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censorship
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Big Brother and the Internet
23 Dec 2010 by Jessica Hughes / 1 Comment
The Technology Liberation Front website posted this great breakdown of why the coming FTC regulation of the internet will be lousy for you and great for Big Brother.
FTC Endorses “Do Not Track” Information Control Regime for the Internet
by Adam Thierer on December 1, 2010 · 2 Comments
This morning, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its eagerly-awaited Preliminary FTC Staff Report on Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers. As expected, the agency has generally endorsed an expanded regulatory regime to govern online data collection and advertising efforts in the name of protecting consumer privacy. More specifically, the agency endorsed a so-called “Do Not Track” mechanism that would supposedly help consumers block unwanted data collection or advertising. Here’s how the agency describes it:
Such a universal mechanism could be accomplished by legislation or potentially through robust, enforceable self-regulation. The most practical method of providing uniform choice for online behavioral advertising would likely involve placing a setting similar to a persistent cookie on a consumer’s browser and conveying that setting to sites that the browser visits, to signal whether or not the consumer wants to be tracked or receive targeted advertisements. To be effective, there must be an enforceable requirement that sites honor those choices. (p. 66)
I’m sure we’ll have plenty more to say here about the issue in coming weeks and months (comments on the FTC report are due by Jan. 31), but we’ve already commented on this proposal here before. See 1, 2, 3. To briefly summarize a few of those concerns:
- Ironically, depending on how it’s implemented, a “Do Not Track” mechanism could potentially require individuals to surrender more personal information about themselves to companies or the government for purposes of authentication and enforcement of the rule.
- It would also require a re-architecting of the Internet and the potential regulation of every web browser to ensure compliance. This will give the FTC and other lawmakers far greater control over the Internet’s architecture.
- For that reason, one can easily imagine would-be Net censors using the “Do Not Track” mechanism being used as a blueprint to regulate other types of online speech.
- One also wonders if mandatory browser controls opens up a potential new back-door for government surveillance snoops to exploit.
- Most importantly, if “Do Not Track” really did work as billed, it could fundamentally upend the unwritten quid pro quo that governs online content and services: Consumers get lots of “free” sites, services, and content, but only if we generally agree to trade some data about ourselves and have ads served up. After all, as we’ve noted many times before here, there is no free lunch. The cornucopia of seemingly free services and content at our fingertips didn’t just fall to Earth like manna from heaven. Data collection and advertising made that all happen. If we undercut this goose that lays the Internet’s golden eggs, consumers could see charges on many services that they currently pay little to nothing for. Do you want to pay $20 a month for your favorite social networking site? A dime per search on your preferred search engine? Well, that’s the future that could await us if we continue down this regulatory road.
Again, more analysis to come.
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Trade Agreement to Kill Internet, Subvert Constitution
22 Nov 2010 by Jessica Hughes / 4 Comments
While we were busy watching the Senate Judiciary Committee sell out our freedoms by voting unanimously to send the Internet censorship bill (COICA) to the floor, the international cabal of freedom-hating Masters-of-the-Universe were chuckling. You see, it really doesn’t matter what the Senate does because there is a far more vile assault in store and Obama thinks he can subject you to it with just the stroke of his pen.And what kind of ugliness will the strangely unheralded bill bring down? Just the kind a burgeoning Police State needs to shut down the open discourse happening on the web today.
Under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Judges would have the power to order the seizure of ‘evidence’ from the accused without ever setting eyes on said accused. If someone claims that waiting could result in the destruction of evidence the Judge doesn’t even have to inform you that there has been an accusation. You’ll find out when they kick down the door and take your laptop, iPhone and anything else you are capable of putting digital files on.
Don’t pirate music? Don’t think you’re safe! Seizure of property under this fascist-fantasy-come-true extends to any third party even indirectly involved in the infringement. So if someone made a video and used a copyrighted song for a sound track then emailed it to you – well – you are also going to be treated like a criminal.
But really, how much can Big Brother benefit from cracking down on the downloading of songs? Sure the movie industry and the music monopoly shoved over $13 million into Congressmen’s pockets – er – campaigns this year alone; but really, that isn’t the sort of power grab we’ve come to expect from the corruptocrats in D.C. It has to be something bigger, sexier, with more direct benefit.
How about the option of terrorizing every blogger into silence? Shutting down the massive email chains that fly across the land at the speed of light every time another politician gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar or up the skirt of his intern?
This is not hysteria. Imagine you see a great article in the U.K. Guardian and it’s something revelatory about some malfeasance here in the U.S. that our own media is not reporting on; sort of like this Trade Agreement. So you copy and paste it onto your blog with a little link showing the original source. Or maybe you don’t have a blog but you paste it into an email and send it to all of your friends because you know darn well they aren’t going to read the U.K. Guardian but this is information they should have.
Today, not a damn thing would happen to you under copyright laws because guess what? The rights-holder of that article is glad it is being read and linked back to. He’s getting popular and his story is getting a lot of play. Why would he lodge a complaint? And based on what? You haven’t harmed him in any way; he is much better off with this new, worldwide exposure.
Under ACTA all of that would change. The rights-holder would no longer be required to initiate or even approve of criminal actions against “infringers.” So who exactly will spread information about our ruling class when said ruling class has the right to send storm-troopers to your home to confiscate all of your communications and digital storage devices because they didn’t like the article you pasted at your blog or in your email? And it doesn’t end there, because remember that all third parties even indirectly involved are also subject to seizure of their property. That means you: The guy or gal who just visited a blog having no idea that there was copyrighted material on it. The folks who received the email with a pasted Guardian article will have lost all rights simply by merit of receiving the email.
Now we begin to see why the ruling class favors such an atrocity. It has nothing to do with protecting filthy rich artists from people copying their songs or bootlegging their movies. The benefit to these big donors is just the icing on the cake. The real goal is the silencing of effective dissent.
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