InternetPolicy.net

Google Search & Cache Filtering Behind China's Great Firewall

Although China no longer blocks Google in its entirety, a Chinese user of Google can potentially have a much different Google experience than one from another country due to China's content filtering practices. Chinese Internet users' access to Google is filtered for specific keywords, and this filtering disrupts Google searches as well as access to the Google cache. http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/006/

ICT Toolsets Announces Winners of 2003 Grant Competition

August 23, 2004
In the fall of 2003, the ICT Toolsets initiative accepted submissions in response to an international request for proposals (RFP). More than 230 proposals were received from 44 countries.
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/information/news/ict2003proposals_20040801

Probing Chinese search engine filtering

ONI conducted a research probe into the practice of search engine filtering in China, with a focus on Baidu.com and Yisou.com, two popular Chinese search engines. Our probe concludes that the Yisou and Baidu search engines are indeed actively filtering keyword search requests and that searches for certain keywords are sometimes obstructed by China's gateway filtering. http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/005/

Internet Content Filtering in Iran: Verification of Reported Banned Websites

Access to the Internet in Iran is presently subject to official censorship,
although the precise scope and scale of the filtering is unclear.As part of
its ongoing research into Internet censorship and surveillance worldwide,
including in Iran, the ONI connected to remote computers in Iran and tested
the RSF list and the blacklist obtained by stop.censoring.us. We found that
Iran is indeed engaged in extensive Internet content filtering beyond just
pornography, including many political, religious, social, and blogging
websites. However, we cautiion that the case presented here provides an
instructive lesson concerning the type of limited conclusions that can and
should be drawn about both the extent and character of Internet censorship in
any country.
The full bulletin is available here: http://opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/004/

RSF Focuses On Iran

Reporters Without Borders has voiced concern at the growing efforts of the Iranian authorities to censor online freedom of expression. Iran is preparing of a draft law that would create a legal framework to crack down on Internet usage. RSF has also called for the release of Mojtaba Lotfi, a cyber-dissident theology student.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_3200.shtml

Censorship news from Iran

It's both fortunate and unfortunate that Stop Censoring Us, a blog about Internet censorship in Iran, has been very active this summer. Here are some recent items:

• BBC's Persian Service reports the shutdown of a leading ISP in Qum, the city which is the center of Shi'ite studies in Iran. "The clergies' opposition to the lack of proper filtering by this company has been cited as the reason for this closure."
• "Peyk e Iran quotes Hamshahri newspaper as saying an approximate 100 billion web pages have been filtered in Iran during last year. The list is generated and handed out to ISPs by the infamous three-man commitee."
• What is claimed to be the most recent copy of the "blacklist" of websites banned in Iran was posted here in mid-June. Among the sites listed are the Voice of America's Persian Service, Iran's Tudeh Party, a Kurdish media portal, and dozens of blogs.
• An English translation of the regulations adopted two years ago defining what media activities are illegal in Iran is posted here.

EC launches broadband content inquiry

In a speech last week in Brussels, Mario Monti, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, announced a new inquiry into the availability of "premium content" such as music, films and sports coverage for distribution via Internet and 3G networks. He claimed that the Commission has some preliminary hints of "market failure" that may force the EC to intervene in order to ensure rapid development of new broadband media channels.

According to Matt Whip writing in PC Pro, the EC will "investigate claims that big media companies who buy up television rights to big events are blocking out internet and 3G operators... [Monti's] concerns are that traditional TV broadcasters see ...the Internet and mobile networks... as 'a threat to their revenues,' and that content owners are sceptical whether new media channels can deliver the same revenues as traditional ones. Consequently there is a negative view of new media by both content owners and traditional providers that has led to behaviour that restricts access. This includes bundled rights, where a TV broadcaster buys up exclusive rights to content over the Internet and mobile phones as well as terrestrial and satellite channels, as well as simply refusing to supply. Monti said that as well as dealing with such incidents on a case by case basis, the EC would also consider regulation to ensure fair competition on a broader level. It is currently seeking evidence as to the state of the market after which it will decide what action needs to be taken..."

The problem of link decay

In IDG's Darwin Magazine, Alan T. Schroeder Jr. writes about the growing problem of link decay, suggesting that it may be "time for the Internet Engineering Task Force to implement a solution":

"To most of us, inactive or incorrect URLs are nothing new... However, increasingly for undergraduates and professional researchers... websites are primary resources... In a recent issue of Science, [Robert] Dellavalle and colleagues determined after only three months, the journals New England Journal of Medicine, Science and Nature had 3.8 percent of their article references inactive. After 15 months, 10 percent were found inactive and after 27 months, 13 percent were inactive. These journals are print staples in most research libraries and if references in these heavyweights are susceptible to incomplete research, imagine the percentages in less reputable publications related to URL longevity. The implications of his findings should transcend libraries and be looked at through a records and information perspective in general. Imagine the expert witness with 'disappearing research' or the suddenly phantom case citation that your career hinges on?

"These disappearing acts extend into government. A representative of Electronic Publishing Services, Ltd., in London, was quoted as saying 25 percent of all British government websites change their URLs each year.... [The] Executive Office of the President (EOP) and United States Trade Representative were sued over randomly and inconsistently removing Web pages...

"The problem has technology and human components... As server hosts come and go, mergers occur, data migrates to new systems and companies go bankrupt, expect this problem to continue. Expect URLs to continue to disappear with no explanation. And expect to see a lot of conflicting and duplicative research."

[Thanks to Marcus Zillman for the pointer.]

US Supreme Court to rule on sexual content

"Adult Web sites that have largely enjoyed freedom from government interference could be in for an unpleasant surprise tomorrow," writes CNET's Declan McCullagh, "when the US Supreme Court is set to deliver a long-awaited ruling on Internet pornography. The court is expected to decide whether the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) violates Americans' right to free expression on the Internet. The 1998 law, which restricts sexually explicit material deemed 'harmful to minors' that appears on commercial Web sites, includes civil fines and prison terms in its provisions. COPA has been on hold during the court proceedings. 'If it's upheld, there will be a shock wave,' said Ann Beeson, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case before the high court... Layne Winklebleck, an editor at the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult industry, says 'everything depends on what the court says.'

"So far, the Supreme Court has gutted the Communications Decency Act and the Child Pornography Prevention Act, Congress' two previous attempts to extend criminal laws to Internet pornography. The lack of government controls on Internet pornography has permitted the adult industry to blossom on the Web. A report from Reuters Business Insight in February 2003 calculated that sex-related business represented two-thirds of all online content revenue in 2001 and that it had ballooned to a US$2.5 billion industry since then...

"If COPA is upheld as constitutional, the effect on adult Web sites would vary, depending on the wording of the court's opinion... But the ACLU's Beeson warns that COPA's definition of 'harmful to minors' sweeps so broadly that non-pornographic sites dealing with gay and lesbian topics or sexual education could be in its scope. The ACLU is representing OBGYN.net, Philadelphia Gay News, Artnet, PlanetOut, the Internet Content Coalition, and Salon.com..."

Study of porn distribution outside US

"Secure Computing Corporation...today announced the release of the first study of the global distribution of pornographic web pages... The study examined pornographic web pages in the Secure Computing SmartFilter(R) v4 Control List by non-U.S. country suffixes, such as .DE for Germany and .JP for Japan, and found over 46 million pages of pornography in the top 100 individual country suffixes... The study was limited to specific country suffixes, and did not include non-country specific domains such as .com and .net.

Region : Pages
Europe : 28,430,600
Pacific : 12,352,600
Asia : 3,193,000
Latin America : 1,048,600
Africa : 389,400
Canada : 283,600
Caribbean : 255,000
Middle East : 77,800
Total : 46,030,600

"While it was expected that most overseas pornography would be in European domains, the study revealed some surprising findings:

• "The .ST domain suffix of the smallest country in Africa, the island nation of Sao Tome, hosts 307,000 pages of pornography - three quarters of all of the 389,000 pages of pornography with African suffixes contained in the SmartFilter v4 database.
• "The only Middle Eastern domain suffix to host pornographic web pages in the SmartFilter database is the Israeli .IL, which hosts 77,800. The only Arab country domain in the database that hosts any pornography is Libyan .LY.
• "The domain suffixes of a number of small islands in the Pacific host a large number of pornographic web pages. The domain of the island nation of Niue hosts an astonishing 3 million pages of pornography on its .NU domain, and other island domains that each host hundreds of thousands of pages of pornography are the suffixes of Tonga, Christmas Island, the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu...

"The top ten country suffixes for hosting pornography in the SmartFilter database were:

Germany : 10,030,200
United Kingdom : 8,506,800
Australia : 5,655,800
Niue : 2,947,800
Japan : 2,700,800
Netherlands : 1,883,800
Russia : 1,080,600
Poland : 1,049,600
Spain : 852,800
Tonga : 848,800..."

UPDATE: GrepLaw heard from Seth Finkelstein about a press release from the registrar of the .NU domain: "Numbers in Secure Computing Study on Web Porn Were Fabricated and Defame the Tiny Nation of Niue... The more Web pages it can list in its filter the more protection it can claim to be providing, so in an apparent attempt boost the count, Secure Computing has included thousands of inactive and expired domain names, and the millions of Web pages associated with them, in its SmartFilter v4 Control List. 'The number of pornographic Web pages it has listed as being associated with the .nu domain name is wildly inflated as a result,' said [President of .NU Domain Ltd William Semich]..."