LSQHA Blog Reviews

Facebook's Open Graph API is getting some negative attention in Washington today. Four democratic U.S. senators, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Mark Begich and Al Franken, sent a letter to Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this morning, asking for clarification about the privacy implications of Facebook's latest initiatives. Specifically, these senators complain about the company's new policy to allow third-party developers to store data for more than 24 hours, Facebook's Instant Personalization feature and the social network's new initiatives that make more of its users' personal information public by default. Sponsor Washington and Facebook Privacy The discussion in Washington mostly centers around the fact that Facebook's new Instant Personalization service is opt-out . Facebook's current partners - Microsoft's Docs.com , Pandora and Yelp - automatically get access to a subset of your personal data whenever you visit their sites while you are logged in to Facebook. According to the senators, Facebook now shares "significant and personal data points that should be kept private unless the user chooses to share them." U.S. senators : "Significant and personal data points that should be kept private unless the user chooses to share them." In his response to the senators' concerns, Facebook's VP of global communications Elliot Schrage argues that these new products are "designed to enhance personalization and promote social activity across the Internet while continuing to give users unprecedented control over what information they share, when they want to share it, and with whom." Facebook : We "give users unprecedented control over what information they share, when they want to share it, and with whom." This discussion comes down to Facebook's decision to make many of its latest features opt-out instead of opt-in. Currently, Facebook is only testing Instant Personalization with a small number of hand-selected partners. Facebook's ambition , however, is to turn itself into the hub for personalization on virtually every site on the Internet, so this small group of partners could soon grow exponentially. This - combined with the end of the company's 24-hour limit on storing data by third-party developers - could potentially pose a serious threat to its users' privacy. Opt-In vs. Opt-Out There is a reason why Facebook is currently using opt-out as its default. After all, this guarantees Facebook the largest possible user base for these features and the best possible user experience for those who want to use them. Making new features opt-in exposes Facebook to the (very real) possibility that not enough users sign up and that the reach of its current and future initiatives will be very limited. On the other hand, if its users really wanted to these features, wouldn't they just opt-in if asked? And if these features turn out to be really useful, wouldn't word about them spread across Facebook like a wildfire? Should Facebook Make Opt-Out Its Default? Given the Beacon fiasco from 2007 - and the recent discussion around how Google handled the launch of Buzz - however, we have to wonder if Facebook simply didn't learn its own lessons. Facebook already hosts more private information about its users than any other site on the Internet. Given the company's current trajectory of exposing more and more personal data, it's probably time for the company to establish a consistent policy for how it plans to handle personal data in the future and make it very easy for users to opt out of any new initiatives that will expose more of a user's data to third parties in the future. If you want to make sure that Facebook developers can't access your personal data, here are Sarah Perez's excellent instructions for how to opt-out . Discuss

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Is it Time for Facebook to Make Opt-In the Default?

After getting the short end of the Twitter stick, Venezuela president, Hugo Chávez, called it " terrorism ," " a battle trench" and a "current of conspiracy. "The Internet cannot be free!" he proclaimed. Since he has taken six television channels he didn't like off the air and imprisoned reporters , who knew what he would do? Well, it turns out he intends "to open his Twitter account soon to wage the battle online," according to Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela's chief telecommunications regulator. Sponsor With Venezuela's once invincible-seeming oil-economy now in the toilet and his approval rating diving below 50% perhaps El Jefe feels he has no choice. Since mass media in Venezuela is under constant threat from its strongman head of state, his opponents and critics have monopolized the microblogging platform and that platform is becoming popular. Reuters outlined its recent growth. "The microblogging site has seen an explosive rise in usage in Venezuela to more than 200,000 active accounts. With growth of over 1,000 percent in 2009, Venezuela now has one of the highest rates per capita of Twitter users in Latin America." The moment you shut people up, you no longer speak for them. This has started to dawn on some of Chávez's once-vocal partisans. It may take longer for those whose solidarity is limited to their Che t-shirts. May I suggest you Sharpie #FreeVenezuela across yours? Top photo from Open Democracy Bottom photo by Corey Harmon Discuss

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Hugo Chávez to Make Terrorist Threats, er, Join Twitter

Digital platform company Akamai has released its latest State of the Internet Report . The report covers the last quarter of 2009. Among the findings are the persistence of Russia as the top location for attack traffic and of South Korea for speed of web connections.The number of unique ports attacked has increased by almost three times what it was in Q3. Sponsor The single oddest statement in the report is Akamai's contention that "slightly more than 465 million unique IP addresses, from 234 countries, connected to the Akamai network- 4.7% more than in the third quarter of 2009, and 16% more than in the same quarter a year ago." Given that most countries in the world recognize between 194 and 196 countries, it is difficult to understand how even the most liberal definition of country could result in Akamai's total. Here are a list of important and interesting trends that Akamai has identified in Q4. Attacks Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 198 unique countries around the world. Russia remained the top attack traffic source, accounting for 13% of observed attack traffic in total. The United States, China and Brazil took second and third and fourth place for a total of 20%. Akamai observed attack traffic targeted at more than 10,000 unique ports. Users Akamai observed a 4.7% increase (from the third quarter of 2009) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai's network. Ending 2009 at 465 million unique IPs. The metric grew 16% from the end of 2008, and nearly 54% from the end of 2007. The United States and China together contribute 40% of unique IP addresses in the world. The Scandinavian countries have the highest number of IPs per person. In the U.S. it was New Jersey that took that honor. There are 32 countries with fewer than 1,000 unique IP addresses. Speed South Korea retained its lead as having the most high broadband (over 5 Mbps) and the highest average speed (12 Mbps). In the U.S., the state of Delaware retained its lead, growing to 72% of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or greater. Delaware also maintained the highest average connection speed in the United States, increasing to 7.6 Mbps. Over 40 of the mobile providers surveyed had average speeds of over 1 Mbps. Two out of three U.S. mobile providers lost speed for the second quarter in a row. Discuss

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Akamai's State of the Internet Report

Last week, the big news in DMCA takedowns was the sweeping removal of Hitler parody videos . Earlier this year, it was Google suddenly wiping out six separate music blogs . Today, it's the removal of a tweet . While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, it leads to some much bigger questions about free speech, what content should fall under a proper DMCA take-down and whether or not the DMCA is a legal method of applying censorship by any content owner. Sponsor Here's the story as told by TechDirt: The story involves a music blogger named JP, who runs the appropriately named JP's blog . Not surprisingly, JP also has a Twitter account , where he mostly seems to post links to his blog posts. One such post was about the leak of the new album by The National. That post includes a link to Amazon where people can purchase the new album... and also a link to a download of one song (in MP3 format) from the album. According to JP's blog post on the subject, Twitter sent him a message last Thursday "in response to a DMCA take-down notice". The email, he writes, read as follows: jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT): Hello, The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice: Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 - New Post: Leaked: The National - High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/ JP denies posting any link to the leaked album in his tweeted blog post, saying that he will not bother filing a counterclaim to the take-down. He also links to an article in Plagiarism Today from a year ago that alleges that Twitter's handling of DMCA take-downs and counterclaims is problematic and that "there is clearly an organization issue here and that's leading to confusion." While last weeks' take-downs of parody videos may have been "overbroad take-downs of legal content" , as the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserted, this sort take-down may go an extra step, beyond constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. With the YouTube take-downs, at least there was copyrighted content present, although it may have been used according to the law in the end. In this case, according to JP, there was neither pirated content nor a link to any DMCA-violating content. While TechDirt argues that "specifically, nothing in the tweet itself is infringing -- which means that the DMCA take-down for the tweet is bogus, and a violation of the DMCA itself", we spoke with David Sohn, senior policy council with the Center for Democracy & Technology , who said that the question might not be so cut and dry. Section 5.12D of the DMCA relates to cases involving "information location tools" and "links". "One possibility here is that Twitter has gotten a take-down notice that might not stand up as a totally valid take-down notice," said Sohn. On Sohn's advice, we asked Wendy Seltzer, founder of ChillingEffects.org , what this all meant and she explained that the burden of proof lies with the person creating the content and not the platform. All the platform, in this case Twitter, needs to know is that the complaint me be valid and that, by removing the offending content, they cover themselves legally in the eyes of the DMCA. Whether or not section 5.12 D of the DMCA actually applies doesn't really matter. The introduction to her recent paper, "Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright's Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment" (.pdf), speaks clearly to the problem we saw when first reading this story: Each week, more blog posts are redacted, more videos deleted, and more web pages removed from Internet search results based on private claims of copyright infringement. Under the "safe harbors" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are encouraged to respond to copyright complaints with content takedowns, assuring their immunity from liability while diminishing the rights of their subscribers and users. Paradoxically, the law's shield for service providers becomes a sword against the public who depend upon these providers as platforms for speech. The problem with the current format of the DMCA, especially in the case of something like a communication platform such as Twitter, is that a DMCA take-down notice becomes an extremely effective means of silencing information for a legally mandated period of 10 days. In essence, it provides those who wish to silence a voice a quick and legal means of enacting what is called a " prior restraint ", something clearly prohibited in First Amendment law. "When non-infringing speech is taken down, not only does its poster lose an opportunity to reach an audience, the public loses the benefit of hearing that lawful speech in the marketplace of ideas," writes Seltzer in the paper. Twitter offered this response: "Twitter regularly receives DMCA takedown notices. We strive to balance the interests of our users and copyright holders by reviewing each notice. After determining whether the notice is compliant with the law, we also consider other factors such as whether the notice is abusive to our users, or fails to take fair use into consideration. You can read more about our DMCA process here: http://help.twitter.com/entries/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy "We are always working to improve our transparency. Users are notified immediately when content has been removed from their account. In this situation, we responded to a request to remove a Tweet containing a link to download content from an unreleased album. After reexamining our decision, we believe this was the correct first step. If the affected user believes we have made a mistake or that the notice is in error, the appropriate thing for the user to do is file a counter-claim. "We believe that the reasoning of the DMCA claim and its origin should be transparent to both the affected user and other interested parties. We are working on further steps to improve access to this information." So, our next logical question here is: Since this post includes the email from Twitter, which includes that original link to a blog post that supposedly linked to infringing content, can it too be removed according to the guidelines of the DMCA? Discuss

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Twitter, DMCA Take-downs & the Prior Restraint of First Amendment Speech

There are just two more weeks until the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 , so we invite you to register now . Be a part of high-value, intimate conversations with people working throughout the world of mobile, from garage developers to industry luminaries. The summit will take place May 7, 2010 , in Mountain View, California and will be an exploration of the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. We are looking forward to some amazing discussion and debate about mobile with participants like : Sponsor Deb Schultz of Altimeter group Patrick Chanezon, Don Dodge & Bob Meese of Google Ted Morgan of Skyhook Wireless Scott Raney and Tom Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures Adam Blum of Rhomobile Brady Forrest of O'Reilly Brent Simmons of Newsgator Technologies Patrick Burns of DASH7 Alliance As with our first event, the Real-Time Web Summit last October, the Mobile Summit will be in the "unconference" format. Laura Fittion, founder of oneforty.com , had these thoughts about ReadWriteWeb's last summit: "There were a lot of investors there and it was a great dialogue between startups and investors. The unconference format was great because it got away from the bogus who-is in the real-time Web, and made it who-wants-to-be. You didn't have to be big and influential to get your ideas across - if it was a good idea then it got heard. It wasn't just Twitter, it was many things real time, defined pretty expansively." How Unconferences Work What's an unconference all about? Here's the idea: Convene an incredible group of people, frame the discussion, ask important questions, then guide participants in building an agenda for the day to maximize the value of the event and minimize hot air. Martin Källström, CEO of the real-time blog and feed tracking service Twingly brought his team over from Sweden for our last event. " Last year we happened across one of Kaliya Hamlin's unconference events," he told us. "We spent a couple of hours there and it was an amazing experience. The unconference format is an amazing way for things to happen; it gets everyone to lower their defenses. By opening peoples' minds to 'this is about whatever we want it to be about", they look at how they can create value. " Or, as Google's Brett Slatkin said when using the elite FooCamp events as a way to explain the unconference format: "Foo-style [unconferencing is] always way better than talks." As with our previous event, the Mobile Summit will be facilitated by Kaliya Hamlin , who in our opinion is the best in the business at this style of event. We're using the same venue too, the beautiful Computer History Museum. Mobile was one of our top five trends last year and continues to undergo explosive growth , so our aim with this event is to help you navigate the opportunities. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of mobile! Because it will be you - the attendees - who ultimately set the agenda. You can begin adding your suggestions now. We will have two main tracks at this Summit, Development and Business . Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks: Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. If you're a company in the mobile Internet market, you may be interested in becoming a sponsor for this event. Please contact our COO Sean Ammirati for more information about sponsor packages. And a big thank-you to our current event sponsors: CallFire , WorldMate , Alcatel-Lucent and Ipevo . The ReadWriteWeb team is excited about our second event and we can't wait to discuss the opportunities in Mobile with you on May 7. You can find banners and logos to link to our event here , if you're so inclined. We hope to see you on May 7! Discuss

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2 More Weeks Until the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit - Register Today!