WELCOME to Connected Rights, your teapot in the orbit of digital rights news and analysis. IT'S RARE TO SEE THE EXCESSIVELY POWERFUL complaining about their power, but that's what we saw last week when Cloudflare threw the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website to the wolves: http://for.tn/2vlJUV3 What's Cloudflare? The most important internet infrastructure company you've never heard … Continue reading Online power’s troubling concentration
Trump’s government vs online privacy
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your finger on the trigger of digital rights news and analysis. DONALD TRUMP'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT has gone after a US web host, Dreamhost, in an attempt to identify the many visitors to an anti-Trump website that uses the company's servers: http://for.tn/2w6AwJL Dreamhost is fighting the DOJ's efforts to seize its records for … Continue reading Trump’s government vs online privacy
Blocking the internet’s memory? A reason would be nice
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your hands in the air of digital rights news and analysis. THE INTERNET ARCHIVE is kind of the internet's memory – the repository where all the stuff that's been taken down or gone missing is replicated and searchable. Which makes it particularly worrying to see that the Indian government has apparently blocked it: http://bit.ly/2vLDkMn … Continue reading Blocking the internet’s memory? A reason would be nice
EU Court kicks mass surveillance yet again
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your flash in the pan of digital rights news and analysis. RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN MARCHING against the country's ever-expanding censorship of the internet. On Sunday, around a thousand people protested prominent cases of people being prosecuted for their online writings and videos. The day before, the Russian parliament passed a law prohibiting the … Continue reading EU Court kicks mass surveillance yet again
The war on encryption gets very silly indeed
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop of digital rights news and analysis. THE WAR ON ENCRYPTION has galloped over the threshold of farce in Australia, where prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a surprising downgrade for the jurisdiction of mathematics. Following the UK's lead, the Australian government has announced that it will try forcing online … Continue reading The war on encryption gets very silly indeed
So many ways to tackle Facebook over privacy
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your paddle up the creek of digital rights news and analysis. THE WORLD OF FACEBOOK AND PRIVACY provides rich pickings this week. First up, we have the German federal cartel office signalling that it thinks the company has been breaking antitrust law with its privacy practices. The authority's investigation is almost complete, and … Continue reading So many ways to tackle Facebook over privacy
What are the ethics of having cameras for eyes?
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your twinkle in the eye of digital rights news and analysis. THE ISSUE OF VIDEO-CAMERA ETHICS has been on my mind over the last couple days, thanks to two separate stories. The first relates to the German hypermarket chain Real getting the go-ahead from the Bavarian privacy regulator for its use of facial … Continue reading What are the ethics of having cameras for eyes?
The battle for the future of the internet is on
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your weekly buzzer in the handshake of digital rights news and analysis. THE BATTLE'S ON for the future of the internet in the US. On July 12, tech firms (such as Amazon and Reddit) and activist groups (from Greenpeace to Access Now) will participate in an "internet-wide day of action to save net … Continue reading The battle for the future of the internet is on
Privacy vs the news
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your weekly stroll down the poorly-lit lanes of digital rights. THE MEDIA NEEDS TO TRACK YOU TO SURVIVE, according to an open letter sent to EU lawmakers by a host of news publishers, including Der Spiegel, Le Monde, the Financial Times and the Guardian: http://bit.ly/2qA3P0W. So what's all this about then? The issue here is the EU's new … Continue reading Privacy vs the news
Change is coming
WELCOME to another edition of Connected Rights, your weekly blast of digital rights news and analysis. Why is it now coming out on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays? Because I'm still playing around with the format, and I suspect it may be more useful today than in the slide towards the weekend. As always, let me know … Continue reading Change is coming
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