He is also a well respected columnist on internet and copyright issues facing Canada, and the rest of the globe. He also blogs about those issues, and his opinions on subjects dealing with the web are always well considered and thoughtful.

So, when I saw a new article from him about his recent visit to China, I thought that it worth sharing here…

I’ve been a faithful reader of the BNA Internet Law News that he compiles, and sends out free every Monday through Friday, providing summaries of the latest news in internet law, with links to full text articles on the subject. It’s a great way to stay up on the topic, and I highly recommend it if you have an interest in being informed of the latest in legal developments online.

His latest article is about a recent visit to mainland China, and his experiences with trying to use the internet while there. Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China is a reminder of the power of governments to shape how people within their borders experience the web, and how those governments might shape our experiences of the web.

Professor Geist tells us:

The Internet may be accessible from Toronto to Beijing, yet people in these two cities do not access the same Internet. The challenge in the months and years ahead will be to promote Gilmore’s vision of online freedom through lobbying for greater access abroad and rejecting unnecessary and potentially dangerous limits at home.

We may not, as individuals, have much power to change the way people in China access the web, and expand the freedom that they possess to communicate with people from around the globe. But we do have some control over how we connect to the world, and we should be vigilant in watching how our governments attempt to exercise control over that access.

The search engine was one run by Verisign, and it wasn’t one that you decided upon yourself, or that you could opt out of going to.

It provided a way to search for the right address, or to click upon ads that were possibly paid for from other companies.

How did Verisign get the power to display this search engine where previously you might see an error message? It appears that they were taking economic advantage of their “stewardship” of the routing of visitors to web destinations. Type in an address that doesn’t exist, get redirected to Verisign’s search engine.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), who exist to attempt to oversee such issues have issued an 85 page long report condemning Versign for their Site Finder search engine.

The report, Redirection in the COM and NET Domains, is long, but very readable. Here’s a snippet:

Ultimately, the matter is one of fostering and sustaining trust. Most Web and e-mail end users have seen error messages when a name fails to resolve. These error messages usually come either as a Web page displayed on their browsers, perhaps supported by a well-known search service, or as a bounced message in their e-mail in-boxes. And many, if not most, end users know the rough contours of the explanation: That the name is supposed to correspond to a sequence of numbers that represent an address and that the registry databases maintain the relationship between the name and the address.

I think that level of trust is something that it is necessary and important to maintain. It’s at the very core of internet usage, that the companies that provide important services at the core level of service don’t attempt to take advantage of us. Nice document from ICANN.

If you have an interest in the governance of the internet, and the struggle between different forces to control the traffic upon the web, there are a lot of interesting statements and comments in the ICANN report.

Anytime anyone publishes something, there is a risk that someone isn’t going to be happy with what was published. Some things published might cause harm to the subjects of the articles.

But what about a site that doesn’t actually write the articles, or publish them in the first place, but rather offers those results as part of a bundle from a large number of web sites?

Sort of like what Google does?

Nothing has. Nothing likely will.

I watch headlines. I like the news. I enjoy seeing if someone can encapsulate the meaning of a long essay, or article, or tale in a handful of words. It’s a fine art, or a science, depending upon your belief system, education, upbringing, or desire to argue.

My nomination for best title of the week is The Hippie Professor and his PDF book. Second best title is that of the pdf book mentioned in the first one: Free Culture (pdf), which I suspect works on at least a couple of different levels.

The Professor mentioned is no Hippy, though you can figure that out for yourself fairly quickly with a visit to his blog. He’s not advocating a time of “free” love or anarchy or irresponsibiilty or a legalization of drugs.

Rather, he’s asking us to understand how the internet can transform society, and how there are forces that want to shape and control this growth to their own benefit and profit. Here’s a snippet:

The warriors have turned to the courts, to the legislatures, and increasingly to technology to defend their “property” against this “piracy.” A generation of Americans, the warriors warn, is being raised to believe that “property” should be “free.” Forget tattoos, never mind body piercing—our kids are becoming thieves!

There’s no doubt that “piracy” is wrong, and that pirates should be punished. But before we summon the executioners, we should put this notion of “piracy” in some context. For as the concept is increasingly used, at its core is an extraordinary idea that is almost certainly wrong.

No, the professor isn’t a hippie, but he is challenging large media companies, and their control of intellectual property. And, while the PDF book is 352 pages long, I’ve found myself having read the first third of it while writing this post. Take a look. It might make you think about the internet in a slightly different way.

There are also two lawsuits involving Google and American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc., on both coasts of the United States, which involve Google selling advertising when registered trademarks of American Blind are used as a search.

The companies had been contacted over the past year, and offered the opportunity to license the technology. None accepted.

This press release from July of 2002, clarifies their understanding of what they own when it comes to the seventeen-year-old jpg format.

The slashdot thread from back then contains some thoughtful and interesting commentary. Today’s thread is worth a visit for its discussion of jpeg vs png, the notion that jpg is actually a suite of many technologies, and that the jpg patent in questions will expire within the next couple of years or so.

The problem as they see it is that there have been a number of patents awarded without an adequate level of review from the US patent office.

They are spearheading this project on two different fronts:

One is to document the harm to free expression, and small businesses, and non-commercial efforts.

The other is to actually challenge the worst of the patents they identify with a re-examination request filed with the Patent Office.

Here are some recent topics of patents dealing with the web:

hyperlinks
pop-up windows
paying with credit cards online
affiliate linking

It’s good to se an organization like the EFF taking a stand on this issue.

There are programs that can find themselves on your computer in a number of ways, all of which are questionable. Some of them serve ads. Others collect information about your computer usage, and surfing habits, and “phone home” with that information.

I’ll point people towards the and.doxdesk.com parasite page if I can’t help in person. In addition to having a script on it that will sometimes identify which parasite might be infecting a browser, it also has links to some great software programs such as ad aware and spybot. The page also has some details on steps to take for specific parasites, though many of them involve doing things like editing a windows registry file. That can, and should be, a little intimidating for the non technical oriented.

There’s another step that we can take, regarding spyware. If you get calls like I do, to try to solve spyware problems, or if you just want to avoid those problems in the first place, consider raising your voice and letting the Federal Trade Commission know how you feel.

There’s a great example of a comment to the FTC over at Gamblog. The post notes that there will be a hearing on the subject open to the public on April 19th, 2004 and urges people to leave a comment on the FTC Spyware Workshop page. There’s a link on that page to “submit a comment.”

They also have a press release which notes that there is an extension of the public comment period. It was supposed to expire on March 19, 2004. The new deadline is May 21, 2004.

Please, leave them a comment. Let’s end the emergency housecalls that people have been making to exercise computers of spyware. Thanks!

As much as I enjoy his writing, I have to confess that when cyberpunk fiction pioneer William Gibson started a blog, and kept it running for nine months, it bothered me when he referred to the world as “Meatspace” more than a couple of times. For instance, here:

The same thing, you’ll recall, happened with Salam Pax, whose Iraqiness and whereabouts in meatspace were hotly debated, with some declaring him the subtle tool of devilishly clever Iraqi intelligence operatives.

The web is not some fantasy la-la land, where we are separate from the rigors of reality. When we visit a forum, or we write in a blog, or write a comment in a blog, we take a little bit of a risk.

The internet is part of the world. In many ways it may seem novel, and it isn’t as tangible as face-to-face conversations and interactions. But, you know what? Neither is a phone call.

How do you lessen risks while writing online?

If we write anonymously, it might not be much of a risk. There are bloggers who do keep their identities under covers, such as Atrios, who writes some interesting political commentary at Eschaton. I’ve heard that he is possibly located somewhere around Philadelphia, which isn’t too far from me. According to the linked article, he gets around 20,000 visitors a day. I suspect very few of those visitors would recognize him in person.

Rebecca Blood’s chapter except on Weblog Ethics offers some excellent suggestions for mitigating risks, and for treating others graciously. If you post to forums or blogs regulary, you might find her advice of interest.

You can also limit what you write about. Some people tend to write about personal relationships in blogs and online journals. Fine and good, but the intimacy of a personal diary doesn’t exist on the web. There are people you know who might take exception to being written about. Family and friends, for instance.

Or your Boss! An article in the latest Legal Times asks Can you be fired for complaining about your boss online?.

Are you taking other risks writing on the web?