From the article: "Surgeons,
doctors, nurses, residents, and other medical professionals all regularly use
iPads on the job. The practice has inspired a cottage industry, health care
innovation, and privacy concerns." Read more
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Did the U.N. Internet Governance Summit Actually Accomplish Anything?
From the article: "The latest battle over the Internet ended in an éclat. On
the final day of the World Conference on InternationalTelecommunications in Dubai, representatives from the United
States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and several other countries walked out in
protest of an attempt by countries such as Russia and Iran to extend
governmental control over the Internet. Rather than reaching an accord, the
world remains as divided on
Internet governance as it was when the summit opened." Read more
White House Releases New National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding
From the article: "In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, our government not only needed to
improve its counterterrorism intelligence, but also share information better,
faster, and smarter. We found that our national security relies on our ability
to share the right information, with the right people, at the right time – and
we must “enlist all of our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security
capabilities,” as the National Security Strategy states.
On December 19, the President signed the National Strategy for Information Sharingand Safeguarding (NSISS). This new National Strategy is part
of a policy continuum that includes Section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the 2007 National Strategy for
Information Sharing, Executive Orders 13587 and 13388, the ISE
Presidential Guidelines, and the National Security Strategy." Read more
The Benefits of a Big Tent: Opening Up Government in Developing Countries
From the report: "Bringing open data and open government under a single
banner, Yu and Robinson argue, leads to conceptual muddling that ultimately impedes
progress for both projects. They express a concern that superficial commitments to open
data “can placate the public’s appetite for transparency.” Drawing on our experiences with the
Kenya Open Data Initiative and the Open Government Partnership, we argue that this need not
be the case for three reasons." Read more
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
UN Telecom Treaty Approved Amid U.S. Web-Censorship Concerns
From the article: "An agreement to update 24-year-old United Nations telecommunications rules
was approved against the opposition of countries including the U.S. and the
U.K., whose officials walked out on the talks on concerns about Internet
regulation and censorship.
The new pact includes measures that would give countries a right to access
international telecommunications services and the ability to block spam, which
delegations declining to sign the amended text argued would pave the way for
government censorship and control over the Web." Read more
The Emperor of All Identities
That’s a worthy sentiment — though a bit surprising coming from the Web’s
emperor.
For that, arguably, is what Google has become." Read more
The Robotics Revolution
From the report: "Whether it is a report about the latest drone strike into Pakistanor an awesome web video of a cute robot dancing in the latest style,
it seems like robots are taking over the world, figuratively if not yet
literally. But within their growing appearance in the news is perhaps something
bigger, a story that is reshaping the overall history of war and politics, and
even humanity." Read more
The Future of Scientific Knowledge Discovery in Open Networked Environments
From the report: "Digital technologies and networks are now part of everyday
work in the sciences, and have enhanced access to and use of scientific data,
information, and literature significantly. They offer the promise of
accelerating the discovery and communication of knowledge, both within the
scientific community and in the broader society, as scientific data and
information are made openly available online. The focus of this project was on
computer-mediated or computational scientific knowledge discovery, taken broadly
as any research processes enabled by digital computing technologies. Such
technologies may include data mining, information retrieval and extraction,
artificial intelligence, distributed grid computing, and others. These
technological capabilities support computer-mediated knowledge discovery, which
some believe is a new paradigm in the conduct of research. The emphasis was
primarily on digitally networked data, rather than on the scientific,
technical, and medical literature. The meeting also focused mostly on the
advantages of knowledge discovery in open networked environments, although some
of the disadvantages were raised as well." Read more
Code of EU Online Rights
From the article: "As
part of the Digital Agenda for Europe actions, the Code of EU online rights
compiles the basic set of rights existing in EU legislation and related to the
digital environment. The objective of the Code is to find simple explanations
of their legal rights and obligations, set out in a transparent and
understandable way.
As foreseen in
the Digital Agenda for Europe, this list of online rights and principles will
be an important tool for inspiring trust and confidence among consumers and
contribute to promote greater use of online services." Read more
Digital "To-Do" List: New Digital Priorities for 2013-2014
From the article: "The European Commission has today adopted seven
new priorities for the digital economy and society. The digital economy is
growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy, but this potential
is currently held back by a patchy pan-European policy framework. Today's
priorities follow a comprehensive policy review and place new emphasis on the
most transformative elements of the original 2010 DigitalAgenda for Europe.
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes
said: "2013 will be the busiest year yet for the Digital
Agenda. My top priorities are to increase broadband investment and to maximise
the digital sector's contribution to Europe's recovery."
Full implementation of this updated Digital Agenda
would increase European GDP by 5%, or 1500€ per person, over the next eight
years, by increasing investment in ICT, improving eSkills levels in the labour
force, enabling public sector innovation, and reforming the framework
conditions for the internet economy. In terms of jobs, up to one million
digital jobs risk going unfilled by 2015 without pan-European action while 1.2
million jobs could be created through infrastructure construction. This would
rise to 3.8 million new jobs throughout the economy in the long term." Read more
2013 Forecast: Managing HIT and Patient Engagement on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff
From the article: "Federal legislation, economic market realities and
technology-supported patient-centered health care shape what 2013 will hold for
health IT." Read more
FTC Launches Probe of Data Broker Privacy Practices
From the article: "Last week's Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus
briefing on data brokers and privacy must have left quite an impression on
Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, who opened a probe today to
study the privacy practices of the data broker industry.
The agency issued orders to nine data brokerages to
provide information to the FTC about how they collect and use data about
consumers by Feb. 1. Acxiom, Corelogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics,
Intelius, Peekyou, Rapleaf and Record Future all received the 15-page
order." Read more
Web of Failure: How China’s Internet Policies Have Doomed Chinese Soft Power
From the article: "When it comes to the web, China has continually struggled to
choose between its impulse to control things as tightly as possible and its
recognition of web platforms as a powerful way to broadcast its propaganda both
at home and abroad. In the past few years, its apparent strategy has been to
attempt to have its cake and eat it too: to broadcast its own message using all
the Western web channels at its disposal while blocking those channels for
domestic web users. Unfortunately for the government, having your cake and
eating it is impossible, and this policy — if it is continued — will prove to
be an utter failure." Read more
Cookies and Electronic Commerce: A Survey About Actual Knowledge of the Issues Concerning Privacy
From the report: "This
paper discusses the issues concerning cookies and privacy and electronic
commerce. After analysing the European and national legislation about
protection of privacy and distance selling and electronic commerce, the
attention is focused on consumers actual knowledge of cookies. The second part
of the paper is a survey realized in 2010 in two high schools of Modena. The
survey uncovers that the knowledge about cookies and related issues is
superficial. The paper concludes that there are many instruments to protect
consumers' privacy while they are surfing on or buying in the Internet.
However there is the need to improve the effective knowledge of the so-called
cyberconsumers about cookies and issues concerning privacy." Read more
\
Can Trade Policy Set Information Free?
From the report: "This
policy brief examines how the US, the EU and Canada use trade policies to
govern the Internet
at home and across borders. The three trade giants use trade agreements to
encourage e-commerce, reduce online barriers to trade, and to develop shared
policies in a world where technology is rapidly changing and where governments
compete to disseminate their regulatory approaches. Policymakers use export
controls, trade bans or targeted sanctions to protect Internet
users in other countries or to prevent officials of other countries from using Internet
related technologies in ways that undermine the rights of individuals abroad.
Finally, policymakers may use trade agreements to challenge other governments’
online rules and policies as trade barriers. We discuss how these policies,
agreements, bans and strategies could affect Internet
openness, Internet
governance, and Internet freedom. We do not address
telecommunications or e-commerce definitional issues." Read more
Crowds Are Not People, My Friend
From the article: "This assumption that crowds have some non-fragmented
consciousness leads us to the false dichotomy we draw between physical and
virtual crowds: one is dumb, the other is smart. But in both cases, we’re
placing too much emphasis on the crowd as distinct from the people involved in
it. …
At the same time, knowing that virtual crowds are merely
human helps us better predict when one is likely to be smart and when it’s
likely to be stupid. Reddit can help someone understand a medical diagnosis
just as easily as it can foster a men’s rights movement. Scientists, working as
a virtual group, are capable of sharing diverse research to reach a consensus
on climate change, but they’re also capable of passing down the received wisdom
that crowds have minds. The group itself isn’t what matters. What matters is
who they are, what they know and how they interact." Read more
EHRs May Turn Small Errors Into Big Ones
From the article: "As electronic health record systems become more interconnected, errors may
propagate much farther than under old paper-based systems, a recent study
suggested.
According to a review by the PennsylvaniaPatient Safety Authority, mistakes and near misses involving
electronic health records were analogous to those made with paper-based records
with one caveat: those made with EHRs tend to be amplified and can affect a
larger group of people.
The Authority's study looked at 3,099 reports from Pennsylvania hospitals detailing 3,946 problems. More than 2,700 incidents involved near misses and 15 involved temporary harm to patients.
The study focused on incidents from 2004 to 2012 in which electronic health records were the root cause in the event, as opposed to being incidental.
Electronic health records are designed to be more efficient than paper-based records, but the two systems have one thing in common: they're developed and maintained by people. The most common source of problems identified in the study rested with data entry and, to a much lesser extent, with technical glitches.
Medication errors accounted for about 80% of the cases, or 2,516 reports. Many of the remainder involved lab tests." Read more
Monday, December 17, 2012
UN Internet Conference: The SOPA That Wasn’t
Milian, Mark. "UN Internet Conference: The SOPA That Wasn’t." Bloomberg Tech Blog, December 14, 2012.
From the article: "For the past couple of weeks, Google and other Internet
companies have protested a United Nations conference over concerns that a new
treaty will lead to censorship of the Web.
Despite their campaigns, they weren’t able to drum up the kind of widespread
indignation that elevated the Stop Online Piracy Act
to national prominence earlier this year, according to studies of online
discussions commissioned by Bloomberg.com." Read more
The U.N. Isn’t Regulating the Internet–but Governments Still Exert Control
Talbot, David. "The U.N. Isn’t Regulating the Internet–but Governments Still Exert Control." MIT Technology Review, December 14, 2012.
From the article: "Is the U.N. now somehow regulating the Internet now that its International Telecommunications Union—after a two week meeting in Dubai that centered largely on whether it should include the Internet in its telephone-centric regulations—has today declared the existence of a new global telecom treaty?
No. First, the United States, Canada, and many European nations declined to sign the new International Telecommunications Regulations. Some 89 countries were in favor and 55 opposed or abstained. If you go to the actual new wording of the regulations–which haven’t been changed since 1988–and search for “Internet” you find it mentioned in fairly bland language within a one-page nonbinding resolution." Read more
From the article: "Is the U.N. now somehow regulating the Internet now that its International Telecommunications Union—after a two week meeting in Dubai that centered largely on whether it should include the Internet in its telephone-centric regulations—has today declared the existence of a new global telecom treaty?
No. First, the United States, Canada, and many European nations declined to sign the new International Telecommunications Regulations. Some 89 countries were in favor and 55 opposed or abstained. If you go to the actual new wording of the regulations–which haven’t been changed since 1988–and search for “Internet” you find it mentioned in fairly bland language within a one-page nonbinding resolution." Read more
Number of Jailed Journalists Sets Global Record
From the report: "Imprisonment of journalists worldwide reached a record high
in 2012, driven in part by the widespread use of charges of terrorism and other
anti-state offenses against critical reporters and editors, the Committee to
Protect Journalists has found. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists,
CPJ identified 232 individuals behind bars on December 1, an increase of 53
over its 2011 tally." Read more
Thursday, December 13, 2012
U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens
Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information" may be." Read more
Slactivists or Activists?
From the report: "Social media have come to form an inherent part of most
activist campaigns today. Yet, their potential to foster political
participation and mobilization remains debated. While cyber-utopians insist on
the positive contribution of social online-activism to participatory democracy,
supporters of the "slactivism” argument dismiss it as a hedonist activity
that carries little societal benefit. Our analysis of the Brazilian
anti-corruption campaign Ficha Limpa picks up on this debate. We present
original survey data concerning citizens’ use of social media and their offline
participation in the context of this campaign. Using a binary logit model that
estimates the relation between the use of different communication features
supported by social media and contacting elected officials, we show that online
activities involving relatively high transaction costs in terms of time and
effort contribute more positively toward offline participation than simple
single-click activities. Our findings indicate that the choice of appropriate
social media formats may be a decisive element for the success of campaigners who
seek to mobilize citizens via the Internet." Read more
Social Networking Popular Across Globe
From the report: "Social networking has spread
around the world with remarkable speed. In countries such as Britain,
the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic and Spain, about half of all
adults now use Facebook and similar websites. These sites are also popular in
many lower-income nations, where, once people have access to the internet, they
tend to use it for social networking. Meanwhile, cell phones have become nearly
ubiquitous throughout much of the world, and people are using them in a variety
of ways, including texting and taking pictures. Smart phones are also
increasingly common – roughly half in Britain, the U.S., and Japan have one.
Globally, most smart phone users say they visit social networking sites on
their phone, while many get job, consumer, and political information." Read more
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
A Broadband Solution to Fiscal Crises
In the world of tech, the imperative is to deliver goods and services faster, cheaper and better. In the current policy debate, the government is trying to figure out how to raise more money while also cutting the level of service. If government were a business, this would be a strategy to expand margin. That’s not bad, but shrinking margins are usually lagging indicators of problems with the top line. For government, the analogy is that if the economy were growing steadily and strongly, then even without recession-inducing tax increases, spending could be more durably directed to commonly desired goals." Read more
Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multi-Level Socio-Technical Framework
Racherla, Pradeep and Munir Mandviwalla. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multi-Level Socio-Technical Framework." Social Science Research Network, December 9, 2012.
From the report: "‘Universal access’ (UA) to the Internet and the associated information infrastructure has become an important economic and societal goal. However, UA initiatives tend to focus on issues such as physical access and geographical ubiquity, and measure adoption through penetration rates. In this paper, we apply an interpretive case study approach to analyze the Philadelphia wireless initiative to provide insights into the nature of UA and extend this concept to also consider Universal Use (UU). UU is important because simply providing access does not guarantee use. UU is presented as a conceptual goal that starts with the challenge of physical access but which necessarily also leads to considerations of use. The results show that the human and technological elements underlying individual access and use are deeply embedded within various institutional elements and collectives that enable but also constrain meaningful use. We integrate our findings into a multi-level framework that shows how access and use are influenced by both micro and macro factors. This framework provides new insights into the study of the information infrastructure, digital divide, and public policy." Read more
From the report: "‘Universal access’ (UA) to the Internet and the associated information infrastructure has become an important economic and societal goal. However, UA initiatives tend to focus on issues such as physical access and geographical ubiquity, and measure adoption through penetration rates. In this paper, we apply an interpretive case study approach to analyze the Philadelphia wireless initiative to provide insights into the nature of UA and extend this concept to also consider Universal Use (UU). UU is important because simply providing access does not guarantee use. UU is presented as a conceptual goal that starts with the challenge of physical access but which necessarily also leads to considerations of use. The results show that the human and technological elements underlying individual access and use are deeply embedded within various institutional elements and collectives that enable but also constrain meaningful use. We integrate our findings into a multi-level framework that shows how access and use are influenced by both micro and macro factors. This framework provides new insights into the study of the information infrastructure, digital divide, and public policy." Read more
Finding the Best of the Imperfect Alternatives for Privacy, Health IT, and Cybersecurity
From the report: "This
article is part of a Wisconsin Law Review symposium in honor of the work of
Neil Komesar, and particularly his book “Imperfect Alternatives: Choosing
Institutions in Law, Economics, and Public Policy.” I used this as the main
text in 2003 for one of the first law school courses on “The Law of
Cybersecurity,” even though the book doesn’t even mention cybersecurity. The
reason was that it was the best single vehicle I had found to prepare students
to think critically about comparative institutional analysis, such as how to
create institutions that better foster cybersecurity." Read more
Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology Use in Human Rights Organizations: An Exploratory Analysis
From the report: "Using
an organizational informatics approach, this study explores the implications of
human rights organizations’ use of censorship circumvention technologies. Through
qualitative analyses of data collected through in-depth interviews, the
research examines the factors influencing the use of circumvention technologies
and the organizational effects of their use. The outcomes include a revised
model of censorship circumvention technology use as well as a new model
situating human rights organizations and their audiences in bidirectional
information flows. The research provides recommendations for practice as well
as insight for organizational informatics and information systems security
research in the areas of protective technologies, awareness, detection, and
physical security." Read more
Lack of Data Analysis Worrisome
According to a report published on Tuesday
by IDC, the market research firm, a large ‘big data gap’ is opening up between
the rapidly expanding digital universe – a measure of all the digital data
created, replicated and consumed in a single year. That data holds potential
analytic value that could have major business, health and societal impact. Only
0.4 per cent of that data are actually being analysed.
See
also
Social Media a Healthcare Data Gold Mine
Dembosky, April. "Social Media a Healthcare Data Gold Mine." The Financial Times, December 11, 2012.
Pharmaceutical companies already analyse social media sites to track reports of side-effects of their drugs. That data can help correct formulas more quickly than waiting for the results of years-long clinical trials; it can also be used to set prices and test marketing slogans.
Public health officials are also interested in social media data as a source of information on disease outbreaks." Read more
From the article: "Healthcare companies are loathe to tread into such sensitive territory, but
they are keenly aware of the goldmine of health data stored in people’s social media accounts…
Pharmaceutical companies already analyse social media sites to track reports of side-effects of their drugs. That data can help correct formulas more quickly than waiting for the results of years-long clinical trials; it can also be used to set prices and test marketing slogans.
Public health officials are also interested in social media data as a source of information on disease outbreaks." Read more
Hacking the Human Brain: The Next Domain of Warfare
Current BCI work ranges from researchers compiling and interfacing neural data such as in the Human Conectome Project to work by scientists hardening the human brain against rubber hose cryptanalysis to technologists connecting the brain to robotic systems. While these groups are streamlining the BCI for either security or humanitarian purposes, the reality is that misapplication of such research and technology has significant implications for the future of warfare." Read more
Making Dollars and Sense of the Open Data Economy
What I’m looking for now is more examples of startups and businesses that have been created using open data or that would not be able to continue operations without it. If big data is a strategic resource, it’s important to understand how and where organizations are using it for public good, civic utility and economic benefit." Read more
U.S. Government Will Launch a Dynamic Airwave-Sharing Scheme
From the article: "Aiming to boost wireless bandwidth and innovation, the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission is poised to recommend the biggest regulatory
change in decades: one that allows a newly available chunk of wireless spectrum
to be leased by different companies at different times and places, rather than
being auctioned off to one high bidder…. Cisco Systems estimates that mobile
data traffic will grow by a factor of 18 by 2016, and Bell Labs predicts it
will increase by a factor of 25. Many more airwaves could eventually be shared
with the help of cognitive radios, which sense available frequencies and shift
between them." Read more
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Smartphone Use: Good for Healthcare
At a Dec. 10 report-release briefing, Janet Marchabroda, chair of the Health IT Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said smartphones have changed every aspect of American life, including the way Americans shop, travel and manage their finances. "If we could apply that use of smartphones to healthcare, great things would result, she said.
Barriers on the consumer side often include lack of awareness that the apps are out there, and more innovation is still needed in the marketplace.
See also
Most Children's Apps Are Failing on Privacy, FTC Finds
The FTC is also launching investigations to see whether some of these app companies are acting in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (Coppa) or the Federal Trade Commission Act." Read more
See also
Monday, December 10, 2012
Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present
From the report: "If you wanted to sum up the past decade of the news ecosystem
in a single phrase, it might be this: Everybody suddenly got a lot more
freedom. The newsmakers, the advertisers, the startups, and, especially, the
people formerly known as the audience have all been given new freedom to
communicate, narrowly and broadly, outside the old strictures of the broadcast
and publishing models. The past 15 years have seen an explosion of new tools
and techniques, and, more importantly, new assumptions and expectations, and
these changes have wrecked the old clarity." Read more
Cyber Early Warning Deal Collapses After Russia Balks
The 57-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe failed to reach the unanimous consensus needed to adopt the resolution. It was aimed at building trust and open communication to avoid cyberwar." Read more
Are We Making a Better World with Icts? Reflections on a Future Agenda for the is Field
From the report: "Dramatic
changes in context have occurred over the last 25 years for those of us working
in the information systems (IS) field, with ICTs becoming pervasive in many
areas of human activity and in all countries of the world. It is ironic that
the success of ICTs has led to concerns that the distinct research contribution
of the IS field could become lost and that the field itself may decline. The
literature over the last decade or so has offered different and sometimes
opposing suggestions as to how the field should respond to these concerns. In
this paper, I discuss these debates and I use the discussion as a basis for
putting forward a skeleton future agenda for the IS field as a whole. This
agenda emphasises the need for a focus on ethical goals, increased use of
critical approaches, welcoming other disciplines with open arms, widening our
field of study to many non-traditional settings and rejecting a dominant
methodological paradigm." Read more
Increasing Control Over Release of Information Leads People To Divulge More Online, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Find
"Increasing Control Over Release of Information Leads People To Divulge More Online, Carnegie Mellon Researchers Find." Carnegie Mellon University, November 26, 2012.
The study investigated how people respond when given control over their personal information, allowing them to choose how much to reveal about themselves. CMU researchers Laura Brandimarte, Alessandro Acquisti and George Loewenstein found that users given more privacy controls share more sensitive information with larger, and possibly riskier, audiences." Read more
From the press release: "When perceiving they have more control over their personal
information, people increase their willingness to disclose sensitive
information that allows them to be personally identified, according to a study
done by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
The study investigated how people respond when given control over their personal information, allowing them to choose how much to reveal about themselves. CMU researchers Laura Brandimarte, Alessandro Acquisti and George Loewenstein found that users given more privacy controls share more sensitive information with larger, and possibly riskier, audiences." Read more
See also
Thursday, December 6, 2012
House Approves Resolution to Keep Internet Control Out of UN Hands
From the article: "The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a Senate resolution introduced by
Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that calls on the U.S.
government to oppose United Nations control of the Internet.
The 397-0 vote is meant to send a signal to countries meeting at a U.N.
conference on telecommunications this week." Read more
ONC to Roll Out Plan for Consumer Connection to Health Information
From the article: "The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)
will soon release the draft version of its consumer engagement plan with
details on how patients can get more connected with their own healthcare. A
45-day period of public comment will allow interested parties to give feedback
on the plan." Read more
Computerized Health Records Breed Digital Discontent For Some Doctors
One is a lot of unhappy doctors. In a big survey by Medscape, an online site for doctors, 38 percent of the doctors polled said they were unhappy with their electronic medical records system." Read more
U.N. Report Reveals International Protocol for Tracking People Online
Buried in a recent 158-page U.N. report on how terrorists use the Internet is the so-called “protocol of a systematic approach.” The protocol, which was authored by an elite Italian special operations unit called the Raggruppamento, is significant because it has been implemented by authorities across the world, according to the United Nations." Read more
See also
Why Data is the Key to Better Medicine — and Maybe a Cure for Cancer
Harris, Derrick, "Why Data is the Key to Better Medicine — and Maybe a Cure for Cancer." GigaOm, November 27, 2012.
From the article: "The health care industry might have embraced the big data movement with open arms, but embracing it with open data probably would be more effective. Hospital organizations, researchers and the tech companies serving them have lots of great ideas — and have achieved some great results, too — but, ultimately, efforts to use big data to transform the industry will only be as good as the data these stakeholders have to work with. Right now, that isn’t always everything they need." Read more
Policy Debates in the Internet Age
While many activists like to hear the kind of tough rhetoric that leaves little room for compromise, a politician usually gets more support from swing voters with pragmatic proposals that actually can get things done." Read more
Toward an International Law of the Internet
From the report: "This
Article presents the first and only analysis of Article 19 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as it applies to new technologies and
uses this analysis to develop the foundation for an “international law of the Internet.”
Although Article 19 does not guarantee a right to the “Internet”
per se, it explicitly protects the technologies of connection and access to
information, and it limits states’ ability to burden content originating
abroad. The principles derived from Article 19 provide an important normative
reorientation on individual rights for both domestic and international Internet
governance debates." Read more
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
The Internet’s Future Depends on Maintaining Its Free Spirit
But a meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), taking place in Dubai this week, threatens to stifle further Internet expansion and innovation." Read more
Opinion: ITU Meeting 'No Threat to Free Speech'
From the article: "It is our chance to chart a globally-agreed roadmap to
connect the unconnected, while ensuring there is investment to create the
infrastructure needed for the exponential growth in voice, video and data
traffic….As
the neutral convener of the conference and in an effort to engage opinion
worldwide, ITU has encouraged all its membership (including over 700
private-sector entities), as well as civil society organizations and the press
and public at large, to contribute their views. Much of the conference itself
is webcast. WCIT is not a "closed-door" event. In fact, compared with
other intergovernmental meetings of such importance, WCIT is as open as it
possibly can be." Read more
Google's Media Campaign Against the UN Slapped Down
From the article: "Google has been a
forerunner and one of the most outspoken companies in protecting the right to
freedom of information and expression. That is laudable and earned the
company respect around the globe. What is less admirable is the hyperbole
that it has been spewing about the freedom and future of the Internet being in
jeopardy at United Nations’ (UN) meetings being held in Dubai December
3-14. Not only did Google’s position turn out to be ill-informed, it
appears to be self-serving." Read more
Trust And Information Sharing Key In Tight Fiscal Times
From the article: "Secure information sharing is another important and complex
issue for federal agencies, he said. There is often a tension between local
islands of network use and the enterprise, Wennergren said. He describes these
issues as a "polarity" about information sharing between the
different professional communities in an organization. Instead of viewing the
situation as one about information security, he prefers to call it a
"secure relationship."
The challenge is that many government agencies polarize themselves because they see many technology issues as a single problem, rather than a conflict between different mission needs within the organization, he said." Read more
The challenge is that many government agencies polarize themselves because they see many technology issues as a single problem, rather than a conflict between different mission needs within the organization, he said." Read more
The Value of Reputation in an Online Freelance Marketplace
From the paper: "Online
freelance marketplaces are websites that match buyers of electronically
deliverable services with freelancers. While freelancing has grown in recent
years, it faces the classic ‘information asymmetry’ problem – buyers face
uncertainty over seller quality. Typically, these markets use reputation
systems to alleviate this issue, but the effectiveness of these systems is open
to debate. We present a dynamic structural framework to estimate the returns to
seller reputations in freelance sites. In our model, each period, a buyer
decides whether to choose a bid from her current set of bids, cancel the
auction, or wait for more bids. In the process, she trades-off sellers’ price,
reputation, other attributes, and the costs of waiting and canceling. Our framework
addresses ‘dynamic selection’, which can lead to underestimation of reputation,
through two types of persistent unobserved heterogeneities – in bid
arrival-rates and buyers’ unobserved preference for bids. We apply our
framework to data from a leading freelance firm. We find that buyers are
forward-looking, that they place significant weight on seller reputation, and
that not controlling for dynamics and selection can bias reputation estimates.
Using counterfactual simulations, we infer the dollar value of seller
reputations and provide guidelines to managers of freelance firms." Read more
Social Media Use Exploded in 2012, Led by Pinterest
Mlot, Stephanie. "Social Media Use Exploded in 2012, Led by Pinterest." PC Magazine, December 3, 2012.
From the article: "Consumers spend more time on social networks than any other site — about 20 percent via a PC, and 30 percent using a mobile device, Nielsen's Social Media Report revealed.
Still not impressed? The report also tips a 37 percent increase in the total time spent on social media in the U.S., reaching 121 billion minutes in July, compared to 88 billion in summer 2011.
The ultimate social network, Facebook, remains the most-visited in the U.S., and earned the title of most popular Web brand in the U.S. this year. It reached 152.2 million PC visitors, 78.4 million app users, and 74.3 million mobile Web surfers. That dwarfs social sites in all categories (see graphic below), beating No. 2 Blogger by more than 93.7 million PC users. In the mobile app race, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, and Pinterest carry the top five spots." Read more
See also
"The State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012." Nielsen, 2012.
Rise of the Datavores: How UK Businesses Analyse and Use Online Data
From the report: "The internet economy is growing, and so is the amount of
data that it generates. Are UK businesses making the most of this data to
innovate and grow? Or are they missing out on the opportunities of online data?
A business survey by Nesta shows how a small but significant group of UK companies - the datavores - are making sophisticated use of data to drive business decisions.
This paper illustrates both the opportunities and challenges that online data presents for UK businesses." Read more
A business survey by Nesta shows how a small but significant group of UK companies - the datavores - are making sophisticated use of data to drive business decisions.
This paper illustrates both the opportunities and challenges that online data presents for UK businesses." Read more
Syrian Internet Outage Raises Question “Could It Happen Here?”
From the article: "If a country has more than 40 companies providing Internet
infrastructure at its international border, it is categorized as “resistant,”
meaning that it would be difficult if not impossible under whatever
circumstances for anyone to order a coordinated takedown of the Internet. There
are simply too many moving parts to make it a realistic worry. The good news is
that much of the world is in this category, including the U.S., Canada, most of
Europe and Russia." Read more