http://www.mortalwombat.net Digital Ramblings of an Internet Policy Geek Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:16:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The Google Book Search copyright settlement seems likely to have far-reaching consequences, and I wish I had time to read the whole 141 page settlement right now. Generally this seems like a really Good Thing. It will in theory eventually provide digital access through libraries and universities to most books not ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=16 First there was this: FCC Issues Open Invitation to Internet Filtering: Buried in the [FCC's decision slamming Comcast for interfering with bittorrent traffic]... lurks an open invitation to internet service providers to filter content. In essence, the commission said carriers cannot discriminate against file sharing protocols, but they may act as a ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=15 Last week the FCC issued an order demanding that Comcast stop degrading the performance of BitTorrent over their network. Importantly, the FCC is indicating that ISPs cannot block or degrade the performance of legal applications or network services.1 To quote Lessig, "the Commission has clearly recognized the importance of the Internet ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=14 Not everything is depressing in the world of civil liberties & Internet politics. :-) I came across some tentatively good news today! We'll see how it is applied as the case continues. Someone actually decided to test the underused 'misrepresentations' section of the DMCA — the part that is supposed to ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=13 AT&T recently made clear that their customers are not permitted to use BitTorrent or other P2P apps on the company's 3G high-speed wireless data network. This is significant because in the future most people will be using high-speed wireless data networks for a significant part of their Internet usage. Given ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=12 A quote I came across today from an old Lessig speech: "The ideal that seemed so central to killing the closed society of yesterday—property—that ideal is now closing the open society of today. The same tool of freedom of yesterday is becoming a tool of control today. Not the same control, ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=11 I never post in this thing... Maybe I should fix that. Anyway, this is another interesting story of consequences when traditionally accepted offline actions move online where they can be more easily monitored. (That said, it sounds like this guy is not completely guilt-free.) -- Facebook : The New Study Hall For The ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=10 Background: Google has a policy that trademark owners can register their legit trademarks with Google if they don't want those trademarks to be used in the text of Google ads placed by others. (Within USA/Canada, this policy covers ad text only, not keywords.) Someone recently tried to place a Google AdWords ad ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=9 The Department of Justice yesterday submitted a filing to the FCC regarding that body's ongoing consideration of Network Neutrality regulations. I'm not quite clear why the DoJ is in fact commenting on this issue at all, but the department made it very clear that they oppose network neutrality regulations. ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=8 The general purpose computer has been really important in fostering the huge amount of innovation that has accompanied the growth of the Internet. Many (most?) exciting new Internet applications have come about not because big companies invented them, but because ordinary people or small "niche" companies decided to experiment with ... http://www.mortalwombat.net/?p=7