ACTA secrecy breeds suspicion
Mar 2, 2010 Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
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Meddling Mandelson faces furore from MPs
The secrecy surrounding the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) talks is causing fury amongst MPs across political parties. The Government (Lord Mandelson and David Lammy) has refused to place the documents regarding the ACTA talks in the House of Commons Library because of other countries requests for secrecy, much to the annoyance of the UK MPs.
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
This is particularly important because whilst Mandelson and Lammy are involved in the secret ACTA talks they are also negotiating the Digital Economy Bill’s entry into UK law. If the leaked details of the ACTA talks are to be believed these new agreements will have a significant impact on the DEB which is already causing large amounts of controversy.
So what is the ACTA?
The ACTA is a proposed trade agreement between participating countries to establish international standards on protecting intellectual property from copyright infringement. The UK is joined in the talks by the US, Japan, the EC, Australia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and several others.
David Lammy defends the government’s secrecy by explaining how publicising details of the ACTA discussions could damage the UK’s relations with the rest of the involved nations, stating “this would harm our ability to protect, promote and secure an outcome in the UK’s interest, and the premature release of documents that are not agreed and not fully developed may also have a negative effect on the government’s reputation.”
Tags: Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...Google finally stands up to China
Jan 13, 2010 Business, Net Neutrality, Regulation, Security
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Is it the end of the road for Google.cn?
Yesterday on the official Google Blog, David Drummond, Google’s Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer announced that following a cyber attack in December Google is now considering withdrawing its operations from the Chinese market. Clearly there’s more to this though and we think market leaders should make a stand against the restriction that Chinese government censorship applies to Chinese web users.
Neil Watson, Head of Operations
Through a thorough investigation since mid December Google allegedly has evidence to suggest that the attack originated in China and its aim was to access the Gmail accounts of several US, European and Chinese based human rights advocates. The company also has evidence to suggest that the attacks did not only affect Google, advising that an additional 20 large corporations in various industries including the Internet, media, finance and chemical sectors were also affected.
- Official Google Blog: A new approach to China
The Register reports that one of these additional companies was possibly Adobe, although the company has not confirmed whether or not the two incidents were related. Adobe also announced news of its attack via its corporate blog advising that they had become aware of “a computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies.”
- The Register: Google may exit China after ‘highly targeted’ attack
- Adobe.com: Adobe Investigates Corporate Network Security Issue
Tags: Business, Net Neutrality, Regulation, Security
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5) Loading ...Poll: The Government’s IMP is…?
Jan 11, 2010 Business, Net Neutrality, Polls, Privacy, Regulation, Security
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The UK’s mobile operators have recently united against the government’s planned IMP (Improvement and Modernisation Programme) which will require all ISPs and operators to collect and store all IP communications.
We would like to know what you think about the government’s plans and have created a poll to capture your thoughts.
Tags: Business, Digital Britain, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation, Security
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Bono – stick to singing!
Jan 5, 2010 Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality
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In a recent opinion article of his own within the New York Times, U2 front man Bono warned all creative types to beware of the evils of the Internet, especially us greedy ISP types.
- New York Times: Ten for the Next Ten
Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing
He states “The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files. The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of “24” in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free.” A tad over dramatic but he’s probably right on that one.
However he continues “A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.”
This statement just goes to show why multi-millionaire Bono should stick to singing and campaigning for poorer nations and leave the economics of Internet service provision to the professionals. Those of us within this supposedly swollen, profit rich Internet industry are more than aware of the reality. Consumer demand for the cheapest, fastest broadband continues to increase resulting in even lower profit margins for us “greedy” ISPs.
Tags: Copyright, File Sharing, Net Neutrality
(15 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...2009 – The good, the bad and the ugly!
Dec 9, 2009 Business, Copyright, Digital Divide, Featured, File Sharing, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
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As we approach the end of an eventful year I thought it would be apt to take a look back over the main industry talking points of 2009 to evaluate what happened, why we were discussing it and where we are currently at. When we have completed that let’s take a stab at predicting what we will be discussing in 2010.
Elsa Chen, General Manager
The ‘hottest’ topic of 2009 was undoubtedly illegal file sharing
We first covered this subject back in April with an article discussing the Pirate Bay case. The four founders of the website ‘The Pirate Bay’ were found guilty in a Swedish court for assisting the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. They were each sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to pay £2.4million in damages to the entertainment industry. This was the catalyst that started the raging debate between the entertainment industry, the government and ISPs which continues to this date. The entertainment industry and a number of high profile MPs, in particular Peter Mandelson, are calling for a three strikes and you’re cut-off policy. However, ISPs have continuously raised concerns regarding the accuracy of correctly identifying offenders and the fact that cutting a user off is presuming guilt before a fair trial with minimal and potentially flawed evidence.
This topic continued to be covered for several months and was once again inflamed with the release of the Digital Britain Report which actually advised against a three strikes policy, much to the annoyance of the entertainment industry.
- Entanet Opinion: The pirates of… Sweden
- Entanet Opinion: USC: Solving the digital divide
- Entanet Opinion: Guilty until proven innocent is the wrong approach to file sharing
- Entanet Opinion: Are YOU on the list?
- Entanet Opinion: Mandelson’s mindless meddling infuriates Internet industry
So where are we at now?
Tags: Broadband, Business, Copyright, Digital Britain, Digital Divide, File Sharing, IPv6, Marketing, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Regulation
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5) Loading ...Net neutrality – is legislation necessary?
Nov 11, 2009 Featured, Net Neutrality
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Last month the US FCC (Federal Communications Commission) announced plans to enforce net neutrality through new legislative proposals and a couple of weeks ago these proposals took a step closer to adoption, moving into the stage of public input.
Neil Watson, Head of Operations
The new proposals would force broadband providers to be transparent about the management of their networks and the services they are providing and would stop them from blocking or slowing down certain types of lawful traffic such as P2P. Unsurprisingly the proposals have met with opposition from several American ISPs and support from net neutrality advocates.
- Wired.com: FCC Backs Net Neutrality — And Then Some
- FCC: (PDF Document) Commission Seeks Public Input on Draft Rules to Preserve the Free and Open Internet
- The Register: FCC launches war of net ideologues
Tags: Net Neutrality
(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5) Loading ...
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