Much virtual ink has been spent in describing the breaking of hostilities between Google and the Chinese government, after the search engine company claimed that it had been the victim of a targeted attack in order to obtain information about Chinese dissidents. In condemning the attack, Google clearly pointed an Read more
Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements are strange beasts. They are usually drafted to get two countries or regions to open up their markets, therefore contain all sorts of harmonising provisions which will bring the contracting parties’ laws closer to one another in order to ease trade. One of the topics Read more
During the early years of the decade, the topic of the digital divide received more coverage than it does now. As the Internet took off in Western developed nations, there was a deep preoccupation that developing countries would be left behind in the digital environment, condemning these economies to an Read more
Nowadays I am very sceptical about reading government consultation reports. After all, recent events would lead us to believe that consultation and evidence-based advice appears to be systematically ignored by decision-makers, and that the commercial interest will always prevail. So I was almost ready to ignore the report from the Read more
If one was to chart the tags used in this blog, it would be easy to get a sense of shift in interests through time. From early interest in P2P, passing through software patents, sprinklings of DRM and virtual worlds, one early topic that has received diminishing interest has been Read more
Last night something interesting happened online, a small incident that I think illustrates the problems of instant communications quite well. Geek blog Mashable broke the news that telecomms giant AT&T was filtering access to imageboard 4chan. For those unfamiliar with this site, 4chan is a forum dedicated to the exchange Read more
A mage contemplates his doom in Ulduar I have been reading about a bizarre occurrence that took place in World of Warcraft back in April that has got me thinking about morality, contractual terms, open data, and regulation (whoever said that you could not have serious discussions about games? ) Read more
The internet is growing. I know that as far as obvious statements go, this one pretty much comes on top. However, when one charts its rate of growth, one can’t help but notice that it seems to be accelerating. For example, a graph showing the number of internet hosts displays Read more
One of the most useful features of the participatory web and the user-generated revolution is that it allows interaction from consumers (gosh, how do I hate it when I start using journalistic commonplace terms such as revolution, debacle or meltdown). Now the British government is about to jump in the Read more
Yesterday was World Day Against Cyber-censorship [insert snarky comment about the abundance of “Days against X” here]. To celebrate (is “celebrate” the right word?), Reporters Without Borders has released a report on the state of internet control and surveillance. The report labels 12 countries as “enemies of the internet”, claiming Read more