Censorship

An announcement this week by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that three Internet service providers would "block" sources of child porn has caused a surprising amount of confusion.

First, some news reports assumed that meant blocking, say, overseas Web sites that are deemed illegal. But Cuomo's press release talked only of broadband providers agreeing to "purge their servers of child porn websites"--which they've done for years, making this point mere public relations puffery.

Second, some readers thought that the three companies involved in the deal--Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint--would … Read more

[Update 6/12 11:40 a.m. Verizon has offered more details on what newsgroups will be removed. And here's background on whether or not Usenet is being blocked.]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday that Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint would "shut down major sources of online child pornography."

What Cuomo didn't say is that his agreement with broadband providers means that they will broadly curb customers' access to Usenet--the venerable pre-Web home of some 100,000 discussion groups, only a handful of which contain illegal material.

Time Warner Cable … Read more

Editor's note: Updated at 5:50 a.m. PDT with comment from Yahoo.

A proposed federal law that would slap extensive regulations on technology companies doing business in China and other nations deemed to be unreasonably "Internet-restricting" is facing an uncertain future due to opposition from the Bush administration and telecommunications providers.

The House of Representatives bill says that search engines, Web e-mail services, and other Internet businesses may not place servers with user account information in those nations. Any "aggrieved" person anywhere in the world would have the right to sue U.S. companies … Read more

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is pressuring states to become more secretive and limit even routine oversight of the bureau's data-sharing arrangements with local police, a new document shows.

A memorandum of understanding written by the FBI and signed by the state of Virginia in February 2008 aims to curb congressional and press oversight of a joint venture called a Fusion Center. Here's more on Fusion Centers.

The memorandum, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and released on Friday, says that any "disclosure" to Congress of information shared with the Fusion Center can happen only "… Read more

The annals of history are replete with examples of teenage angst and unrequited love. It took the state of New York to make those a crime.

State prosecutors decided to charge Isaiah Rodriguez, 18, of aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child over a series of MySpace.com messages professing his ardent devotion to a 14-year-old girl.

The messages said, in part: "I love you;" "we need to be together;" I will see you every day;" and "I will never stop trying to talk to you."

That, according to the solons … Read more

Remember, folks, it's Al Gore's Internet. We're just using it.

Gore is scheduled to give a keynote speech on April 11 at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. RSA says as many as 17,000 people showed up at last year's conference, and it's reasonable to assume a large chunk of this year's crowd will try to squeeze into Gore's keynote speech. These are security types, engineers, marketers, PR flacks, and so on--many of whom have their own blogs, Flickr accounts, and Twitter feeds where they'll share details about Gore's speech (… Read more

The company behind the proposed .xxx top-level domain, which was rejected after the Bush administration intervened, has been trying to dig up embarrassing government documents through a federal lawsuit.

Make that "was trying." A federal judge on March 12 granted summary judgment to the Bush administration in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ICM Registry.

By way of background, ICM Registry had proposed the porn-friendly .xxx domain in 2004 to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, four years after ICANN rejected the idea the first time. In June 2005, ICANN approved .xxx--but … Read more

MobiTV, a company that streams television channels to mobile devices, has backed away from its threats to censor a mobile forum Web site and pull the plug on its domain name.

Lawyers for the Emeryville, Calif., company had threatened the owner of HowardForums.com on March 4, saying that users of the Web site had posted an illegal link that allows anyone to watch television channels such as MSNBC or the Discovery Channel over the Internet for free without registering.

But after a firestorm of protest arose online, with Internet users saying that MobiTV should add greater security rather than … Read more

MobiTV, a company that streams television channels to mobile devices, is upset that someone has pointed out a link on its Web site that lets anyone watch TV for free.

So it's threatening to sue.

A letter that a lawyer for MobiTV sent to the owner of HowardForums.com on March 4 invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and says posting the hyperlink is a violation of U.S. copyright and trade secrets law. (Howard Forums is a popular place to find information about mobile devices, including technical tips and availability of unlocked phones.)

(For the record, Howard Chui, … Read more