free worldwide shipping." Users may: Set your default eBook reader and format (39 devices are listed), read the blog, use the advanced search options, or browse for titles by topic, read the site's wonderfully designed, direct and personal Twitter feed, and remain hopeful that the folks who run this book site maintain what still looks and feels like a magical little kingdom for bibliophiles all around the world.

"An "EU sweep" is an action co-ordinated by the European Commission, and carried out simultaneously by the national consumer enforcement authorities in the Member States, Norway and Iceland. In a given week each year, consumer authorities check hundreds of sites in a particular sector in order to see where consumer rights are being compromised or denied. When they find that a website does not comply with EU consumer law, they then contact the operator and ask for corrective action. Those who fail to correct illegal practices can face fines or be ordered to close their websites."

• Airline Sweep
  
• Mobile Phone Sweep
  
• Electronic Goods Sweep
  
• Online Ticket Sales Sweep
  
• Online Ticket Sales Sweep
  
• Consumer credit Sweep

News release: "Were you ever about to sign a contract for a personal loan, credit card, or other consumer credit and discovered that it was all working out more expensive than you had first expected? An EU-wide investigation of websites offering consumer credit took place to check whether consumers are receiving the information to which they are entitled under EU consumer law1 before signing a consumer credit contract. National enforcement authorities checked more than 500 websites across the 27 Member States plus Norway and Iceland. They flagged 70% (393) of sites for further investigation in relation to the following main problems: the advertising did not include the required standard information; the offers omitted key information that is essential for making a decision; the costs were presented in a misleading way. National enforcement authorities will now contact financial institutions and credit intermediaries about suspected irregularities and ask them to clarify or take corrective action. The sweep operation checked in particular how business is applying the Consumer Credit Directive (recently transposed in Member States), which aims to make it easier for consumers to understand and compare credit offers."

News release: "A payment processor and two of its principals are now banned from using a new payment method to process electronic payments under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which resolves charges that they debited consumers' bank accounts without their consent. The settlement furthers the FTC's ongoing efforts to protect financially-strapped consumers during the economic downturn by scrutinizing not only merchants, but all parties who participate in defrauding consumers."

Nielsen’s Tops of 2011: Digital - December 28, 2011 - "As 2011 comes to a close, Nielsen reviewed the top online destinations, social media sites, and smartphone devices. Google was the most-visited U.S. Web brand, while Facebook held its lead among social networks and blogs. Smartphones were popular in 2011, making up the majority of new phone purchases with Apple as the top smartphone manufacturer and Android as the leading OS."

Print libraries, book collections, book shops - targets of fiscal austerity, the growing impact and power of e-books, social media, pay walls, e-commerce structures, and changing values about print media itself - are increasing disappearing. Regardless of the application of specific determining factors, the results are increased thresholds to open access to "knowledge." There is also a corresponding assault on the lifespan of websites, blogs, databases, metadata and web enabled content such as documents and emails, as users with no notice discover information simply going offline. There is however a cadre of official and unofficial guardians of the written word, photos, databases and other archival materials. This article by Matt Schwartz, with reporting by Eva Talmadge, in Technology Review, provides insight into the work of some individuals with a mission is to salvage the "intellectual" property of millions of web users whose terabytes of words, work and documents are disappearing despite quick, creative and technologically adroit efforts to save what can be called modern internet "history" on a global scale. This article documents some of the challenges in the struggle to manage massive data loss, the folks who are data defenders, and how truly valuable libraries collections are in serious danger. Variable associated with digitizing collections (copyright, cost, shear volume of the task, and global conflict to name just a few), continue to impact this dynamic problem.

News release: "The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Ireland 21 December 2011 published the outcome of its audit of Facebook Ireland(FB-I) which was conducted over the last three months including on-site in Facebook Ireland’s Headquarters in Dublin. The report is available in 2 parts: Report of the Audit, including recommendations and the Facebook Technical Analysis Report...It is a comprehensive assessment of Facebook Ireland’s compliance with Irish Data Protection law and by extension EU law in this area...Deputy Commissioner, Gary Davis who led the conduct of the Audit stated that “this Audit was the most comprehensive and detailed ever undertaken by our Office. We set ourselves a very ambitious target for completion and publication as both this Office and Facebook, felt it was important that the outcome be published and opened to public comment and scrutiny...Facebook is constantly evolving and adapting in response to user needs and technical developments. Like any successful technology platform, the service needs to innovate by introducing new products and features in order to adapt to changing circumstances. Indeed the almost Darwinian nature of the site means that there will constantly be an absolute need to have in place robust mechanisms to keep pace with the innovation that is the source of the site’s success."

"Have you ever wondered why some online ads you see are targeted to your tastes and interests, or how websites remember your preferences from visit to visit? The answer may be in the “cookies." A cookie is information saved by your web browser, the software program you use to visit the web. Cookies can be used by companies that collect, store and share bits of information about your online activities to track your behavior across sites. Cookies also can be used to customize your browsing experience, or to deliver ads targeted to you. OnGuardOnline.gov wants you to know how cookies are used and how you can control information about your browsing activities. Here are answers to some commonly asked questions about cookies – what they are, what they do, and how you can control them."

EPIC: "Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT), Chairman and Ranking member of the Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, have sent a letter to FTC Chairman John Liebowitz, expressing concern about Google's business practices and the company's impact on competition in Internet search and commerce. In September, EPIC wrote to the FTC and described how Google biased YouTube search rankings to give preferential treatment to its own content following the acquisition of the Internet's largest video service provider. The EPIC letter preceded a Senate hearing on The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition? EPIC testified before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee in 2009 on Google's growing dominance of essential Internet services."

Where people get information about restaurants and other local businesses: "The internet is the source that people most rely on for material about the local business scene and search engines are particularly valued. Newspapers and word of mouth also rank high as sources."

News release: "TRUSTe, the leading online privacy solutions provider, released its first privacy index as part of its new "Privacy Pulse" information series tracking changes and trends in online privacy. In the 2011 Website Edition of its Privacy Index, TRUSTe analyzed the privacy policies of the top 100 U.S. websites (as ranked by Alexa Sept. 2011) to evaluate privacy practices by measuring key policy attributes, as well as the type of disclosures contained in them. TRUSTe found that while nearly 100 percent of websites today include a privacy policy, existing policies are highly complex, lengthy and written in language that is confusing for the average person to understand. Additionally, the vast majority of privacy policies are not readily transparent regarding third-party usage of data or consumer choices."

"The Blueprint for a Secure Cyber Future builds on the Department of Homeland Security Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report’s strategic framework by providing a clear path to create a safe, secure, and resilient cyber environment for the homeland security enterprise. With this guide, stakeholders at all levels of government, the private sector, and our international partners can work together to develop the cybersecurity capabilities that are key to our economy, national security, and public health and safety. The Blueprint describes two areas of action: Protecting our Critical Information Infrastructure Today and Building a Stronger Cyber Ecosystem for Tomorrow. The Blueprint is designed to protect our most vital systems and assets and, over time, drive fundamental change in the way people and devices work together to secure cyberspace. The integration of privacy and civil liberties protections into the Department’s cybersecurity activities is fundamental to safeguarding and securing cyberspace."

The 2011 Fortune 500 and Social Media Adoption: Have America's Largest Companies Reached a Social Media Plateau? Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D. and Justina Andonian - Center for Marketing Research, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

"The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain appeared in the Nov. 30 edition of the Technology Review - The PC is dead. Rising numbers of mobile, lightweight, cloud-centric devices don't merely represent a change in form factor. Rather, we're seeing an unprecedented shift of power from end users and software developers on the one hand, to operating system vendors on the other—and even those who keep their PCs are being swept along. This is a little for the better, and much for the worse. The transformation is one from product to service. The platforms we used to purchase every few years—like operating systems—have become ongoing relationships with vendors, both for end users and software developers. I wrote about this impending shift, driven by a desire for better security and more convenience, in my 2008 book The Future of the Internet—and How to Stop It."

"Consumer Reports' Guide to online security outlines some of the most common Net threats—such as phishing, online scams, and computer viruses. (See: Best ways to stay safe online.) But our latest security report also notes that mobile phones and social media sites can also present a rising amount of ID theft risks since more consumers are using their smart phones to shop and sharing news of online bargains on Facebook. (See: Mobile phones: The new risk and Concerns about Facebook.) The Consumer Federation of America, a non-profit association of almost 300 consumer organizations, has compiled a list of 10 tips for having an ID theft-free holiday season (PDF) on its website, IDTheftInfo.org."

News release: "The FCC is launching the Small Biz Cyber Planner, an online resource to help small businesses create customized cybersecurity plans. This is the result of an unprecedented public-private partnership between government experts and private IT and security companies, including DHS, NCSA, NIST, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Chertoff Group, Symantec, Sophos, Visa, Microsoft, HP, McAfee, The Identity Theft Council, ADP and others. The online tool is available at FCC.gov/cyberplanner. By almost any measure small businesses have an outsized impact on our economy and it is critically important that small businesses, a vibrant engine for job and idea creation, are secure using the many broadband enabled tools they need to efficiently run their businesses. According to a survey released in October, 2011 by Symantec and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), two-thirds of U.S. small businesses rely on broadband Internet for their day-to-day operations...This effort is part of an ongoing program to raise awareness about the cybersecurity risks to small businesses and to help these businesses become cyber-secure. Earlier this year, the FCC and a coalition of public and private-sector partners developed a cybersecurity tip sheet, which includes tips to educate business owners about basic steps they can take immediately to protect their companies. The tip sheet is available at FCC.gov/cyberforsmallbiz".

Via LLRX.com - ShoppingBots and Online Shopping Resources 2012 - Marcus P. Zillman's guide, great for holiday and year round shopping, and comprises a comprehensive listing of shoppingbot and online shopping resources and sites on the Internet. Comparison shopping for books, electronics, gadgets, clothing, green products, hotels? Looking for coupons, discounts, vouchers or last minute deals? Do you want to support local, regional or national products and services? Marcus' wide ranging listing highlights reliable, efficient sites and services to compare and contrast your shopping choices, and to make the experience more cost effective and satisfying, now and year round.

• To log or not to log? - Risks and benefits of emerging life-logging applications, November 11, 2011 via European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) - "European Union (EU) agency which acts as a centre of expertise for the EU Member States and European institutions. It gives advice and recommendations on good practice, and acts as a “switchboard” for exchanging knowledge and information. The agency also facilitates contacts between the European institutions, the Member States, and private business and industry."
• "Recording aspects of one’s life, or life-logging, has a long established history in human society, but it is undergoing transformational change in terms of depth, volume and type of data. Before the 20th century, life-logging was restricted to recordings on paper media and involved written accounts, such as books, diaries, or collections of letters between people as well as person-constructed images such as drawings or paintings. By the 20th century, the media had broadened to include still photographic images, sound and moving images and most families kept at least an image life-log in the form of a photo album. By the end of the 20th century, most of these life-log data were digitally recorded with both the resolution and frequency of recording dramatically increasing year on year. Paper diaries and letters gave way to blogs, e-mail, and social networking status updates with the significant difference that the latter were potentially recorded forever and with a vastly more complete history than the episodic fragments of days gone by."
• Appendix I Scenario Building and Analysis Template, accompanying the deliverable "To log or not to log? - Risks and benefits of emerging life-logging applications". File To log or not to log? - Risks and benefits of emerging life-logging applications [Appendix II]
• Appendix II Risk Assessment Spreadsheet, accompanying the deliverable "To log or not to log? - Risks and benefits of emerging life-logging applications"

via LLRX.com - The Digital Death of Copyright's First Sale Doctrine: An important copyright case won't be argued in the Supreme Court, which on October 3, 2011 declined to review Vernor v. Autodesk, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving the applicability of copyright's first sale doctrine to transactions involving software and other digital information goods. Law professor Annmarie Bridy discusses the wide reaching impact of the first sale doctrine, without which there would be no free market for used books, CDs, or DVDs, because the copyright owner's right of distribution would reach beyond the first sale, all the way down the stream of commerce.

News release: "Whether your gift list is ready or you're wondering how long you can wait to start your holiday shopping, the Federal Trade Commission has online tips to help you get the best deals. The bottom line: Some extra research can really pay off."

CNNMoney: "Your phone company knows where you live, what websites you visit, what apps you download, what videos you like to watch, and even where you are. Now, some have begun selling that valuable information to the highest bidder. In mid-October, Verizon Wireless changed its privacy policy to allow the company to record customers' location data and Web browsing history, combine it with other personal information like age and gender, aggregate it with millions of other customers' data, and sell it on an anonymous basis."

Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits, comScore, October 2011.

News release: "Concerned that the pairing of the new Kindle Fire tablet with its must-use Silk browser means Amazon could track each Web click of Kindle Fire users Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) [October 14, 2011] sent a letter to Amazon’s CEO asking for responses to questions about tablets users’ privacy and security...In May 2011, Reps. Markey and Joe Barton (R-Texas) introduced the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2011, bipartisan legislation that amends the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 to extend, enhance and update the provisions relating to the collection, use and disclosure of children’s personal information. The legislation also establishes new protections for the personal information of children and teens."

Tracking the Trackers: Where Everybody Knows Your Username by Jonathan Mayer, posted on October 11, 2011

The Economist: "The beauty of Twitter, the popular microblogging service, is that users have to keep it short: messages can only be 140 characters long. But companies that mine the stream of tweets for marketing and other purposes (see article in this week's issue of The Economist) get much more information. [Here is a map] of a tweet including all its metadata. The map was published by Raffi Krikorian, a developer at Twitter. It is 18 months old, but it is safe to say that the amount of metadata attached to a tweet has not decreased since."

Account Deactivation and Content Removal: Guiding Principles and Practices for Companies and Users by Erica Newland, Caroline Nolan, Cynthia Wong, and Jillian York.

Account Deactivation and Content Removal: Guiding Principles and Practices for Companies and Users, Erica Newland, Caroline Nolan, Cynthia Wong, and Jillian York. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society and. The Center for Democracy & Technology, September 2011

News release: "As part of the Federal Trade Commission’s systematic review of all of the agency’s rules and guides, the FTC is seeking public comment on proposed amendments to the Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule. The Rule, issued in 1975, requires that marketers who solicit buyers to order merchandise through mail or telephone must have a reasonable basis to expect that they can ship ordered merchandise within the time frame they advertise, or, if no time frame is specified, within 30 days. The Rule also requires that, when a seller cannot ship within the promised time, the seller must obtain the buyer’s consent to a delay in shipping or refund payment for the unshipped merchandise. In 2007, the FTC sought public comment on how the Rule could be amended to address changes in technology and commercial practices. Based on a review of comments received, the FTC has concluded that the Rule continues to benefit consumers and will be retained."

News release: "Representatives Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Co-Chairmen of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the agency to investigate so-called “supercookies”, files that can be installed on computers without a user's knowledge. Supercookies allow websites to collect detailed personal data about users, including websites previously visited. Even when consumers choose to delete regular cookies from their computers, supercookies persist. According to a report last month in The Wall Street Journal (“Latest in Web Tracking: Stealthy ‘Supercookies’, August 18, 2011), it was discovered that companies have been installing supercookies on users’ computers without their knowledge. Even technical experts at the websites in the report stated they had no knowledge that the secret files were being installed."

Microsoft Becomes First Corporate User of Standard XML-Based Bank Statements

"A report released today by the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society highlights the dilemmas companies and users face when enforcement of a website's Terms of Use policy results in deactivation of user accounts or removal of user-generated content. The report recommends principles, strategies, and tools that both companies and users can adopt to lessen the negative effects of account deactivation and content removal. The report, Account Deactivation and Content Removal: Guiding Principles and Practices for Companies and Users, outlines select examples of good company practices. Such practices feature rules and enforcement policies that are sensitive to users' free expression and privacy rights and to the potential risks faced by human rights activists, who are increasingly using social media tools in their work."

Identity Theft - Trends, Patterns, and Typologies Based on Suspicious Activity Reports. Filed by the Securities and Futures Industries January 1, 2005 – December 31, 2010. Report released September 2011.

CRS - Illegal Internet Streaming of Copyrighted Content: Legislation in the 112th Congress, Brian T. Yeh, Legislative Attorney, August 29, 2011

Radical change is certainly producing some alarming symptoms: "According to Nielsen BookScan, the publishing industry standard for book sales data, book sales are pretty healthy, with one significant proviso which I'll come to. Ten years ago in 2001, 162m books were sold in Britain. Ten years later – a decade in which the internet bloomed, online gaming exploded, television channels proliferated, digital piracy rampaged and, latterly, recession gloomed – 229m books sold. So, a 42% increase in the number of books sold over the last 10 years...For one thing, people are buying more and more books in Amazonia, and more and more of them are on Amazon's ebook platform the Kindle. In May this year, Amazon announced that, for the first time, it was selling more Kindle versions of books than paperback and hardbacks combined, and (here's the thing that doesn't get quoted so often) sales of print books were still increasing."

News release: "comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a report on selected global retail and auction sites based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The study found that of the destinations analyzed, Amazon Sites reached the largest global audience with more than 282 million visitors in June, or 20.4 percent of the worldwide Internet population. Other top brands in the study included eBay, which reached 16.2 percent of global Internet visitors, China’s Alibaba.com Corporation (11.3 percent reach), Apple.com Worldwide Sites (9.7 percent reach) and Japan’s Rakuten Inc. (4.2 percent reach)."

Flash Cookies and Privacy II: Now with HTML5 and ETag Respawning (July 29, 2011), Ayenson, Mika, Wambach, Dietrich James, Soltani, Ashkan, Good, Nathan and Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, Available at SSRN

Poynter: "Writing in the newsletter of the International News Marketing Association, Dow Jones senior vice president of circulation Lynne Brennen proposes five attributes to measure “a consumer’s willingness to pay.” She also assigned a percentage weighting to each. Keep in mind this is a measure not of what people would like to have as they consume news, but what they will actually pay for. What advertisers want is outside the scope of this particular exercise. Brennen’s big five and the weighting she assigned are:

• Broad reliability of content — 30 percent
  
• Vertical nature of content — 30 percent
  
• Longevity of content — 30 percent
  
• Immediacy of information — 8 percent
  
• Social “trustworthiness” — 2 percent

“The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?” - Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. DATE: September 21, 2011

"Marketers are spying on Internet users -- observing and remembering people's clicks, and building and selling detailed dossiers of their activities and interests. The Wall Street Journal's What They Know series documents the new, cutting-edge uses of this Internet-tracking technology. The Journal analyzed the tracking files installed on people's computers by the 50 most popular U.S. websites, plus WSJ.com. The Journal also built an "exposure index" -- to determine the degree to which each site exposes visitors to monitoring -- by studying the tracking technologies they install and the privacy policies that guide their use."

News release: "Say “spam” and most business executives think of annoying e-mail messages, like the ones that hold out a phony offer to split $50 million that’s sitting in a foreign bank. Of course, this type of message is covered by the Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Rule, which is designed to protect consumers from deceptive commercial e-mail. But CAN-SPAM covers e-mails from legitimate businesses, too, such as e-mail notifying customers about a new product line or a special sale. To help explain what the CAN-SPAM Rule covers, the FTC has produced a new video for businesses with a seven-point checklist for sending commercial e-mail messages. For example, e-mail marketers must use accurate headers and subject lines and provide a method for consumers to stop getting e-mails. In addition to the video, the FTC also offers a brochure, The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business."

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission told Congress that consumers must be confident that their privacy will be protected if they are to be willing to take advantage of all the benefits offered by the Internet marketplace. Commission testimony to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, delivered by Commissioner Julie Brill, states that, “Privacy has been an important component of the Commission’s consumer protection mission for 40 years. During this time, the Commission’s goal in the privacy arena has remained constant: to protect consumers’ personal information and ensure that they have the confidence to take advantage of the many benefits offered by the dynamic and ever-changing marketplace.”

"New technology can bring tremendous benefits to consumers, but it also can present new challenges. Mobile apps offered on cell phones and other portable devices such as tablets and music players can perform a range of consumer services such as locating the nearest retail stores, managing shopping lists, tracking family budgets, and allowing consumers to read news articles, play interactive games, and connect with family and friends. The FTC is making a concerted effort to ensure that consumers have the information they need about mobile apps, and is offering new information on OnGuardOnline, the federal government’s website to help you be safe, secure and responsible on the Internet."

Follow up to posting, WSJ: FTC Plans to Serve Google With Subpoenas, from the Official Google Blog: "At Google, we’ve always focused on putting the user first. We aim to provide relevant answers as quickly as possible—and our product innovation and engineering talent have delivered results that users seem to like, in a world where the competition is only one click away. Still, we recognize that our success has led to greater scrutiny. Yesterday, we received formal notification from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it has begun a review of our business. We respect the FTC’s process and will be working with them (as we have with other agencies) over the coming months to answer questions about Google and our services. It’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are, but we’re clear about where we stand...To learn more about our business, please visit google.com/press/competition."

WSJ: "Federal regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation into whether the Internet giant has abused its dominance in Web-search advertising, people familiar with the matter said. The civil probe, which has the potential to reshape how companies compete on the Internet, is the most serious legal threat yet to the 12-year-old company, though it wouldn't necessarily lead to any federal allegations of wrongdoing against Google. While Google has faced several antitrust probes in recent years, the U.S. has limited its investigations largely to reviews of the company's mergers and acquisitions. The new inquiry, by contrast, will examine fundamental issues relating to Google's core search-advertising business, its biggest money maker, said the people familiar with the matter."

News release: "ICANN’s Board of Directors has approved a plan to usher in one of the biggest changes ever to the Internet’s Domain Name System. During a special meeting, the Board approved a plan to allow an increase in the number of Internet address endings - called generic top-level domains (gTLDs) - from the current 22, which includes such familiar domains as .com, .org and .net. “ICANN has opened the Internet’s naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today’s decision respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN. New gTLDs will change the way people find information on the Internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence. Virtually every organization with an online presence could be affected in some way. Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organizations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways."

News release: "The mobile Data Tsunami initially described here is still growing at an astounding pace. According to Nielsen’s monthly analysis of cellphone bills for 65,000+ lines, smartphone owners – especially those with iPhones and Android devices — are consuming more data than ever before on a per-user basis. This has huge implications for carriers since the proportion of smartphone owners is also increasing dramatically. (Currently, 37% of all mobile subscribers in the United States have smartphones.) In just the last 12 months, the amount of data the average smartphone user consumes per month has grown by 89 percent from 230 Megabytes (MB) in Q1 2010 to 435 MB in Q1 2011. A look at the distribution of data consumption is even more shocking: data usage for the top 10 percent of smartphone users (90th percentile) is up 109 percent while the top 1 percent (99th percentile) has grown their usage by an astonishing 155 percent from 1.8GB in Q1 2010 to over 4.6GB in Q1 2011.

The FTC provides antitrust approval [link to notice here] - Microsoft news release: Microsoft Corp. and Skype Global announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both Microsoft and Skype. The acquisition will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications, bringing benefits to both consumers and enterprise users and generating significant new business and revenue opportunities. The combination will extend Skype’s world-class brand and the reach of its networked platform, while enhancing Microsoft’s existing portfolio of real-time communications products and services. With 170 million connected users and over 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010, Skype has been a pioneer in creating rich, meaningful connections among friends, families and business colleagues globally."

News release: "The U.S. Department of Commerce today released a report that proposes voluntary codes of conduct to strengthen the cybersecurity of companies that increasingly rely on the Internet to do business, but are not part of the critical infrastructure sector. The report, Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy, focuses on the “Internet and Information Innovation Sector” (I3S) – these are businesses that range from small and medium enterprises and bricks-and-mortar firms with online services, to social networking sites and Internet-only business, to cloud computing firms that are increasingly subject to cyber attacks."

HM Treasury Review of the Money Laundering Regulations 2007: the Government response, June 2011

Privacy leakage vs. Protection measures: the growing disconnect, Balachander Krishnamurthy - AT&T Labs Research; Konstantin Naryshkin - Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Craig E. Wills - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, May 2011.

"Local businesses are growing. We’re helping. Google's not just a search engine. We've also helped hundreds of businesses in every U.S. state to grow. Across the U.S., Google's search and advertising tools provided $64 billion of economic activity in 2010. Click the map to see Google’s economic impact in your state. The state-by-state advertiser, publisher, and non-profit totals listed in the map are rounded to the nearest thousand."

• Our Search & Advertising Tools
  
• Where We Get the Numbers
  
• FAQ

"The FSA's Consultation paper CP11/08 is entitled 'Data Collection: Retail Mediation Activities Return and complaints data'. It was published in May 2011. Comments should reach us by July 8 2011.

Google Announces First Quarter 2011 Results: "In May 2011, in connection with a potential resolution of an investigation by the United States Department of Justice into the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers, we accrued $500 million for the three month period ended March 31, 2011. Although we cannot predict the ultimate outcome of this matter, we believe it will not have a material adverse effect on our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows. As a result, we have updated the affected financial data in this release, as noted, as well as the accompanying financial tables."

Better Choices: Better Deals - Consumers Powering Growth. UK Department for Business, Innovations and Skills, April 2011

Google Business Photos - See also the FAQ: "Do you own a business? Apply today for a Google photo shoot of your business. Millions of potential customers visit Google every day to learn about places and businesses. Through scheduled photo shoots, Google is introducing a new way for you to showcase your business to the world. Where are photo shoots available? Google photographers are currently visiting businesses in select cities in the US, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Any business can apply for a photo shoot, and demand will help us decide where to send our photographers next. Where will the photos appear? Pictures from the shoot will be added to your Place page."

The big four phone carriers spill on their location and customer data collection policies: "The recent uproar over location tracking in smartphones has gotten ugly and fingers are bound to be pointed. But in the spirit of transparency, the four major carriers have outlined and detailed their location tracking applications s well as what exactly that data is being used for. The honesty does come as a response to the revelation that iPhones, Android devices, and Windows Phone 7 units are tracking user location."

A trade group raises concerns about the FTC settlement with Google over Buzz, by Grant Gross

News release: "It's been almost a year since Mozilla, Opera, Xiph.Org, Matroska, Google and over 40 other partners launched the WebM Project with the goal of developing a world-class, open source media format for the web. The open development model has led to rapid quality improvements in WebM, and the format is now supported in HTML5-capable browsers including Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Internet Explorer. Leading silicon vendors are adding WebM support to their chipsets,and some hardware implementations are already on the market. A key measure of success for WebM is a diverse range of contributors. For example, we are already seeing a growing number of code contributions from independent developers as well as independent implementations. We are pleased to now offer another way to contribute, through a licensing initiative that allows the community to help further support the WebM Project. Google, Matroska and the Xiph.Org Foundation make the components of WebM openly available on royalty-free terms. Today we're announcing the formation of the WebM Community Cross-License (CCL) initiative with 17 founding members. Organizations that join the CCL agree to license patents they may have that are essential to WebM technologies to other members of the CCL."

Welcome to the age of data: Watch your back! by Molly Wood

NYT: "As technical problems interrupted computer services provided by Amazon for a second day on Friday, industry analysts said the troubles would prompt many companies to reconsider relying on remote computers beyond their control...Amazon set up a side business five years ago offering computing resources to businesses from its network of sophisticated data centers. Today, the company is the early leader in the fast-growing business of cloud computing. In business, the cloud model is rapidly gaining popularity as a way for companies to outsource computing chores to avoid the costs and headaches of running their own data centers — simply tap in, over the Web, to computer processing and storage without owning the machines or operating software. Amazon has thousands of corporate customers, from Pfizer and Netflix to legions of start-ups, whose businesses often live on Amazon Web Services. Those reporting service troubles included Foursquare, a location-based social networking site; Quora, a question-and-answer service; Reddit, a news-sharing site; and BigDoor, which makes game tools for Web publishers."

Declan McCullagh,Chief political correspondent, CNET: How police have obtained iPhone, iPad tracking logs

Interview with Jim Jansen, Senior Fellow, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Recorded at “Buying & Selling EContent” Conference, For podcast release Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Via EFF: "Your cell phone company knows everywhere you go, twenty-four hours a day, every day. How concrete is this fact for you? It's very concrete for Malte Spitz, a German politician and privacy advocate. He used German privacy law — which, like the law of many European countries, gives individuals a right to see what private companies know about them — to force his cell phone carrier to reveal what it knew about him. The result? 35,831 different facts about his cell phone use over the course of six months. As the German newspaper website Zeit Online reports:

EPIC: "Judge Denny Chin struck down a proposed settlement between Google and copyright holders that would have imposed significant privacy risks on e-book consumers. Google's proposal would have entitled the company to collect each users' search queries as well as the titles and page numbers of the books they read. In a February 2010 hearing before the Court, EPIC President Marc Rotenberg explained EPIC Press Release: EPIC Urges Court To Reject Google Books Settlement; EPIC: Google Books Settlement and Privacy."

News release: "In testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Federal Trade Commission discussed its efforts to protect consumer privacy through enforcement actions, consumer education, and policy initiatives like the FTC staff’s recent preliminary privacy report. The report proposes a framework to balance consumer privacy with industry innovation by: 1) building privacy protections into everyday business practices (“privacy-by-design”); 2) simplifying privacy choices for consumers; and 3)improving transparency with clearer, shorter privacy notices. The Commission told Congress that industry stakeholders have made important progress in implementing Do Not Track, a mechanism proposed in the staff's preliminary privacy report last December that would allow consumers to choose not to have their Internet browsing tracked by third parties. The testimony noted that two of the major Internet browsers – Microsoft and Mozilla – “have recently announced the development of new choice mechanisms for online behavioral advertising that seek to provide increased transparency, greater consumer control, and improved ease of use.”

"Google One Pass is a payment system that enables publishers to set the terms for access to their digital content. It offers purchase-once, view-anywhere functionality, so users can view the content they buy across all of their devices. By providing a system for user authentication, payment processing, and administration, Google One Pass lets publishers focus on creating high quality content for their readers. Publishers have flexibility over payment models and control over the digital content for which they charge and the content that is free for consumers. Google One Pass is easy to implement and simple to manage. The set up is minimal and content will be managed through a simple online interface, so publishers can try out different approaches to selling content with minimal development cost and see what works for their business. It is powered by Google Checkout, so publishers’ e-commerce and payment processing needs are covered, and there is no need to build a third-party payment system into publishers sites."

"The Digital Signage Federation (DSF), a professional membership association, announced today the release of new industry standards for digital signage privacy. The “Digital Signage Privacy Standards” are a set of voluntary privacy guidelines recommended by DSF for digital signage companies, their partners and the venues that host these systems....The DSF Standards Committee is comprised of eight members from different sectors of the industry, and is chaired by Ken Goldberg, CEO of Real Digital Media. Harley Geiger, a committee member and Policy Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, was instrumental in leading the effort to develop policies that safeguard consumer privacy and preserve the public’s trust in the digital signage industry. Subsequently, the Digital Signage Privacy Standard includes strong principles in the following categories:

• Transparency
  
• Individual Participation
  
• Purpose Specification
  
• Data Minimization
  
• Use Limitation
  
• Data Quality & Integrity
  
• Security
  
• Accountability

News release: "The Center for Democracy & Technology today released a proposal that sketches the parameters of what Do Not Track (DNT) means. The document is intended to identify the types of behaviors that DNT should prohibit, and jumpstart a discussion aimed at developing a common understanding of the terms of this emerging technology. The concept of DNT technology is gaining momentum; however, definitions underlying technology—such as what "tracking" actually means—are still in flux...CDT suggests that the following definition for "tracking" in the context of Do Not Track:

National Journal: Google and Mozilla both announced that they will be adding "do-not-track" options to their Internet browsers, allowing users to prevent websites from gathering personal information and selling it to advertisers. Mozilla announced its plan Sunday with Google following suit Monday. According to a company statement, Google's "Keep My Op-Outs" feature will be available as an extension for download on its Chrome browser Monday. "We made available, for all major browsers, a downloadable browser plugin that enables you to permanently opt out of Google's advertising cookie, even if you deleted all your browser's cookies," according to the statement." Mozilla's Firefox version will be an HTTP header that will tell websites that a user wants to opt-out what's called "online behavioral advertising." "The advantages to the header technique are that it is less complex and simple to locate and use, it is more persistent than cookie-based solutions, and it doesn't rely on user's finding and loading lists of ad networks and advertisers to work," said Mozilla technology and privacy officer Alex Fowler wrote in a blog post Sunday. Microsoft announced a similar feature for its Internet Explorer in December."

Follow up to Critical Undersea Internet Cables Damaged Between Europe and Mideast, this related commentary, Undersea Cables: The Achilles Heel of our Economies, by Franz-Stefan Gady

"On January 10, 2011, the EastWest Institute released a report detailing the results of the First Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit: Protecting the Digital Economy, and outlining the cybersecurity initiative’s next steps as it prepares for the Second Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit in London on June 1-2. At the summit, held from May 3 to 5, 2010 in Dallas, Texas, EWI brought together over 400 technical experts, policy elites and national security officials from the Cyber40, an informal grouping of the world’s most digitally-advanced countries—among others, the United States, China, India, Russia and Estonia. Participants worked to identify problems facing crucial sectors of the Internet, such as financial services and essential government services, and forge concrete solutions to protect the world’s digital infrastructure."

The commercial data privacy issues discussed in the Department’s green paper, Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework, provide a clear lens through which to assess current policy. Throughout the history of the Internet as a commercial medium, the Department of Commerce has been a key avenue of government engagement. Today, the Department continues this role, primarily through the Internet Policy Task Force, established by Secretary Locke. This Task Force is examining policy approaches that reduce barriers to digital commerce while strengthening protections for commercial data privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and the global free flow of information."

65% of internet users have paid for online content, Jim Jansen, Senior Fellow, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 12/30/2010

"Mass collaboration is revolutionizing not only the way we work, but the way we live, learn, create and care for each other. Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, authors of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, analyze some of the trends reshaping our world. Today: Journalism in the age of user-generated content and Wikileaks - "It turns out people will not pay for news as a commodity. In an age of Twitter, bloggers, WikiLeaks and social networks, people can find the news without buying a paper. As one youngster said, “If the news is important it will find me.” The Internet has destroyed the business model for print. Print publications will survive, but not in the long term, and this has big implications for journalism. Compared to the massive physical assets of, say, The New York Times, online newspaper The Huffington Post has almost zero printing and distribution costs. The New York Times employs more than a thousand people in its editorial department alone. The Huffington Post employs 60 and a volunteer roster of thousands of writers. The site is thriving, with 20 million readers."

News release: "S&P Equity Research sees big developments for the Internet segment in 2011, including continuing challenges for Google, changes at Yahoo, a cloud offering from Apple, and excitement from China. "The coming year should also be another year of solid growth, with double-digit gains for U.S. Internet advertising and retail spending," observed Scott Kessler, Information Technology analyst at S&P Equity Research."

Follow up to FTC Staff Issues Privacy Report Offers Framework for Consumers, Businesses, and Policymakers, this news from Gallup: "U.S. Internet users would likely welcome a "Do Not Track" measure like the one the Federal Trade Commission is currently considering to keep advertisers from tracking their movements online. Gallup finds Internet users largely aware that advertisers use their online browsing history to target ads to their interests, but largely opposed to such tactics -- even if they help to keep websites free...The results, from a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Dec. 10-12, 2010, come as the Federal Trade Commission considers a measure that would allow Internet users to essentially opt out of online tracking, as they do with the telemarketing "Do Not Call" list. AdWeek in a recent editorial said such a measure would amount to an "apocalypse" for online advertisers, particularly for the fast-growing $1.1 billion industry that relies on these tactics to target content to users."

Generations 2010, Kathryn Zickuhr, Web Coordinator, 12/16/2010

Presentation by Pete Blackshaw: CMO, NM Incite, a Nielsen-McKinsey Company and Lee Rainie: Director, Pew Internet Project

LLRX.com - ShoppingBots and Online Shopping Resources 2011

FT.com: Facebook’s grand plan for the future: "This is a somewhat different Mark Zuckerberg to the one the public knew just a year ago. In recent months he has transformed from an awkward wunderkind with a preternatural ability to anticipate where the web is going, into an amicable executive unafraid of laying out his grand plan. It is not just that he is a bit more confident and articulate, though he is both; what is striking is that for the first time in my two years of interviewing him, Zuckerberg seems at ease. “The fear is behind him,” said a friend of Zuckerberg’s. “Until a year ago, he thought this might be the next Google, but he wasn’t sure. Now he’s sure. The fear is gone.”

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s chief privacy policy and enforcement agency for 40 years, issued a preliminary staff report today that proposes a framework to balance the privacy interests of consumers with innovation that relies on consumer information to develop beneficial new products and services. The proposed report also suggests implementation of a “Do Not Track” mechanism – likely a persistent setting on consumers’ browsers – so consumers can choose whether to allow the collection of data regarding their online searching and browsing activities....The report states that industry efforts to address privacy through self-regulation “have been too slow, and up to now have failed to provide adequate and meaningful protection.” The framework outlined in the report is designed to reduce the burdens on consumers and businesses."

News release: "The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant position in online search, in violation of European Union rules (Article 102 TFEU). The opening of formal proceedings follows complaints by search service providers about unfavourable treatment of their services in Google's unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google's own services. This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of any infringements. It only signifies that the Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority. Google's internet search engine provides for two types of results when people are searching for information. These are unpaid search results, which are sometimes also referred to as "natural", "organic" or "algorithmic" search results, and third party advertisements shown at the top and at the right hand side of Google's search results page (so-called paid search results or sponsored links). The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so-called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services. The Commission will also look into allegations that Google lowered the 'Quality Score' for sponsored links of competing vertical search services. The Quality Score is one of the factors that determine the price paid to Google by advertisers."

MercuryNews.com: "As 2010 draws to a close, much of the tech world is struggling to regain its footing after a difficult recession. Then there's Apple. Never before has this venerable company, which at age 34 is a grizzled veteran by Silicon Valley standards, stood so firmly atop the high-tech industry. Earlier this year, Apple's market capitalization surpassed that of Microsoft, making it the most valuable property in the tech universe. And during its just-completed fiscal year, it broke four consecutive quarterly revenue and profit records. Amid the worst recession in decades, Apple hired thousands while others cut jobs. But what most distinguishes Apple is the way it has climbed these heights. While other tech titans spent 2010 cutting costs and acquiring new technology through mergers, this $65 billion company is innovating like a startup...Experts point to three key factors that drive Apple's relentless innovation: It invests heavily in R&D, is unafraid to cannibalize or kill its own products and is able to extend its core technology across a host of different products to create a dominant ecosystem of consumer gadgets."

Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere, Jillian C. York, The OpenNet Initiative (ONI), November 2010

Google: "..we’re releasing a white paper, Enabling Trade in the Era of Information Technologies: Breaking Down Barriers to the Free Flow of Information, that explores the ways that governments impose limits on the free flow of information online. It’s pretty wonky stuff, but the premise is simple: In addition to infringing human rights, governments that block the free flow of information on the Internet are also blocking trade and economic growth. Over the last two decades, the Internet has delivered tremendous economic and trade benefits. It has driven record increases in productivity, spurred innovation, created new economies, and fueled international trade. In part this is because the Internet makes geographically distant markets easy to reach. But this engine of economic growth is increasingly coming under attack. According to one study, more than forty governments now engage in broad-scale restriction of online information. Governments are blocking online services, imposing non-transparent regulation, and seeking to incorporate surveillance tools into their Internet infrastructure. These are the trade barriers of the 21st century economy...we urge policymakers in the United States, European Union and elsewhere to take steps to break down barriers to free trade and Internet commerce. These issues present challenges, but also an opportunity for governments to align 21st century trade policy with the 21st century economy."

Real Branding Implications of Digital Media – an SEM, SEO, & Online Display Advertising Study, iProspect | November 2010

NYT: "The News Corporation said on Tuesday that it had gained 105,000 paying customers for the digital versions of The Times and The Sunday Times of London since it started charging for access to their Web sites this summer. The company said about half of those additions were regular, active subscribers to the newspapers’ Web sites, iPad application or Amazon Kindle edition. The rest were occasional purchasers. Another 100,000 readers have activated free digital accounts that are included in print subscriptions to the papers, the News Corporation said. The company’s initiative has been closely watched among media analysts and advertisers because The Times and Sunday Times are among the first prominent general-interest newspapers to start charging for their digital content. Other newspapers are also moving to introduce paid services as online advertising falls short of publishers’ hopes that it might someday replace dwindling print ad revenue."

WSJ: "Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure. The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It's unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to "dramatically limit" the exposure of users' personal information."

Follow up to posting, WSJ Tracks how marketers are spying on Internet users, this news release: "Representatives Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), Co-Chairman of the House Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, released responses to the letters they had sent to companies identified in a Wall Street Journal investigation as reportedly installing intrusive consumer-tracking technologies to track and/or target consumers visiting these company Web sites. “The responses [links to which are included in this news release] raise a number of concerns, including whether consumers are able to effectively shield their personal Internet habits and private information from the prying eyes of online data gatherers,” Rep. Markey said. “Consumers may be unaware that the sites they visit, coordinating with a cadre of analytics firms, advertising networks and offline data companies, may be tracking their activities around the Internet. While the responses that Rep. Barton and I received cite privacy policies and opt-out choices to enable consumers to preserve their privacy, these policies can be complicated and laborious to navigate. For example, a single website may have business relationships with a dozen or more third-party data firms that display advertisements on its site. A consumer may have to visit each of these sites, consulting its privacy policy and clicking through to opt-out, if such an option is provided. In some cases, a list of all third party affiliates is not readily accessible, keeping consumers in the dark.”

What They Know - interactive graphic: "Marketers are spying on Internet users -- observing and remembering people's clicks, and building and selling detailed dossiers of their activities and interests. The Wall Street Journal's What They Know series documents the new, cutting-edge uses of this Internet-tracking technology. The Journal analyzed the tracking files installed on people's computers by the 50 most popular U.S. websites, plus WSJ.com. The Journal also built an "exposure index" -- to determine the degree to which each site exposes visitors to monitoring -- by studying the tracking technologies they install and the privacy policies that guide their use."

News release: "The largest ever global research project into people’s online activities and behaviour - Digital Life - was launched today, ‘digital day’ by TNS, the world’s biggest custom research company. Covering nearly 90 per cent of the world’s online population through 50,000 interviews with consumers in 46 countries, the study reveals major changes in the world’s online behaviour. Core data from the study is being made publicly available via this interactive website...Among the key findings of the study are:

• Globally, people who have on-line access have digital sources as their number one media channel. 61% of online users use the internet daily against 54% for TV, 36% for Radio and 32% for Newspapers.
  
• Online consumers in rapid growth markets have overtaken mature markets in terms of engaging with digital activities. When looking at behaviour online, rapid growth markets such as Egypt (56%) and China (54%) have much higher levels of digital engagement than mature markets such as Japan (20%), Denmark (25%) or Finland (26%). This is despite mature markets usually having a more advanced internet infrastructure.
  
• Activities such as blogging and social networking are gaining momentum at huge speed in rapid growth markets. The research shows four out of five online users in China (88%) and over half of those in Brazil (51%) have written their own blog or forum entry, compared to only 32% in the US. The Internet has also become the default option for photo sharing among online users in rapid growth markets, particularly in Asia."

Report: Shopping, Search, Decision Making Online Product Research, by Jim Jansen, September 29, 2010

WSJ: "A former Federal Trade Commission employee has filed a complaint with the agency accusing Google Inc. of not adequately protecting the privacy of consumers’ search queries. The complaint was filed September 6 by Christopher Soghoian, who worked until August as a technologist with the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. It calls on the agency to investigate Google and to “compel Google to take proactive steps to protect the privacy of individual users’ search terms.” The complaint alleges Google shares with third parties users’ search queries, including those that contain personal information. In an emailed statement, Google said its passing of search-query data to third parties “is a standard practice across all search engines” and that “webmasters use this to see what searches bring visitors to their websites.” The statement added, “Google does not pass any personal information about the source of the query to the destination website.”

• 8/20/10 - Statement of FCCC ommissioner Clyburn at "The Future of the Internet" Public Hearing, Minneapolis, Minnesota: "an open Internet is indeed the great equalizer. It enables traditionally underrepresented groups—like minorities and women—to have an equal voice and an equal opportunity. It allows any connected individual to distribute their ideas to a global network or run their business right from their very own home.."
• 8/19/10 - Statement of Commissioner Copps at "The Future of the Internet" Public Hearing Minneapolis, Minnesota: "What happened was that in less than a generation, a media landscape that should have been moving toward more diversity, more localism and more competition was transformed into a market controlled by a handful of players, too often providing little more than infotainment, canned music and program homogenization. Their newsrooms were shuttered, reporters were yanked off the beat and fired, and investigative journalism consigned to the endangered species list. The apologists told us this was the natural result of changes in technology and markets, and things would all work out fine in the world of new media if we just looked the other way a while longer. The facts told another story. The huge debts these mega-companies took on to curry favor with investors and hedge-fund operators overwhelmed broadcaster obligations to be good stewards of the people’s airwaves. The public’s right to know got lost in the frenzy of financial hyper-speculation.

"Google, a company with vast pools of data about us, is moving into the world of highly targeted ads." See this graphic for details covering 1998 to present.

The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets - A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series, by Julia Angwin: "The Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It reveals that the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.

• The study found that the nation's 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites each installed more than a hundred. The nonprofit Wikipedia installed none.
  
• Tracking technology is getting smarter and more intrusive. Monitoring used to be limited mainly to "cookie" files that record websites people visit. But the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. Some tools surreptitiously re-spawn themselves even after users try to delete them.
  
• These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market-like exchanges that have sprung up in the past 18 months."

News release: "The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), a public-private partnership focused on educating a digital citizenry to stay safe and secure online, today launched its National Cyber Security Awareness Month Web portal with information on events, activities, promotions and educational materials to be used in preparation for the online safety month to be held in October. Anyone – family, employers, consumers, teachers, and students – interested in online safety is encouraged to access the portal, and all materials are free to use."

News release: "July 28, 2010, the House Financial Services Committee passed legislation to enable Americans to bet online and put an end to an inappropriate interference with their personal freedom. H.R. 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009 would establish a federal regulatory and enforcement framework under which Internet gambling operators could obtain licenses authorizing them to accept bets and wagers from individuals in the United States. The legislation comes in response to the enactment of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which restricted the use of the payments system for Americans who gamble online."

Consumer Federation of America, National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators, North American Consumer Protection Investigators - 2009 Consumer Complaint Survey Report, July 27, 2010

The Effect of Market Leadership in Business Process Innovation: The Case(s) of E-Business Adoption, Kristina Steffenson McElheran, Working Paper 10-104, Harvard Business School

Bloomberg reported, "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is preparing to review allegations that Apple Inc. is engaging in anti-competitive tactics to restrict rivals in the mobile- advertising market, people familiar with the matter said. The FTC and U.S. Justice Department have been discussing which agency should conduct the investigation, one of the people said yesterday. Regulators decided earlier this week that the FTC would proceed, the person said."

Demands for universal data plans grow louder - "Between multiple cell phones, high-speed Internet connections, and even digital TV subscriptions, most households are now paying for data delivery at least three times over, and frequently paying the same provider twice. This is ridiculous, and it's time for some major consolidation. It's time for a universal data plan. I want to pay once (maybe twice) for data, I want that data to be unlimited, and I want to be able to use it in any fashion I choose." [Molly Wood, CNET News]

BusinessWire: "A new study of 90 organizations actively engaged in online marketing concludes that in spite of an acknowledged return on investment, hundreds of millions of dollars are being held back from online behavioral advertising (OBA) over concerns that a lack of consumer trust in the practice could damage brand reputation. The study, Economic Impact of Privacy on Online Behavioral Advertising, conducted independently by the Ponemon Institute, found that although 70 percent of companies agreed that behaviorally targeted advertising substantially increases marketing and sales performance, and in spite of an overall favorable return, most companies surveyed have limited their online advertising budgets over privacy concerns. In fact, extrapolated results suggest that budgets would be as much as four times higher if not for these concerns. Among the study’s noteworthy results:
98 percent of companies surveyed said they have restricted OBA because of privacy concerns;

"The Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force is conducting a comprehensive review of the nexus between privacy policy and innovation in the Internet economy. The Department seeks public comment from all Internet stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on the impact of current privacy laws in the United States and around the world on the pace of innovation in the information economy..The Department has launched the Privacy and Innovation Initiative to identify policies that will enhance: (1) The clarity, transparency,
scalability and flexibility needed to foster innovation in the information economy; (2) the public confidence necessary for full citizen participation with the Internet; and (3) uphold
fundamental democratic values essential to the functioning of a free market and a free society."

Kindle Failed Tests at Several Colleges. Will iPads Do Better?, By Jeff Young, Chronicle of Higher Education

EFF: "In a ruling that imposes important limits on the FCC's authority to regulate the Internet, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned the FCC ruling against Comcast for interfering with the BitTorrent traffic of its subscribers. The court found that the Commission had overstepped the limits of its "ancillary authority" when it disciplined Comcast for its clandestine blocking behavior. The ruling is not likely to make much difference to Comcast subscribers—Comcast had already agreed to cease its BitTorrent interdiction before the FCC's ruling was issued. Instead, the court's ruling is important because it represents a blow to FCC Chairman Genachowski's proposed net neutrality regulations, which are premised on the same theory of "ancillary jurisdiction" that the FCC used against Comcast and that the court rejected today."

News release: "The board of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) modified its definition of a digital magazine in the U.S. and Canada to accommodate new reading devices such as the Apple iPad. The new standards state that a replica digital edition must include a print edition's full editorial content and advertising, but it no longer needs to be presented in a layout identical to the print version. Replica digital editions will continue to be included in a magazine's circulation guarantee, or rate base...ABC confirmed that Wired magazine was the first publication to seek review of its iPad version, which will qualify as a digital replica edition under the bureau's new guidelines. GQ has offered an ABC approved replica app for the iPhone and iPod Touch since December 2009."

News release: "Starting tomorrow, a new Federal Trade Commission rule will help consumers avoid confusing ads for “free credit reports” – which often require them to buy credit monitoring or other services – with the federally mandated no-strings-attached credit reports available at AnnualCreditReport.com, or 877-322-8228. Under the Federal Trade Commission’s amended Free Credit Reports Rule, ads for these “free” offers must have clear disclosures. For example, Web sites offering free credit reports must have a disclosure, across the top of each page that mentions free credit reports, with links to AnnualCreditReport.com and FTC.gov. The amended Rule also requires nationwide consumer reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – to delay advertising for products or services on AnnualCreditReport.com until after consumers get their free credit reports. The amended Rule is effective on April 2, 2010, except for the wording of disclosures for television and radio ads, which takes effect on September 1, 2010."

World Privacy Forum: "New forms of sophisticated digital signage networks are being deployed widely by retailers and others in both public and private spaces. From simple people-counting sensors mounted on doorways to sophisticated facial recognition cameras mounted in flat video screens and end-cap displays, digital signage technologies are gathering increasing amounts of detailed information about consumers, their behaviors, and their characteristics, like age, gender, and ethnicity. These technologies are quickly becoming ubiquitous in the offline world, and there is little if any disclosure to consumers that information about behavioral and personal characteristics is being collected and analyzed to create highly targeted advertisements, among other things. Few if any consumers expect that the video screen they are watching, the kiosk they are typing on, or the game billboard they are interacting with is watching them back while gathering images of them and behavioral information. This is creating a one-way-mirror society with no notice or opportunity for consumers to consent to being monitored in retail, public, and other spaces or to consent to having their behavior analyzed for marketing and profit. The privacy problems inherent in digital networks are profound, and to date these issues have not been adequately addressed by anyone. This report by the World Privacy Forum seeks to shed light in a dark area and to start a more robust public debate. In addition to the report, the WPF has released with a group of the nation's leading consumer groups a set of privacy principles to be used in digital signage networks."

LLRX.com: Cloud Computing for Lawyers - This is Nicole L. Black's primer for the legal profession on an emerging technology which is defined as a "type of computing that is comparable to grid computing, [and] relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. The goal of cloud computing is to apply traditional supercomputing power (normally used by military and research facilities) to perform tens of trillions of computations per second.

Magazines and Their Web Sites, A Columbia Journalism Review survey and report by Victor Navasky with Evan Lerner, March 2010

News release: "Amazon.com today announced that the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2011, and Economic Report of the President, will both be available beginning tomorrow as free wireless downloads in Amazon's Kindle Store..."Our customers have always been heavy readers of books about current events and economic issues," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "Now they can download these important public government documents in under 60 seconds and read them in the easy and portable format that Kindle affords." These important documents can be read and synched between Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhones, iPod touches, PCs and soon, Mac computers and BlackBerry smartphones."

TechCrunch - Research firm Outsell has published its third annual News Users’ report [fee only], which is based on a survey about the online and offline news preferences of 2,787 US news consumers. The Outsell report unsurprisingly predicts ongoing, steep drops in US newspapers’ print circulation as consumers continue to head online for news consumption and sharing, forecasting 3.5 percent annual declines in both daily and Sunday circulation by 2012. Interestingly enough, the research also talks of what is referred to as the “dramatic effect” aggregators like Google and Yahoo have had on print and online readership...“Though Google is driving some traffic to newspapers, it’s also taking a significant share away. A full 44 percent of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers’ individual sites.”

Security in the Ether - Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it. By David Talbot, Technology Review, January/February 2010 [Dan Mitchel]

News release: Amazon.com, Inc. today announced [December 26, 2009] that Kindle has become the most gifted item in Amazon's history. On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases."

The Customer Is Always Right - Since founding Amazon in 1994, he has revolutionized retailing. Now he's out to transform how we read. By Daniel Lyons | NEWSWEEK.

TIME - 50 Best Websites 2009: "50 offerings that are indispensable to navigating, enjoying yourself, shopping or just killing time on the Web."

LLRX.com: Understanding the Limitations - and Maximizing the Value- of eBooks: The holiday season is here, and many signs suggest that thousands of people are finding themselves new owners of electronic book ("eBook") readers. Whether it's an Amazon Kindle, a Barnes & Noble Nook, a Sony Reader, or any of the less heavily advertised devices currently on the market, electronic book readers are being trumpeted as a product that has finally hit the mainstream after years on the bleeding-edge. eBook readers, in fact, do have the potential to radically reshape how books are read. Equally important, according to Conrad J. Jacoby, they are already reshaping how books are bought and owned.

The eYouGuide, Europe's first online tool giving consumers practical advice on their "digital rights" under EU law is now available in 10 languages. "The eYouGuide was launched in Strasbourg on 5 May 2009 (see IP/09/702). The guide provides information on a number of issues related to online activities, such as shopping online, networking, uploading and downloading content and making online payments, just to mention a few. It is meant as a tool to improve consumers' awareness and confidence in the digital environment. The website will be updated and extended to more EU languages at the beginning of 2010."

News release: "Marketers of violent music, movies, and video games can do more to restrict the promotion of these products to children, according to the seventh in a series of Federal Trade Commission reports on marketing violent entertainment to children. The FTC’s report states that the music industry still has not adopted objective marketing standards limiting ad placement for explicit-content music. As a result, the industry still advertises music labeled with a Parental Advisory Label (PAL) on television shows viewed by a substantial number of children. Music retailers routinely sell labeled music to unaccompanied teens. The report also finds that movie studios intentionally market PG-13 movies to children under 13, and the movie industry does not have explicit standards in place to restrict this practice. The growing practice of releasing unrated DVDs undermines the rating system, and confuses parents."

Google News Blog: "There are more than 25,000 publishers from around the world in Google News today. [With] the new Google News web crawler publishers [can]...keep their content out of Google News and still remain in Google Search...if a publisher wants to opt out of Google News, they don't even have to contact us - they can put instructions just for user-agent Googlebot-News in the same robots.txt file they have today. In addition, once this change is fully in place, it will allow publishers to do more than just allow/disallow access to Google News. They'll also be able to apply the full range of REP directives just to Google News. Want to block images from Google News, but not from Web Search? Go ahead. Want to include snippets in Google News, but not in Web Search? Feel free...All this will soon be possible with the same standard protocol that is Robots Exclusion Protocol (or REP)."

Follow up to previous postings on Google Book Search (GBS), Google and the New Digital Future, Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard

Official Google Blog: "Google Product Search can help you find what you're looking for at a great price. You can compare products and prices from merchants across the web, from popular retailers like Amazon and Best Buy to places to buy unique gifts like eBay and Etsy."

Internet Archive BookServer: "The widespread success of digital reading devices has proven that the world is ready to read books on screens. As the audience for digital books grows, we can evolve from an environment of single devices connected to single sources into a distributed system where readers can find books from sources across the Web to read on whatever device they have. Publishers are creating digital versions of their popular books, and the library community is creating digital archives of their printed collections. BookServer is an open system to find, buy, or borrow these books, just like we use an open system to find Web sites. The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries, and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks, or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books."

Follow up to previous postings on the Google Book Settlement, this New York Times Op-Ed today: A Library to Last Forever, by Sergey Brin/Google: "Because books are such an important part of the world’s collective knowledge and cultural heritage, Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, first proposed that we digitize all books a decade ago, when we were a fledgling startup. At the time, it was viewed as so ambitious and challenging a project that we were unable to attract anyone to work on it. But five years later, in 2004, Google Books (then called Google Print) was born, allowing users to search hundreds of thousands of books. Today, they number over 10 million and counting. The next year we were sued by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers over the project. While we have had disagreements, we have a common goal — to unlock the wisdom held in the enormous number of out-of-print books, while fairly compensating the rights holders. As a result, we were able to work together to devise a settlement that accomplishes our shared vision. While this settlement is a win-win for authors, publishers and Google, the real winners are the readers who will now have access to a greatly expanded world of books.

New York Times: "About two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers — and that number rises once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements, according to a new survey from professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley."

Deloitte: Cloud computing - A collection of working papers, released September 17, 2009 and published on July 31, 2009.

IBM Patent Application: Platform for Capturing Knowledge, September 10, 2009: "A platform used for capturing knowledge. More specifically, a framework configured to capture expert knowledge (e.g., of trained and/or skilled workers) for future instructional purposes (e.g., training of a younger, or less experienced, workforce). The platform comprises a knowledge recorder, instructional design tool, standardized XML, and gaming engine. The knowledge recorder is configured to capture knowledge of a user, which is transferable using a standardized XML format. The instructional design tool is configured to visually model a gaming scenario in order to expose and define logical situations based on the captured knowledge."

Google proposal: "The Newspaper Association of America's Request for Information "seeks to gather information about the products and services available from qualified providers with expertise in helping local online publishers additionally monetize digital content, either through transactions (pay for content) and/or through collection of user data for enhanced advertising targeting or other 'access to content programs." This document identifies Google's capabilities in these areas, highlights our planned and existing tools, lays out our vision for what this ecosystem might look like, and hopefully opens the door to more detailed discussions with the NAA and individual publishers. Google believes that an open web benefits all users and publishers. However, "open" need not mean free. We believe that content on the Internet can thrive supported by multiple business models -- including content available only via subscription. While we believe that advertising will likely remain the main source of revenue for most news content, a paid model can serve as an important source of additional revenue. In addition, a successful paid content model can enhance advertising opportunities, rather than replace them." [Nieman Journalism Lab]

Official Gmail Blog: "Gmail's web interface had a widespread outage [September 1, 2009], lasting about 100 minutes. We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service. Thus, right up front, I'd like to apologize to all of you — today's outage was a Big Deal, and we're treating it as such. We've already thoroughly investigated what happened, and we're currently compiling a list of things we intend to fix or improve as a result of the investigation."

Online Behavioral Tracking and Targeting Concerns and Solutions, Legislative Primer September 2009 - from the Perspective of: Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Lives, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Privacy Times, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, The World Privacy Forum.

"Launched in June, iAWFUL identifies America's 10 worst legislative and regulatory proposals targeted at the Internet. The iAWFUL Web site urges Internet users to join the fight to fix or fight against bills that threaten the future of online commerce and communication. The list is regularly updated to reflect the most immediate dangers, based on regulatory severity and likelihood of passage."

American Customer Satisfaction Index - Annual E-Business Report, August 18, 2009, by Larry Freed
President and CEO, ForeSee Results

"In response to an EPIC Freedom of Information Act Request, the Government Services Administration released several contracts between the federal government and web 2.0 companies, including agreements with Blip.tv, Blist, Google (YouTube), Yahoo (Flickr), and MySpace. EPIC also obtained amendments to agreements with Facebook, Slideshare.net, Vimeo.com, and AddThis.com. The contracts do not address the privacy obligations of social media companies. The GSA letter to EPIC explained that “no specific Web 2.0 guidance currently exists,” but provided EPIC with Training Slides that raise privacy issues. The GSA Agreement with Google actually states that, “to the extent any rules or guidelines exist prohibiting the use of persistent cookies in connection with Provider Content applies to Google, Provider expressly waives those rules or guidelines as they may apply to Google.” Some of the agreements also permit companies to track users of government web sites for advertising purposes."

Fuchs, Christian. 2009. Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Society. A Critical Case Study of the Usage of studiVZ, Facebook, and MySpace by Students in Salzburg in the Context of Electronic Surveillance. Salzburg/Vienna: Research Group UTI. ISBN 978-3-200-01428-2.

After Hours: Fancy Foods Are Alive and Well - Kathy Biehl returns, sharing the highlights of the 2009 Summer Fancy Food Show, which ran June 28-30 in New York City.

Twitter 101 for Business: "Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter."

Guardian UK: "The Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year. Barber said building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription basis was one of the key challenges facing news organisations."

"UK Music fans are turning their backs on regular file-sharing in favour of streaming and other ways of sharing music, especially amongst teens, according to the latest survey by The Leading Question, the specialist media and technology research agency. Following the recent Digital Britain Report which set out the UK Government’s stance on how to curb file-sharing, the annual survey of more than 1000 music fans from The Leading Question, in conjunction with Music Ally, shows that the nature of the file-sharing threat is already changing."

News release, July 9, 2009: "On the day that Commissioner Viviane Reding unveils her strategy for a Digital Europe during the Lisbon Council, and as the European Commission's consultation on the Content Online Report draws to a close this week, senior members of the publishing world are presenting to Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding and Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, a landmark declaration adopted on intellectual property rights in the digital world in a bid to ensure that opportunities for a diverse, free press and quality journalism thrive online into the future."

Optimizing Web Traffic via the Media Scheduling Problem. Lars Backstrom, Jon Kleinbergy, Ravi Kumar, 15th ACM SIGKDD Intl. Conf. on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2009: "Website traffic varies through time in consistent and predictable ways, with highest traffic in the middle of the day. When providing media content to visitors, it is important to present repeat visitors with new content so that they keep coming back. In this paper we present an algorithm to balance the need to keep a website fresh with new content with the desire to present the best content to the most visitors at times of peak traffic. We formulate this as the media scheduling problem, where we attempt to maximize total clicks, given the overall traffic pattern and the time varying clickthrough rates of available media content. We present an efficient algorithm to perform this scheduling under certain conditions and apply this algorithm to real data obtained from server logs, showing evidence of significant improvements in traffic from our algorithmic schedules. Finally, we analyze the click data, presenting models for why and how the clickthrough rate for new content declines as it ages."

News release: "A group of the nation's largest media and marketing trade associations...released self-regulatory principles to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media that will require advertisers and Web sites to clearly inform consumers about data collection practices and enable them to exercise control over that information...This cross-industry self-regulatory task force represents the first time that representatives of the entire advertising ecosystem have come together to develop principles for the use and collection of data in this important area to the economy."

Predicting Social Security numbers from public data, Alessandro Acquisti1 and Ralph Gross, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, May 5, 2009 (received for review January 18, 2009)

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission today announced a law enforcement crackdown on scammers trying to take advantage of the economic downturn to bilk vulnerable consumers through a variety of schemes, such as promising non-existent jobs; promoting overhyped get-rich-quick plans, bogus government grants, and phony debt-reduction services; or putting unauthorized charges on consumers’ credit or debit cards. Dubbed “Operation Short Change,” the law enforcement sweep announced today includes 15 FTC cases, 44 law enforcement actions by the Department of Justice, and actions by at least 13 states and the District of Columbia."

New York Times: "Google handles roughly two-thirds of all Internet searches. It owns the largest online video site, YouTube, which is more than 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. And last year, Google sold nearly $22 billion in advertising, more than any media company in the world."

Federal Trade Commission, 16 C.F.R. Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising..."In order to limit its potential liability, the advertiser should ensure that the advertising service provides guidance and training to its bloggers concerning the need to ensure that statements they make are truthful and substantiated. The advertiser should also monitor bloggers who are being paid to promote its products and take steps necessary to halt the continued publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered..."

TIME: "In a complex settlement agreement, which took three years to hammer out and spans 135 pages excluding attachments, Google will be allowed to show up to 20% of the books' text online at no charge to Web surfers. But the part of the settlement that deals with so-called orphan books — which refers to out-of-print books whose authors and publishers are unknown — is what's ruffling the most feathers in the literary henhouse. The deal gives Google an exclusive license to publish and profit from these orphans, which means it won't face legal action if an author or owner comes forward later. This, critics contend, gives it a competitive edge over any rival that wants to set up a competing digital library. And without competition, opponents fear Google will start charging exorbitant fees to academic libraries and others who want full access to its digital library. "It will make Google virtually invulnerable to competition," says Robert Darnton, head of the Harvard University library system."

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission today sent a copy of a recent staff report, Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, to two subcommittees of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce that are holding a joint hearing on behavioral advertising. A letter on behalf of the Commission that accompanied the report states that the FTC “has actively encouraged industry to embrace new measures relating to behavioral advertising to inform and empower consumers and is monitoring developments” so that consumers’ privacy is protected. The letter and report were sent to the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection."

News release: "Terms of Service" policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information. But most web users don't read these policies -- or understand that the terms are constantly changing. To track these ever-evolving documents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching "TOSBack": a "terms of service" tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and other major websites...At www.TOSBack.org, you can see a real-time feed of changes and updates to more than three dozen polices from the Internet's most popular online services. Clicking on an update brings you to a side-by-side before-and-after comparison, highlighting what has been removed from the policy and what has been added."

URL shorteners, such as TinyURL, bit.ly and notlong.com allow users to share and post links in a quicker manner with less likelihood of misdirection. They also add an intermediary between the reader and the site of origin, and the risk of countless dead links if and when the business model of the respective services ceases to sustain a viable return.

News release: " The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) gave leading government agencies and online retailers a failing grade in preventing deceptive email and phishing scams based on its newly released analysis of email authentication adoption. While adoption has grown over the past year, OTA found approximately 56 percent of the top .gov sites – including Whitehouse.gov, FBI.gov, Treasury.gov and DHS.gov – still are not protecting U.S. citizens through the use of email authentication. At the same time, progress has been made by other government agencies including the Census Bureau, CIA, FDIC, VA and FTC."

• Top 25 Government Domains Report Card
  
• Internet Retailer 300 Report Card
  
• OTA email authentication resources

Follow up to April 26, 2009 posting - WSJ Interactive Map - Adverse events at top 100 newspapers, 2006-2009, this New York Times op-ed by Frank Rich - The American Press on Suicide Watch: "Newspaper circulations and revenues are in free fall. Legendary brands from The Los Angeles Times to The Philadelphia Inquirer are teetering. The New York Times Company threatened to close The Boston Globe if its employees didn’t make substantial sacrifices in salaries and benefits. Other papers have died. The reporting ranks on network and local news alike are shriveling. You know it’s bad when the Senate is moved, as it was last week, to weigh in with hearings on The Future of Journalism."

News release: "Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg with 13 Partner Countries Release First World Internet Project Report - Pioneering Report Finds Remarkable Similarities and Significant Differences Globally - Online Purchasing Not Yet Part of the Global Internet Experience; A Majority of Users Believe Only Half of the Information they Find Online is Reliable."

The Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing titled, Communications Networks and Consumer Privacy: Recent Developments on April 23, 2009. The hearing focused on technologies that network operators utilize to monitor consumer usage and how those technologies intersect with consumer privacy. The hearing explored three ways to monitor consumer usage on broadband and wireless networks: deep packet inspection (DPI); new uses for digital set-top boxes; and wireless Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking."
Testimony and Statement for the Record of Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director, EPIC Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center: "we believe it is becoming clear that unregulated collection of consumer data is posing an increasing danger to online privacy and maybe even to the economic model itself. A small number of companies and large advertising networks are obtaining an extraordinarily detailed profile of the interests, activities and personal characteristics of Internet users. Users have little idea how much information is gathered, who has access to it, or how it is used. This last point is critical because in the absence of legal rules, companies that are gathering this data will be free to use it for whatever purpose they wish – the data for a targeted ad today could become a detailed personal profile sold to a prospective employer or a government agency tomorrow."

News release: "Federal Trade Commission staff...issued a report describing its ongoing examination of online behavioral advertising and setting forth revisions to proposed principles to govern self-regulatory efforts in this area. The key issue concerns how online advertisers can best protect consumers’ privacy while collecting information about their online activities...The report discusses the potential benefits of behavioral advertising to consumers, including the free online content that advertising generally supports and personalization that many consumers appear to value. It also discusses the privacy concerns that the practice raises, including the invisibility of the data collection to consumers and the risk that the information collected – including sensitive information regarding health, finances, or children – could fall into the wrong hands or be used for unanticipated purposes. Consistent with the FTC’s overall approach to consumer privacy, the report seeks to balance the potential benefits of behavioral advertising against the privacy concerns it raises, and to encourage privacy protections while maintaining a competitive marketplace."

"Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) released a new assessment tool to help online advertising companies develop strong, appropriate privacy protections for the users they serve. Released to coincide with Data Privacy Day 2009, the Threshold Analysis for Online Advertising Practices, is the result of extensive consultation among CDT, Internet companies and public interest advocates. It notes a series of simple tests companies can use to determine whether online advertising activities may trigger the need for additional privacy protections. The document also provides suggestions on how companies can begin putting those protections in place."

News release: "Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008. Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the "Net Generation," internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people)."

News release: "The music industry must move away from the retail CD as its primary revenue generator before Christmas 2009, according to Gartner. Gartner said that reliance on revenue from the sale of prerecorded CDs is hindering the music industry from fully embracing online distribution opportunities...Enabling the transition away from retail music CDs toward online distribution is now in sight, given that 77 percent of U.S. households (a total of 96 million connections) will have broadband connections by 2012. Beyond these consumers, the alternative distribution afforded by Wi-Fi-enabled notebooks and rapidly improving media-enabled mobile phones pose opportunities that provide multiple paths for marketing, promotion and distribution outside the consumer’s home."

"Thirty privacy, consumer, and civil liberties organizations sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama on the importance of protecting privacy in the next administration. The organizations support the incoming president’s expressed on privacy, consumer rights, and civil liberties. President-elect Obama stated support for strengthening of privacy protection by harnessing the power of technology to hold government and businesses accountable for violations of personal privacy. The coalition said that “[t]here is a clear need to address the spiraling problems of identity theft, security breaches, and the commercialization of personal information.” For more information visit EPIC’s A-Z Privacy Page."

Press release: "Today, Yahoo! Inc. announced a new global data retention policy that sets an industry-leading approach to user data privacy. This new policy strengthens Yahoo!'s relationship of trust with its 500 million users world-wide and enhances its longtime leadership on privacy. Under the new policy, Yahoo! will anonymize user log data within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo! will also expand the policy to apply not only to search log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks."

2008 Network Advertising Initiative Principles: "Through the present 2008 revision to the NAI’s Self-Regulatory Code of Conduct, NAI members continue their commitment to respect appropriate fair information practices adapted for this medium and to their business models, maintaining self-regulation with respect to notice, choice, use limitation, access, reliability and security."

News release: "Privacy and information security research company Ponemon Institute along with TRUSTe, the most widely recognized Internet privacy trustmark, today announced the results of the Ponemon Institute’s fifth annual survey of Most Trusted Companies for Privacy. The study asked 6,486 adult-aged U.S. consumers which companies they thought were most trustworthy and which did the best job safeguarding personal information. A total of 706 companies were named by consumers; 211 made the final list of most trusted companies. American Express ranked as the Most Trusted Company for 2008 for Privacy, retaining its place from last year despite the current financial climate. eBay earned a ranking as the second most trusted company, while IBM, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson rounded out the top five. While the financial services sector slipped amid industry-wide woes, the technology sector showed marked improvement as eBay Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, and HP all bettered previous rankings. Also of note, Facebook moved into the top 20 for the first time, signifying an increased trust in social networking as a mainstream communications tool."

How to Publish Without Perishing, by James Gleick: "As a technology, the book is like a hammer. That is to say, it is perfect: a tool ideally suited to its task. Hammers can be tweaked and varied but will never go obsolete. Even when builders pound nails by the thousand with pneumatic nail guns, every household needs a hammer. Likewise, the bicycle is alive and well. It was invented in a world without automobiles, and for speed and range it was quickly surpassed by motorcycles and all kinds of powered scooters. But there is nothing quaint about bicycles. They outsell cars...Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it."

"In this report, e-Government and e-Participation, produced for the publication series ICT Research: The Policy Perspective, we examine how information and communications technology, or ICT, is revolutionising the way citizens, businesses and public administrations interact. The EU is investing heavily in e-government to help boost growth while delivering on the benefi ts of the information society, including greater cross-border collaboration, less fragmented research effort, and access to ICT anywhere, any time and by any one."

Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - US: "This week we are publishing a report on online brand protection. This issue is huge for marketers with our research showing that more than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading brands is led away from the brand owner's website. When you search for a brand in the phone book, you don't find that brand's competitors listed. But when you search online, that brand's fiercest competitors often appear in the sponsored listings. Online businesses need to be aware of the extent of the problem and to understand the best ways to deal with threats."

The Future of Privacy Forum Agenda for Consumers and Businesses [See also: About the Forum]

• "FPF will seek to bring transparency to online data practices. Our plan is to document practices, produce multi-media educational materials, and commission reports and studies that provide consumers and policy makers the real story about how their data is used.
  
• FPF will seek to bring true transparency and user control to behavioral targeting and will broaden the discussion of the ethics of what the online norms can be with regard to use of web browsing.
  
• FPF will seek to ensure that considerations around data retention, limitation, and deletion are a significant part of the consumer privacy debate.
  
• FPF will seek to drive practices that enhance consumer controls - ensuring that data use is obvious, useful, intuitive and used and for a benefit he values and controls - no matter the type of technology used..."

Spamalytics: An Empirical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion, October 2008 - Chris Kanich, Christian Kreibich, Kirill Levchenko, Brandon Enright, Geoffrey M. Voelker, Vern Paxson† Stefan Savage

"The Federal Trade Commission today launched a new Web site to introduce kids to key consumer and business concepts. Set in a shopping mall, http://www.ftc.gov/YouAreHere takes kids on an experiential journey that presents the FTC’s mission and its important role in American commerce. Kids under 12 are reported to spend billions of dollars on goods and services every year."

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation - Hearing on: Broadband Providers and Consumer Privacy, September 25, 2008

News release: "The Federal Trade Commission today issued a complaint charging that Reed Elsevier Inc.’s (Reed Elsevier) proposed $4.1 billion acquisition of ChoicePoint Inc. (ChoicePoint) would be anticompetitive and in violation of the antitrust laws, as it would combine the two largest providers of electronic public record services to U.S. law enforcement customers.

To eliminate the anticompetitive effects of the proposed acquisition, the FTC will require Reed Elsevier to divest assets related to ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and Consolidated Lead Evaluation and Reporting (CLEAR) electronic public records services to Thomson Reuters Legal Inc., within 15 days after the proposed acquisition is consummated.

Through its LexisNexis division, Reed Elsevier provides electronic public records services to law enforcement customers in direct competition with ChoicePoint’s AutoTrackXP and recently, ChoicePoint’s CLEAR, a new and advanced electronic public records service. Together, the two firms account for over 80 percent of the approximately $60 million U.S. market for the sale of electronic public records services to law enforcement customers."

News release: "Customer satisfaction continues on a bumpy path without momentum or trend in the second quarter, according to the American
Customer Satisfaction Index. After a small uptick last quarter, ACSI slips 0.1% to 75.1 on a 100-point scale. The ACSI second quarter report, released today from the University of Michigan’s National Quality Research Center, forecasts consumer spending will remain weak with growth of no more than 2.3% in the third quarter...Customer satisfaction with the e-business category of websites surges 6% to an all-time high of 79.3, largely on the remarkable improvement of Google. After slipping behind Yahoo! for the first time last year, Google surged an unparalleled 10% to leave all rivals in its wake. Google’s score of 86 sets a new standard for e-businesses and creates a formidable nine-point gap between its nearest competitor, Yahoo!, which fell 3% to 77."

"The Proliferation of the media in children's lives has created a new "marketing ecosystem" that encompasses cell phones, mobile music devices, instant messaging, videogames, and virtual three-dimensional worlds. This report by Jeff Chester from the Center for Digital Democracy and Kathryn Montgomery from American University describes new marketing practices that are fundamentally transforming how food and beverage companies do business with young people in the twenty-first century.[download 8 page brief pdf] [download 98 page full report pdf] [see examples, news coverage, and statements from Marion Nestle, Kelly Brownell, the Strategic Alliance, Senator Tom Harkin, and Congressman Edward J. Markey at [digitalads.org]"

News release: "Eleven perpetrators allegedly involved in the hacking of nine major U.S. retailers and the theft and sale of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers have been charged with numerous crimes, including conspiracy, computer intrusion, fraud and identity theft, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Michael J. Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California Karen P. Hewitt, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Benton J. Campbell and U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan announced today. The scheme is believed to constitute the largest hacking and identity theft case ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice."

Follow up to March 27, 2008 posting, FTC Announces Settlement of Action Against Data Brokers Reed Elsevier and Seisint for Failing to Provide Adequate Security for Consumers' Data, this August 1, 2008 FTC news release: "Following a public comment period, the Commission has approved the issuance of a final consent order and authorized the staff to respond to the commenters of record In The Matter of The TJX Companies, Inc...[and] In The Matter of Reed Elsevier Inc. and Seisint, Inc."

Related from EPIC: "The settlements arose from data breaches, which exposed the sensitive personal information of over 500,000 consumers and resulted in millions of dollars in financial fraud. Earlier this year, EPIC filed comments with the FTC urging the Commission to include civil penalties in the settlements. EPIC wrote that civil penalties are necessary to provide incentives for companies to safeguard personal data. EPIC also noted that the FTC imposed $10 million in civil penalties in the Choicepoint case. The final agreements impose security and audit responsibilities, but no financial penalties."

OECD Ministerial Meeting -- The Future of the Internet Economy, Seoul, Korea, 17-18 June 2008. Shaping Policies for Creativity, Confidence and Convergence in the Digital World

• The Seoul Declaration for the Future of the Internet Economy
  
• Chair's Summary
  
• Shaping policies for the future of the Internet economy
  
• Shaping policies for the future of the Internet economy: Annexes
  (including Recommendations and Guidances)

News release: "Despite a decline in the number of Web sites advertising or selling controlled prescription drugs, like OxyContin and Valium, Xanax and Vicodin, and Ritalin and Adderall, in the past year, 85 percent of Web sites selling such drugs do not require a prescription, according to You’ve Got Drugs! V: Prescription Drug Pushers on the Internet, the fifth annual White Paper on this subject released by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University."

News release: "The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) today released an analysis questioning the legal standing of a new approach to online advertising being considered by Internet Service Providers and Internet advertising networks. Under the new scheme, an ISP allows an advertising network to copy the contents of the individual Web traffic streams of the ISP's subscribers. The advertising network creates a record of each individual's online behavior, which is used to target ads to the consumer. CDT concludes that the use of Internet traffic content from ISPs may run afoul of federal and state wiretap laws unless performed with the prior, express consent of the subscriber. Some state laws may pose higher burdens."

News release, June 26, 2008: "The Board of ICANN today approved recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet's addressing system. "The Board today accepted a recommendation from its global stakeholders that it is possible to implement many new names to the Internet, paving the way for an expansion of domain name choice and opportunity" said Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN. A final version of the implementation plan must be approved by the ICANN Board before the new process is launched. It is intended that the final version will be published in early 2009.

"The potential here is huge. It represents a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net," said Dr Twomey. "It's a massive increase in the 'real estate' of the Internet."

Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.

This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris.

News release: "CDT today released a paper offering a set of principles for addressing potential privacy considerations when deploying digital watermarking technology. This technology embeds information within the content of digital media files in a form that is machine readable but often imperceptible to humans. Digital watermarking has a variety of applications and is increasingly being considered as a tool for deterring copyright infringement. CDT's paper is intended to provide guidance for companies that plan to use the technology to communicate information that is specific to individual consumers."

Times Online: "Customers in shopping centres are having their every move tracked by a new type of surveillance that listens in on the whisperings of their mobile phones. The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around."

News release: "The internet plays an important role in how people conduct research for purchases, but it is just one among a variety of sources people use and usually not the key factor in final purchasing decisions. A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project tracks the decision-making processes for buying music, purchasing a cell phone, and buying or renting a home."

Secure web browsing with the OP web browser, Chris Grier, Shuo Tang, and Samuel T. King, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium, Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
Tuesday, April 1, 2008. Witness List & Prepared Testimony.

News release: "...we're releasing YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. (You can see this...announcement on the Google blog and on the YouTube blog...) This tool will help anyone who uploads videos to YouTube better understand and serve their audiences. For example, users might use Insight to tailor upload strategies to increase their videos' view counts and improve their popularity on the site. And partners who increase their videos' popularity also increase the number of monetizable views their videos get, and as a result, generate more revenue."

News release: "The Commission has issued a staff report highlighting the challenges of consumer protection in the face of emerging and evolving technologies in the next ten years. The report summarizes the proceedings of the FTC’s three-day public hearings, “Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade,” and which will inform its consumer protection efforts in the next decade. TThe report explains the FTC will work to prevent Internet fraud by using its new powers under the U.S. SAFE WEB Act to coordinate and cooperate more closely with foreign consumer protection officials, ensure that consumer-producers who engage in activities to market and advertise products for consideration do so within the confines of laws prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade, and develop new strategies and to harness the power of technology to deliver timely and effective consumer education messages."

Official Google Blog: "Today, we're excited to launch Google For Non-Profits, a one-stop shop for tools to help advance your organization's mission in a smart, cost-efficient way. This site features ideas and tutorials for how you can use Google tools to promote your work, raise money and operate more efficiently. And to get inspired, you'll also find examples of innovative ways other non-profits are using our products to further their causes."

IDC's Worldwide Software Pricing and Licensing Taxonomy and Report Guide, 2008, Mar 2008, Doc #210950: "This IDC study defines the classification scheme, or taxonomy, used by IDC's Global Software Business Strategies group to analyze the software licensing strategies of vendors and requirements of end-user organizations. IDC's software pricing and licensing taxonomy represents a fundamental view of the way software is created, priced, sold, and supported."

Follow up to previous postings on the Google-DoubleClick merger, this announcement today from Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO: "I'm pleased to share the news that we completed our acquisition of DoubleClick today. Although it's been nearly a year since we announced our intention to acquire DoubleClick last April, we are no less excited today about the benefits that the combination of our two companies will bring to the online advertising market."

"Tail Report has launched with the goal to map out how money is made in the blogosphere. Tail Report works by asking users to anonymously submit information about their site's traffic, rank and monthly revenue. In return, the user receives a custom report detailing what other websites are making and how their revenue compares based a number of factors, such as traffic, rank, number of RSS subscribers, age, number of employees, content, and ad networks."

Your Guide to Online Privacy, by Mark Glaser

Press release: "Most online Americans view online shopping as a way to save time and a convenient way to buy products. At the same time, most internet users express discomfort over a key step in online shopping – sending personal or credit card information over the internet. According to the Pew Internet Project’s September 2007 survey...The report, entitled Online Shopping: Internet users like the convenience but worry about the security of their financial information, finds that two-thirds (66%) of online Americans have at one time bought a product online. If online Americans did not have such high levels of concern about sending personal or credit card information over the internet, the report estimates that the share of internet users buying products online could be as much as 3 percentage points higher, or 69%."

Follow up to February 2, 2008 posting Microsoft Proposes Acquisition of Yahoo! for $31 per Share, this news:

Press release: "In connection with the 5th Safer Internet Day1 on 12 February 2008, Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, presents a selection of statistics concerning internet activities, security concerns and virus attacks. The Safer Internet Day is part of a global drive to promote a safer Internet for all users, in particular younger people, and is organised by Insafe, a European internet safety network co-funded by the European Commission...In the EU27 in 2007, nearly a quarter of internet users had had a computer virus in the preceding 12 months, which resulted in a loss of information or time. Virus attacks were most frequent in Lithuania (41% of users), Slovenia (35%) and Malta (34%) and least common in the Czech Republic (7%), Estonia (15%) and Sweden (16%)."

Audubon Naturalist Society: "Gardeners have long wanted pots made of biogradable and renewable materials. And now, at least for seedling pots, this alternative exists: CowPots™, invented by two Connecticut dairy farmers, are durable fiber pots made of cow poo. So far, though, these odorless pots are only available to us online."

Press release, December 10, 2007 - "The way communicators dispense information is out of sync with the way consumers use media, according to Media, Myths & Realities, a comprehensive survey of media usage among consumers and communications professionals conducted by global public relations firm Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center. Advice from family and friends is the No. 1 source that consumers turn to when making a variety of decisions – ranging from purchasing consumer electronics to planning a vacation – and advice from an expert rates highest when making medical decisions and purchases based on a product’s environmental impact. Despite the strong evidence that friends, family and experts play a key role in influencing decisions, only 24 percent of communicators report having a word-of-mouth program in place."

New Study on Copyright and Creativity from the Center for Social Media, Posted by Hugh DAndrade: "Free video hosting sites like YouTube, Yahoo! Video, and Daily Motion are enabling creators to share video instantly with millions of viewers around the world. A new report from the Center for Social Media takes a close look at these user generated sites, and finds that there is much more at stake than the SNL and Daily Show clips often referenced in the usual Viacom v. YouTube debates on copyright infringement. Recut, Reframe, Recycle shows that far from simply uploading content, more and more users are remixing prior works to create new (and often surprising) works of transformative creativity. Users are borrowing from film, television, and pop culture at large to create parodies and satires, commentaries, pastiche, quotations, as well as archives of important work that cannot be shown due to copyright restriction. By illustrating each category with some of the best examples of user-generated content from the past few years, the study attempts to clarify "the difference between quoting for new cultural creation and simple piracy."

"The gethuman™ movement has been created from the voices of millions of consumers who want to be treated with dignity when they contact a company for customer support." The gethuman 500 database, regularly updated, includes telephone numbers for customer service contacts in the following sectors, located in the United States: automotive, credit, finance, government, hardware, insurance, internet, mobile, pharmacy, products, shipping, software, telco, travel, TV/satellite, and utilities.

The State of the Media Democracy: Are You Ready for the Future of Media?: "To shed light on how different generations are “consuming” media — and what their future media preferences are likely to be — Deloitte & Touche USA LLP’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) practice commissioned an extensive survey on the evolving role of media in America. This State of the Media Democracy survey offers a generational reality check on the usage of current media platforms/devices and what the future may hold. Fielded by Harrison Group (an independent research services firm) from February 23 through March 6, 2007, the survey used an online methodology to collect information from 2,200 U.S. consumers between the ages of 13 and 75."

"CDT has created a list to alert consumers about music download Web sites that charge fees and claim a large selection, but do not appear to have obtained licenses to ensure that users' downloads from the site are legal. Consumers looking to download music lawfully for the new computers and MP3 players they receive this holiday season may want to check CDT's list before paying money to unfamiliar but legitimate-looking music services. CDT hopes that warning consumers about these sites can help avoid confusion and promote the continued growth of the lawful online music market."

Ponemon 2007 Annual Study: U.S. Cost of a Data Breach - Understanding Financial Impact, Customer Turnover, and Preventitive Solutions: This study "was derived from a detailed analysis of 35 data breach incidents. According to the study, the cost per compromised customer record increased in 2007, compared to 2006. Lost business opportunity, including losses associated with customer churn and acquisition, represented the most significant component of the cost increase. Companies analyzed were from 16 different industries, including communications, consumer goods, education, entertainment, financial services, gaming, health care, hospitality, internet, manufacturing, marketing, media, retail, services, technology, and transportation."

Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it will not seek to block Google Inc.’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising server DoubleClick Inc. In a 4-1 vote to close its eight-month investigation of the transaction, the Commission wrote in its majority statement that "after carefully reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick is unlikely to substantially lessen competition."

• Proposed Acquisition of Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners V, LP, (Click Holding Company) By Google Inc., File No. 071 0170


• Statement of the Commission


• Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Harbour


• Concurring Statement of Commissioner Leibowitz


• Closing Letter to Counsel for Google Inc.


• Closing Letter to Counsel for Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners V, LP


• Online Behavioral Advertising: Moving the Discussion Forward to Possible Self-Regulatory Principles: Statement of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Proposing Governing Principles For Online Behavioral Advertising and Requesting Comment - Text of Staff Statement


• EPIC and CDD have raised far-reaching objections to the merger. EPIC Statement.


• European Consumers' Organisation: Google/DoubleClick: Consumers' privacy is at stake >>Press release >>Letter to Commissioner Kroes
  Permanent Link

"The Ninth Edition of The Progress & Freedom Foundation's Digital Economy Fact Book (188 pages, PDF) was released [December 14, 2007]...The resource guide features an expanded section on international data, reflecting the global importance of the digital economy."

Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales 3rd Quarter 2007: "The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2007, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, was $34.7 billion, an increase of 3.6 percent (±0.8%) from the second quarter of 2007. Total retail sales for the third quarter of 2007 were estimated at $1,020.4 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±0.2%) from the second quarter of 2007. The third quarter 2007 e commerce estimate increased 19.3 percent (±2.6%) from the third quarter of 2006 while total retail sales increased 3.8 percent (±0.5%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2007 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales."

The Internet Singularity, Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web - "In this research study, Nemertes performed an independent in-depth analysis of Internet and IP infrastructure (which we call capacity) and current and projected traffic (which we call demand) with the goal of understanding how each has changed over time, and determining if there will ever be a point at which demand exceeds capacity....findings indicate that although core fiber and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand, Internet access infrastructure, specifically in North America, will likely cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years. We estimate the financial investment required by access providers to bridge the gap between demand and capacity ranges from $42 billion to $55 billion, or roughly 60%-70% more than service providers currently plan to invest. It’s important to stress that failing to make that investment will not cause the Internet to collapse. Instead, the primary impact of the lack of investment will be to throttle innovation” both the technical innovation that leads to increasingly newer and better applications, and the business innovation that relies on those technical innovations and applications to generate value. The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise, not because of a lack of demand, but due to an inability to fulfill that demand."

The Future of Reading, by Steven Levy, Newsweek, November 17, 2007: "...the Kindle...has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book's binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps....with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's six-inch screen posts readable pages... (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.)...E-book devices like the Kindle allow you to change the font size: aging baby boomers will appreciate that every book can instantly be a large-type edition. The handheld device can also hold several shelves' worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. Also, the Kindle [costs $399] allows you to search within the book for a phrase or name...Some of those features have been available on previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.)"

"The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School is pleased to present the results of the sixth year of our project, "Surveying the Digital Future." The six years of longitudinal research comprise an absolutely unique data base that completely captures broadband at home, the wireless Internet, on-line media, user-generated content and, now, social networking. This year's report contains a large module looking at on-line communities and social networking in great detail. Readers can compare the social networking data and correlate it to six years of attitudes and behaviors on-line. As usual, the report continues to track off-line media use, purchasing both off-line and through e-commerce, social and political activity and a wealth of other data."

Supplement to: Energy Market and Economic Impacts of S. 280, the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 (11/01/2007)

Press release: "CDT joined with a coalition of privacy advocates on Wednesday to recommend an ambitious set of proposals intended to give consumers greater control over their personal data and to offset the impact of pervasive behavioral tracking. Included in the recommendations is a call to create a national "Do Not Track List" that would provide consumers with a simple tool for opting out of behavioral tracking. CDT joined with Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Privacy Activism, Public Information Research, Privacy Journal, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the World Privacy Forum in crafting the proposal, which is timed to coincide with the start Thursday of a two-day Federal Trade Commission workshop on behavioral targeting."

Press release: "Today, the Progress and Freedom Foundation released a new report on inadvertent filesharing by the authors of Filesharing Programs and "Technological Features to Induce Users to Share," a groundbreaking analysis published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in March of 2007. This new report, Inadvertent Filesharing Sharing Revisited: Assessing LimeWire's Responses to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, seeks to enhance understanding of the causes of inadvertent sharing by analyzing (1) recently released data that the distributors of the program LimeWire gave to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform before its July 24, 2007 hearing on inadvertent sharing, and (2) the efficacy of efforts to improve the LimeWire program since the Committee's hearing. The authors conclude that law enforcement should investigate whether filesharing programs deliberately perpetuate inadvertent filesharing."

House Budget Committee hearing: The Growing Budgetary Costs of the Iraq War, Wednesday, October 24, 2007. Witness statements as follows:

Rising Journal Costs Limit Scholarly Access, Emory University:
"Are publishers getting rich publishing your research? A Bear-Stearns evaluation of Reed-Elsevier (one of the world's largest publishers of scholarly journals) recently rated the company, which earns profits of almost 40% annually, "a stockholder's dream." Should private publishers be getting rich selling information generated by research that is funded by academic institutions and the public? What's happening and how does it affect scholars? This article looks at one university’s experience."

9/27/2007 Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, An Examination of the Google-DoubleClick Merger and the Online Advertising Industry: What Are the Risks for Competition and Privacy?

EPIC: "The United States Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing entitled An Examination of the Google-Doubleclick Merger and the Online Advertising Industry: What Are the Risks for Competition and Privacy on Thursday, September 27. Dave Drummond of Google, Brad Smith of Microsoft, Scott Cleland of Precursor, Tom Lenard of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, and Marc Rotenberg of EPIC are expected to testify. See EPIC's page on the proposed Google-Doubleclick merger."

Reading Books in the Digital Age subsequent to Amazon, Google and the long tail by Terje Hillesund, Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger, Norway. First Monday, volume 12, number 9 (September 2007),

"As Congress and federal regulators consider proposals aimed at reducing the risk of identity theft, a national poll by the Consumer Reports National Research Center reveals that an overwhelming majority of Americans want lawmakers to restrict the use and availability of Social Security numbers by businesses and government agencies. According to the poll, 89 percent of Americans agree that state and federal lawmakers should pass laws restricting the use of Social Security numbers. Social Security numbers are particularly sensitive information because they can provide the key to unlocking a consumer’s financial identity...Consumers Union released the poll results in comments filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is studying the collection and use of Social Security numbers by the private sector. Several pending congressional proposals would restrict the sale, purchase, and display of Social Security numbers. Consumers Union recommends that the sale and purchase of the numbers be tightly restricted and that solicitation be prohibited except where required by law or where needed for credit, employment, tax compliance, or investment purposes."

Press release: "The Commission has approved the issuance of a Federal Register notice announcing the start of its decennial review of the FTC’s Mail or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR Part 435 (Mail Order Rule). As detailed in the notice, the Commission is seeking comment on whether to retain the Rule. To guide discussion of this issue, the Commission is seeking information on the Rule’s costs and benefits. Assuming, based on the public response to the notice, the Commission decides to retain the Rule, it also seeks to determine whether it should make three changes to the Rule in response to changes in technology and marketing practices that have occurred since the Rule was last updated in 1993."

"About the Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center - The relationship between Google and AdWords advertisers is built on trust. Advertisers rely on the relevance of our ad placement, our reporting statistics, and the quality of the clicks their ads receive. We take this trust seriously, and we know that AdWords couldn't exist without it."

American Customer Satisfaction Index, Scores By Industry, Internet Portals/Search Engines, 2007, Commentary by Professor Claes Fornell, The Donald C. Cook Professor of Business Administration, Director, National Quality Research Center, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan: "Yahoo! has also improved. It has always had more users than Google and now it leads in customer satisfaction as well. Yahoo! has been there before. As its customer satisfaction rose to a high of 80 in 2005, Yahoo! did well financially. With falling customer satisfaction in 2006, Yahoo! also saw stock price and profits falling sharply. The company has also suffered from recent well-publicized management and business strategy issues. But this year's improvement in ACSI restores almost all of the 2006 loss in customer satisfaction..."

"Safeselling.org offers a resource for business people launching ecommerce enterprises and for businesses venturing into online sales. First-time entrepreneurs and established small to medium-sized business expanding their horizons should find helpful information on this site about selling goods and services online...Safeselling.org is a companion to safeshopping.org, an earlier project of the Cyberspace Law Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Business Law, which answers questions for consumers about shopping on the web."

PC World: Study Finds Spam's Achilles Heel - "Researchers say they've discovered a critical weakness in the spam infrastructure."

Press release: "One of the latest reports from Javelin Strategy & Research shows why financial institutions must engage in blogging now, and provides specific steps for assessing this powerful new brand-building and customer-connection capability into 2008-10 strategic plans. According to the study of over 3,500 consumers, one in five online consumers read blogs, yet blogs are offered by less than 1% of financial institutions. Result: banks are largely losing control of discussion about themselves in the ‘blogosphere’. Old-line bankers will find that none of the long-standing customer interaction rules apply to blogging, yet the new capability offers crucial, low-cost marketing benefits available through no other method."

Press release: "New Millennium Research Council Analysis report finds growing Internet traffic, driven by online video, requires ongoing investment in new capacity and intelligent networks."

Online Snooping Gets Creepy, By Anita Hamilton: "...An estimated 30% of all Web searches are aimed at finding people, according to industry statistics, and upstarts like PeekYou, Pipl, Spock, and Wink are vying for a piece of this potentially huge market. These free sites work by scouring the Web for any virtual footprints you might have on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Yahoo!, Flickr and elsewhere, and then creating a fresh profile that organizes all that information on one page."

Press release: "Expanding on its ongoing work to help protect customer privacy, Microsoft Corp. today announced an enhanced set of privacy principles for Live Search and online advertising data collection, use and protection. The principles outline new, enhanced steps to help protect the privacy of Microsoft® Windows Live™ users, including making search query data anonymous after 18 months by permanently removing cookie IDs, the entire IP address and other identifiers from search terms. Microsoft will also work to give customers more control over what information it uses to personalize their online search experience."

Press release: "The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a new report on China's internet user population. There are now an estimated 137 million internet users in China, second in number only to the United States, where estimates of the current internet population range from 165 million to 210 million. The growth rate of China's internet user population has been outpacing that of the U.S., and China is projected to overtake the U.S. in the total number of users within a few years. The influx of tens of millions of new online participants each year can be expected to have far-reaching consequences for the Chinese population, for China itself and for the larger world. At the very least, the internet will offer ever greater numbers of Chinese a much more sophisticated information and communications world than the one they currently inhabit. And because the Chinese share a single written language, despite the multiplicity of spoken tongues, it could have a unifying effect on the country's widely dispersed citizenry. An expanding internet population might also increase domestic tensions that could spill over into China's relations with the U.S. and other countries while the difference between Chinese and Western approaches to the internet could create additional sore points over human rights and problems with restrictions on non-Chinese companies."

Press release: "Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. announced today that its subsidiary, Certegy Check Services, Inc., a service provider to U.S. retail merchants, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., was victimized by a former employee who misappropriated and sold consumer information to a data broker who, in turn, sold a subset of that data to a limited number of direct marketing organizations...The misappropriated information included names, addresses and telephone numbers as well as, in many cases, dates of birth and bank account or credit card information. Approximately 2.3 million records are believed to be at issue, with approximately 2.2 million containing bank account information and 99,000 containing credit card information. The company is still investigating the time period over which the misappropriations occurred."

"In a custom report created for ClickZ News, Hitwise measured traffic market share of the candidate sites. The measurement firm found traffic to Democratic candidate sites was top heavy, favoring Clinton's, Obama's and Edwards's sites. HillaryClinton.com garnered nearly a third of visits among Democratic candidate sites in May. BarackObama.com attracted almost 28 percent, and JohnEdwards.com drew 23 percent of visitors to Dem campaign sites last month."

Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission’s Internet Access Task Force today issued a report, “Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy,” which summarizes the Task Force’s findings in the area of broadband Internet connectivity and, in particular, so-called network neutrality regulation. Based on these findings, and FTC staff’s experience with the operation of myriad markets throughout the economy, the report identifies guiding principles that policy makers should consider in evaluating proposed regulations or legislation relating to broadband Internet access and network neutrality."

NEWS.COM Special Report: Wardens of the WebTalkBack: Global security challenge falls to an elite corps, June 25, 2007

PricewaterhouseCoopers, PWC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011: "The leading entertainment and media industry forecast. Covering the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Canada. In-depth global analyses and 5-year growth projections for 14 industry segments." fee, but free industry segments' summaries are available.

"Parents, Children & Media: A Kaiser Family Foundation Survey, is a national survey of 1,008 parents of children ages 2-17, along with a series of six focus groups held with parents across the country. The survey explores such issues as media content, media ratings and the V-Chip, media monitoring, educational media, advertising, and the Internet."

Follow up to May 14, 2007 posting, Nearly 16% of U.S. Homes Have No Landline Phone, see also these related studies:

Pew Internet and American Life Project: "Fully 85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones – and most use both. Many also have broadband connections, digital cameras and video game systems. Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression, and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%."

Source: "Privacy International (PI) is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, and has an office in Washington, D.C. Together with members in 40 countries, PI has conducted campaigns throughout the world on issues ranging from wiretapping and national security activities, to ID cards, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical privacy, and works with a wide range of parliamentary and inter-governmental organisations such as the European Parliament, the House of Lords and UNESCO."

The State of Search Engine Safety, June 4, 2007 - Ben Edelman, Advisor to McAfee SiteAdvisor and Hannah Rosenbaum - Research Analyst, McAfee SiteAdvisor

Press release: "...a recent TriCipher Consumer Online Banking Study, conducted by Javelin Strategy and Research, reveals that consumers would take advantage of more online banking services if banks provided stronger identity protection. The TriCipher Consumer Online Banking Study included 3,349 respondents from a random-sample panel that was representative of the U.S. population. Surprising findings uncovered that nearly 1 in 5 - estimated at 26 million - adult consumers have been victims of identity theft or fraud in their lives. And, according to survey results, over 88 million online banking customers would switch banks, or reduce online banking usage, if news reports exposed their individual institution as compromised."

Follow up to April 20, 2007 posting, Google DoubleClick Merger In the News, additional documents and news.

Press release: "The volume of spam is growing in Americans' personal and workplace emailaccounts, but email users are less bothered by it.
Spam continues to plague the internet as more Americans than ever say they are getting more spam than in the past. But while American internet users report increasing volumes of spam, they also indicate that they are less bothered by it than before. Users have become more sophisticated about dealing with spam; fully 71% of email users use filters offered by their email provider or employer to block spam... Spam has not become a significant deterrent to the use of email, as some observers speculated it might when unsolicited email first began flooding users' inboxes several years ago. But it continues to degrade the integrity of email. Some 55% of email users say they have lost trust in email because of spam."

B.B. Bell, General, US Army, Commander: Restricted Access to Internet Entertainment Sites Across DoD Networks, May 11, 2007 - "The DoD will block worldwide access to the following internet sites, on or about 14 May 2007: youtube.com, 1.fm, pandora.com, photobucket.com, myspace.com, live365.com, hi5.com, metacafe.com, mtv.com, ifilm.com, blackplanet.com, stupidvideos.com and filecabi.com"

Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age, James Waldo, Herbert S. Lin, and Lynette I. Millett, editors, 456 pages, May 4, 2007 - This books is available in its pre-publication version from the National Academies Press.

Special Report - CEO Compensation: "The chief executives of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective 38% pay raise last year, to $7.5 billion. That's an average $15.2 million apiece. Exercised stock options again account for the main component of pay, 48%. The average stock gain was $7.3 million. The highest-paid boss of the 500 companies we tracked: Apple chief Steve Jobs. He drew a nominal $1 salary but realized $647 million from vested restricted stock last year."

Sort By:
Rank | Name | Company | Total Compensation | 5-Year Compensation | Shares Owned | Age | Efficiency

From the Center for Media and the Public Agenda at University of Maryland, College Park:

Google's response [via Google Watch] to Viacom's copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube.

WSJ free feature: Policing Web Video With 'Fingerprints' - Sharing Sites Say Technology Could Help Them Identify, Remove Unauthorized Clips: "Proponents of fingerprinting technology say it can help spot TV shows and films that are posted on video-sharing sites such as Google Inc.'s YouTube without their owners' permission, so the sites can remove them or share advertising revenue."

Press release, April 13, 2007: "Google to Acquire DoubleClick - Combination Will Significantly Expand Opportunities for Advertisers, Agencies and Publishers and Improve Users' Online Experience."

Press release: "UK consumers are not as risk-averse when it comes to using online services as previously thought, according to recent research conducted by BT. Despite daily warnings about security threats and cyber-criminals, people are willing to take risks online, as long as they feel informed, and it is clear how consequences will be addressed. According to the findings from the Trustguide report, which was a collaborative research project by BT with support from the DTI, people use specific online services not because they trust them, but because they believe the benefits outweigh the risks. Government and private industry must therefore take responsibility for educating and reassuring the public that safeguards are in place, if they are to succeed with e-Government and e-Commerce initiatives..Based on the research, the Trustguide report outlines a set of guidelines to inform policy making and service development for ICT delivered services. In addition to enabling better-informed decision-making through education, and advising users of restitution and guarantee measures should something go wrong, the report highlights the need for greater honesty and transparency of data usage by service providers.

Press release: "The Federal Trade Commission gave a mixed review of the movie, music, and video-game industries’ self-regulatory programs and their marketing of violent entertainment products to children in its latest report to Congress. This fifth follow-up report, the most comprehensive study since 2000, found that all three industries generally comply with their own voluntary standards regarding the display of ratings and labels. However, entertainment industries continue to market some R-rated movies, M-rated video games, and explicit-content recordings on television shows and Web sites with substantial teen audiences. In addition, the FTC found that while video game retailers have made significant progress in limiting sales of M-rated games to children, movie and music retailers have made only modest progress limiting sales."

Press release: "The pharmaceutical sector is suffering from a poor reputation among Americans, according to new research by marketing research firm Ipsos. The second edition of I-Rep, Ipsos’ biannual survey on perceptions of large companies, shows that nearly as many Americans hold an “unfavorable” opinion of the pharmaceutical sector (32%) as have a “favorable” opinion (35%), while 33% are neither favorable nor unfavorable. Among other sectors measured, only the oil and gas, chemicals, and tobacco industries fare worse than the pharmaceutical sector. Sectors enjoying the highest favorability scores include the information technology, electronic goods, and food and beverage industries."

Press release: "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today released an interim final rule that imposes for the first time comprehensive federal security regulations for high risk chemical facilities. The department sought and reviewed comments from state and local partners, Congress, private industry, and the public to develop consistent guidelines using a risk-based approach. The new rule gives the department authority to seek compliance through the imposition of civil penalties, of up to $25,000 per day, and the ability to shut non-compliant facilities down."

USPTO press release from Jon Dudas: "I am pleased to release the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2007 through 2012. This plan builds upon the record-breaking progress the USPTO made during fiscal year 2006 in the areas of quality,production, electronic filing and processing, teleworking, and hiring."

Press release: "FDA put together this Web site to alert you to the risks of buying Accutane (isotretinoin) over the Internet. This Web site is for educational purposes only."

Hao Chen, Assistant Professor, UC Davis in collaboration with In collaboration with Microsoft Researchers Yi-Min Wang and Ming Ma, pub lished Spam Double-Funnel: Connecting Web Spammers with Advertisers. [Darlene Fichter]

Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design:

"The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report offers analysis and discussion of threat activity over a six-month period. It covers Internet attacks, vulnerabilities, malicious code, phishing, spam and security risks as well as future trends. The eleventh version of the report, released March 19, 2007, is now available."

Combating Pretexting: H.R. 936, Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Friday, March 9, 2007

"RSStalker.com provides RSS feeds to track price changes of Amazon.com products. Generate a feed for a single product or for an entire wishlist. Add it to your favorite aggregator and you will be automatically notified when the price changes. Simply unsubscribe to the feed when you are done...Amazon.com doesn't advertise it, but they have a 30 day price drop policy. If you bought something from them and they lower the price within 30 days, just fill out a form and they'll refund you the difference. See the FAQ for details."

RIAA press release: "The recording industry today launched a new and strengthened campus anti-piracy initiative that significantly expands the scope and volume of its deterrent efforts while offering a new process that gives students the opportunity to avoid a formal lawsuit by settling prior to a litigation being filed. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major record companies, today sent 400 pre-litigation settlement letters to 13 different universities. Each letter informs the school of a forthcoming copyright infringement lawsuit against one of its students or personnel. The RIAA will request that universities forward those letters to the appropriate network user. Under this new approach, a student (or other network user) can settle the record company claims against him or her at a discounted rate before a lawsuit is ever filed."

Envisioning the Whole Digital Person, by Jonathan Follett, Published February 20, 2007: "Our lives are becoming increasingly digitized—from the ways we communicate, to our entertainment media, to our e-commerce transactions, to our online research. As storage becomes cheaper and data pipes become faster, we are doing more and more online—and in the process, saving a record of our digital lives, whether we like it or not." [via Darlene Fichter]

Deloitte Telecommunications Predictions 2007 (TMT Trends 2007) - "This study examines 10 emerging developments sure to make 2007 another eventful year for the telecommunications industry":

1. "Reaching the limits of cyberspace—growth in video traffic on the "superhighway" means the Internet is approaching gridlock.
2. The net neutrality debate needs resolution—the Internet, fundamental freedom for all or a tiered, toll-based enterprise?
3. The broadband appliance unlocks the Internet for everyone—sidestepping the PC via new, small devices will promote future growth in Internet penetration.
4. Long live mobile video (just forget the television)—moving video content from the phone and onto bigger screens is far more likely to reap profits than trying to squeeze television onto mobile phones.
5. It’s mobile, but not as we knew it—network operators need to shake things up as mobile moves indoors.
6. The case for innovation, not imitation, in IPTV—IPTV needs to develop an original offer of television, not be a pale imitation of what currently exists.
7. The kilobyte is the killer application—bigger is not always better, as kilobyte-sized applications show.
8. The double-edged sword of triple play—failure to deliver a consistent quality of service across all their bundled offerings could cost operators dearly.
9. The connectivity chasms deepen—in the expanding digital divide, if you do not have voice, you may not have a voice.
10. The rising cost of free telecommunications—the "free lunch" in telecommunications may cause indigestion for some."

The Brookings Institution, The Implications of Service Offshoring for Metropolitan Economies, by Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial, February 2007. [Full Report in PDF]

Google's Moon Shot, by JEFFREY TOOBIN - The quest for the universal library. New Yorker, Posted 2007-01-29

China's Impact on the Semiconductor Industry: 2006 Update: "PricewaterhouseCoopers began the study series China’s Impact on the Semiconductor Industry in 2004 in response to our clients’ interest in the rapid growth of the semiconductor industry in China. Specifically, clients wanted to find out whether China’s production volumes would contribute to worldwide overcapacity and a subsequent downturn. At the time, multinational integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) were closing down their fabs in North America, and foundries such as Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, Hua Hong NEC, and SMIC were adding capacity. Some multinationals were transferring to joint ventures in China certain equipment and production activities focused on selected products. Many industry participants talked of significant future investments in wafer fabs."

Fourth Quarter: October-December 2006: Our statisticians look at zillions of data points each and every day, and are able to spot housing trends based on that information. Read our press release to learn about the trends we saw across the nation in Q4."

"The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) today heard testimony during a public meeting about the launch of its accreditation program for laboratories that test voting systems, including discussion about the first two labs that will be considered for accreditation. The Commission also voted to stop accepting applications or additional information related to pending applications to its interim test laboratory accreditation program, effective March 5, 2007, citing the onset of the full accreditation program... After the EAC review, the Commission will vote regarding full accreditation. For more information about the NIST/NVLAP accreditation process and to view related documents, visit www.vote.nist.gov."

WSJ free feature, The New Benefits of Web-Search Queries - Companies Use Research To Develop Products, Trail Consumer Interests: "...companies...are figuring that what users type into search boxes offers insight into what people are actually interested in buying."

"The Federal Trade Commission has launched the ninth annual National Consumer Protection Week, February 4-10, 2007, in cooperation with federal, state, and local agencies and national advocacy organizations committed to consumer protection and education. This year’s theme, “Read Up and Reach Out. Be an Informed Consumer,” encourages consumers to arm themselves with knowledge. By gathering information – and sharing it with their friends and families – consumers can become more confident, savvy, and safe in the marketplace."

The Emperor's New Security Indicators, An evaluation of website authentication and the effect of role playing on usability studies, working draft released February 4, 2007. Authors: Stuart E. Schechter (MIT), Rachna Dhamija (Harvard), Andy Ozmet (MIT), Ian Fischer (Harvard).

Consumer Payment Study - AARP Research Report, February 1, 2007 (31 pages, PDF): "To what extent do age 25+ individuals with bill-paying responsibility for their households use newer electronic payment methods, such as automatic bill payment and online transactions, as well as more traditional payment methods, such as cash, checks and credit cards? This national survey addresses that question and explores the degree to which use of these newer technologies varies by age."

Federal Citizen Information Center: 2007 Consumer Action Handbook (178 pages, PDF): "This everyday guide to being a smart shopper is chocked full of helpful tips about buying a car or home, preventing identity theft, understanding credit, resolving problems after a purchase, and much more.

WSJ free feature: Revisiting the Early Net - A Slate of Predictions Made for 1995 Reveal What Has and Hasn't Changed

Open to registered users, Zillow's Real Estate Wiki "is devoted to all aspects of real estate" and allows "everyone to share their knowledge and experience, whether they are professionals, sellers, buyers, or just plain people who are passionate about real estate."

Press release: A "survey, conducted by Harris Interactive®, found that about three in four online adults (74 percent) view e-mail communications from a company they frequently patronize to be valuable or very valuable. In addition, 30 percent of online adults have purchased a particular good or service as a result of receiving such e-mails, and of these, 85 percent have done so within the past year."

Follow-up to a November 12, 2006 article on LLRX.com, Developments in Legal Outsourcing and Offshoring, Moushumi Anand, Medill News Service, posted this article that highlights the growth in contracts for outsourced legal work undertaken by several companies in India.

WSJ free feature: Blogs for Shoppers, From Fashion to Food, Sites, Track Deals and Offer Ideas For Stumped Gift Givers

Pew Internet & American Life Project: "For Americans on the move, the Internet is becoming an increasingly important resource for researching housing options. The number of online house hunters has increased by two thirds since March 2000. On average, more than three million Internet users are online on any given day searching for a new place to live."

Press release: Among the predicitions, is the following - "Blogging and community contributors will peak in the first half of 2007. Given the trend in the average life span of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, there are already more than 200 million ex-bloggers. Consequently, the peak number of bloggers will be around 100 million at some point in the first half of 2007."

The 12-1-2006 issue of Forbes includes a Special Report, simply titled, Books. The report includes a series of articles on endurance of books, and the role technology has and will play, in their evolving future role.

"The Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School has been tracking a representative sample of the American population for over six years watching as people move on-line and then move from modems to broadband."

Follow up to September 18, 2006 - posting Belgian Court Rules Against Google in Copyright Dispute:

E-government websites offer useful holiday shopping advice to consumers via the following:

Federal Trade Commission Public Hearings on Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade, November 6 - 8, 2006.

From Wired Magazine: "TV advertising is broken, putting $67 billion up for grabs. Which explains why google spent a billion and change on an online video startup."

Press release, November 1, 2006: "The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), two of the leading public-interest advocacy groups working on behalf of a more diverse and competitive online environment, filed a complaint today with the Federal Trade Commission, calling on the commission to undertake an immediate, formal investigation of online advertising practices. As the groups make clear in their 50-page filing (PDF), the data collection and interactive marketing system that is shaping the entire U.S. electronic marketplace is being built to aggressively track Internet users wherever they go, creating data profiles used in ever-more sophisticated and personalized "one-to-one" targeting schemes."

October 26, 2006 press release: - "Today, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) filed a consumer protection complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging Internet financial services and real estate provider Zillow.com is misleading consumers, real estate professionals and financial service providers in on-line home valuations."

Federal Prosecution of Human Trafficking, 2001-2005, 10/06. "Presents Federal criminal case processing statistics on peonage and slavery statutes in the U.S. criminal code with a focus on human trafficking offenses created by Congress in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. NCJ 215248"

Press release, October 4, 2006: "As information security concerns among consumers and other customer constituencies rise, just 29 percent of marketers say that their firm has a crisis containment plan in case of a security breach, according to findings of a major research initiative by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. Without such a plan and other security strategies in place, companies are at risk of losing hundreds of million of dollars in market value and loss of reputation and brand trust, according to the study's findings."

Press release: "An Internet business that advertised and sold consumers' phone records and records of credit card accounts to third parties has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law. The settlement bars the defendants from obtaining or selling consumers' confidential phone and credit account records unless authorized by law or court order’ and requires that they give up the money they made selling phone records in the past."

Press release, September 11, 2006: "The Customer Respect Group, an international research and consulting firm that focuses on how corporations treat their online customers, today released findings from its Annual Review of the Largest 100 US Companies... as defined by Fortune Magazine in April 2006. The average rating for the companies was 5.7 on a 10-point scale, in line with the average rating assessed across all website evaluations in 2006. In 2005, the largest 100 companies slightly exceeded the overall average rating...The largest 100 US companies appear to be gathering more personally identifiable information. The use of that information is also changing. Fewer companies are sharing personal data with outside organizations, but more than half continue to send unsolicited marketing emails to those that supply personal information for other reasons." A list of top scoring companies is included in this release, and access to the full Scorecard of the Largest 100 US Companies requires registration.

CDT press release: "Evaluating DRM: Building a Marketplace for the Convergent World" tackles the complicated subject of copyright protection technology, offering a clear set of metrics for consumers and product reviewers to consider when evaluating DRM-protected devices and services. The goal of the paper is to educate users about what questions to ask to determine how various DRM applications may affect their ability to use movies, music, games and other media."

Hirwade, Mangala and Hirwade, Anil and Bherwani, Mohini (2006) Evaluative study of major Internet bookshops. ILA Bulletin XLII(1):pp. 32-43.

The Chronicle of Higher Education obtained a copy of the 13 page agreement between Google, Inc. and the Regents of the University of California that details the scope of the digitization project, as well as copyright and ownership issues.

Press release: "Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras today told a meeting of the Progress & Freedom Foundation that she has formed an Internet Access Task Force to examine issues being raised by converging technologies and regulatory developments, and to educate and inform the enforcement, advocacy and education initiatives of the Commission. "I also have asked the Internet Access Task Force to address what is likely the most hotly debated issue in communications, so-called ‘network neutrality,’" she said."

Repercussions continue from AOL release of user data -- from News.com: Three workers depart AOL after privacy uproar and commentary by Anita Ramastry, Privacy and Search Engine Data: A Recent AOL Research Project Has Perilous Consequences for Subscribers.

Press release: "More than half of the pop-up ads served by nuisance "adware" programs are placed knowingly by advertisers, according to a study released today by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)."

Personal Information: Key Federal Privacy Laws Do Not Require Information Resellers to Safeguard All Sensitive Data, Full text GAO-06-674, and Highlights, June 26, 2006.

Bureau of Justice Statistics - Improving Criminal History Records for Background Checks, 2005: "Describes the achievements of the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP), its authorizing legislation, and program history. This program report summarizes NCHIP-funded criminal record improvement efforts, including improved accessibility of records, full participation in the Interstate Identification Index, the automation of records and fingerprint data, and improvements in the National Instant Criminal Background Check, National Sex Offender Registry, and domestic violence and protection order systems. The report provides examples of projects aimed at enhancing the involvement of the courts and system integration in improving disposition reporting. The report also discusses the Bureau of Justice Statistics' efforts to improve performance measurement including the development and use of a Records Quality Index." [July 6, 2006]

Press release: "Amnesty International (AI) today released a new report, "Undermining Freedom of Expression in China," (32 pages, PDF) exposing how Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google have violated their stated corporate values and policies in pursuit of the potentially lucrative Chinese market. In sync with the report release, the organization unveiled irrepressible.info, a new campaign for free speech online that continues Amnesty International's work combating Internet censorship."

Today the House passed HR 4411, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act. The bill passed by roll call vote #363, 317 yeas to 93 nays.

WSJ free feature: Homing In on Lower Airfares - Web Sites Offer New Features To Help Users Time Purchases To Get a Better Travel Deal

Press release: "Google Inc. today announced the launch of Google Checkout, a checkout process that makes online shopping faster, more convenient and more secure for Google users. Google Checkout offers an easy and trusted checkout option that enables shoppers to purchase from participating stores with a single Google login." More information on this Official Google Blog posting.

In an 11-11 vote today, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation defeated the Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Net Neutrality).

The Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum (whose members include Google, Microsoft, Oracle, EBay Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Symantec Corp.) issued a statement supporting "a serious process to consider comprehensive harmonized federal privacy legislation to create a simplified, uniform but flexible legal framework."

The un-Google, June 15, 2006, from The Economist print edition (free online, if you view an advert first): "Google dominates the lucrative market for web-search, but its rivals [Microsoft, Ask, Yahoo] are setting out to change that."

Pew Internet, Online Banking 2006: "Online banking is holding steady as a mainstream internet activity, growing along with internet use generally, though not accelerating as have some other forms of online activities. Fully 43% of internet users, or about 63 million American adults, bank online."

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Reconsidering Our Communications Laws: Ensuring Competition and Innovation, June 14, 2006.

WSJ free feature: Seeking a Safer Internet - New Tools Flag Sites With Spyware, Spam - But the Technology Is Far From Perfect

Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus 2006 Watch List: "...the Caucus announced they will focus on China and Russia as high priority countries, due to the scope and depth of their piracy problems. The Caucus will also closely monitor the serious problems of copyright piracy in the following countries: Mexico, Canada, India and Malaysia."

June 8, 2006: "The Internet Caucus Advisory Committee (ICAC) hosted a discussion focusing on the legislative proposals percolating in Congress on so-called Network Neutrality. No fewer than six House and Senate bills are circulating in Congress that in some way address this amorphous policy question." [Link]

BusinessWeek.com: Life On The Web's Factory Floor - Who do you think turns all those words into an easy click?

Social Security Numbers: Internet Resellers Provide Few Full SSNs, but Congress Should Consider Enacting Standards for Truncating SSNs, Full-text report GAO-06-495, and Highlights, May 17, 2006.

The Safety of Internet Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask), May 12, 2006, by Ben Edelman and Hannah Rosenbaum.

The Three Factors for a Successful Online Banking Site

ComputerWorld reports that Westchester County in New York is the first county in the nation to require all businesses with wireless networks that collect consumer related data to use "minimun security measures."

From Microsoft Research, Photo2Search: Explore the Real World via Camera Phone

As noted in a series of previous postings on the sale of cell phone records and associated privacy issues, it was reported on April 7, 2006 that the House Engery and Commerce Committee's demand for the business records of companies engaged in this commerce has not yielded reponses. Therefore, the committee issued subpoenas to 12 of the targeted companies, including those that manage the following sites: Anderson-pi.com, phonebust.com,reliatrace.com and reliablelitigation.com, efindoutthetruth.com, advsearch.com, csiofamerica.com, abika.com, sherlockinvestigations.com, datafind.org, locatecell.com, celltolls.com, and peoplesearchamerica.com sites, usaskiptrace.com, and telcosecrets.com.

Personal Information: Agencies and Resellers Vary in Providing Privacy Protections, Full-text GAO-06-609T, April 4, 2006. Highlights.

Press release: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved new data security laws Wednesday that will ensure consumers' personal information is closely guarded and consumers are notified when they are at risk...The bill places new requirements on specific companies that specialize in collecting personal data. These "data brokers" will be required to implement effective security safeguards. If there is a reasonable risk of identity theft to the individual to whom the personal information relates, fraud or other unlawful conduct, these data brokers must notify consumers. Additionally, data brokers will be prohibited from falsely representing themselves to obtain personal data...H.R. 4127, the Data Accountability and Trust Act, passed 41-0. The bill "sends a clear message: 'If you can't protect it, don't collect it,'" said U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's ranking member."

"The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has partnered with nationally-recognized security and privacy experts to create a new toolkit to help small business owners manage security and privacy challenges. We call it Security & Privacy - Made Simpler (TM). The objective is to demystify the complexities of data security and give small businesses a non-technical roadmap to securing their customer data, and their employees' data, too."

A new study (4 pages, PDF) by the European Interactive Advertising Association indicates that although men continue to spend more time on the Internet than women, the gap is rapidly closing.

Newsweek: Why Privacy Won't Matter Google, Yahoo and Microsoft desperately want to know every last thing about what you do, say and buy. Here's how they'll do it—and why we'll let them.

Following up on several related postings on bloggers and campaign speech, today the FEC issued a 96 page document (PDF) promulgating its final rules that impact the publication of campaign related information. Declan McCullagh has more details and commentary.

Press release: "Rep. Waxman releases a new report finding that 97% of plans restrict access to important drugs on their formularies through the use of prior authorization, step-therapy, and quantity limits. A telephone survey of the plans finds that they fail to adequately inform seniors of these restrictions, often providing information that is conflicting or erroneous."

Press release: "Large well-respected companies are helping to fund the virulent spread of unwanted and potentially harmful "adware" by paying for advertisements generated by those programs, a new report by CDT finds. In "Following the Money: How Advertising Dollars Encourage Nuisance and Harmful Adware and What Can be Done to Reverse the Trend," (10 pages, PDF) CDT details how -- through a complicated network of intermediaries -- major advertisers pay to have their products and services advertised though pop-ups and other ads generated by unwanted advertising software or "adware." The report dissects the financial relationships behind those arrangements and identifies a number of mainstream companies that advertise through one particularly unscrupulous adware distributor."

From the Official Google Blog: Judge tells DoJ "No" on search queries, Posted by Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel: "Google will not have to hand over any user's search queries to the government. That's what a federal judge ruled today when he decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice. [Today's ruling, 21 pages (PDF) and the government's original subpoena.)

WSJ free feature - Google Wins Copyright Battle; Archiving Issue Is Still Unclear: "A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Google Inc. of wrongful conduct, including copyright infringement and defamation, providing the latest court opinion to weigh in on the contentious area of search engines and copyright."

March 1, 2006, It's Time To Update Site Search Functionality, by Iris Cremers with Jaap Favier, Kerry Bodine

Press release: "Attorney General Jim Petro said today he believes Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has a legal duty to take immediate steps to protect the privacy of citizens whose Social Security numbers have been made public on routine business forms posted on his office’s Web site....The confidentiality of citizens’ Social Security numbers is guarded as well under many public offices’ individual policies, including the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office, which redacts the numbers from forms they display or provide to the public, Petro said."

Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc. Case 1:06-cv-00657, Filed 02/03/2006, 20 pages, PDF.

Press release: "U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) today unveiled ground-breaking new legislation that would ensure "net neutrality," or equal delivery of content on the internet, for consumers and business interests. Under Wyden's bill, the Internet Nondiscrimination Act of 2006, network operators would be prohibited from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers over the internet or favoring certain content over others."

Related news and postings on net neutrality:

H.R. 4709: Law Enforcement and Phone Privacy Protection Act of 2006, and S. 2178: Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act of 2006, both passed committee by voice vote.

New York Times: Cyberthieves Silently Copy Your Passwords as You Type

Following up on one, two, three recent posting related to increasing focus on issues related to net neutrality, open access, and e-commerce, see an article today from AP: Future of the Internet Highway Debated. It includes a discussion of the commercial, technical and socio-political issues associated with Internet traffic management (packet prioritization - ) the ability to specify different priority levels for different applications).

EPIC: "In a letter sent to state ethical and professional responsibility boards, EPIC warned that there is mounting evidence that attorneys are major purchases of "pretexting" services. Pretexting is the practice of using false pretenses to trick a company into releasing personal information. EPIC urged state boards to evaluate pretexting under ethics rules, and t