Prodhan, Georgina. "UK Moves Towards "Three Strikes" Internet Policy." Reuters, March 6, 2012.
From the article: “British Web users face having their Internet connections throttled or suspended if they are found to have downloaded music or movies illegally after Internet service providers (ISPs) BT and TalkTalk lost a court appeal on Tuesday.
The ruling by Britain's Court of Appeal means that ISPs will have to send warning letters to customers suspected by film studios or record labels of having illegally accessed material to which they own the rights.
If a customer accumulates too many warnings, the ISP may be required to slow down the person's Internet access or suspend the account.” Read more
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Electronic Health Records: A Study and Perspective
Steve Lohr, March 6, 2012, "Electronic Health Records: A Study and Perspective," The New York Times Bits Blog.
From the opinion: "A lot of physicians complain that the advantages of electronic health records are oversold, and that they can be complex and confusing. Yet when well designed, the technology can improve the practice of medicine…. An electronic health record is a tool, one that will be used by people in response to the incentives they are given. The American health care system is predominantly fee-for-service. Doctors and hospitals are reimbursed delivering more treatment, so we get more of everything — tests, surgeries, pills.
The drive to pay health providers based more on what economists call outcomes — healthier people — instead of inputs, like tests, is under way.
The big savings in American health care, most experts agree, will come from making sure people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, manage their conditions, stay healthy and out of hospitals." Read more
From the opinion: "A lot of physicians complain that the advantages of electronic health records are oversold, and that they can be complex and confusing. Yet when well designed, the technology can improve the practice of medicine…. An electronic health record is a tool, one that will be used by people in response to the incentives they are given. The American health care system is predominantly fee-for-service. Doctors and hospitals are reimbursed delivering more treatment, so we get more of everything — tests, surgeries, pills.
The drive to pay health providers based more on what economists call outcomes — healthier people — instead of inputs, like tests, is under way.
The big savings in American health care, most experts agree, will come from making sure people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, manage their conditions, stay healthy and out of hospitals." Read more
Hacker Group Unveils Critical Attacks, Accused of Drawing a ‘Road Map for the Bad Guys’
Jordan Robertson, March 6, 2012, "Hacker Group Unveils Critical Attacks, Accused of Drawing a ‘Road Map for the Bad Guys’," Bloomberg Tech Blog.
From the article: "For the past few months, a team of computer hackers has engaged in an aggressive form of cyber subversion. Its work has enraged critics and led to accusations that it is endangering people’s lives.
It’s not Anonymous. The group causing the uproar is a team of professional researchers that has embraced an extreme approach to cyber security. The volunteers have gone beyond probing networks and working to fix vulnerabilities they find. They are writing programs to attack weaknesses and releasing those programs on the Internet, making them available on Digital Bond’s website." Read more
From the article: "For the past few months, a team of computer hackers has engaged in an aggressive form of cyber subversion. Its work has enraged critics and led to accusations that it is endangering people’s lives.
It’s not Anonymous. The group causing the uproar is a team of professional researchers that has embraced an extreme approach to cyber security. The volunteers have gone beyond probing networks and working to fix vulnerabilities they find. They are writing programs to attack weaknesses and releasing those programs on the Internet, making them available on Digital Bond’s website." Read more
How to Get Privacy Right
Thompson, Nicholas. "How to Get Privacy Right." The New Yorker, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "The cycle repeats, and the privacy invasions continue, because data is the new currency of the Internet. The more data that a company has about you, the more useful it can make itself—both to you and to advertisers—and the more money it can earn. A search engine needs data to search. A social network needs data to help you network. Right now, advertising funds the Internet; and the more that advertisers can target you, the more they will pay. Booz Allen Hamilton recently reported that government restrictions on the use of private data would dramatically decrease both the amount of venture capital going into Silicon Valley and the amount of innovation coming out of it.
Data is also becoming ubiquitous just as privacy becomes elusive." Read more
From the article: "The cycle repeats, and the privacy invasions continue, because data is the new currency of the Internet. The more data that a company has about you, the more useful it can make itself—both to you and to advertisers—and the more money it can earn. A search engine needs data to search. A social network needs data to help you network. Right now, advertising funds the Internet; and the more that advertisers can target you, the more they will pay. Booz Allen Hamilton recently reported that government restrictions on the use of private data would dramatically decrease both the amount of venture capital going into Silicon Valley and the amount of innovation coming out of it.
Data is also becoming ubiquitous just as privacy becomes elusive." Read more
Data Shows a Digital Divide in Global Bandwidth
Orcutt, Mike. "Data Shows a Digital Divide in Global Bandwidth." Technology Review, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "The number of devices capable of connecting to the Internet has exploded in the past few years, giving millions of new people access to the Internet. But does this mean the end of the “digital divide”—the gulf between wealthy people with easy access to information and communications technologies, and poor people without such access?
Not exactly, according to new research by Martin Hilbert, a professor of communications at the University of Southern California. Although the disparity between the rich and poor in devices per person shrank during the past decade, the world’s total installed capacity to send and receive data over the Internet remains concentrated in wealthier nations, his work shows." Read more
See Also
Hilbert, Martin and Priscila Lopez. "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information." Science, 2011:Vol. 332 no. 6025 pp. 60-65.
International Telecommunications Union. "9th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Meeting." Last modified December 16, 2011.
From the article: "The number of devices capable of connecting to the Internet has exploded in the past few years, giving millions of new people access to the Internet. But does this mean the end of the “digital divide”—the gulf between wealthy people with easy access to information and communications technologies, and poor people without such access?
Not exactly, according to new research by Martin Hilbert, a professor of communications at the University of Southern California. Although the disparity between the rich and poor in devices per person shrank during the past decade, the world’s total installed capacity to send and receive data over the Internet remains concentrated in wealthier nations, his work shows." Read more
See Also
Hilbert, Martin and Priscila Lopez. "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information." Science, 2011:Vol. 332 no. 6025 pp. 60-65.
International Telecommunications Union. "9th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Meeting." Last modified December 16, 2011.
Emerging Electronic Health Information Exchange Systems Don’t Meet Patient Needs
From the press release: "Health care organizations need to do more to help patients realize the full benefits of electronic data from emerging health information exchange systems, according to a new study commissioned by Consumers Union that appears in the March 2012 Health Affairs. The study examines how well five major California health care organizations are meeting the needs of patients and communities in the use of their electronic data and offers important lessons for the rest of the country…. Overall, exchange of electronic data among a patient’s providers in different organizations was limited, which limited benefits to patients from the use of that data for their care….The study found that a lack of clear “rules of the road,” including behavioral norms for health information exchange participants, legal agreements, and technical standards, was preventing quicker implementation of health information exchange systems that could benefit providers and patients alike. Little progress has been made when it comes to using electronic health information to improve the health of the public and communities at large." Read more Overall, exchange of electronic data among a patient’s providers in different organizations was limited, which limited benefits to patients from the use of that data for their care….The study found that a lack of clear “rules of the road,” including behavioral norms for health information exchange participants, legal agreements, and technical standards, was preventing quicker implementation of health information exchange systems that could benefit providers and patients alike. Little progress has been made when it comes to using electronic health information to improve the health of the public and communities at large." Read more
See Also
Miller, Robert. "Satisfying Patient-Consumer Principles For Health Information Exchange: Evidence From California Case Studies." Health Affairs, March 2012 vol. 31 no. 3.
Angry Birds Boom Spurs U.S. Job Revival on Mobile Demand
Miller, Rich. "Angry Birds Boom Spurs U.S. Job Revival on Mobile Demand." Bloomberg Businessweek, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "A surge in technology-industry hiring is helping to spearhead a jobs-market revival as demand swells for computer-software applications and data. Online help-wanted advertising for computer and mathematical occupations rose 2.1 percent in February from January to the second-highest since the Conference Board began compiling the data in 2005. Vacancies outnumbered job seekers by more than three to one, according to the New York-based research group. Postings on tech-career website Dice.com are 12 percent higher than a year ago, with openings for workers skilled in mobile applications up more than 100 percent." Read more
The Search for a New Business Model
Rosenstiel, Tom, Mark Jurkowitz and Hong Ji. "The Search for a New Business Model." Journalism.org, March 5, 2012.
From the summary: "A new study, which combines detailed proprietary data from individual newspapers with in-depth interviews at more than a dozen major media companies, finds that the search for a new revenue model to revive the newspaper industry is making only halting progress but that some indqa`ividual newspapers are faring much better than the industry overall and may provide signs of a path forward.
In general, the shift to replace losses in print ad revenue with new digital revenue is taking longer and proving more difficult than executives want and at the current rate most newspapers continue to contract with alarming speed, according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Cultural inertia is a major factor. Most papers are not putting significant effort into the new digital revenue categories that, while small now, are expected to provide most the growth in the future. To different degrees, executives predict newsrooms will continue to shrink, more papers will close and many surviving papers will deliver a print edition only a few days a week." Read more
See Also
Rosenstiel, Tom, Mark Jurkowitz and Hong Ji, The Search for a New Business Model: An In-depth Look at How Newspapers Are Faring Trying to Build Digital Revenue, prepared for the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism, March 5, 2012.
From the summary: "A new study, which combines detailed proprietary data from individual newspapers with in-depth interviews at more than a dozen major media companies, finds that the search for a new revenue model to revive the newspaper industry is making only halting progress but that some indqa`ividual newspapers are faring much better than the industry overall and may provide signs of a path forward.
In general, the shift to replace losses in print ad revenue with new digital revenue is taking longer and proving more difficult than executives want and at the current rate most newspapers continue to contract with alarming speed, according to the study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Cultural inertia is a major factor. Most papers are not putting significant effort into the new digital revenue categories that, while small now, are expected to provide most the growth in the future. To different degrees, executives predict newsrooms will continue to shrink, more papers will close and many surviving papers will deliver a print edition only a few days a week." Read more
See Also
Rosenstiel, Tom, Mark Jurkowitz and Hong Ji, The Search for a New Business Model: An In-depth Look at How Newspapers Are Faring Trying to Build Digital Revenue, prepared for the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism, March 5, 2012.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Digital Records May Not Cut Health Costs, Study Cautions
Lohr, Steve. "Digital Records May Not Cut Health Costs, Study Cautions." The New York Times, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes. Industry experts have said that electronic health records could generate huge savings — as much as $80 billion a year, according to a RAND Corporation estimate. The promise of cost savings has been a major justification for billions of dollars in federal spending to encourage doctors to embrace digital health records.
But research published Monday in the journal Health Affairs found that doctors using computers to track tests, like X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, ordered far more tests than doctors relying on paper records.
The use of costly image-taking tests has increased sharply in recent years. Many experts contend that electronic health records will help reduce unnecessary and duplicative tests by giving doctors more comprehensive and up-to-date information when making diagnoses.
The study showed, however, that doctors with computerized access to a patient’s previous image results ordered tests on 18 percent of the visits, while those without the tracking technology ordered tests on 12.9 percent of visits. That is a 40 percent higher rate of image testing by doctors using electronic technology instead of paper records." Read more
See Also
From the article: "Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes. Industry experts have said that electronic health records could generate huge savings — as much as $80 billion a year, according to a RAND Corporation estimate. The promise of cost savings has been a major justification for billions of dollars in federal spending to encourage doctors to embrace digital health records.
But research published Monday in the journal Health Affairs found that doctors using computers to track tests, like X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, ordered far more tests than doctors relying on paper records.
The use of costly image-taking tests has increased sharply in recent years. Many experts contend that electronic health records will help reduce unnecessary and duplicative tests by giving doctors more comprehensive and up-to-date information when making diagnoses.
The study showed, however, that doctors with computerized access to a patient’s previous image results ordered tests on 18 percent of the visits, while those without the tracking technology ordered tests on 12.9 percent of visits. That is a 40 percent higher rate of image testing by doctors using electronic technology instead of paper records." Read more
See Also
Bor, David H., D. McCormick, S. Woolhandler, and D. Himmelstein. "Giving Office-Based Physicians Electronic Access To Patients’ Prior Imaging And Lab Results Did Not Deter Ordering Of Tests." Health Affairs, March 2012 Vol. 31 No. 3.
Study: Cloud Will Create 14 Million Jobs By 2014
Butlet, Brandon. "Study: Cloud Will Create 14 Million Jobs By 2014." Computerworld, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "Implementation of cloud services will create 14 million jobs internationally by 2014, with the greatest increases occurring in emerging markets, which are not constrained in deploying cloud systems by legacy infrastructure, according to a new study from Microsoft and IDC…China and India alone could create up to 6.8 million new jobs related to the cloud, the study found. Because many of the businesses in these emerging markets are young, they aren't bound by the "Legacy lag" -- as the study calls it -- that could be holding back cloud adoption at larger enterprises around the world…. Meanwhile, the United States and Canada are expected to create 1.2 million new jobs related to the cloud. Many of those jobs will be from IT pros being freed up from managing the day-to-day service of their IT infrastructure, which will allow them to focus on more "mission critical" business endeavors. Cloud services could help generate $1.1 trillion in new business revenue worldwide, the study suggests." Read more
From the article: "Implementation of cloud services will create 14 million jobs internationally by 2014, with the greatest increases occurring in emerging markets, which are not constrained in deploying cloud systems by legacy infrastructure, according to a new study from Microsoft and IDC…China and India alone could create up to 6.8 million new jobs related to the cloud, the study found. Because many of the businesses in these emerging markets are young, they aren't bound by the "Legacy lag" -- as the study calls it -- that could be holding back cloud adoption at larger enterprises around the world…. Meanwhile, the United States and Canada are expected to create 1.2 million new jobs related to the cloud. Many of those jobs will be from IT pros being freed up from managing the day-to-day service of their IT infrastructure, which will allow them to focus on more "mission critical" business endeavors. Cloud services could help generate $1.1 trillion in new business revenue worldwide, the study suggests." Read more
Mobile User Privacy Bill of Rights
Parker Higgins, March 2, 2012, "Mobile User Privacy Bill of Rights," Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks Blog.
From the article: "Mobile smartphone apps represent a powerful technology that will only become more important in the years to come. But the unique advantages of the smartphone as a platform—a device that's always on and connected, with access to real world information like user location or camera and microphone input—also raise privacy challenges. And given the sensitivity of the data that many consumers store on their phones, the stakes are even higher for manufacturers, carriers, app developers, and mobile ad networks to respect user privacy in order to earn and retain the ever-important trust of the public.
Fortunately, frameworks exist for understanding the privacy rights and expectations of the users. The following guide of best practices pulls from documents like EFF's Bill of Privacy Rights for Social Network Users and the recently released White House white paper "Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World" to set a baseline for what mobile industry players must do to respect user privacy." Read more
From the article: "Mobile smartphone apps represent a powerful technology that will only become more important in the years to come. But the unique advantages of the smartphone as a platform—a device that's always on and connected, with access to real world information like user location or camera and microphone input—also raise privacy challenges. And given the sensitivity of the data that many consumers store on their phones, the stakes are even higher for manufacturers, carriers, app developers, and mobile ad networks to respect user privacy in order to earn and retain the ever-important trust of the public.
Fortunately, frameworks exist for understanding the privacy rights and expectations of the users. The following guide of best practices pulls from documents like EFF's Bill of Privacy Rights for Social Network Users and the recently released White House white paper "Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World" to set a baseline for what mobile industry players must do to respect user privacy." Read more
I'm Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web
Madrigal, Alexis. "I'm Being Followed: How Google—and 104 Other Companies—Are Tracking Me on the Web." The Atlantic, February 29, 2012.
From the article: "Militating against this collapse of privacy is a protection embedded in the very nature of the online advertising system. No person could ever actually look over the world's web tracks. It would be too expensive and even if you had all the human laborers in the world, they couldn't do the math fast enough to constantly recalculate web surfers' value to advertisers. So, machines are the ones that do all of the work.
When new technologies come up against our expectations of privacy, I think it's helpful to make a real-world analogy. But we just do not have an adequate understanding of anonymity in a world where machines can parse all of our behavior without human oversight. Most obviously, with the machine, you have more privacy than if a person were watching your clickstreams, picking up collateral knowledge. A human could easily apply analytical reasoning skills to figure out who you were. And any human could use this data for unauthorized purposes. With our data-driven advertising world, we are relying on machines' current dumbness and inability to "know too much." Read more
From the article: "Militating against this collapse of privacy is a protection embedded in the very nature of the online advertising system. No person could ever actually look over the world's web tracks. It would be too expensive and even if you had all the human laborers in the world, they couldn't do the math fast enough to constantly recalculate web surfers' value to advertisers. So, machines are the ones that do all of the work.
When new technologies come up against our expectations of privacy, I think it's helpful to make a real-world analogy. But we just do not have an adequate understanding of anonymity in a world where machines can parse all of our behavior without human oversight. Most obviously, with the machine, you have more privacy than if a person were watching your clickstreams, picking up collateral knowledge. A human could easily apply analytical reasoning skills to figure out who you were. And any human could use this data for unauthorized purposes. With our data-driven advertising world, we are relying on machines' current dumbness and inability to "know too much." Read more
Legal Risks of Going Paperless
Gallegos, Alicia. "Legal Risks of Going Paperless." American Medical News, March 5, 2012.
From the article: "System breaches. Modification allegations. E-discovery demands. These issues are becoming common courtroom themes as physicians transition from paper to EMRs, legal experts say. Not only are EMRs becoming part of medical negligence lawsuits, they are creating additional liability….Studies are mixed about how EMRs will impact liability for physicians. A 2010 survey by Conning Research and Consulting, an insurance industry research firm, found that most insurers believe medical claims will rise during the move from paper to electronic records. Lawsuits probably will decrease after an adjustment period, the study said. A report in the Nov. 18, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine said doctors should expect a varied landscape of liability risks and benefits as EMR adoption unfolds. Whatever the future holds for EMRs, it’s important that doctors reduce their liability risks during system implementation, legal experts say." Read more
From the article: "System breaches. Modification allegations. E-discovery demands. These issues are becoming common courtroom themes as physicians transition from paper to EMRs, legal experts say. Not only are EMRs becoming part of medical negligence lawsuits, they are creating additional liability….Studies are mixed about how EMRs will impact liability for physicians. A 2010 survey by Conning Research and Consulting, an insurance industry research firm, found that most insurers believe medical claims will rise during the move from paper to electronic records. Lawsuits probably will decrease after an adjustment period, the study said. A report in the Nov. 18, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine said doctors should expect a varied landscape of liability risks and benefits as EMR adoption unfolds. Whatever the future holds for EMRs, it’s important that doctors reduce their liability risks during system implementation, legal experts say." Read more
Needles in a Haystack: Seeking Knowledge With Clinical Informatics
Needles in a Haystack: Seeking Knowledge With Clinical Informatics, prepared by the PwC Health Research Institute, February 2012.
From the report: "One constant in all of the new care and reimbursement models is data. With the digitization of healthcare, new opportunities are rising from a marked increase in the channels, volume, and complexity of information available. Organizations will compete on how effectively and affordably they manage patient care and identify patients who need preventive care. Healthcare organizations need strategies for mining data, conducting and integrating evidence-based research, and driving the behavior changes required for patient compliance.…Clinical informatics is a nascent, booming science that melds technology, patient care, financial reporting, and partnership." Read more (registration may be required)
From the report: "One constant in all of the new care and reimbursement models is data. With the digitization of healthcare, new opportunities are rising from a marked increase in the channels, volume, and complexity of information available. Organizations will compete on how effectively and affordably they manage patient care and identify patients who need preventive care. Healthcare organizations need strategies for mining data, conducting and integrating evidence-based research, and driving the behavior changes required for patient compliance.…Clinical informatics is a nascent, booming science that melds technology, patient care, financial reporting, and partnership." Read more (registration may be required)
The Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information
The Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information, prepared by the American National Standards Institute, Shared Assessments and the Internet Security Alliance, March 5, 2012.
From the abstract: "The Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information: A Business Case for Enhanced PHI Security explores the reputational, financial, legal, operational, and clinical repercussions of a protected health information (PHI) breach on an organization, and provides a 5-step method – PHI Value Estimator (PHIve)- to assess specific security risks and build a business case for enhanced PHI security. This tool estimates the overall potential costs of a data breach to an organization, and provides a methodology for determining an appropriate level of investment needed to strengthen privacy and security programs and reduce the probability of a breach. A detailed example of costing a PHI breach using the PHIve method is provided." Read more (registration may be required)
From the abstract: "The Financial Impact of Breached Protected Health Information: A Business Case for Enhanced PHI Security explores the reputational, financial, legal, operational, and clinical repercussions of a protected health information (PHI) breach on an organization, and provides a 5-step method – PHI Value Estimator (PHIve)- to assess specific security risks and build a business case for enhanced PHI security. This tool estimates the overall potential costs of a data breach to an organization, and provides a methodology for determining an appropriate level of investment needed to strengthen privacy and security programs and reduce the probability of a breach. A detailed example of costing a PHI breach using the PHIve method is provided." Read more (registration may be required)
Monday, March 5, 2012
Oversharing: Facebook Discovery and the Unbearable Sameness of Internet Law
Boyden, Bruce E. "Oversharing: Facebook Discovery and the Unbearable Sameness of Internet Law." Arkansas Law Review, Vol. 64, 2012; Marquette Law School Legal Studies Paper No. 12-01, February 27, 2012.
From the abstract: "In the wake of the rise of social networking sites, courts and litigants are struggling to define the limits of civil discovery of such information. Some courts have applied the same rules to social networks that apply to all other documents: relevant materials responsive to a party’s requests must be produced. But a significant number of courts have created an entirely new procedure, applicable only to discovery of social networking materials, by ordering parties receiving such requests to not simply produce responsive documents, but to provide the opposing party with access to their entire account. Indeed, in several cases, courts have ordered the production of a party’s username and password, potentially compromising the security of other sites as well.
These decisions are mistaken. Nothing in the applicable state or federal rules governing discovery requires or even permits a court to order a person to allow another party to obtain documentary evidence directly from the source. Instead, the rules require that person only to produce responsive materials within the scope of discovery." Read more
These decisions are mistaken. Nothing in the applicable state or federal rules governing discovery requires or even permits a court to order a person to allow another party to obtain documentary evidence directly from the source. Instead, the rules require that person only to produce responsive materials within the scope of discovery." Read more
Friday, March 2, 2012
Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days
Madrigal, Alexis. "Reading the Privacy Policies You Encounter in a Year Would Take 76 Work Days." The Atlantic, March 1, 2012.
From the article: "One simple answer to our privacy problems would be if everyone became maximally informed about how much data was being kept and sold about them. Logically, to do so, you'd have to read all the privacy policies on the websites you visit. A few years ago, two researchers, both then at Carnegie Mellon, decided to calculate how much time it would take to actually read every privacy policy you should. …So, each and every Internet user, were they to read every privacy policy on every website they visit would spend 25 days out of the year just reading privacy policies! If it was your job to read privacy policies for 8 hours per day, it would take you 76 work days to complete the task. Nationalized, that's 53.8 BILLION HOURS of time required to read privacy policies." Read more
Social Media Offers New Recruitment Strategy for Clinical Trials
Zamosky, Lisa. "Social Media Offers New Recruitment Strategy for Clinical Trials." iHealthBeat, March 1, 2012.
From the article: "Facebook and clinical research may sound like strange bedfellows, but researchers from academic settings and the pharmaceutical industry have started to jump onto the social media bandwagon. Many researchers say social media can educate patients about the value of clinical research and encourage them to participate in studies. The success of clinical research hinges, in large part, on the ability to recruit patients. Yet, targeting the right patients and retaining their participation is one of the greatest challenges researchers face…. To prevent such losses and attract more patients to clinical trials, researchers increasingly are turning to social media." Read more
Thursday, March 1, 2012
ICANN Plays the Name Game With Domain Names
Gruenwald, Juliana. "ICANN Plays the Name Game With Domain Names." Nextgov, February 29, 2012.
From the article: "The group that manages the Internet's domain-name system is facing a real test of confidence.The Commerce Department is weighing whether to renew the contract under which the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers performs technical functions that help make the Web run smoothly. This contract, under which ICANN runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, expires at the end of March. The contract covers such tasks as doling out the pool of Internet protocol numbers connecting computers to the Web. But on a more basic level, the IANA contract is the only concrete leverage the U.S. government still has over ICANN, which it picked in 1998 to take over management of the Internet's domain-name system…. Stakeholders say they hope Commerce will use the contract renewal to influence ICANN's new domain policy, require the organization to be more transparent, and implement stronger conflict-of-interest rules." Read more
From the article: "The group that manages the Internet's domain-name system is facing a real test of confidence.The Commerce Department is weighing whether to renew the contract under which the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers performs technical functions that help make the Web run smoothly. This contract, under which ICANN runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, expires at the end of March. The contract covers such tasks as doling out the pool of Internet protocol numbers connecting computers to the Web. But on a more basic level, the IANA contract is the only concrete leverage the U.S. government still has over ICANN, which it picked in 1998 to take over management of the Internet's domain-name system…. Stakeholders say they hope Commerce will use the contract renewal to influence ICANN's new domain policy, require the organization to be more transparent, and implement stronger conflict-of-interest rules." Read more
Survey Puts Care Coordination As 'Most Important' Benefit of HIEs
Manos, Diana. "Survey Puts Care Coordination As 'Most Important' Benefit of HIEs." Healthcare IT News, February 28, 2012.
From the article: "The most important benefit of health information exchange is its capacity to improve care coordination, according to a new survey by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC). The survey, conducted February 13-17 via questionnaire to more than 210 stakeholders, showed that 73 percent of respondents thought improved care coordination was the most important benefit of HIEs when respondents were asked to select three benefits. Other results showed respondents putting most important HIE benefits in this order:
From the article: "The most important benefit of health information exchange is its capacity to improve care coordination, according to a new survey by the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC). The survey, conducted February 13-17 via questionnaire to more than 210 stakeholders, showed that 73 percent of respondents thought improved care coordination was the most important benefit of HIEs when respondents were asked to select three benefits. Other results showed respondents putting most important HIE benefits in this order:
- 65 percent said providers and patients have the right information available when needed;
- 39 said improved efficiency was most important; and
- 37 percent said improved quality was the most important benefit." Read more
See Also
2012 NeHC Stakeholder Survey Results, National eHealth Collaborative, 2012.
Think Again: Cyberwar
Rid, Thomas. "Think Again: Cyberwar." Foreign Policy, March/April 2012.
From the article: "Cyberwar is still more hype than hazard. Consider the definition of an act of war: It has to be potentially violent, it has to be purposeful, and it has to be political. The cyberattacks we've seen so far, from Estonia to the Stuxnet virus, simply don't meet these criteria…. Indeed, there is no known cyberattack that has caused the loss of human life. No cyberoffense has ever injured a person or damaged a building. And if an act is not at least potentially violent, it's not an act of war. Separating war from physical violence makes it a metaphorical notion; it would mean that there is no way to distinguish between World War II, say, and the "wars" on obesity and cancer. Yet those ailments, unlike past examples of cyber "war," actually do kill people." Read more
Stop the ‘Do Not Track’ Madness
Weinstein, Lauren. "Stop the ‘Do Not Track’ Madness." Wired, February 29, 2012.
From the commentary: "It’s human nature to want something for nothing. But when it comes to web services, this understandable tendency seems to often blossom into a veritable psychosis. The unending brouhaha over internet “Do Not Track” controversies is an obvious case in point.
When it comes to internet issues, emotion and political gamesmanship have often replaced common sense and logic to no good end, as when Google recently was falsely accused of intentional privacy violations for merely employing widely used workarounds to fundamentally flawed browser cookie systems." Read more
From the commentary: "It’s human nature to want something for nothing. But when it comes to web services, this understandable tendency seems to often blossom into a veritable psychosis. The unending brouhaha over internet “Do Not Track” controversies is an obvious case in point.
When it comes to internet issues, emotion and political gamesmanship have often replaced common sense and logic to no good end, as when Google recently was falsely accused of intentional privacy violations for merely employing widely used workarounds to fundamentally flawed browser cookie systems." Read more
Schmidt: UN Treaty a 'Disaster' for the Internet
Woods, Ben. "Schmidt: UN Treaty a 'Disaster' for the Internet." ZDNet UK, February 29, 2012.
From the opinion: "In a question-and-answer session at Mobile World Congress 2012 on Tuesday, Schmidt said handing over control of things such as naming and DNS to the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) would divide the internet, allowing it to be further broken into pieces regulated in different ways.
"That would be a disaster... To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another," Schmidt said." Read more
From the opinion: "In a question-and-answer session at Mobile World Congress 2012 on Tuesday, Schmidt said handing over control of things such as naming and DNS to the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) would divide the internet, allowing it to be further broken into pieces regulated in different ways.
"That would be a disaster... To some, the openness and interoperability is one of the greatest achievements of mankind in our lifetime. Do not give that up easily. You will regret it. You will hate it, because all of a sudden all that freedom, all that flexibility, you'll find it shipped away for one good reason after another," Schmidt said." Read more
Millennials Will Benefit and Suffer Due to Their Hyperconnected Lives
Anderson, Janna and Lee Rainie. "Main findings: Teens, Technology, and Human Potential in 2020," from the Pew Internet & America Life Project report, Millennials Will Benefit and Suffer Due to Their Hyperconnected Lives, February 29, 2012.
From the report: "Many survey participants said always-on connectivity to global information is a double-edged sword. Dave Rogers, managing editor of Yahoo Kids, observed that there will be winners and losers as this technology evolves. “Certainly,” he noted, “there will be some teens and young adults who will suffer cognitive difficulties from unhealthy use of the internet, Web, social media, games, and mobile technology. These problems will arise not because of the technology but because of wholly inadequate adult guidance, training, and discipline over young people's use of the technology. But most teens and young adults will prosper as described in the first option.”… Still, argued Oscar Gandy, emeritus professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, there is reason to worry that everyone’s attention could be overwhelmed in the always-on environment." Read more
From the report: "Many survey participants said always-on connectivity to global information is a double-edged sword. Dave Rogers, managing editor of Yahoo Kids, observed that there will be winners and losers as this technology evolves. “Certainly,” he noted, “there will be some teens and young adults who will suffer cognitive difficulties from unhealthy use of the internet, Web, social media, games, and mobile technology. These problems will arise not because of the technology but because of wholly inadequate adult guidance, training, and discipline over young people's use of the technology. But most teens and young adults will prosper as described in the first option.”… Still, argued Oscar Gandy, emeritus professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, there is reason to worry that everyone’s attention could be overwhelmed in the always-on environment." Read more
Europe in Turmoil Over Internet Anti-Piracy Legislation
Barker, Tyson. "Europe in Turmoil Over Internet Anti-Piracy Legislation." The Atlantic, February 27, 2012.
From the article: "In the wake of the public outcry in the United States over proposed domestic antipiracy legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), international regulation is also taking a hit. The edifice of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) seems to have crumbled. This time, however, it happened in Europe.
The European Commission has suspended ACTA's ratification, shunting it instead into the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This is read by some as a means of putting the debate on ice for a year. ACTA's Commission proponents seem to hope that a favorable ruling by the ECJ will provide the political cover necessary to defuse their critics' arguments that the agreement is a violation of fundamental rights to internet freedom and privacy." Read more
From the article: "In the wake of the public outcry in the United States over proposed domestic antipiracy legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), international regulation is also taking a hit. The edifice of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) seems to have crumbled. This time, however, it happened in Europe.
The European Commission has suspended ACTA's ratification, shunting it instead into the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This is read by some as a means of putting the debate on ice for a year. ACTA's Commission proponents seem to hope that a favorable ruling by the ECJ will provide the political cover necessary to defuse their critics' arguments that the agreement is a violation of fundamental rights to internet freedom and privacy." Read more