The U.N. Wants To Tax Web Sites

U.N. Could Tax U.S.-Based Web Sites, Leaked Docs Show -- CNet

Global Internet tax suggested by European network operators, who want Apple, Google, and other Web companies to pay to deliver content, is proposed for debate at a U.N. agency in December.

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.

The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.

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My Comment: So typical of big government bureaucrats .... tax and regulate something that brings enormous benefits to billions of users.

Why The U.N. Should Not Takeover The Internet

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell warns a House committee that Google, iTunes, Facebook, and Netflix could face new international taxes. (Credit: U.S. House of Representatives)

U.N. Takeover Of The Internet Must Be Stopped, U.S. Warns -- CNet

A U.N. summit later this year in Dubai could lead to a new international regime of censorship, taxes, and surveillance, warn Democrats, Republicans, the Internet Society, and father of the Internet Vint Cerf.

Democratic and Republican government officials warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted.

It was a rare point of bipartisan agreement during an election year: a proposal that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described last year as handing the U.N. "international control of the Internet" must be stopped.

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My Comment: Every government that has tried to regulate and/or limit the use of the internet within their own country has had to face a backlash from their own citizens. As far as these governments are concerned .... having an international body like the United Nations doing their dirty work is far more preferable than doing it themselves.

Will The U.N. Regulate The Internet?

House To Examine Plan For United Nations To Regulate The Internet -- The Hill

House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.

The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.

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My Comment: Governments want to assert control and devise ways to extract money from the internet. In short .... governments are doing what governments do. Sen. Marco Rubio's comments are spot on .... let us hope that his fellow law makers are listening to him.

FBI Investigates IsAnyoneUp.com Founder

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Iran Preparing To Cut Internet Access To Rest Of World

Iran Planning To Cut Internet Access To Rest Of World -- The Telegraph

Iran is drawing up plans to cut off its internet users from the rest of the world with a so-called Halal or "clean" internet.

Iranians are already used to censors blocking Facebook, Gmail and foreign news sites, and being spied on with surveillance software purchased from Western companies.

But the ambitious plans would go much further, blocking access to foreign-based social media sites and email. Instead, there will be an Iranian version of Facebook and a new email service, to be called Iran Mail. Users will have to register their home address and social security number with police.

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My Comment: It's hard to contemplate living in what is essentially a modern religious dictatorship .... but that's the life for all Iranians.

How To Get Free Wi-Fi Almost Anywhere

How To Get Free Wi-Fi Almost Anywhere -- Upgrade Your Life

You work in your car; you practically live in it. And when you need to maximize the mobile office otherwise known as the front seat, sometimes you need to access Wi-Fi without schlepping all your papers and gear into a cafe. But how can you tap into the best signal from the parking lot? Plenty of tools can help with this road warrior's dilemma, including the big issue — finding Wi-Fi.

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My Comment: Great video at the link. Watch it.

Deleting Yourself From The Internet

How To Delete Yourself From The Internet -- CNet

You may not feel like the flotsam and jetsam that make up the facts of your life are important, but increasingly companies are using that dry data to make your every online step as indelible as if written in blood. Here's how to take back your digital dignity.

The Internet companies that power your online life know that data equals money, and they're becoming bolder about using that data to track you. If they get their way, your every online step would be not only irrevocable, but traceable back to you. Fortunately, there are some positive steps you can take to reclaim your online history for yourself.

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My Comment: Some good points here .... if you want your online presence gone .... start reading this article.

Instagram's Popularity Increases With Facebook Acquisition

Instagram, seen here on an Android phone, has proved extremely popular among users of the Google mobile platform. Reuters

Instagram Gives Facebook 5 Million Reasons To Love Recent Acquisition -- Christian Science Monitor

The new Android app from Instagram, which was recently gobbled up by Facebook, has racked up 5 million downloads.

Earlier this week, Facebook announced the acquisition of photo-sharing hub Instagram. The price tag? A reported $1 billion in stock options and cash, a hefty chunk of change even for a company that could soon be valued at $100 billion.

In a message to users, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg maintained that although Facebook and Instagram offered very "different experiences, that the two platforms would "complement each other."

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Web Freedom May Be A Thing Of The Past

Web Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever, Warns Google's Sergey Brin -- The Guardian

Exclusive: Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'.

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

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My Comment: He is right, and the push to limit the freedoms that we enjoy on the internet are expanding.

The World's Internet Powerhouse Is Estonia

How Tiny Estonia Stepped Out Of USSR's Shadow To Become An Internet Titan -- The Guardian

The European country where Skype was born made a conscious decision to embrace the web after shaking off Soviet shackles.

In 1995, four years after Estonia broke free from the USSR, Toomas Hendrik Ilves read a "very Luddite" book by Jeremy Rifkin called The End of Work. "It argued that with greater computerisation there would be fewer jobs," remembered Ilves, then a senior diplomat, now the country's president, "which from his point of view was terrible."

Ilves and many of his colleagues saw it differently. In a tiny (population: 1.4 million) and newly independent country like Estonia, politicians realised computers could help quickly compensate for both a minuscule workforce and a chronic lack of physical infrastructure.

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My Comment: They may have a dominant position now .... but threats to the internet as we know it may change this.

Did China Just Test A "Kill-Switch" For The Internet?

Image source: Kai Hendry/Flickr.com.

China’s Mysterious Internet Outage; Speculation Over A ‘Kill Switch’ -- ZDNeT

Summary: Temporary blackouts leave China’s Internet users unable to access many Chinese Web sites as well as other unblocked foreign sites. Chinese Telecoms deny any network issues.

At approximately 11am local time yesterday, Internet users around China reported significant Internet blackouts. Not only were they unable to access some Chinese sites, but also many foreign Web sites that had not previously been blocked.

The issue was not isolated to China. Web users in Hong Kong and Japan also reported issues with accessing Chinese sites. A number of explanations immediately came to light, with the most viable cause being the 8.7 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia on Wednesday, that might have damaged undersea cables.

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More News On The Internet Outage In China

New Clarity on China Internet Outage -- Wall Street Journal
Strange Internet Rumblings Coming From China -- Tech News World
Rumors Are Circulating About China's Internet 'Kill Switch' -- Business Insider
Chinese Internet Outage Raises Questions -- Epoch Times

My Comment: The manner and progression in which the internet was cut reminds me of how both Iran and Egypt cut their internet during the height of their uprisings. This was a Chinese kill-switch test .... and yes .... it was successful.

30% Of All Web Traffic Is Porn

Xvideos: The world's biggest porn site receives billions of hits a month

Is The Whole World Looking At Porn? Biggest Site Gets Over FOUR BILLION Hits A Month -- Daily Mail

* 30% of all web traffic is porn, according to a report

‘The internet is for porn,’ is the title of a song on hit musical Avenue Q.

And it turns out the lyricists had touched on a home truth, because researchers have discovered that a staggering 30 per cent of all internet traffic is pornography.

The biggest porn site on the web - Xvideos - receives 4.4billion page views and 350million unique visits per month, according to a report on the ExtremeTech website.

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My Comment: Only 30% .... I thought that it was higher.

Iran Preparing To 'Disconnect' From The Internet

Iranian schoolgirls chat online at an internet cafe. (Photo: Reuters)

Iran To Shut Down Internet Permanently; 'Clean' National Intranet In Pipeline -- International Business Times

Millions of Internet users in Iran will be permanently denied access to the World Wide Web and cut off from popular social networking sites and email services, as the government has announced its plans to establish a national Intranet within five months.

In a statement released Thursday, Reza Taghipour, the Iranian minister for Information and Communications Technology, announced the setting up of a national Intranet and the effective blockage of services like Google, Gmail, Google Plus, Yahoo and Hotmail, in line with Iran's plan for a "clean Internet."

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Update: Iran expected to permanently cut off Internet by August -- CNET

My Comment: They are already starting to block sites .... including the 2012 Olympics official website.

New Widespread Internet Surveillance Laws To Be Proposed In England

Internet Activity 'To Be Monitored' Under New Laws -- The Ttelegraph

Ministers are preparing a major expansion of the Government's powers to monitor the email exchanges and website visits of every person in the UK, it was reported today.

Under legislation expected in next month's Queen's Speech, internet companies will be instructed to install hardware enabling GCHQ – the Government's electronic "listening" agency – to examine "on demand" any phone call made, text message and email sent, and website accessed in "real time", The Sunday Times reported.

A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition.

However ministers believe it is essential that the police and security services have access to such communications data in order to tackle terrorism and protect the public.

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Update: Police and MI5 get power to watch you on the web -- Independent

My Comment: So much for privacy in England.

Check Out How You Are Being Tracked On The Web

Cool Science Editor: Check out how you are being tracked .... try this!.

Ten Percent Never Delete Their eMail

One In Ten ‘Never Delete Email’ -- The Telegraph

A new study claims Britons are ‘digital hoarders’ who use their email inboxes to record their lives.

Larger inboxes and free email accounts mean that pressure to delete email has diminished rapidly in recent years. Although Google was the first to offer so-called ‘infinite’ storage for its Gmail accounts, all major providers now follow a similar approach.

Microsoft estimates that the average inbox will receive 14,600 emails in 2012. It says that consumers are opting in to received a growing number of newsletters, deals and updates, which it classifies as neither spam nor authentic email. The so-called ‘greymail’, makes up around 80 per cent of the average inbox. Newsletters alone have increased by 300 per cent in the last 12 months, the company claims.

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My Comment: I am one of those who is guilty in not deleting his mail (I do delete spam).

Reporters Without Borders: 2012 Enemies Of The Internet

A new report from the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders names the Internet's greatest enemies. (Reporters Without Borders)

Bahrain, Belarus Newly Dubbed As 'Internet Enemies' -- L.A. Times

After a tumultuous year of protests and crackdowns, the island nation of Bahrain has been labeled as an “enemy of the Internet” by a nonprofit group that advocates for press freedom.

Reporters Without Borders said Bahrain had smeared free-speech activists, arrested bloggers and harassed human rights activists to create “an effective news blackout.” Earlier this year, Bahrain turned down New York Times columnist Nick Kristof and other reporters seeking to cover the one-year anniversary of protests against the Sunni Muslim monarchy, saying it had received too many requests.

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More News On Who Made The "Internet Enemies" List

Media Watchdog Names 'Enemies of the Internet' -- Voice of America
Watchdog group reveals ‘Enemies of the Internet’ list for 2012 -- FOX News
Global media watchdog names enemies of Internet -- AP
Belarus, Bahrain Blacklisted 'Enemies Of Internet,' India 'Under Surveillance' -- RTT News
Group lists 2012 enemies of the Internet -- UPI
Meet the 'Enemies of the Internet' 2012 -- CNET
Bahrain, Belarus Added to 'Enemies of the Internet' List -- PC Mag
Reporters Without Borders Releases Its 2012 “Internet Enemies” List -- Scientific American

How Western Tech Firms Are Helping Arab Dictators

A computer systems coordinator at Tunisia Television in Tunis / Reuters

Surveillance Inc: How Western Tech Firms Are Helping Arab Dictators -- The Atlantic

As democratic movements spread in the Middle East, governments are cracking down, and that means big business for the companies who help them do it.

Reliance means vulnerability, and the activists and citizen journalists of the Arab uprisings rely heavily on the Internet and mobile technology. They use text messaging to coordinate protests, for example, or social media sites to upload the photos and videos that then make it into mainstream global media. In the first protests in Tunisia, because traditional journalists could not get access, citizen journalists filled in, using YouTube and the live-streaming platform UStream to give the world -- including, for example, the Egyptians and Syrians who later began revolts of their own -- a window into the events there.

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My Comment: Helping governments to bring misery to their people for a few dollars .... there has to be an accounting for this in addition to exposing the companies and the people who are involved in this trade.

Intetnet Service Providers Warned By The FBI To Get Rid Of A Notorious Trojan Virus

FBI Plans To Shut Down Internet Servers Infected With Notorious Trojan -- New America

Computers experts around the world are warning that, in an attempt to stop the damage inflicted by a Trojan virus that has infected millions of computers worldwide, the FBI plans to shut down Internet Service Providers (ISPs) whose administrators have not yet cleared their systems of the malware.

As reported by PCWorld.com, in November 2011 the FBI shut down a network that a gang of criminal hackers in Estonia had launched to infect servers with the notorious DNSChanger Trojan — a virus that redirects computers from legitimate online destinations to phony websites that launch online ads that generated revenue for the hackers. The Trojan is sophisticated enough to prevent computers infected with the virus from visiting websites with the tools available to remove the problem.

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My Comment: The FBI getting involved? Isn't this a bit of an overkill?

The 50 Best Websites of 2011

Illustrations by Alexander Ho for TIME

CSN Editor: The list is here.