It would be difficult, if not impossible to imagine existence without the World Wide Web. It is so very much a part of our daily lives. We take it for granted. Equally, not many of us are aware or even care to educate ourselves about the genesis of this indispensable part of our existence. Efforts…
Facebook is again trying to simplify its privacy policy — and make it much shorter — to better explain how it targets advertisements to its 1.35 billion users. The world’s largest online social network uses the information people share on its site, along with the apps they employ and the websites they visit, to show…
Blocking Internet porn may be next to impossible. But the Indian government is going to try anyhow. The plan is to begin by creating a list of pornography sites, especially those hosting child porn, and provide that to Internet service providers (ISPs) to block. And then, to ensure that large-scale blocking does not slow Internet access, service…
Now that net neutrality is in the news again thanks to President Obama’s strong statement in favor of it yesterday, it’s worth revisiting one of the core tenets of technology. In a free market, when technology increases personal freedom, it succeeds. When it tries to diminish personal freedom, it fails. People stop using it, and it…
The vast majority – 91% – of Americans believe that consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies, according to a survey. A further 80% also felt that Americans should be concerned about government surveillance, Pew Research suggested. It looked at attitudes to privacy and data in the wake…
America’s major telecoms and cable companies and business groups came out fighting on Monday after Barack Obama called for tough new regulations for broadband that would protect net neutrality, saying they were “stunned” by the president’s proposals. The president called for new regulations to protect “net neutrality” – the principle that all traffic on the internet should be…
Charity organisations and other not for-profits can soon get an exclusive domain extension to register their Web identity. Public Interest Registry (PIR), the organisation that manages also the .org domain, will roll out the .ngo suffix this January, giving non-governmental organisations the option to add it to the right of the dot in their website…
The Right to Information Act (RTI) was a landmark act of the Parliament of India. Under this act, any citizen of the country can request any information from a public authority (largely referring to the Government). The authority is required to reply to this request within 30 days. This law has helped bring out many…
For better or worse, news outlets around the world are shaping their content to the likes, shares and retweets of social networks more than ever before, shifting power away from editors and giving it to readers. An article in the New York Times, detailing the impact of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm on news websites, highlights the…
The British Council and English in Action have jointly organised a two day seminar on “Education, Technology and Women: Key Issues for Development”. The policy seminar held on 16-17 September 2014, offered a timely platform to discuss and influence policy agendas surrounding education and technology and their access by women in Bangladesh and around the world. The…