Law X.0

New Book on the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering

Access Denied provides the definitive analysis of government justifications for denying their own people access to some information and also documents global Internet filtering practices on a country-by-country basis. This is timely and important. --Jonathan Aronson, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California

Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering
Edited by by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski & Jonathan Zittrain.

List Price: $20.00
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (February 29, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0262541963
ISBN-13: 978-0262541961

Product Description: Many countries around the world block or filter Internet content, denying access to information--often about politics, but also relating to sexuality, culture, or religion--that they deem too sensitive for ordinary citizens. Access Denied documents and analyzes Internet filtering practices in over three dozen countries, offering the first rigorously conducted study of this accelerating trend.

Internet filtering takes place in at least forty states worldwide including many countries in Asia and the Middle East and North Africa. Related Internet content control mechanisms are also in place in Canada, the United States and a cluster of countries in Europe. Drawing on a just-completed survey of global Internet filtering undertaken by the OpenNet Initiative (a collaboration of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, and the University of Cambridge) and relying on work by regional experts and an extensive network of researchers, Access Denied examines the political, legal, social, and cultural contexts of Internet filtering in these states from a variety of perspectives. Chapters discuss the mechanisms and politics of Internet filtering, the strengths and limitations of the technology that powers it, the relevance of international law, ethical considerations for corporations that supply states with the tools for blocking and filtering, and the implications of Internet filtering for activist communities that increasingly rely on Internet technologies for communicating their missions.

Reports on Internet content regulation in forty different countries follow, with each country profile outlining the types of content blocked by category and documenting key findings.

Contributors: Ross Anderson, Malcolm Birdling, Ronald Deibert, Robert Faris, Vesselina Haralampieva, Steven Murdoch, Helmi Noman, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, Mary Rundle, Nart Villeneuve, Stephanie Wang, and Jonathan Zittrain

Pay-Per-View Webcasts of Funeral Services

And now for something a bit offbeat...

Wesley Music is webcasting funeral services in Britain so mourners can pay their last prespects via the Internet. The pay-per-viewer cost is about $150. Story on MSNBC. Hat tip to Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog. [JH]

Law Blogging 101: Incorporating Legal Blogs into Your Practice

Check out Greg May's post on California Blog of Appeal which links to his resource list for law bloggers. Hat tip to Mitchell Rubinstein, Adjunct Law Prof Blog. [JH]

Blogging Till You Drop

Do professional bloggers work in a digital sweatshop? Are bloggers dropping dead, gaining or losing weight, experiencing sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies from the nonstop strain of producing content for the blogosphere? According to the New York Time's Matt Richtel, yes! Check out his article, In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop. Hat tip to Ellen Podgor (Stetson), White Collar Crime Prof Blog. [JH]

The Google Quality Rater's Handbook

The Google Quality Rater's Handbook (version 2.1 dated April 6, 2007)(pdf) was leaked recently. Download while you can! Essentially, the Rater's Handbook tells you what Google deems important when judging the quality and relevance of a webpage.

As Pandia Search Engine News reports "in spite of what many say, Google does not entirely rely on automatic computer-based algorithms in its search engine rankings. They do employ human editors that control the quality of selected sites and they may give a boost to sites these reviewers deem especially useful." See also Spying on Google: What is Spam? What is Relevant? Read This to Find Out and SearchEngineLand's synopsis of the handbook.

Hat tip to Ron Jones. [JH]

Internet Crime Report: The Top Scams of 2007

New report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation:

"According to the 2007 Internet Crime Report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 206,884 complaints of crimes perpetrated over the Internet during 2007. Of the complaints received, more than 90,000 were referred to law enforcement around the nation, amounting to nearly $240 million in reported losses. This represents a $40 million increase in reported losses from complaints referred to law enforcement in 2006. All complaints received by IC3 are accessible to federal, state, and local law enforcement to support active investigations, trend analysis, and public outreach and awareness efforts." 

[RJ]