Information Society Watch

2006, Yochai Benkler,Yale University Press

This book is a useful guide to the networked information economy and an eloquent statement of the left-liberal conception of the Internet’s “institutional ecology”.

2009, D. Howe and H. Nissenbaum, Oxford University Press

TrackMeNot (TMN) is a Firefox browser extension designed to achieve privacy in web search by obfuscating users’ queries within a stream of programmatically generated decoys. The authors in this article address why TMN’s approach is both legitimate and necessary for web search privacy.

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.

November 2008, Jaffrey Rosen, NY Times

This news article investigates and draws out revelations for taking stock of Google's avatar as a gatekeeper and the implications for free speech on Internet as well as the increasingly pertinent question of regulation-by whom and how?

March 2007, Jan Aart Scholte

Along with the general intensified globalisation of social relations in contemporary history has come an unprecedented expansion of regulatory apparatuses that cover planetary jurisdictions and constituencies. On the whole, however, this global governance remains weak relative to pressing current needs for global public policy. Shortfalls in moral standing, legal foundations, material delivery, democratic credentials and charismatic leadership have together generated large legitimacy deficits in existing global regimes. This fragile overall legitimacy has in turn constituted a major obstacle to achieving the substantial further growth of global-scale regulation that is required to secure decent human lives for all in a more global world. Insufficient capacities for global governance and insufficient legitimacy of global governance are thus coupled in damaging mutual reinforcement.

September 16, 2008, Declan McCullagh, Cnet News

Unknown to most people, a UN agency is quietly debating whether anonymity on the Internet should be done away with. A new set of technical standards which have been proposed by the Chinese government aims to trace the source of any sort of electronic communication, a move which can potentially make it impossible for anyone to remain anonymous and raises serious questions on privacy. It also means that anonomysing networks like Tor may be affected.

August 30, 2008, Paul Ohm , University of Colorado Law School

Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, advertisers and copyright owners have been tempting them to put their users' secrets up for sale, and judging from a recent flurry of reports, ISPs are giving in to the temptation and experimenting with new forms of spying. This is only the leading edge of a coming storm of unprecedented and invasive ISP surveillance.

August 28, 2008, The Times

The latest version of Internet Explorer which allows for greater privacy settings while browsing the Internet has potential problems for Google. IE 8 does not allow for websites to collect information about its users - data which is used to target advertising to users by Google.

August 2008, IT for Change

This is a contribution on behalf of IT for Change towards the September consultations which will decide the agenda for the third annual Internet Governance Forum to be held in Hyderabad in December 2008. This contribution specifically looks at the issue of 'enhanced co-operation' as a process for global Internet policy making.