Catching up on the news feed today. It seems to take so much longer when there’s lots of interesting stuff to read.
- Facebook crowd blamed for trashing English garden (C-Net): These net-based crowd gatherings (like Frozen London) are an interesting bridge between the on- and off-line worlds. I wonder if these types of gatherings get more chaotic if the powers that be will consider restricting them.
- New bill ties net neutrality to antitrust law (Ars): Since antitrust has in some cases been arguably under-enforced, this headline scared me a bit. Yet, some of the details of this bill sound promising (the part in italics sounds especially smart):
The bill is intended to “promote competition, to facilitate trade, and to ensure competitive and non-discriminatory access to the Internet.”
It does so by outlawing discriminatory fees for providing content, applications, or services over the ‘Net. Internet providers also have to interact fully with the networks of their competitors and provide equal access to all users and any devices they wish to put on the network. Network providers would be allowed to provide favored service to specific types of data but, if they do, they have to provide that same favoritism to anybody transmitting the data, and couldn’t charge for it.
- FCC 2.0: Change we can believe in? (Ars): An interesting overview of what could happen at the FCC should a democrat Obama be elected (here’s a riddle: who was president in 1996?).
- Chief RIAA Litigator Named Colorado Judge (Wired): The RIAA’s “top litigator” as an appeals judge. This might not seem as troublesome (he’s said to be a top notch lawyer) if the tactic of suing thousands of file sharers weren’t so legally and socially controversial.