Posts tagged Bill
US Senate Bill Would Fine Companies Millions for Weak Online Security
Sep 9th
US Senate lawmakers will introduce a bill next Thursday that would fine big companies that lose consumer data in a security breach due to poor security measures.
The Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act, sponsored by Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, would enable the Justice Department to fine businesses with more than 10,000 customers $5,000 per violation per day, with a maximum of $20 million per violation, according to The Hill.
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If the bill passes, it would require testing of security controls and systems to prevent intrusions or service attacks on a frequent basis. The actual frequency of testing would be determined by a government mandated security assessment, which raises a lot of questions about who is doing the testing, and how they do it, and with which government agencies that security data is shared.
Read More About Washington’s Focus on Online Security
Should the US Government Trust the Cloud
headlineAmazon Builds a Wall Around Its Cloud for the U.S. Government
U.S. Government Reviewing OpenID for Login on .Gov Sites
Should the US Government Trust the Cloud
headlineAmazon Builds a Wall Around Its Cloud for the U.S. Government
U.S. Government Reviewing OpenID for Login on .Gov Sites
We put in a line to Sen. Blumenthal’s office for more information and will update you when we know more.
It seems that the core of the legislation is designed to counter the sort of recent high-profile attacks on online sites that held significant consumer data. The bill would fight delays in informing the public when their data has been compromised and eradicate filters to transparency, which would allow the public to know more about how their data is being used and what threats have recently threatened it.
“The amount of time should be measured in hours, not days, at most in days, not weeks,” Blumenthal told The Hill.
Photo by WildFire Effects
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House Committee Approves U.S. Internet Spy Bill: This Week in Online Tyranny
Aug 4th
House committee sees spying bill pass. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill through to the House that would mandate American Internet providers retain their users’ information for 12 months, according to EFF. H.R. 1821 would require ISPs to keep “personal information that could be used to identify what Web sites you visit and what content you post online.”
This bill was opposed by politicians from both parties, as well as 30 privacy groups. That didn’t stop the Judiciary committee from voting for it, 19 to 10. See ReadWriteWeb’s coverage of the bill in terms of its possible violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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China monitors Wi-Fi connections. According to Global Voices:
“Beijing Police has issued a notice to all the cafes and bars which provide Wi-Fi access to their customers to install a RMB20,000 monitoring system. Upon installation, users have to register their ID in the counter before logging in the Wi-Fi network. The notice was issued by the Beijing police around end of June, 2011 to cafe, bookstore, and bar which provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers. If they reject, they will no longer be allowed to provide free Wi-Fi service.”
U.S. government indicts Twitter user for stalking. William Cassidy criticized a public official on Twitter and now faces jail time for it under a stalking law. Opponents argue that the law in question was designed to prohibit the use of tech to locate stalking victims, not to criticize public figures.
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Big Tech Fights Big Government Over Proposed California Privacy Bill
May 17th
Big Tech is fighting Big Government in California over a proposed privacy bill that would limit the amount of information that companies can share about their users. A coalition of tech companies including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Match.com, Twitter and others sent a letter to the California Senate May 16 opposing the bill, saying it is unnecessary and would be detrimental to the tech industry and thus to California’s economy.
Proposed by Sen. Ellen Corbett, the bill would force social networks to institute default settings upon registration of what users share on the services. Users can opt to share more information than the default, which would only list the users’ city of residence. Tech companies are fighting on the basis that the bill is Draconian and unintuitive and that, as an industry, technology can do better than the California legislature.
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The coalition contends that the bill, California SB 242, would violate the U.S. and California constitutions First Amendment (California Article 1) regarding free speech.
“Social Networking Privacy Act would establish a barrier between an existing California user of a social networking site and her ability to continue speaking as desired,” the coalition wrote. “By hiding from view of all existing usersʼ information until they made a contrary choice, the State of California would be significantly limiting those users ability to “freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects.”
The coalition calls the proposals in SB 242 “privacy shrink wrap.” The companies contend that the bill would “force users to make decisions about privacy and visibility of all their information well before they have ever used the service.” They say that users would quickly click through the registration privacy options without giving it critical thought. A better way, the coalition thinks, is “contextual” privacy where users decide what can be shared on a case-by-case basis and cites the Federal Trade Commission as calling it a best practice in social sharing. Hence, privacy for users would, in theory, decrease under SB 242.
Unnecessary & Unwanted?
The coalition cites research by Pew Internet and American Life Project that says that most social network users who care about privacy are active in controlling their settings, either for more or less visibility. The bill also proposes a $10,000 fine to Internet companies who do not take down personally identifiable information of users within 48 hours if requested. The coalition says that only 8% of social networking users have ever asked for personal information to be taken down.
The letter closes by saying the discussion of online privacy is an important one, but the California law is inadequate and potentially harmful to the state.
“Rather than establishing a floor for online privacy which social networking sites must meet or exceed, SB 242 would establish a ceiling, undermining meaningful consumer choice while incentivizing this growing industry to expand their operations anywhere but California,” the coalition wrote.
The argument between the state and the tech industry reminiscent of anti-logging campaigns in Northern U.S. states. Lawmakers are stuck between what could be construed as an altruistic move (saving the environment, or in this case, users’ privacy) and an important industry that is the lifeblood of the local economy. In such cases there are no easy answers and the arguments become more bitter as the debate continues on.
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Do E-Book Users Need a Bill of Rights? (Librarians Think So)
Feb 28th
The news that the publisher HarperCollins would be capping the number of times a library could lend a digital copy of a book to 26 has raised concerns – yet again – about the ramifications of our rush to embrace e-books. As one librarian, John Atzberger writes on his blog, the new model from HarperCollins “eliminates almost all the major advantages of the item’s being digital, without restoring the permanence, durability, vendor-independence, technology-neutrality, portability, transferability, and ownership associated with the physical version.”
Libraries may be on the front-lines of this latest battle, one that makes it clear that issues like DRM and lending policies can have troubling repercussions. Although the HarperCollins announcement impacts just lending through libraries, librarians are quick to point out that it isn’t simply their institutions that will suffer.
To that end, librarians have started issuing statements, posting an “e-book users bill of rights” to their blogs. The statement, posted in full below, addresses “the basic freedoms that should be granted to all e-book users.”
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The Bill of Rights insists that users have access to their e-books – unrestrained by proprietary platforms – and can retain, archive, annotate, share, and resell their e-books. Many of those actions are forbidden if not restricted by e-books.
Should Libraries Avoid DRM Content?
The librarians’ statement challenges the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) which makes possessing an e-book a lot less like ownership and a lot more like licensing or subscription. As author Cory Doctorow notes in his story on the HarperCollins e-book lending policy, DRM media is “unsafe at any speed.”
I mean it. When HarperCollins backs down and says, “Oh, no, sorry, we didn’t mean it, you can have unlimited ebook checkouts,” the libraries’ answers should be “Not good enough. We want DRM-free or nothing.” Stop buying DRM ebooks. Do you think that if you buy twice, or three times, or ten times as many crippled books that you’ll get more negotiating leverage with which to overcome abusive crap like this? Do you think that if more of your patrons come to rely on you for ebooks for their devices, that DRM vendors won’t notice that your relevance is tied to their product and tighten the screws?
HarperCollins isn’t the first time that access to e-books have been retracted. Amazon set off an uproar several years ago when it summarily deleted Kindle users’ copies of George Orwell books.
Is DRM the price we pay to move to digital content? Is it a necessary move in order to convince publishers that their products are (relatively) safe from piracy? Or is this price too high, closing down access to information, art, and literature?
The E-Book User’s Bill of Rights
Every eBook user should have the following rights:
- the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
- the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
- the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
- the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks
I believe in the free market of information and ideas.
I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.
Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.
I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.
I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.
These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.
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President Bill Clinton Talks About Wikileaks
Dec 8th
President Bill Clinton discussed Wikileaks in a keynote speech at the Dreamforce conference today.
Clinton used the Wikileaks issue to illustrate the theme of his discussion, which centered on instability in the world.
“What you do not see is how many people were exposed,” Clinton said about Wikileaks, referring to informants providing information about their native countries to the United States.
As a result, people may be killed and careers will be ruined, Clinton said.
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He discussed the leak and the role U.S. Army Bradley Manning had in sharing the data with Wikileaks. He said it turns out Manning was angry with his father, a lifetime member of U.S. Army. He said Manning “broke into” the data he leaked, which had been given to the U.S. Department of Defense by the U.S. State Department after 9/11.
It is unclear if Manning broke in and we do not know how much the role his Dad played in why he released the data.
Clinton spent most of his talk discussing the world, the state of the economy and politics. He used Wikileaks to ilustrate the issues in the world – more than anything else.
But it is clear that he views the damages as more significant than the opportunities that may come, now that the Wikileaks data is available on the Internet.
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Time To Rally For An Advertiser’s Bill of Rights
Oct 25th
Search advertising has resembled the wild west for too long. Advertisers have been misled, mistreated and overcharged; the standards of service must improve lest all firms—good, bad and indifferent—be tarred with the same brush. Herewith, a modest proposal for a bill of rights for advertisers.
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above ***
View full post on Search Engine Land: News About Search Engines & Search Marketing
Great to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer – Elliot’s Blog (blog)
Oct 5th
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Great to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer
Elliot’s Blog (blog) I've basically stuck with the free SEO analysis tools found throughout the web, which has been helpful to a degree, but it's certainly not the best way to … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Grea to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer – Elliot’s Blog (blog)
Oct 5th
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Grea to Work With a SEO Expert Like Bill Hartzer
Elliot’s Blog (blog) I've basically stuck with the free SEO analysis tools found throughout the web, which has been helpful to a degree, but it's certainly not the best way to … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
