- Privacy in Online Behavioral Tracking and Targeting – It’s Time to Protect Consumers. [EFF] The Electronic Frontier Foundation can do no wrong in my book. EFF and a coalition of other consumer and privacy groups called on Congress today to protect Americans’ privacy from invasive online behavioral tracking and targeting.
- The Internet has not transformed civic engagement… yet. [Ars Technica] Best quote of the day by Matthew Lasar of Ars Technica. “If there is any subject that optimists and pessimists love to bang heads over, it’s the Internet. To follow the experts, we’re either on the cyber-road to utopia or going to alt-hell in an iPhone app handbasket, depending on what day of the week it is.”
- The Library of the Commons: Rise of the Infodex. [O'Reilly] Good read, fresh perspective, arguably tough to implement.
- Help Me Investigate is a platform that helps users organize and pursue questions of public interest that they think should be investigated. I haven’t tried the service yet (I don’t have anything worth investigating right now), but a number of submissions seem like straight up Q&A. Never the less HMI is an interesting service. We’ve seen structured investigative crowdsourcing projects work well in the past – i.e. The Guardian’s crowdsourcing MP expense report project.
- Internet providers seek low broadband bar. [Reuters] A conservative definition of “broadband” is nothing more than watered-down standards. ISPs arguing for minimum speeds that are substantially below many other nations. How about that.
Newsworthy:
- eBay Inc. Signs Definitive Agreement to Sell Skype in Deal Valuing Communications Business at $2.75 Billion. [Yahoo Finance]
Coverage: New York Times, Silicon Alley Insider, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Skype Journal, GigaOM.
- Today’s Gmail Problems. [Gmail Blog] Gmail went down today. Tough times indeed.
Coverage: TechCrunch, CNET News, Technologizer, Data Center Knowledge.
