The Government will not revisit a controversial Skynet law that allows internet providers to disconnect users for alleged copyright infringements, despite a UN report that said internet access was a human right.

In a recent report on internet freedoms, UN special rapporteur Frank La Rue said he was alarmed by proposals to disconnect users from internet access if they violate intellectual property rights.

That included laws that would introduce a graduated response, whereby a series of penalties could lead to the suspension of internet services.

New Zealand recently passed legislation that would allow internet service providers (ISPs) to send up to three infringement notices to alleged copyright infringers.

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act also includes a provision that would allow copyright holders to apply to a court for suspension of internet services, but that would not come into force unless the Government considered the warning system was ineffective.

Green MP Gareth Hughes, who put forward a defeated amendment to the law that would have removed the right to disconnect users, said today that the rapporteurs report should be a wake-up call for the Government.

They need to heed his call that internet access is a human right and ensure they will not enact internet termination.

Mr Hughes said the legislation was wildly unpopular, disproportionate and would not work.

Justice Minister Simon Power today said he had not put in a great deal of thought about whether internet access was a human right, but added he was very satisfied with the legislation and had no intention to revisit it.

The legislation that we passed a number of weeks ago now was thoroughly consulted over a two-year period.

Im confident that its been through just about every test and every forum it could have been to get where it is today.

He pointed out that the disconnection provisions would only be introduced by regulation if the warning regime did not operate as it was supposed to.

Its a complex area of law, it is finely balanced and it is not easy, but I think weve come to an arrangement which is satisfactory to both rights holders and ISPs.

The law was widely ridiculed when National rushed it through Parliament under urgency, earning the nickname Skynet after a gaffe by New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young, in which he compared the internet to the fictional supercomputer villain of the Terminator film franchise.

Hundreds of Egyptians have taken to the streets to honor activist Khaled Said, beaten to death in the northern city of Alexandria one year ago in a savage attack blamed on police. The incident helped inspire the uprising that brought down Egypts president.

Pictures of the 28-year-olds badly disfigured and bloodied face quickly spread over the Internet, sparking public anger in Egyptian cities that grew into the revolt that eventually toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February.

On Mondays anniversary, crowds held protests in Cairo and Alexandria to remember him and draw attention to continued abuses by Egyptian police.

Hundreds gathered outside the Interior Ministry in Cairo, calling for the trial of those who killed protesters in the uprising. Another group stood on Cairos Qasr El Nile Bridge passing out leaflets calling for a large demonstration Monday against police abuse. On a busy street in Alexandria, hundreds more held pictures of Said in their hands.

Last year, Said posted a video that he said showed two plainclothes policemen sharing the spoils of a drug bust. Witnesses say the officers later dragged Said out of an Internet cafe and beat him to death. Authorities said Said choked on illegal drugs he had swallowed.

The two policemen were put on trial, and a verdict is expected later this month.

In a separate development, Egypts military rulers are lifting a nightly curfew imposed during the height of the uprising.

Military officials said Monday the curfew would end on June 15 in order to encourage the return to normal life.

The curfew – imposed January 28 when Mr. Mubarak was still in power – currently lasts three hours, from 2 AM until 5 AM local time.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

After launching his career as a member of the Hot Boyz, Lil Wayne emerged as an influential voice in his own right in the mid-noughties, and someone one who appeared at ease with the changing shape of the music industry.

As the digital distribution and consumption of music grew so did issues of piracy and copyright. The mixtape culture, which saw DJs splice artist offcuts to original tracks before selling them on, was the subject of police action while recordings were frequently being leaked online. A substantial portion of Waynes sixth album, Tha Carter III, was leaked, but heturned it to his advantage.

Repackaging some of the leaked tracks as an EP, he made and released others online, sometimes on the same day, all the while guesting on many of the hottest tracks around. For 12 months, Lil Wayne was ubiquitous to the extent that when a reworked Tha Carter III finally hit the streets it shifted 1m units in its first week. Three years later and Waynes Young Money crew, incorporating Nicki Minaj and Drake among others, dominates the charts.

Glenn Beck is planning to charge his fans a monthly subscription for his daily talk show online starting this summer, as he makes the move from being a Fox News host to the owner of his own Internet network.

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Glenn Beck’s new Internet venture avoids violations of his exit agreement with Fox News.

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On Tuesday, Mr. Beck will announce a first-of-its-kind effort to take a popular — but also fiercely polarizing — television show and turn it into its own subscription enterprise. It is an adaptation of the business models of both HBO and Netflix for one man’s personal brand — and a huge risk, as he and his staff members acknowledged in interviews in recent days.

“I think we might be a little early,” Mr. Beck said of his plan for the Internet network, called GBTV, which will cost $5 to $10. “But I’d rather be ahead of the pack than part of it.”

The business decision by Mr. Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, hinges on an expectation that more and more people will figure out how to view online shows on their TV sets through set-top boxes and video game consoles — and that they will subscribe directly to their favorite brands.

Eventually, Mr. Beck said, his goal is to have an array of scripted and unscripted shows alongside his own daily show, which will simply be titled “Glenn Beck” and will run for two hours on weekday afternoons.

“If you’re a fan of Jon Stewart, you’re going to find something on GBTV that you’re going to enjoy,” Mr. Beck said. “If you’re a fan of ‘24,’ you’re going to find something on GBTV that you’re going to enjoy.”

What GBTV will not be, he and his associates emphasized, is a news channel.

Mr. Beck is leaving the Fox News Channel, a unit of the News Corporation, on June 30 after two and a half years of regular clashes with management. One Fox executive, Joel Cheatwood, is moving with him to GBTV; Mr. Cheatwood, who started at Mercury in April, will be the Internet network’s president for programming.

Mr. Cheatwood said he was attracted by the chance to pioneer “a different platform of media.” The Web, he said, “really is where the growth exists.”

GBTV will be accessible starting Tuesday when Mr. Beck talks about it on his three-hour radio show (which he will keep doing). One of its first features will be a behind-the-scenes show about the making of the network, somewhat akin to the behind-the-scenes show on Oprah Winfrey’s cable channel about the final season of her syndicated talk show.

Then, on Sept. 12, “Glenn Beck” will begin. The two-hour show will be scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern time, the same time as Mr. Beck’s current show on Fox, putting him in direct competition with whoever replaces him at the cable news channel. But because it will stream only over the Internet, and not be shown on television, it is not a violation of his exit agreement with Fox. And Mr. Beck’s representatives note that the show will be available on-demand on the Internet, further reducing the competitive element.

The on-demand nature of an Internet network was one of the appeals to Mr. Beck and the president of Mercury, Chris Balfe.

Also appealing, Mr. Balfe said, was not having to worry about whether the shows that lead into and out of Mr. Beck’s show have “exactly the same sort of tone.” (That was perceived to be a problem at Fox, since Mr. Beck’s conservative sermons and speeches at 5 p.m. were followed by a straightforward political newscast at 6 p.m.)

The lead-in and lead-outs do not matter, Mr. Balfe said, because “we’re not trying to keep viewers, we’re trying to please subscribers.”

Mr. Beck pointed out another potential advantage: “It’s my network, so if I want the show to run 2 hours and 15 minutes one night, it will.”

Fox has declined to comment about what program or host will replace Mr. Beck in the 5 p.m. time slot.

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Bitcoin slump shows signs of slowing; misinformation remains widespread

Our piece on the Bitcoin markets Black Friday saw tremendous pickup, being carried or quoted by Business Insider, Spiegel (Germanys equivalent of The Wall Street Journal), and Slashdot(whose submitter did an admirable job explaining the piece), among others.

Over the weekend there was more movement in the Bitcoin market, and much confusion about the peer-to-peer currency remains. In this follow up well take an objective look at what we feel the true story of Bitcoin is.

I. Is the Bitcoin Recession/Depression Over?

The market on Sunday showed signs of recovery. With the worlds largest exchange,Mt. Goxopening at $14.75 USD/Bitcoin, the price has floated up to $20.14 USD/Bitcoin [source]. Thats a massive 36.5 percent upward shift (in a deflationary direction). (The market has since receded slightly to $19 USD/Bitcoin.)

On the other hand, after the Bitcoin Black Friday the market is now down 30.3 percent thanks to another major dip on Saturday (this shift is in the inflationary direction).

Last, but not least, if you look at Bitcoin trading over the last month its seen rampant deflation, with prices soaring from around a dollar in mid-May to current levels — nearly 20 fold deflation.

So what does all this mean? In short, it indicates that there is a great deal of volatility in the Bitcoin market. Part of this arises out of media coverage of the crypto-currency. Part of it is based on the growing pains of an experimental currency thats still in the proving stages.

II. Are Bitcoins Currency?

Ostensibly, the answer is yes, Bitcoins are a peer-to-peer internet-driven cryptocurrency. However, Bitcoins unique nature means that they have many critical differences from standard currency.

First, the originators of the Bitcoin market didnt want to take the 100+ years that most modern currencies required to mature. To that end they seeded the market, by granting ownership miners — people who used hardware to find Bitcoins using an underlying algorithm.

In this regard Bitcoins are a bit like land stakes. If you get in early and have the proper resources (hardware) you can lay stake to a large Bitcoin claim. For example, the father of Bitcoins, Satoshi Nakamoto reportedly has around 150,000 Bitcoins (~$3.0M USD) [source] out of around 6.518m Bitcoins currently in existence.

On the other hand, the rapid growth in value of Bitcoins comes thanks to their utility (more on that late). In that regard, they behave much like a stock. Much as a stock — say shares of Apple, Inc. (AAPL) — can rise dozens-fold on news and speculation, Bitcoins can see a great deal of volatility and offer great payoff to early adopters at the cost of great risk.

Bitcoins can be used to purchase real world goods and services among willing merchants. And they are housed in accounts — cryptography protected digital records. In that regard they are much like currency.

Traditional currencies typically originated based on the barter of commodities (such as gold or animal pelts) then eventually evolved into a non-commodity based medium for making daily purchases. By contrast the creators of the Bitcoin movement hoped to remove the commodity stage. They instead created a currency that began as exchange object that could be traded with real world currencies, and evolved into a full fledged medium for selling and buying goods and services.

To summarize the complex answer to this question, currencies inherently imply a stable medium for everyday financial exchanges. For now Bitcoins satisfy the latter definition of currency, but not the former. In that respect they can be thought of as a hybrid of a stock and a currency, which should (in theory) evolve towards a pure currency in the long run.

III. Are Bitcoins Risky to Buy/Sell/Mine/Trade?

Bitcoin mining (building the Bitcoin economy via seeding) has shown itself thus far to be relatively safe. If you use current clients and hardware, you can generate Bitcoins at a competitive rate and sell them to break even off your hardware. After that, everything is pure profit.

Day trading Bitcoin currency, or accepting Bitcoins as a payment method is slightly more risky. Think of it as trading stock. Youre unlikely to lose the majority of your value, but volatility could make it hard to instantly redeem your holdings in your nations currency. Likewise, if your timing is poor (say if you bought into Bitcoins at $28 USD/Bitcoin on Thursday), you could lose a significant amount of money.

IV. Whats the Reward of Bitcoins?

Bitcoins enjoy several advantages over traditional currencies. One of the biggest is the degree of anonymity they provide. While not completely anonymous, depending on the users behavior, Bitcoins nonetheless offer a degree of privacy thats particularly affective in warding off cybercriminals or real-world enemies who might wish to target you for some reason.

Another advantage of Bitcoins is that they can be divided down to fractions 1e-8 — one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin. That fraction is called a Satoshi, in honor of the father of Bitcoins. By allowing currency to be divided to finer fractions, buyers and sellers have greater flexibility in sales and bartering.

Yet another advantage of Bitcoins is that theyre not reliant on a single central monetary authority. Rather power is spread between individual users and Bitcoin exchanges. In this regard, theyre not solely reliant on the financial success of an individual nation and, in theory, safer from concerted financial sabotage.

V. Is There a Bitcoin Central Authority?

Officially, no, there is not. One of the commonly spread notions about Bitcoins is that anyone can mine Bitcoins, anyone can use them, and anyone can start a Bitcoin exchange.

However, in practice it takes a bit of technical skills to mine, buy, sell, or accept Bitcoins. It takes much more effort to start a Bitcoin exchange and actually get people to use it.

Probably the closest thing to a central authority in the Bitcoin world are the major exchanges. If the major exchanges — say Mt. Gox, bitomatPLN, virwoxSLL, britcoinGBP, bitmarketEUR, bcmPPUSD, and thUSD — all decided to implement trading rules that made the market close upon a gain or loss of over 5 percent of the currencys value in a single day, the whole market would be greatly affected. (We suggest such a change in are previous piece.)

The exchanges have sufficient power to enact major changes because over 99 percent of the worlds Bitcoin currency exchange volume is funneled through these seven exchanges.

In practice, if you didnt like these changes, you could go and start your own exchange. However, much like a business, it takes a lot of know how to start one, and it takes a lot effort to promote them. Few people have the technical competence to start a Bitcoin exchange, fewer still the time to start one. And even less people have the time to promote a new exchange. So at the end of the day, the aforementioned seven major exchanges hold a great deal of power over the currencys application.

Mt. Gox controls over 90 percent of the trading volume, so its obviously the single most powerful entity in the Bitcoin world, by controlling Bitcoin currency exchange. In that regard its somewhat of a de facto authority, but its more of a community-elected power than a monetary policy dictator (unlike standard central banks).

VI. Is Bitcoin an International Currency?

Ostensibly yes, but in practice Bitcoins remain closely tied to the United States Dollar (USD). Mt. Gox accepts funds transferred from EuroWire, but traditionally its been heavily driven via USD funds — transferred using mechanisms such as Paypal, Dwolla, Lindens, or Liberty Reserve.

The Polish zloty and Euro (the European Unions currency) are two of the secondary most important currencies to the Bitcoin movement, though they reportedly drive a much smaller percent of the overall volume than USDs.

As time passes, Bitcoins will likely evolve into more of an international currency, but like most world currencies, they will likely be tied to the currency of the prevailing world economic superpower. That superpower used to be Britain; today it is the US; and someday it may be China. But suffice it to say, the Bitcoin is unlikely to replace traditional currencies, so it will likely be closely tied to the dominant currency of its era.

VII. Are Bitcoins Anonymous?

Bitcoins are anonymous to an extent, via cryptographic mechanisms. However, transactions can be viewed on an IP level, thus anonymity is largely a measure of how well you hide your true location (your IP address).

If you use the address given to you by your internet service provider (ISP) for Bitcoin transactions, anyone with sufficient desire, technical savvy, and resources can probably trace you.

If you obfuscate your IP via Tor or other services, your anonymity greatly increases. However, physical transactions in the real world driven by virtual Bitcoin exchanges can still compromise whatever anonymity you maintained online.

At the end of the day, the answer here is that Bitcoins do offer you a bit more anonymity than, say, transactions using US twenty dollar bills. How much more anonymity they offer varies, but nonetheless, they are not untraceable when used to buy real world goods and services — not because theyre traceable online, but because real world goods and services are inherently traceable.

VIII. Are Bitcoins Used to Buy Drugs? Is It Safe to Purchase Narcotics With Bitcoins?

Some people have used Bitcoins to purchase narcotics online.

That said, it is inadvisable to purchase narcotics or illegal services with Bitcoins. Narcotics are inherently associated with discrete real world transactions. You might think your Bitcoins are untraceable, but a delivery of drugs from a known dealer sure isnt.

In this regard Bitcoins absolutelydo notanonymize illicit, monitorable exchanges of goods and services. This is an extremely common misconception — one held even by some US Senators.

To understand this better, we shall present a short fictitious scenario. First, consider that a drug dealer may may ship crack cocaine to a person via the US Postal Service, after a Bitcoin transaction. This transaction may go unnoticed by law enforcement. But the dealer is unlikely to onlysell via Bitcoin. They probably will also sell to individuals on the street. Let us assume that after some time, theyre caught and charged with a felony by police.

Next, consider that law enforcement officials decide to track the felons IP activity. They discover that theyre using Bitcoin marketplaces. Then the police may start monitoring their shipments. Finally, lets consider that one of these tracked shipments, containing a case of ecstasy pills gets delivered to your house. You think youre safe — but youre not. Police have tracked the shipment and know youre in possession of narcotics. They raid your house, find the drugs and find you in possession of narcotics, and charge you. Not only that, additional charges may be tacked on for conspiring to deliver an illegal substance via the mail.

Police can track sales of illegal goods or services — eg narcotics or prostitution — via monitoring of real world exchanges and behavior. If you use Bitcoins to buy these kind of services, you stand a substantial risk to get caught, particularly as knowledge of Bitcoin use grows in the law enforcement community. As is typical with non-digital sales of these kinds of illegal items, the risk is thought to be somewhat lower if done from the privacy of your home. However, endemic offenses will likely be noticed and lead to arrests.

That said, the whole debate about Bitcoins and drugs is overstated. Bitcoins arent about drugs or crime. They can be used for a great deal of legitimate purposes. Even if your main reason for using Bitcoins is anonymity, theres plenty of legitimate reasons to desire that — to avoid government intrusions in your private life; to prevent other individuals (eg neighbors, your significant other, employers) from spying on you; and to prevent malicious individuals (such as hackers) from monitoring your activities.

IX. Are Bitcoins in Danger of Deflation?

Under the deflation scenario bitcoins are expected to continue to rise in value versus the USD. For example, some expect they may one day hit anywhere from $100 USD/Bitcoin to $1,000 USD/Bitcoin.

Traditionally deflation is very bad for a currency, because it means that people wont want to spend the currency because its so valuable. But this is largely an effect of the particular currencys limitations imposed by its smallest denomination. In other words, if the smallest unit of currency is a penny and a penny can buy you a video game, you may not want to spend much money as its so valuable.

In traditional currencies deflation can have a disastrous effect on spending due to the reasons outlined above. However, Bitcoins offer divisions down to 1e-8 — which currently has a value of around 20 millionths of a penny.

Thus the Satoshi — the smallest unit of Bitcoin currency is unlikely to become significantly valuable even under the wildest deflation scenario. Thus, its unlikely that people will hoard Bitcoins and that deflation will become a serious direct issue.

That said, if one thousandth of a Bitcoin is worth one USD, it may prove a psychological barrier that will dissuade casual participants. For that reason it may be desirable to offer more Bitcoins after the planned initial generation of 21 million Bitcoins.

It will be up to the community to try to figure out exactly how to implement this, nonetheless it may be possible to expand the number of coins that the eventual mature market will have in distribution.

X. Why Cant Paypal be Used for Bitcoins Anymore on Mt. Gox?

Paypal, a subsidiary ofeBay, Inc. (EBAY), used to be accepted by Mt. Gox as a source of funds for purchases or sales of Bitcoins. Given the popularity of Paypal and the leading role of Mt. Gox, this was a major source of money transfers into and out of the exchange.

Recently, though, Mt. Gox banned Paypal. Some mistakenly believe this is due to insecurity or account theft on Paypal. In reality its because of Paypals policies. According to the Bitcoin wiki:

This is due to repeated cases where someone pays for Bitcoins with Paypal, receives their Bitcoins, and then fraudulently complains to Paypal that they never received their goods. Paypal too often sides with the fraudulent buyer in this case, and so exchangers no longer allow this method of funding.

Paypal most definitely would be a valuable ally to the Bitcoin movement and Bitcoin exchanges, however until they modify their policies to recognize and verify Bitcoin transactions, the majority of the community will have to move on without them. In the short term this seems unlikely to change — Paypal hasapolicy against virtual currencies.

XI. Are Bitcoins a Good Idea?

Arguably, the answer to this is yes. They have several distinct advantages outlined above.

Its easy to dismiss them because they have failed to behave like a traditional currency during their initial distribution. That said, they have already succeeded in generating a currency worth more than $130M USD — a value that approaches the GDP of a small nation.

Bitcoins offer the worlds first digital-age currency. They reward early adopters uniquely, but they offer many benefits for supporters who come in at any point in the process.

That said, the market clearly is very volatile. In order to overcome these growing pains, the community and exchanges may need to agree upon certain trading rules to prevent bidirectional rapid inflation/deflation swings.

XII. Are Bitcoins Legal?

It appears that Bitcoins are currently legal under US laws. There are no laws that outlaw the trade of non-US currency, as long as it is not represented falsely as US currency.

There are laws against unauthorized money exchange businesses [source]. However, the major exchanges like Mt. Gox are registered to individuals outside the US in many cases and, further, may not qualify as a business as they charge a small fee (0.65% per trade) and do not make money off advertising.

As long as the exchanges are run as nonprofit entities, they appear to be legal — even if theyre operated within the US

There has been recent pressure bySenatorsCharles Schumer(D,New York) andJoe Manchin(D, West Virginia) to shut down narcotics marketplaces that accept Bitcoins. That has led to fear that the government could next move against Bitcoin exchanges.

However, those fears are largely unfounded. Indeed, even the Senators suggestion about the online marketplaces is full of misconceptions. For example they indicate that Bitcoin-driven narcotics sales are untraceable, which is simply not true, as outlined above.

XIII. What is DailyTechs Agenda wrt. Bitcoins?

DailyTechis a news site and its only agenda is to cover the news. Covering Bitcoins is a tough job as miners and those who support the movement are used to the media trying to discredit or destroy the movement, in some cases.

Our staffers do not currently hold any major Bitcoin holdings. Nor have we been contacted by any business or government agency to discredit Bitcoins.

Our analysis is independent and objective and is the result of a great deal of research. We welcome our readers involvement and suggestions as many of them use or have experimented with the use of Bitcoins.

We are happy to provide commentary to other news outlets regarding these and other observations regarding this unique phenomena.

BY LYNN COWAN

The IPO of Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc. is taking hold of investors’ minds this week like a hit single&—but it’s unclear whether the company’s business career will endure like the Rolling Stones or fizzle out like The Vapors.

The initial public offering, which is scheduled to begin trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “P,” was increased in size by one million shares and in price range by $3 last week) in response to heightened demand. Analysts are predicting a good pop for its first day of trading.

Revenue growth, primarily from advertising, is …

SAN FRANCISCO – The days of the Internet as a tax-free shopping zone may be numbered.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is expected to step into the escalating Internet sales tax battle as soon as this week with a bill that would allow the 44 states – plus Washington, DC – that collect sales taxes to require out-of-state online retailers to pay up.

Durbins Main Street Fairness Act is similar to some previous congressional efforts to weigh in on whether states can force online businesses to collect sales taxes on items sold to state residents. But while those efforts failed, this year may be different.

Faced with state budget shortfalls, some large states like Texas, California and Illinois are looking to online retailers for additional tax revenues. As a result, large e-tailers – such as Amazon.com – have threatened to cut off affiliates who sell in those states rather than start collecting taxes.

Federal legislation is needed to solve this issue comprehensively and uniformly and there is no time like the present, said Michael Mazerov, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Similar legislation introduced last year by former Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) went nowhere. However, the dynamics in Congress may have changed now that a growing number of states have passed or are considering bills to address the issue and online businesses are faced with the possibility of complying with many different state laws and many different state sales tax rates.

Retailers that already collect sales taxes on online or offline purchases argue that the current system gives an unfair competitive advantage to online retailers like Amazon and others who do not have brick-and-mortar stores inside the state because shoppers can go online to avoid sales tax.

Amazon, and other online retailers, have said that some state actions requiring sales tax collection by sellers that lack physical presence in the state are unconstitutional. Opponents of state efforts have argued that the bills would kill jobs if online retailers such as Amazon followed through with threats to pull up stakes in the state.

At the center of the issue is a 1992 Supreme Court decision, which said that states could require retailers to collect sales tax only if they have a physical presence, such as stores or headquarters, in the state where the buyer lives. Many online retailers like Amazon do not have stores or headquarters in the same state as buyers. When states have proposed bills arguing that Amazon and others have a presence because of affiliates in states, Amazon has threatened to close warehouses or end its relationships with the affiliates.

Many states, including California, technically require residents to pay sales tax for out-of-state purchases on their own, typically on their income tax statements, but most shoppers do not comply. California tax officials estimate the state loses more than $1 billion in revenue each year to unclaimed taxes on online purchases. Californias State Assembly passed a bill last week which would extend the statewide sales tax to purchases made from online retailers that have a physical presence in the state. Other bills addressing the issue have moved forward as well.

When Amazon has responded to some proposed state measures by threatening to sever relationships with affiliates, other retailers such as Wal-Mart have offered to work with these affiliates.

The idea behind Durbins bill is that states would be able to require online retailers to collect sales tax if the states first agree to a streamlined sales tax. So far, 24 states are members of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which would simplify and harmonize sales tax nationwide. Some states have rankled at aspects of the sales tax agreement and have been reluctant to sign on, until they have been sure that Congress will step in and force online retailers to collect sales tax.

Amazon has indicated it supports the streamlined sales tax effort. A national resolution, involving tax simplification evenhandedly applied, is the legally permissible path for states to follow, the company said in a letter to a California tax official earlier this year.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:08 pm on June 6, 2011.

This mornings Dot-commentary explored the tension between online personalization and privacy, a recurring topic at the 2011 Personalization Summit in Mountain View on Thursday.

I wrote:

Consumer advocates often argue that online companies are spying on web surfers as they move from site to site (tracking). The companies themselves stress that theyre helpfully customizing content, services and advertising to the interests and needs demonstrated by a persons online behavior (personalization).

What really matters, of course, is which way consumers themselves end up viewing this, a point emphasized by several panelists at the conference. Reasonable voices on both sides of the debate agree that this will be determined chiefly by whether or not companies prove to be responsible stewards of the data they collect, sensitive to the publics very real privacy concerns.

Eli Pariser, president of the board of MoveOn.org, raises an entirely different concern about personalization in his recent book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You.

He argues that so called Internet gatekeepers like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft, are personalizing not just the ads we see, but the information we come across — narrowing news to the sources, topics and angles we have demonstrated an interest in through our clicks.

He wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times:

All of this is fairly harmless when information about consumer products is filtered into and out of your personal universe. But when personalization affects not just what you buy but how you think, different issues arise.

Democracy depends on the citizens ability to engage with multiple viewpoints; the Internet limits such engagement when it offers up only information that reflects your already established point of view. While its sometimes convenient to see only what you want to see, its critical at other times that you see things that you dont.

He discussed these issues further in an interview with The Chronicle:

Q: How can personalization online begin to influence the way people think?

Were used to targeted ads, but increasingly what were seeing is targeted content.

It basically shows you more of the news that you want to see, and what that means is theres important things that are edited out that you dont even necessarily know are edited out.

Q: How is this different from people simply choosing the magazines or newspapers they want to read?

If you turn on Fox of MSNBC, at least youre kind of in charge, you know youre looking through a filter. With personalization filters, you dont know who they think you are, you dont know how theyre editing and you dont know what theyre editing.

The other piece is, the incentives are a little different. We know now that confirmation is a very powerful thing. If you show people information that validates what they already believe, they get a bit of pleasure and if you show things that they disagree with, they feel bad. So if youre designing an algorithm, why would you ever show them anything that makes them feel like they dont have all the answers?

Q: Some research suggests that contrary factual information doesnt sway peoples opinion much. Is that a mitigating factor here? Does techs impact on this not matter much, if people disregard contradictory viewpoints anyway?

It does reduce your level of certainty, which I actually think is a very important thing. When they did studies and had liberals sit down and listen to Rush Limbaugh, its not that they started spouting Limbaugh quotes. But it made them realize that, for some of the things they believed a lot, they didnt have the arguments to support (their positions).

I think thats a really good thing, to call attention to your own very imperfect understanding of the world.

Q: What responsibility does this place on the gatekeepers, the Facebooks and Googles and Yahoos of the world?

It happens on a couple levels. On an individual level, its a matter of seeking fluency, being able to understand why information is being presented to you.

For the companies, I think its about giving people a sense that this is happening. Its important that consumers know when and how their data is being used to shape what they see, giving them control over it and then testing to figure out how do you impart the best of 21st-century journalism into your code.

Posted By: James Temple (Email, Twitter, Facebook) | May 27 2011 at 08:00 AM

On June 8, LSU and 12 other higher education institutions will join Facebook and Google on World IPv6 Day, a 24-hour test flight to prepare services for IPv6 and ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.

In February, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA, gave out its last five groups of IPv4 addresses to the Regional Internet Registries, which manages the allocation and registration of Internet number resources within a particular region of the world.

Governments and Powers-That-Be Fear the Internet
By Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 6, 2011 (IPS) – The global reach of the internet, and its ability to transmit information in real time and mobilise populations, creates fear among governments and the powerful, says Frank La Rue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

This has led to increasing restrictions on the use of the internet, by means of sophisticated technologies to block content, and to monitor and identify activists and critics, as well as to the criminalisation of legitimate forms of expression, says La Rue, a Guatemalan human rights lawyer.

During the presentation of his report to the UN Human Rights Council Jun. 3, La Rue mentioned information filtering systems used in China that block access to websites containing key words such as democracy and human rights.

Full access to contents means plurality and diversity when receiving or disseminating information through the internet. It also means a complete absence of censorship, the expert said.

The strength of the internet and the popular uprisings in recent months in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, scares politicians, he told a press conference.

The special rapporteur stated that these uprisings were not internet revolutions, but revolutions by the people of Tunisia and the people of Egypt, using internet.

So it depends on the population of a nation to change their style of government and development, but it is very clear that with internet, they have a faster means of denouncing human rights violations, struggling against impunity and letting the world know what is happening in real time, he said.

On a visit to Algeria, La Rue told the government and experts he was convinced that the countries of the region must not neglect recognition of young peoples aspirations, including more freedom, more participation, and being heard.

They also want more jobs. Education levels in the region are higher than employment levels, and it is very frustrating for young women and men who have studied for a large part of their lives to find themselves empty-handed, the expert said.

This is the moment to listen to young people and their demands, but also to give them the space to express themselves, he stressed.

The internet has become a crucial instrument to facilitate human rights and citizen participation, and therefore it is fundamental for building and strengthening democracy, he added.

La Rue described another form of censorship: the use of criminal law, as in South Korea, where defamation is a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison.

The internet as a means to exercise the right to free expression can only serve its purpose if states develop effective policies to attain universal access to this service, the special rapporteur said.

Without concrete policies and action plans, the internet will become a technological tool that is accessible only to a certain élite, while perpetuating the digital divide, La Rue said.

Internet user statistics reflect this imbalance. In contrast to 71.6 internet users per 100 inhabitants in industrialised countries, there are only 21.1 users per 100 inhabitants in developing nations. This disparity is starker in Africa, with only 9.6 users per 100 inhabitants, La Rue said.

The expert said he would devote a special study to internet access in the report he is to present to the next UN General Assembly, which meets in September.

The Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000 by the UN member states aim to halve the proportion of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger, from 1990 levels, guarantee universal primary education, promote gender equality and reduce infant and maternal mortality, among other targets to be met by 2015..

La Rue pointed out they also include the goal of expanding the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication technologies.

Among the initiatives in this field is the One Laptop per Child project, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

La Rue congratulated Uruguay for distributing computers to the entire primary school population through this project, implemented since 2007 and known in the South American country as Plan Ceibal.

And in Rwanda, over 56,000 laptops have been distributed to schoolchildren, with plans for the figure to reach 100,000 by June 2011, La Rue added.

La Rue told IPS he views the concentration of media in too few hands as a threat to freedom of expression, which must be based on diversity and pluralism, he said.

People have the right to construct their own thoughts and develop their own opinions, but to do so they need diverse information, from different points of view and with different characteristics, he said.

In Latin America we made a historical mistake when we allowed over-commercialisation of the media, he said. Its true that commercial media play an important role, but they should not be the only ones. In my view, its important that there be commercial media, community media and public service media, so that there is diversity.
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