French 3 strikes regime sees ISPs inundated with notices
It’s unclear whether the recent Creation and Internet Act 2010 (FR) is having much of an impact on digital piracy. However, according to copyright owners, around 25,000 notices of alleged infringement...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Google's "Double Irish" and "Dutch Sandwich" tax strategies under the microscope
Fascinating article on the strategies employed by Google and other multinational technology firms to minimise corporate income taxation by funneling income into tax havens: Google’s income shifting -...
View ArticleNew York author offers struggling writers questionable work-for-hire terms
Pseudonymity, liability, no copyright, and a $250 advance. Sounds like a pretty crappy publishing deal: It’s an agreement that says, ‘You’re going to write for me. I’m going to own it. I may or may not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Saudi Arabia blocks Facebook
First Pakistan, then Bangladesh, Iran and — if anecdotal reports are to be believed — China. Now Saudi Arabia has reportedly blocked Facebook, on the basis that the website “crossed a line” in not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Romantic intermediaries and algorithmic normativity
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that online dating websites make algorithmic choices that strongly influence influence (and are tailored to) their users’ behaviour. But are they better? I asked Yagan...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Information monopolists as cyclic products of network effects: Tim Wu
Tim Wu’s excellent new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, chronicles a history of communications policy and the long-term behaviour of firms in information industries....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Network neutrality dead in the UK?
Ed Vaizey, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has made comments in a speech which suggest that he favours abandonment of the neutrality (non-discrimination) principle in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bankers as intermediaries and the tension between regulation and profit
Financial intermediaries are little more than rent seekers, says a thought-provoking article in this week’s New Yorker magazine: One is the role of financial intermediaries, such as banks. Rather than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The blocking barb in today's Pirate Bay appeal
As has been widely reported, the three co-founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay have lost their appeal before the Stockholm Court of Appeal against criminal convictions imposed in April...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ed Vaizey clarifies UK government's position on net neutrality
The recent controversy about Ed Vaizey’s purported abandonment of network neutrality was probably overhyped. In Parliament today, Andrew Smith (Labor MP, East Oxford) asked the following question: To...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Great Cyberheist: Inside the life of an identity thief
The New York Times has a fantastic writeup of the criminal activities and investigation of Alberto Gonzalez, a black-hat hacker who masterminded the TJX and Heartland Payment Systems credit card data...
View ArticleClik here to view.
British ISPs to face regulatory pressure over internet pornography
Representatives of the Her Majesty’s government will meet with ISPs and lobbyists to discuss whether, and how, access to internet pornography should be controlled. The meeting comes days after Tory...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Survey finds free internet downloads primary music source for teenagers
A survey of 47 000 teenage internet users has found found that 33 per cent nominated ”downloading from the internet without paying” as their primary source of music. While this doesn’t necessarily...
View ArticleGoogle bookstore: closed platform or platform innovator?
Has openness become a mere buzzword? I’m not arguing that “openness” is a bad thing in the tech business. What I’m saying is that it is not an unmitigated virtue, and it’s not necessarily the first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
WikiLeaks roundup: a selection of the best analysis
The WikiLeaks controversy continues to capture headlines and provoke vitriol from governments around the world. Most reactions, however, have been surprisingly unsophisticated. Commentators repeatedly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
European Electronic Communications Package moves closer to UK transposition
The UK government is preparing to transpose Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (the Framework) into UK law. The Framework is a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Digital avatars as risk-free social substitutes: Scruton
Philosopher Roger Scruton offers this Hegelian critique of our growing digital lives: This process of raising ourselves above the animal condition is crucial, as the Hegelians emphasized, to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guardian interview with Professor Tim Wu: the Internet as a teenager
The Guardian is running an interview with Professor Tim Wu, who recently published The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires . I’m about three quarters of the way through the book,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
High Court of Australia grants leave to appeal iiNet ruling
Today the High Court of Australia granted leave to appeal against the decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd. I haven’t been able to uncover...
View ArticleClik here to view.
FCC adopts new network neutrality rules on unstable jurisdictional ground
After months of consultation and over 100 000 submissions, the Federal Communications Commission has adopted an order which requires providers of a “broadband internet access service” to comply with...
View Article
