Posted 11/17/08 at 07:00:38 PM by Andy Salisbury

Cry for Google, Argentina. The truth is, they never left you, but given the current legal battle over search results – they just might.

Dozens of fashion models and public figures, such as sports star Diego Maradona, are currently at war with Google over how search results are handed out. While the question as to whether or not certain search results should be censored if they contain a person’s name is answered, Argentine Judges have handed down orders to temporarily abbreviate search results.

These restraints mean that Google has to censor searches from Argentinean sites that contain the plaintiff’s names. Though, this does not apply to those of us in the United States.

Google has recently joined forces with Yahoo and other human rights groups to create the Global Network Initiative, a foundation for communications technology companies to follow in response to laws in various countries that might conflict with an Internet user’s privacy or freedom of expression. While the interest of this initiative is to provide the fullest Internet experience to everyone around the world, it is likely that they will do everything in their power to comply with local law.

Read More

Comments 

1

TAGS 

Google, lawsuit, censorship, Argentina

Posted 10/27/08 at 11:09:41 PM by Nathan Grayson

We can't help but feel for Fallout 3. When it's not having drugs pilfered right from under its nose, it's getting booted out of India. But, as the most oppressed and censored game since Barbie Murder Adventures (later toned down to the more family friendly Manhunt 2), it'd be anticlimactic if Fallout 3's launch week trotted in unhampered. Good thing, then, that Bethesda seems to have made one vocal Washington D.C. resident a little hot under the collar with a series of controversial promotional materials.

However, today's Fallout 3 ad removal is a tad perplexing, as it simply asks websites to cast all official Fallout 3 trailers into their Recycle Bins -- with no explicitly stated relation to the D.C. fiasco. Says the email from Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines:

In connection with ESRB's advertising guidelines, you are instructed to remove immediately any of our Fallout 3 trailers from your website, pending further notice.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Pete

Read More

Comments 

6

TAGS 

gaming, Software, news, censorship, esrb, fallout 3, bethesda

Posted 10/03/08 at 07:06:49 PM by Pulkit Chandna

TOM-Skype, the Chinese chapter of Skype, has been caught filtering and archiving text messages. The Chinese VoIP service provider has eight dedicated servers for storing messages that contain certain politically contentious keywords, according to a report published by The Information War Monitor, a Canadian organization that monitors internet censorship.

Tom-Skype, a joint venture between eBay and China’s TOM Online, also stores the usernames of all those people that exchange messages containing such sensitive keywords. Also, the service provider actively censors any politically sensitive keywords - some as harmless as “milk powder” - in messages. TOM-Skype doesn’t restrict itself to Chinese users but freely records messages and usernames of other Skype users from across the world as well (only those users that exchange "obnoxious" messages with Chinese users). To top it all, all the private data is available publicly as it is hosted on unencrypted web servers.

Read More

Comments 

2

TAGS 

Software, Skype, VOIP, china, censorship, messages, tom-skype

Posted 07/30/08 at 04:47:34 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Hosting the Olympics is a matter of great pride for any country and more so for China. The Chinese authorities want the Beijing Olympics 2008 to project their country as highly progressive; and maybe, serve as a tawdry façade to rampant human rights abuse and gross denial of freedom. China has finally admitted that it has made no special allowances for international media personnel when it comes to internet curbs.

A government spokesperson announced on Wednesday that media persons will not be able to access many politically sensitive websites during their stay in China for the Beijing Olympics. The Chinese had initially shrugged aside the unavailability of many sites as a technical snag on part of the concerned websites.

The International Olympic Committee’s pantomime on the issue was briefly interrupted when it vowed to take up the matter with the Chinese authorities, after reports of the censorship first emerged. But it now remains in its timid stasis and continues to appease the Chinese.

Readers, at least you don't disappoint us like the IOC and, please, show your support for freedom of expression, in the comments section - geeks for freedom!

Read More

Comments 

7

TAGS 

Internet, media, china, censorship, websites, beijing olympics 2008, restricted access

Posted 10/28/07 at 11:32:51 PM by Erin Simon

After several telecommunications companies are revealed to be discriminating which content they'll transmit, two senators start the investigative ball rolling.

Read More

Comments 

2

TAGS 

Internet, phone, law, speech, censorship, antitrust, telecoms, telecommunications, senate, investigation

Posted 08/17/07 at 12:09:57 AM by Erin Simon

A website identifies anonymous wikipedia edits with the IP addresses they originate from. Who's massaging their own entries? Just about everyone.

Read More

Comments 

4

TAGS 

law, Diebold, censorship, wikipedia, public information, database, vandalism, edits

Posted 08/12/07 at 10:31:33 PM by Erin Simon

An incident of content censorship by AT&T raises hackles among Net Neutrality partisans. Should we worry that private actors can constrain speech so easily?

Read More

Comments 

6

TAGS 

Google, law, net neutrality, censorship, filtering, pearl jam