UK rethinks awful opt-in web porn filter, comes up with a marginally better idea

After giving consideration to an opt-in Internet content filter, where users would have to request access to adult material, the UK government may announce an active choice system instead before the end of this month.

The debate over whether Internet service providers should be automatically blocking adult content on the Web in the UK continues, however this weekend, news of a slightly tweaked plan has broken.

British Prime Minister David Cameron is said to be pushing forward with a new set of proposals, which veer away from the opt-in schemes from before — where the filter would be active unless you asked for it to be switched off — to a slightly more sensible opt-out system.

Referred to as active choice, the idea is that anyone who buys a new computer or signs-up with a new ISP will be asked whether children will have access to the computer. If the answer is yes, users will be guided through the installation of a filter, before answering a series of questions to set its sensitivity.

To stop cheeky under-18s from bypassing the filter before installation, unnamed measures will be implemented to confirm the person’s age from the start. The proposal may be announced before December.

Filters for the technically naive

Details on the new filter come from a report published by the Daily Mail, a UK newspaper with a poor reputation which has been pushing its own Block Online Porn campaign for a while, despite publishing questionable content itself on a regular basis.

It cites studies that say one in three children under the age of 10 have viewed pornographic material online, while four out of five aged between 14 and 16 do so on a regular basis.

While the new plans go against the blanket op-out schemes previously being considered, the Daily Mail is still claiming this as a victory, despite the system being nowhere near as restrictive as it wanted.

Internet filters appeal to the technically naive, but there’s no guarantee they’ll work. One of the reasons a filter is being considered is to assist parents with no knowledge of computers or the Internet (and obviously, no wish to learn) help stop their children accessing adult content. Except filters are easily avoidable by those with a modicum of know-how, i.e. the kids.

Filters are often ineffectual

There are also problems with filters not only blocking the wrong content, but failing to block that which it’s supposed to. For example, last year a well-known adult video website still appeared to users behind TalkTalk’s HomeSafe filter, as the message the site had been blocked only appeared in a box usually reserved for an advert.

TalkTalk is still the only major ISP in the UK to provide a cross-platform Internet filter, although Sky and Virgin Media have both agreed in principle to implement the government’s plans in the future, should they become mandatory. For now though, both let users choose what can be viewed online in the privacy of their own homes.

It’s becoming increasingly likely that a government enforced filter will be introduced in the UK in the future. While worrying, if one really must be introduced, this latest version is the least insidious discussed so far.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Australia backs down on Internet porn filter plan, while Egypt pushes ahead

Australia has decided against introducing a mandatory, all-encompassing Internet porn filter, while in Egypt, the government has taken the opposite decision and will introduce just such a scheme soon.

Filtering the Internet to stop potentially harmful or illegal material from reaching the general population is a controversial subject, and one that has received considerable attention this year after the UK appeared to be edging ever closer to implementing such a scheme.

Other countries have been considering filtering Internet content too, and it so happens that today, Australia has decided not to go ahead with a mandatory filter, while Egypt has done the complete opposite.

We’ll start in Australia, where an all-encompassing Internet filter was put forward in 2007, but the plan stagnated for several years. Today, Australia’s Communications Minister has announced the government will no longer pursue its “mandatory filtering legislation,” but will instead use a list created by Interpol to block the worst offenders.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the major Internet providers have agreed to this, and it will see 90-percent of Internet subscribers without access to those sites featured by Interpol. Initially, the mandatory filter would have blocked sites with illegal sexual practices, sexual violence, drug use and those which “advocated terrorist activity.” The communications regulator would have also populated the list with sites about which it had received complaints.

Of course, not everyone is happy about the decision. A spokesperson for the Australian Christian Lobby said an Internet filter was needed to “protect our children from forming unhealthy attitudes towards women and sex.”

Egypt backs Web filter scheme

On that note, we’ll turn our attention to Egypt, where it’s a very different story. Following a series of demonstrations from a group by the name of Pure Net, the government has ordered a filter be introduced to ban pornographic websites. Like Australia, such a scheme had been proposed several years ago, but never enacted until now.

It’s estimated that introducing such a wide-ranging filter will cost $16.5 million, which according to one member of the Egyptian parliament is “worth the price,” as “no matter how much it costs, the moral value of this will be much more significant.” A strong supporter of the filter, he also says pornographic sites “deteriorate moral values and youth, promote a criminal culture and lead to unproductivity (sic), drugs and theft.”

The question of who will define what’s pornographic or obscene has yet to be answered, and many fear it will result in non-harmful sites also being blocked.

Other countries will no doubt be observing the response, and success, of both Australia and Egypt’s Web filtering plans. In the UK, nothing has been heard about the scheme since the end of a 10-week consultation in September.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Foursquare update delivers all your friends’ check-ins — anywhere, all the time

Foursquare's latest update allows you to see all of your friend's check-ins regardless of their location, but offers a feature to filter out their updates should you choose to do so.

Foursquare has had the unique challenge of pivoting its check-in platform, once the social-location darling, into something that can compete on a larger scale. The check-in has become an exhausting process that users are running awy from, and Foursquare’s robust, feature-full relaunch in June was all about making its app a more seamless, frictionless experience. The update announced today adds a relatively minor tool that enables users to keep real-time check-in notifications on or off.

The feature is a simple on and off toggle that has been included on the profile pages of your friends where you can select “Nearby,” “Off,” and “Always On.” Selecting “Nearby” will notify you only of check-ins that your friends have entered near your current location. “Always On,” however, notifies you on your Foursquare newsfeed of your friend’s check-ins from all location. You can also turn off notifications from your friends entirely.

There’s more to this than meets the eye. Check-ins have more or less been declared a dying breed, and this has clearly made some trouble for Foursquare. The app has started focusing on making itself a hub for finding out what locations friends are frequenting and for recommending new restaurants or venues. 

The latest update fits well into the scheme of Foursquare’s new strategy. All updates from your friends can be pushed to your newsfeed, should you choose to receive these notifications, and you can see exactly what they’re up to. It fuels the social strategy behind the company’s pivot. At the same time, the update compels users to engage with their friend’s updates, which is a boon to Foursquare and of course its advertisers. For example, by being able to view all of your friends’ check-ins you’re more inclined to discover new venues.

Given the heightened visibility to user location, there are bound to be new privacy concerns about how much information Foursquare is able to reveal. But realize that Foursquare isn’t among the so-called SoLoMo apps, like Glancee or Highlight, which are frictionless ambient social networks that will find anyone with the same app around you regardless of their affiliation with you. Once you’ve opened up Foursquare, you can decide to check-in to a location or choose not to do so. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Arrival Of Google Panda Marks The Beginning Of Content Revolution

The year 2012 has been extremely eventful for Google. With over four updates in the name of Google Panda  and Penguin, Google managed to filter hundreds and hundreds of websites through its advanced ranking factor. Each update was modified as per the results of the previous filter. In this article, I am going to highlight a few things that explain the nature of Google’s Panda in some light. Also, the article will talk about certain measures one can take to keep safe from the search engine ranking disaster.

The Objective

With its recent algorithm updates, Google has attempted to add a slight touch of “human” monitoring to its web relevance algorithms. The system has added factors such as content readability, site bounce rates, and genuine relevance to map the quality of a website. Fortunately, Google has achieved a healthy percentage of success in this attempt. Google Panda has managed to identify user-friendly websites than just web-crawler-friendly websites.

Websites’ Elements That Google Panda Dislikes

Google Panda works like cops. It is not responsible for honoring good quality content but for identifying and punishing poor-quality content. It does not allow low quality websites (having useless links, duplicate content etc), to rank. Unlike other Google algorithms, for Google Panda, keywords is not everything. Hence, if a website has poor quality content or duplicate content on most of its pages then it will definitely go down in the search engine rankings. Now what we need to focus here on, is what exactly defines low quality content.

• Duplicate content : First of all, it is duplicate content. Google Panda hates plagiarism. It does not believe in providing same information again and again by changing a few words here and there to get a pass from plagiarism detectors.  It needs, fresh, informative and genuine content.
• Quality of links : Secondly, Google Panda looks at quality of links, a website has received. Also, it will judge the content quality of the sites which are linked to the page. Hence, having safe links of genuine websites that do make sense to your website, is very crucial. Naturally, this is a major challenge for most SEO services providers and website owners.
• Advertisements:  All SEO services experts and website owners must refer to the fact that the count of advertisements on your page can disturb your page rankings. It is quite surprising to note that Google Panda  may also hurt a high-quality content website’s ranking, if it has extensive Google AdWords program. The idea is to balance advertisements and content on each and every page of a website. This is why most experts suggest to seek assistance of professional Google Panda and Penguin compliant SEO services. 

Avoiding the Panda Slap

The search engine optimization industry calls Google Panda punishment- Panda slap. If you get hit by Panda slap, then not only your Google rankings go down but you also are forced to deal with the whopping loss of 50% of your regular traffic. This will definitely result in a major blow on your overall revenue. Hence, it is imperative to keep safe from low quality articles and weak links.

The conclusion

Google brought Panda algorithm to keep the Internet space free from the crowd of scraper sites. It does that by punishing the websites from which such content is scraped. So, every website owner looking forward to getting ranked must come up with healthy websites. Good quality content, ideal linking and balanced advertising are the initial stepping stones that one must cover.

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

Google piracy penalty: YouTube, other user-generated content sites not in danger

Google's new anti-piracy search filter will not exclude Google-owned YouTube -- but probably won't hurt it much either.

Despite reports to the contrary, Google-owned YouTube will not be spared from the Internet giant’s ambiguous anti-piracy filter of search results, the company told Search Engine Land. However, Google does not believe YouTube, nor a number of other “popular,” user-generated websites, including Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr and others, will be severely affected by the new so-called piracy penalty.

Announced late last week, Google’s new anti-piracy measures will apparently weed out websites that are repeatedly slapped with “valid” copyright infringement claims. Sites that receive a large number of these notices “may appear lower in our results,” said Google in a blog post. This, says Google, will help better direct Web users toward “legitimate, quality” sources for content — i.e. not websites that feature access to pirated content.

While certain sites may be immune to the new page rank signal — or, at least, resilient against its effects — Google says this does not mean they are on some “list” of favorite sites. Rather, Google’s search algorithm will take into account other factors that will likely outweigh the anti-piracy signal.

The ambiguity surrounding the anti-piracy signal has brought it under fire from free speech advocates who fear the piracy penalty gives rights holders too much power to determine Google search results — and thus, the content Web users can readily access.

“In particular, we worry about the false positives problem,” wrote the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post. “For example, we’ve seen the government wrongly target sites that actually have a right to post the allegedly infringing material in question or otherwise legally display content. In short, without details on how Google’s process works, we have no reason to believe they won’t make similar, over-inclusive mistakes, dropping lawful, relevant speech lower in its search results without recourse for the speakers.”

The entertainment industry — specifically, the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — has praised Google’s new anti-piracy measure, which appears to be the most robust such effort by the company thus far.

The new anti-piracy measures will begin affecting search results sometime this week.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com