The blogosphere has been buzzing about revelations that CNET’s Download.com site has been embedding adware into the install process for all kinds of software, including open source software like NMAP. For the unwary, some of the ads could have been read to suggest accepting the advertised service (e.g.,...

The truly frightening legislative proposals known as SOPA and PIPA continue to loom in Congress, promising to put a big lump of coal in the stocking of every Internet user. So we were glad to learn that a bipartisan group of congressional represenatives has come together to formulate...

Proponents of the misguided Internet blacklist legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) — downplay the idea that the overbroad bills could be used for censorship. But one only needs to look at the way existing copyright laws have been abused to know...

Update 12/09/2012: We are proud to announce a new $10,000 matching grant from Blake Krikorian to Power Up donations, starting at 6:30AM today. Thank you to everyone who helped us fly by our first two goals and surpass $40,000 in 12 hours!
Update 12/08/2012: Thanks to...

The Indian Telecommunications Minister met on Monday afternoon with top officials of Internet companies and social media sites, including the Indian units of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to compel them to filter offensive content. The New York Times reported that Minister Kapil Sibal met with executives to discuss...

Last September, in a case initiated by the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAF), an Antwerp Court of Appeals ordered two major fixed broadband providers (Telenet and Belgacom) to block access to the Pirate Bay at the DNS level. In November, the BAF sent a letter to other Belgian...

Thailand
Clicking “like” on Facebook in Thailand can potentially land you in prison. The Thai Minister of Information and Communication Technology declared last Tuesday that they will begin charging Facebook users for “liking” or sharing content that could be deemed offensive to the Thai throne, the sentence for...

The Association of American Publishers and the Recording Industry Association of America have decided to cozy up to a copyright troll, filing an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit appeal of Righthaven v. Hoehn. The Hoehn case is one of many...

Yesterday, EFF asked the U.S. Copyright Office to grant an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for “jailbreaking” smart phones, tablets, and video game consoles. The exemptions are designed to dispel any legal clouds that might prevent users from running applications and operating systems that aren’t approved by...

Two weeks ago, the New York Times published a letter to the editor from Christopher Wolf, who leads the Internet Task Force of the Anti-Defamation League, in which he suggested:
It is time to consider Facebook’s real-name policy as an Internet norm because online identification demonstrably leads to accountability...