Comcast’s blacklist

In order to fight what it deems as “network congestion”, Comcast is developing a way to slow down particularly heavy downloaders as opposed to all bittorrent users:

“Comcast is starting to test new approaches to protecting its network from what it describes as congestion caused by a handful of customers who use far far more bandwidth than everyone else.

It will test new devices that will keep track of Comcast users and assemble a blacklist of heavy users. Those on the blacklist will find that all of their online activities may slow down at peak times: from downloading movies to checking e-mail.” –nytimes bits blog

Why newspapers online = fail

At the Publishing 2.0, Scott Karp has a great article what newspapers still don’t understand about the web. It’s a fantastic read!

Here’s an idea for newspaper website homepages — just a search box and a list of blogs. Seriously. Instead of putting all the web-native content and publishing in the blog ghetto, like NYTimes.com does, why not make that the WHOLE site? (I mean seriously, having a blog section on the website is like having a section in the paper for 14 column inch stories.)

It’s like newspapers on the web as saying: here’s all the static stuff we produced for the paper — you want all of our dynamic web innovation? Oh, that’s downstairs, in the back room. Knock twice before you enter.

It’s a shame — so much marginalized value.

I bet I could stop going to the New York Times site entirely and just subscribe to all of their blog RSS feeds, and still get all the news, but in a web-native format, with data and LINKS.

CTV launches MyNews and wireless auction hits $1.8 billion

Another example of an old media player trying to act like a new media company can be found at CTV’s MyNews. It’s an attempt at citizen journalism and based on the calibre of journalism coming out of CTV I’m sure that citizens will fair much better. On their site they say:

Have you seen news happening?
Do you have a video or image(s) of something that should be seen on our CTV Newscasts?
It can be breaking news like a fire or accident or something eye-catching like a late spring storm or a celebrity sighting.
We are looking for the best in citizen journalism to enhance CTV’s own newsgathering efforts.

Wireless spectrum auction

WirelessNorth.ca is covering the wireless spectrum auction happening in Canada. The amount the auction has raised is staggering at $1.8 billion. The auction is not exciting because as any Canadian can imagine there already is little competition over our airwaves. It looks like there won’t be a new player in town anytime soon 🙁

Now in to it’s second week and 14th round of bidding, Canada’s AWS auction has hit 1.8Billion and is not showing immediate signs of slowing down. 68 licences received bids last round, actually up from the 40-50 bids of the last round. Thus far industry Canada’s decision to set aside new spectrum appears to have anything but discourage a handsome return on this auction.

Facebook is “a minefield of privacy invasion”

Another week and another accusation that Facebook destroys people’s privacy. However, this accusation could end up changing Facebook in Canada. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), run out of the University of Ottawa, has filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada that outlines 22 problems with Facebook.

The complaint that CIPPIC sent in lists the points succinctly:

We submit that Facebook is violating Principles 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 4.7, and 4.8 of PIPEDA,
Schedule 1 by failing to:
• Identify all the purposes for which it collects Users’ personal information (Principle 4.2);
• Obtain informed consent from Users and non-Users to all uses and disclosures of their
personal information (Principle 4.3);
• Allow Users to use its service without consenting to supply unnecessary personal
information (Principle 4.3.3);
• Obtain express consent to share Users’ sensitive information (Principle 4.3.6);
• Allow Users who have deactivated their accounts to easily withdraw consent to share
information (Principle 4.3.8);
• Limit the collection of personal information to that which is necessary for its stated
purposes (Principle 4.4);
• Be upfront about its advertisers’ use of personal information and the level of Users’
control over their privacy settings (Principle 4.4.2);
• Destroy personal information of Users who terminate their use of Facebook services
(Principle 4.5);
• Safeguard Users’ personal information from unauthorized access (Principle 4.7); and
• Explain policies and procedures on the range of personal information that is disclosed to
third party advertisers and application developers (Principle 4.8).

Ars Technica has an article summarizing CIPPIC’s stance:

CIPPIC points out a number of other violations that have raised the eyebrows of users for some time now. Facebook fails to disclose why every third-party Facebook application must have access to every bit of a user’s personal data (this is something that annoys me, personally), and requires the submission of a user’s date of birth upon registration even though there are no age guidelines for using the service. Facebook also fails to obtain express consent to share users’ personal information by making all information partially public by default (users can change privacy settings after saving the information first). The same goes for photographs uploaded by the user, or photos uploaded and tagged by others that then show up on the user’s profile by default—whether they like it or not.

Read the report from CIPPIC (PDF)

Punk rocker MP submits net neutrality bill

MP Charlie Angus (who was in a punk band) loves net neutrality so much that he has submitted a bill in Ottawa to ensure that Canadians will be able to pass information through the interwebtubes without concern. What I find interesting is that the bill is a private-member bill and not one submitted by a party. Let’s hope it passes!
Ars Technica has an article on Angus and net neutrality in Canada.

Charlie Angus, who represents Timmins and James Bay, launched his bill one day after 300 people showed up in Ottawa to protest the issue. “You are citizens of a digital realm and you have rights,” Angus told the crowd, according to the CBC. The crowd then chanted, “Whose net? Our net!” As a slogan, this leaves something to be desired, but it does get the point across.

The debate has been sparked in large part by recent revelations about traffic-shaping by Bell Canada, shaping that has allegedly reduced the speed of many P2P sessions by 90 percent. It applies even to ISPs who resell wholesale access from Bell, and these ISPs have brought Canadian regulators into the battle over the issue

Angus wants Parliament to debate the topic, and his brief bill amends Canada’s Telecommunications Act to prohibit various forms of discrimination. P2Pnet hosts a copy of the text, which outlaws “network management practices that favour, degrade or prioritise any content, application or service is transmitted over a broadband network based on its source, ownership or destination.” Reasonable network management is still allowed, and ISPs are explicitly allowed to charge different prices for different levels of bandwidth.

The Big Switch

Geert Lovink has a review of Nicholas Carr‘s new book, The Big Switch:

The Big Switch can be summarized in one sentence: the  
shift from in-house computer systems to ‘cloud computing’.

Instead of storing applications on each individual PC, will we 
soon have everything store in central data warehouses. Such data 
centres are not entire new. What’s emerging is the enormous scale in 
which companies like Google are actively anticipating the future 
migration of (corporate) IT systems to a few global hubs.

The Big Switch poses all sorts of interesting questions for those  
activists, researchers and artists who prefer to work independently.  
Ever since we got access to the Internet, in 1993, it has been issue  
whether or not to build autonomous infrastructures, or to virtual  
hosting from somewhere, usually in the USA.

link

CBC sharing news footage

The Edmonton Sun is reporting that the CBC has inked a deal with Global to share some media resources. The editorial that covers this raises questions about how a government-funded broadcaster ought to act with private broadcasters and how the CBC should treat other institutions owned by the crown.

Something is rotten when government institutions cut deals with certain media, but not others.

Two cases in point: A marketing “exclusive” between the Royal Alberta Museum and the Edmonton Journal, and “video sharing” between Edmonton CBC-TV and Global.

In return for discounted rates, the Royal Alberta Museum promises promotion and advertising exclusively with the Journal.

If the museum wasn’t government, I’d have no problem with the concept. Advertising “exclusivity” happens all the time. Media outlets are forever competing to be “exclusive presenters” of popular events.

But the museum is 100% government, part of the provincial Department of Culture and Community Spirit.

Why is the government of Alberta cutting exclusive deals with one media, but not the rest?

At the very least, sharing the same media and news source can lead to hilarious fake stories that “news” agency will cover.
Via Inside the CBC

New York Times Knows the Future is Electronic

The New York Times, the largest metropolitan print newspaper in the United States, is demonstrating the impact that digital markets have had on print journalism by developing technologies that cater to niche markets (like bloggers), a generation of people who prefer digital over paper and Google mash-ups. Specifically these include: (via Scobilizer)

  • A prototype newspaper rack that could print out a custom version of the newspaper.
  • Tons of gadgets, including a cool thin book reader following a discussion of metadata that the New York Times is collecting. They have these gadgets so they can develop new ways of delivering content to those devices. In this video they announced a Mac version of the Times Reader, coming “within days.”
  • New York Times articles showing up on Google Earth while in their digital living room.

    • Will these technologies reverse circulation declines for the paper? Is print media production destined to become obsolete? Developments at The New York Times are crucial for the future of old media.