Indian Minister Wants W...

Another day, another government trying to figure out how to censor the internet. This time it’s India, where acting communications minister Kapil Sibal is meeting with officials from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook to pressure them to self-censor user content, the New York Times reports. The issue is that someone wrote something mean about a politician, Sonia Gandhi, on her Facebook page. That’s right. While other countries come up with broader excuses for trying to interfere with what people can post online — China says it’s trying to stop porn, the US says it’s trying to protect copyright holders — Sibal is openly just upset about politicians being criticized. His solution, the report says, is to have web companies use humans to monitor and delete objectionable content before it gets posted. Since TechCrunch has lots of readers in India, and uses Facebook for comments, I guess this means Facebook would be required to decide what comments people in the country are allowed to post here? Or would TechCrunch get blocked like it is in China if there are any comments by anyone that are negative about Indian politicians? Hard to say at this point. Sibal’s effort isn’t a law. But the government has already passed other laws recently that have successfully put pressure on web companies to self-censor. An October 2009 law requires web company executives to comply with take-down or site-blocking requests from the government or face a fine and seven years of jail. Sibal’s ministry issued a vague set of rules in April that forces web companies to delete content that politicians or citizens object to within 36 hours, and don’t provide ways for content creators to defend or appeal their actions. There are, of course, some good reasons for the Indian government to be concerned. Online postings can worsen existing religious and ethnic tensions within the diverse country. But democracies need to let citizens speak freely in order to be understood and represented by their politicians. The internet is a vital way for this to happen. Self-interested efforts like Sibal’s today need to be fought. Indian readers, let us know in comments if there are any campaigns against these actions that we can help promote, and I’ll update this post with links to them. In the meantime, Sonia Gandhi’s Facebook page accepts user comments, so you can go let her know how you feel there.

“All Your Shreds Are Be...

A San Francisco-based team has just won the DARPA Shredder Challenge. DARPA, the government agency whose work led to the creation of the Internet, challenged the public to reconstruct five shredded documents. The winning team, called “All Your Shreds Are Belong to U.S.” completed the task in 33 days, spending nearly 600 man-hours building algorithms and piecing together more than 10,000 shreds. 9,000 teams registered to compete. The winning teams gets a $50,000 prize paid for by the U.S. Treasury. Dan Kaufman, director, DARPA Information Innovation Office says “the most effective approaches were not purely computational or crowd-sourced, but used a combination blended with some clever detective work.” DARPA Director Regina Dugan adds “The DARPA Shredder Challenge underscores the value of increasing the number and diversity of problem solvers. The varied methods used have potential implications for so-called ‘wicked problems,’ generally consider insolvable by conventional means, and offer the possibility of increased speed, agility and breadth in innovation.” I’ll say. The shredder challenge also suggests just because you shred something, that doesn’t mean it can’t be put back together. You can see the puzzle solutions and pictures of the winning submissions at www.shredderchallenge.com .

AT&T’s Response To...

And the fun just goes on, and on, and on . Following this morning’s news that Sprint is suing AT&T/T-Mobile in an attempt to block their proposed merger, AT&T has just returned with a response. As you might expect, it pretty much boils down to “Yeah, yeah, see you in court. Oh, and here are some reasons we’re awesome.” The full text of the response: This simply demonstrates what we’ve said all along – Sprint is more interested in protecting itself than it is in promoting competition that benefits consumers. We of course will vigorously contest this matter in court as AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile USA will: help solve our nation’s spectrum exhaust situation and improve wireless service for millions; allow AT&T to expand 4G LTE mobile broadband to another 55 million Americans, or 97% of the population; and result in billions of additional investment and tens of thousands of jobs, at a time when our nation needs them most. How else could they have responded, really? Tucked tail and given up? Of course not. AT&T’s not about to give up on this one — if only because doing so would mean they still have to cough up around $6 billion to T-Mobile thanks to a few fail-safes in the deal terms. AT&T’s already battling the Department of Justice and trying to maneuver their way through investigations lead by just about every other branch of the government — in the grand scheme of things, Sprint’s lawsuit is just a means of forcing AT&T to spread their legal team that much thinner. Crunchbase SPRINT NEXTEL Company: SPRINT NEXTEL Website: Launch Date: 1999 IPO: NYSE:S Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing,... Learn more

Google to Settle with U...

Today, regulators will announce a $500 million settlement with Google over charges related to advertisements for illegal online pharmacies. The pharmacies appearing in Google ads were operating outside the law, leading to a Department of Justice investigation into Google’s advertising practices – an investigation which decreased Google’s profits by 22%, reports the The New York Times . The investigation began in May, with government officials trying to determine how illegal ads such as these continually showed up in Google’s search results. Google had previously noted  in the fall of 2010 that it was struggling with with the problem, equating it to a “cat-and-mouse game:” …As we and others build new safeguards and guidelines, rogue online pharmacies always try new tactics to get around those protections and illegally sell drugs on the web. In recent years, we have noticed a marked increase in the number of rogue pharmacies, as well an increasing sophistication in their methods. This has meant that despite our best efforts—from extensive verification procedures, to automated keyword blocking, to changing our ads policies—a small percentage of pharma ads from these rogue companies is still appearing on Google. But complaints that it just didn’t know how to stop the situation have not been good enough for the U.S. government, which is now holding websites liable for any illegal advertisements shown on their pages. Obviously, such a decision has far-reaching consequences beyond those of just the illegal pharmacies, as Google faces threats from a number of illegal and malicious entities who want to leverage its search engine to expose unsuspecting users to their ads. Traditionally, Google itself has filed lawsuits against advertisers it suspected of breaking its rules, but this has clearly not been enough of a deterrent. At the time of the government investigation, Google set aside $500 million in advance of the government’s ruling in the matter, which  trimmed its net income to $1.8 billion, or $5.51 a share, in the period. U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha of Rhode Island is holding the press conference on Wednesday to announce the final outcome.  The settlement means Google will not face further criminal prosecution for profiting from ads promoting illegal pharmacies. Crunchbase GOOGLE Company: GOOGLE Website: http://google.com Launch Date: 7/9/1998 IPO: 25/8/2004, NASDAQ:GOOG Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of... Learn more

Japan To Invest $1.3 Bi...

There is a list of the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers , and the last time it was updated , back in June this year, Fujitsu’s “K” (pictured) came out on top, taking the No. 1 spot from Tianhe-1A (a supercomputer from China). It was the first time since 2004 for Japan to get to claim those bragging rights, and now the country’s largest business newspaper The Nikkei reports that the government is already thinking about what will happen in 2020: by then, the plan is to develop a computer that handles exascale computing or, in other words, one million trillion operations per second (that computer would be 100 times more powerful than K). Japan’s Science Ministry MEXT is estimating that costs could amount to $1.3 billion and has already roped in NEC, Fujitsu and government agency RIKEN to discuss details of the project. The goal is to make sure Japan stays on top in the supercomputer race as other countries are investing, too. In February , the US government, for example, set aside $126 million for the development of exascale supercomputing in the budget for fiscal 2012. Supercomputers are being used for predicting earthquakes and other natural disasters, analyzing climate change, exploring outer space etc.