With a new administration in the White House, new ideas and political views are brought to the forefront. While health care, the economy, the war on terror, and a multitude of other topics are constantly being debated, another far-reaching issue has had a fairly significant turn of events – net neutrality.

For the uninitiated, net neutrality is the concept that networks should not restrict access to any sites or content while also dealing with the notion that fees should not change based on usage. For a more in depth explanation, there’s always Wikipedia’s definition.

Discussions of net neutrality have been around for awhile (especially with many ISPs changing their policies to go against net neutrality), but a new statement by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski may stir up the neutrality debate once more. With Genachowski’s comments being a declaration of support for and enforcement of net neutrality, we may start seeing those cable companies changing their policies back to what they once were.
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It’s tough finding an audience for a new product or service on the internet – especially with the sheer amount of noise found on the Web these days. For some, the daunting task of launching something new online means hiring a PR firm to handle the marketing side of things. While most PR firms are ethical in their practices, some have taken the “easy route” when it comes to online marketing. One of the shadier tactics that’s starting to rear its ugly head more and more is something called astroturfing.

Astroturfing is basically the process of getting some people together to advocate whatever you are pushing (such as a product, a message, or a candidate for office). While the concept is not new and has been used before the internet came along, the simple fact is that creating fake reviews, testimonials, and word of mouth online is cheaper and easier than it has ever been before. Take for example Reverb Communications, a company that appears to be heavily into the astroturfing game.
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Amazon did something very scary last week – they removed legally purchased eBooks from Kindles. Sure, it doesn’t sound that bad on the surface, but it could set a precedent that no Web consumer should stand for – the right of companies to remove digitally downloaded products from consumer devices at a later date.

Imagine if all companies that sold digital products could just reach into your computer and remove music, games, movies, pictures, software, and anything else they want to, whenever they want to. Seems a little far fetched doesn’t it? Well, Amazon did just that with their Kindles and many speculate Apple may do just such a thing with their iPhones some day. Amazon could do this for all of their digital products from eBooks and software to music and movies. If a movie studio decides they don’t want their movies for sale on Amazon anymore, does that mean Amazon is going to remove all those movies from anybody who has already purchased and downloaded the movies?

Apparently many are saying it’s completely legal for Amazon to do what they’ve done, though it’s mind boggling to see how that can be the case. Sure, they are going to refund the money, but how does that make it okay? If I went into Best Buy and bought a movie, does that mean Best Buy could just come into my house and take back the movie if the movie’s publisher decides they don’t want to have their movies in Best Buy anymore? Nobody would stand for that, so how can we stand for Amazon doing basically the exact same thing with digital books?

Thankfully the Web is up in arms over the whole ordeal, and Amazon has even admitted it was a stupid thing to do, promising they won’t do it again. While that all sounds good on paper, it doesn’t really get the bitter taste out of my mouth.

It’s not all that uncommon to see articles on the Web that have clearly been stolen from another source. These acts of content theft, however, are usually done by unprofessional, less than reputable people. With that said, I’m actually quite surprised to see that a writer for a well known online magazine such as GamePro has been caught plagiarizing another online source.

I’m not quite sure how the writer thought he’d get away with it, seeing as many gamers read multiple reviews of a game before purchasing it. You’d think it’d be pretty obvious that many paragraphs were almost 50% word for word with an IGN review. One of the funnier things about the story is that many people from NeoGAF (the site that initially broke the story) actually were upset the plagiarizer was fired. I don’t understand why people would defend a so called “journalist” who steals from other journalists. It’s writing 101 that you don’t plagiarize another person’s work.

Anyway, the guy got fired so all is right in the world… for now at least.

A new ruling by a federal judge in Seattle may have significant repercussions in future online privacy litigation. That ruling, made by Judge Richard Jones, held that an IP address is not personal information because it doesn’t directly identify a person, but rather, a computer. While this ruling was made regarding a class-action lawsuit brought against Microsoft, the decision could impact everything from future RIAA and other piracy lawsuits to Web and software agreements.

In the referenced court case, the issue at hand was that Microsoft was collecting IP addresses from its software users. Some of those users sued, claiming their personal information was being taken, which was against Microsoft’s own user agreement. Now that the court ruled IP addresses are not personal information, it means collecting IP addresses is completely acceptable even if a user agreement says no personal information will be collected. If that sounds scary, it shouldn’t.

Many people seem to be up in arms about the ruling, mostly due to unfounded fears they have that they will now be tracked by anybody and everybody online. This is fear is so off-the-wall/conspiracy theory-like that it’s hard to argue with people with this belief. Ok, so it may be hard to argue, but I’ll try anyway…
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