Facebook Causes Egyptian Stir

I have noticed that Facebook has been in the media lately regarding the censorship of people creating groups. On Facebook, groups can be created by anyone regarding just about any subject. A group invite is then sent out to friends that might share an interest in what the group wishes to accomplish, or whatever the group was created for.

In Egypt, a woman was arrested after creating a Facebook group that encouraged citizens of Egypt to protest the price hikes. I don’t know exactly what a price hike is…I imagine just a sudden spike in the prices of certain staples, a problem many countries have when faced with inflation as Egypt has been. The woman was released after, oddly enough, her mother appealed directly to the president, Hosni Mubarak, asking for her to be let out of the all women prison in Qantar where she was being held. I was surprised to find out that the Egyptian president himself lectured about “the Internet and how youth has to use it to express their opinions” recently at Cairo University. It would seem as though he has no desire for citizens to express their opinions, which was commented on by a student during the lecture when he told the president that “We want you to release those detained on April 6,” saying that those that do express their opinions ”are now all behind bars.” Touche.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i0fUBuQavwXZt1Et7k6JGFLbePKA

Google Named Number One

More Google news…but good news this time! An article written at CMS (Content Management Systems?) Wire.com claims that Google has been chosen as number one out of one hundred different brands as the wealthiest and most successful this year. Google beat out huge companies such as General Electric (valued at 71.4 billion) and also Microsoft (valued at 70.8 billion). This is the second year in a row that Google has been awarded this illustrious honor from the Millward Brown consulting company responsible for the research.

Although Google has experienced some setbacks in the last year due to the impending recession, some business ventures that were not fruitful, and too many lawsuits to count, it still managed to increase the value of its’ brand by thirty percent since it was named number one last year. One phrase in the article that I particularly enjoyed was the way our economy was described by the author; he said that we live in “this brutal Darwinist market economy,” where “only the strong will survive.” It sure did put a kind of romantic twist on it.
Here is the article on CMSWire:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/industry-news/the-google-sits-at-the-top-yet-again-002576.php
And this is Millward Brown’s site of all top 100 most powerful brands of ’08:
http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/Optimor/Content/KnowledgeCenter/BrandzRanking.aspx

“Cracking the Great Firewall of China”

In a very interesting article on USAToday.com, China’s increasing internet censorship is described in chilling detail. It’s incredible to me that nations around the world still have the ability to keep their citizens completely devoid of international information. I couldn’t believe it when I read in the article that there are entire nations (North Korea) that DO NOT ALLOW internet access to the general public. That’s right, they don’t censor things they don’t want their citizens to see, they completely take away their right to information.

The article includes comments from Bill Xia, a Chinese-born software engineer who lives in North Carolina. He and a team of others that specialize in computer hacking have teamed up to provide ways for citizens to gain access to internet sites that are contraband such as Chinese human rights or democracy movements. According to the OpenNet Initiative, a corporation that tracks internet censoring around the world, China has the world’s “most sophisticated” internet filtering system. According to the article, at least 48 people were put in jail for allegedly being “cyberdissidents,” the term used to describe anyone who does not agree with China’s censorship practices. One AIDS activist has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison for articles he wrote that were published on an American sponsored website published in Chinese. The article is very well written and informative, but it is mostly shocking to hear of the pains taken by the Chinese government to keep their citizens from learning about democracy. There is even more cause for concern about China’s radical viewpoints due to the fact that the Olympics are being hosted by China this year. Scary.
Definitely check out the article, it was very eye-opening:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2008-04-22-InternetBandits_N.htm

 

What do all those things stand for?

I always wondered what the tiny letters and symbols meant at the bottom right of different texts and products. So, in an effort to satiate my curiosity, and in light of our discussion today in class, I decided to do a little research and find out what each one stands for. After searching fruitlessly for a while, I came across a very thorough website that explains what each tiny symbol stands for and what types of products use the differing symbols. On the site, there are many different links to answer frequently asked questions. The first link sends you to the definition of the word “trademark.” I thought that the trademark was the symbol itself, the mark that signified that the product, brand, etc. was copyrighted. Actually, a trademark is what is being protected by the tiny symbols that often get overlooked. The full definition from the site says:

A trademark is any word (Poison), name (Giorgio Armani), symbol or device (the Pillsbury Doughboy), slogan (Got Milk?), package design (Coca-Cola bottle) or combination of these that serves to identify and distinguishes a specific product from others in the market place or in trade. Even a sound (NBC chimes) color combination, smell or hologram can be a trademark under some circumstances. The term trademark is often used interchangeably to identify a trademark or service mark.

I thought it was very interesting that a sound, smell, or color combination could be considered a trademark. I wonder if the color combination from our flag is a trademark? Anyway, here’s the site, it’s a little dry but very educational.
http://www.inta.org/index.php?option=com_simplefaq&task=display&Itemid=0&catid=284&page=1#faq_top

Fair Use: What is it? Who is effected?

Fair Use: an exception to the exclusive rights of copyright holder “…for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching…scholarship, or research” (section seven of the U.S. copyright act).

Factors of fair use include:
-Purpose of the use. Is it educational?
-Nature of the original work. Is it very creative?
-Amount of original work used. Only a small amount?
-Effect of use on the market. Will the purchase of a large amount of the book effect money made? This is the most important. It’s not fair if you encourage a huge amount of the books to be purchased because of a class requirement.
-Parody is protected when it comes to making fun of something…if the copyright holder was asked first, he or she would probably say no.

Here is a recent fair use lawsuit that I discovered:
This article, from CNN, describes the lawsuit that J.K.Rowling has taking action against a fan that decided to make the information on his website (a site all about Harry Potter) into a book. The man that created the site is a librarian from Michigan  named Steven Vander Ark, who is a huge Harry Potter fan. His website has an encyclopedia of H.P. terms and plot summaries available to the general public. The problem with his idea of turning this information into a “Harry Potter Lexicon” book, is that he would then be making money off of the book he’s selling from ideas that originally were J.K. Rowlings’. Many Harry Potter fans are saying that they do not agree with Rowling taking legal action against Vander Ark, one quote from the article saying that Rowling should “get a life now and perhaps not be so flattered by herself. Work on another book, have a cup of tea, move on.” Although this opinion might be shared by many, it doesn’t change the fact that Rowling does actually have a case against this man. The lines drawn between fair use and copyright are very unclear, and this case could lead to a new precedent regarding copyright infringement in the internet age.
This is the article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/22/sunny.potter/?iref=mpstoryview
This is Vander Ark’s site:
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/index-2.html

 

“Access Denied” Internet Filtering Study

Many countries around the world censor the internet for their citizens regarding religion, sexuality, and politics. An internet filtering study that has been titled “Access Denied,” was proposed in order to analyze and document internet filtering practices by over three dozen countries around the world. The fascinating results of the study are not available online, but were published in a book of the same title that describes their research strategies, the way participants gathered pertinent information, and thoughts about where internet censorship is going.  Access Denied examines the political, legal, social, and cultural contexts of Internet filtering in states from a variety of perspectives. Countries included in the study were the United States, many North African countries, Middle Eastern locations, and also Asian countries that practice internet censoring. The book introduces and explains the idea of internet censorship and what it means for citizens being influenced by it, then each country has a profile showing the type of censorship they employ and what exactly they censor. This sounds like a fascinating read and, judging by the description on the institutions website, is not too difficult. The book was published in February of 2008 and is selling on Amazon.com for about twenty dollars.

http://opennet.net/accessdenied
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Access+Denied%3A+The+Practice+and+Policy+of+Global+Internet+Filtering&x=17&y=22

Google is Forever in the News

Recently, because of the press Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft has received, the three companies have been all over the news. The latest article that I have found regarding Google is about their effort to advertise on MySpace pages. The partnership that Google has with MySpace could have been a good move by Google, but the strategies they are employing to advertise on MySpace pages have been nothing if not disastrous. It was said in an understated way by co-founder Sergey Brin that they have not found the “best way to advertise and monetize the social networks yet.” The statement was followed by the fact that Google lost about 1.5 percent of it’s gross margins because the advertising strategies simply aren’t working. 1.5 percent of Google’s gross margin is 900 million dollars, by the way, not a small amount of money to lose.

The reasoning behind why the advertising was not working was explained by Andy Monfried, a fromer Advertising.com executive. He claims that he has figured out a way to be successful when advertising on social networking sites, and why Google’s ideas are not very effective. He says that because people go on sites like Facebook and MySpace to communicate with friends, advertisements based on the data they include in their profiles will not encourage users to go buy products. He suggests that advertising should be based on the demographic of the user and the content that he or she views and downloads. Because Monfried did not want to disclose specific strategies that he employs in advertising, it was not explained very thoroughly but the article was interesting nonetheless.

http://blog.wired.com/business/

 

Yahoo Could Face Hostile Takeover

Although it’s fascinating to examine how search engines operate on a consumer basis, it’s always good to know what’s going on in the corporate side of things. In an effort to increase revenue Yahoo has been exhausing every avenue possible to avoid a hostile corporate takeover by Microsoft. Microsoft has offered to buy out Yahoo for $42 billion, but they are making every effort to keep from accepting the deal.

Their latest move has been to discuss having Google (their largest competitor) advertise on their website. This deal could possibly lead to a larger partnership, which could change things for the little people like us that use the search engines every day. It seems to be an act of desperation for Yahoo to turn to Google; they’ve discussed similar deals in the past with companies such as Time Warner and AOL. If the partnership between Google and Yahoo were to blossom, it is said that Google would then own a consolidated “90% of the search advertising market.” This could lead to allegations of Google being a monopoly and so on… Hopefully Yahoo can find a way to support itself without having to partner with anyone at all.

Here’s a news articles about it:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/09/technology/moritz_yahoo_google.fortune/?postversion=2008040918

And a blog post with an amusing video:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/06/yahoo-leaks-that-tomorrow-theyre-going-to-write-a-very-stern-letter-to-microsoft/

 

London Takes Google to Court

    Google has been struggling with implications of “liberal bias” for quite some time now. Recently, a Christian group in London, called simply the “Christian Institute,” was discussing with Google an ad that they wanted to put on the site. The ad would provide a link to a webpage discussing conservative viewpoints and news about abortion. The ad was not described in great detail, but it was said that it was a simple link that would show up on the right side of the screen with other ads when a searcher put in the query “abortion.”

    Google refused to post this advertisement, on the grounds that their company policy “does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain ‘abortion and religion-related content.” When first reading this article, I agreed with Google’s standpoint, in that I don’t think religions should advertise their beliefs in any way shape or form. That’s a personal decision that advertising seems (to me anyway) to cheapen. However, my thoughts changed somewhat when I read on and found that Google actually does put ads up of a controversial nature, (for instance, an ad for the services of an abortionist) just never conservative ones. In 2005, Google was accused of liberal bias when they turned down a request for ad space made by a conservative website called “Rightmarch.com.”

    It seems to me that this problem can only continue…and all media sources have some level of bias. Think about different news shows; there are more liberal or conservative viewpoints discussed on different ones. But when people watch the news they simply ignore whatever news show they don’t care for and only watch the one that correlates with their own personal beliefs. It could be a simplistic viewpoint, but perhaps the conservative groups can find a lovely conservative search engine to advertise with.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040806.html

Where DO we get our oil?

In an effort to remedy my entire lack of blog posts (I am a slacker but I’m working on it) I did some extra credit work, one assignment of which was to do a little research on where the United States gets its’ oil. I wasn’t surprised at all to find that there were not only countless different percentages and disputing data, but also that many of my perceptions about where our oil comes from were completely wrong. I found a very fascinating map showing the percentages of oil we get from each country, and also information regarding how many (approximate) years of oil we have left in reserve. Here’s the map:

 

As you can see, almost half of the oil that the United States imports (according to this map) is from the Western hemisphere. The idea that all the oil must be in the middle east seems to be incorrect, however, I think the confusion lies in the fact that the middle east has the most cost effective oil. Also, I found that after oil runs out (they’re predicting 2090) the five countries left with oil reserves will all be middle eastern countries. There are tons of websites that outline how much oil is left and how much the United States uses…but most of them cite different percentages and conflicting locations. Although I don’t trust every website, what I find most interesting are blogs that show other people’s research. I find they share many of my frustrations. Here’s one that’s consistently witty and intelligent:

http://www.energyrefuge.com/archives/where_oil_comes_from.htm