Information Society Watch

2000, Lucas D. Intron & Helen Nissenbaum, The Information Society

This article argues that search engines raise not merely technical issues but also political ones. The study reveals that search engines systematically exclude (by design and/or accidentally) certain sites, and certain types of sites, in favour of others, systematically give prominence to some at the expense of others.

January 2007, Tim Wu & Christopher Yoo, Social Science Reseach Network

In the following exchange, Professors Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo engage in an informative debate over the merits of network neutrality that reviews the leading arguments on both sides of the issue.

Winter 2008, Sascha D. Meinrath & Victor W. Pickard, International Journal of Communications Law & Policy

The meteoric rise of network neutrality's prominence as a crucial Internet policy debate has led to current events far outpacing theoretical and historical analyses. This paper addresses this lag in scholarship by contextualizing recent events in relation to historical telecommunications antecedents. In doing so, the authors critically evaluate the current network neutrality debate and offer a set of technical and policy guidelines for a new, more broadly defined network neutrality.

Wintern 2008, Gerard Goggin, International Journal of Communications Law and Policy

Internet and media convergence has been for sometime concentrated on mobile technologies. Most notable, perhaps, has been the emergence of a cluster of online, mobile data and content services and technologies that have been precursors of fully-fledged mobile media themselves. With these important, lucrative, and potentially far-reaching developments in mind, this paper focusses on international approaches to regulation of mobile content with case studies of the US, Canada, Britain and Australia.As well as reflecting on the trends across these countries, the author also considers the implications of such regulation, and the new models of governance they represent, for questions of cultural citizenship.

2008, James Grimmelmann

Web search is critical to our ability to use the Internet. Whoever controls search engines has enormous influence on all of us. Whoever controls the search engines, perhaps, controls the Internet itself.

August 29, 2008, New York Times

It is a well known fact that the Internet as we know it was created in the US & it is equally true that till late most of the Internet traffic as we know used be routed through the US for economic reasons. But as this article points out, that trend is changing with traffic beginning to flow around the US through other locations. While this was expected given the fact that the Internet does not have a central focus of control, it does raise uncomfortable questions for the United States who are used to controlling the flow of content through the Internet.

Oct 29, 2007 Linda Rosencrance, MacWorld

Software behemoths Microsoft and Google have launched ambitious projects to digitise the contents of the world's great libraries. While this is a laudable initiative which promises to provide greater access and search capability on a huge amount of printed content which was not available.

December 11, 2007, Center for Democracy and Technology

This report by the Center for Democracy and Technology looks at the United States E-Government act of 2002 and its effectiveness in making government available to citizens. It aims to highlight the lack of accessible government information to encourage federal agencies to consider their information policies.

March 31, 2008, Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News

This blog by a BBC technology correspondent discusses the future of online encyclopedias, with a focus on whether Wikipedia will continue to rule the reference arena. It explores the benefits of an open model of knowledge building versus models that favour 'experts'.

March 17, 2008, Nate Anderson, Ars Technica

Based on a recent report on the state of the news media, this article says that the making and marketing of news on the Internet is dominated by the same players who control the traditional print media. The report, released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, suggests that bloggers rarely represent popular opinion, as most bloggers come from elite backgrounds.