Mobile Browser Wars

It seems that software in the mobile sphere has already reached the same stage that the web technology saw in the 1990s. The experts point out that everything is gearing up for the mobile's browser war.

So, the 5 superpowers today are Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Firefox with the Ottomans being played by Opera and a nice sofa. Hopefully, whoever wins this war will be able to direct mobile users to its online services, and gather information that might be used in targeted advertising.

Industry experts said that the difference between the browser wars is that everyone would be trying to manage their strategy in the multiscreen and multiplatform world. The latest researches show that access to the web from mobile devices doubled in the year to January to 8.5% of all web usage.

Meanwhile, Google introduced a full version of its mobile Chrome browser, which will soon replace the unnamed browser on all devices powered by Android platform. Chrome had occupied 21.5% of the mobile Internet, overtaking Opera, which earlier had 21.3%. So, Google is seen in the Microsoft position in this war, with its Chrome being able to elbow its way in thanks to Android, while having a lot of momentum on the PC.

Apple Safari is doing well because it is the default browser on iPhones. Meanwhile, Nokia, BlackBerry and some others can only pick up crumbs dropping from the others' table. However, Microsoft will most likely to come back from exile when Windows 8 comes out. The software giant is pushing its own Internet Explorer browser for Windows devices, but it’s limiting compatibility to lock out the riff-raff.
At the moment, it isn’t clear how fair the mobile browser war will be. The leaders, including Microsoft, Apple and Google, are able to risk an antitrust case and try to block other users from using their OS. In this case, history will have repeated itself, but this is not something that Microsoft will want to see.

However, the experts predict that the browser war has a number of unpredictables – for instance, the largest social network in the world, Facebook, was said to be thinking about acquiring Opera. The site has the only problem – it doesn’t actually have a cunning plan to make itself work on mobile yet.

By the way, it might happen that Amazon also participates in the war, as it has developed its own browser for the Kindle.

YouTube Won’t Be Filtered by Google

youtube vs google ;)

French court has recently told its broadcaster TF1 that it is not allowed to collect money from the search giant Google for its sports and movie coverage that leaked to YouTube. The broadcaster claimed 141,000,000 euro in damages, but ended up with being ordered to pay 80,000 euro of the search engine's legal fees.

The court ruling said that the search engine can’t be hold responsible for filtering the material on YouTube. This decision follows an earlier case in the country last year, in which video-sharing service Dailymotion was recognized as a platform for the material rather than an editor of it, whether it is copyrighted or not.

For others, this ruling means that online service aren’t legally liable for ensuring that unauthorized content doesn’t appear, as long as it does whatever it can to take illegal content down once the rights holder sends a complaint.

In the meantime, there are a few other cases going on in the EU – for example, a German court has handed down a decision in April that the streaming website was liable for the video its users uploaded and should delete copyrighted clips or face a hefty royalties bill.

Nevertheless, in France the courts have been repeatedly ruling that YouTube wasn’t responsible in principle for the video material on its website, but rather its users were. In other words, it has been said that Google had no obligation to check the material before it is uploaded as long as it informed its users that publishing TV shows, music clips, concerts or advertisements without prior consent of the copyright holder wasn’t allowed.

The broadcaster, TF1, claimed that it was surprised with the decision and might try to appeal it. The search giant told local media that the decision in question was good for both the company and its users.

Another British Provider Censors The Pirate Bay

Sky Broadband became just another Internet service provider to follow the move of Virgin Media and Everything Everywhere and block access to The Pirate Bay.

Broadband providers were supposedly provided a time limit to comply with the High Court’s ruling this past April to deny access to the largest BitTorrent tracker, because it massively infringed copyright. Sky Broadband decided to act faster and set a deadline on the 1st of June. Meanwhile, O2 and TalkTalk announced that they were still working on a system to censor The Pirate Bay. As for BT, it is expected to comply within two weeks.

ISP’s official website informs that they have invested billions of pounds in high-quality entertainment for its subscribers and therefore must protect such investment. Sky claims that such protection ensures that the subscribers still benefit from TV shows, films and music both now and in the future. This involves taking effective action against Internet piracy and copyright violation.

Besides, Sky had also to block access to Newzbin2 last December after receiving a court order to do so. Nevertheless, pirates in the United Kingdom and Holland must not despair, because The Pirate Bay had also taken measures to bypass the censorship measures. For instance, the tracker put in place new IP addresses a few days ago. After this, the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN requested that the broadband providers should block the new IP address without a court order, but was refused. This means that BREIN must now seek to obtain court orders again, while the BitTorrent tracker is ready with a set of hundreds of available IP addresses. However, Sky Broadband might have to start worrying or taking anti-DDoS measures, because Virgin Media recently became the target of such attacks on its website.

MegaUpload Calls for Dismissal in America

                                                G00D BYE AMERICA!!!

MegaUpload’s founder and his legal team have asked a Virginia federal court to dismiss the criminal case against them in the United States. Media reports reveal that the defense argues the United States violated the website’s due process rights by destroying the entire business, without having properly served MegaUpload.

In case the court agrees to dismiss, the website case will be over. It was in the beginning of this year that the United States launched one of the biggest criminal copyright cases ever against file-sharing service MegaUpload and its employees, including Kim Dotcom, the founder. At the same time, the US authorities seized domain names, servers and personal belongings, after which they asked foreign authorities for the extradition of the defendants arrested abroad.

Since then, MegaUpload’s founder and his colleagues have been doing their best to fight against extradition in New Zealand and even had some success. The American case was based on the idea that the authorities failed to serve the file-sharing service as was required in a criminal case. What the US government did was just putting MegaUpload out of business and its due process rights have been violated. According to media reports, the Dotcom’s attorneys claim both prongs of the procedural due process test were met.

Meanwhile, the crucial issue in the motion to dismiss was that MegaUpload has never been served. The site’s lawyer Ira Rothken pointed out that unlike people, organizations couldn’t be served outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

Industry experts agree that if this stops the file-sharing service from being tried in the United States, it would be a major stuff-up for the government, which could find itself sued.

US Against UN Takover of the Web

American politicians claimed that a United Nations takeover of the web should be stopped. A few days ago Democratic and Republican government officials pointed out that a UN summit in December could lead to a virtual takeover of the web if Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Saudi Arabian proposals are adopted.

A Michigan Republican was first to say that these were terrible ideas, because they could allow the governments to control and restrict content or impose economic costs upon international information flows.

Then a member of the Federal Communications Commission also became worried about the United Nations bringing in Internet-based taxes to fund the build-out of Internet infrastructure all over the world. Such US giants as Google, Facebook, and Netflix appear to be the prime sources of funding.

Finally, California Democrat in whose district Facebook's headquarters are located, claimed that many countries don't share their view of the web and how it works. Perhaps, she meant that the web was supposed to run so that American companies become rich and controls are decided by whichever lobby group bribes Congressmen enough campaign funds.

The summit called the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is planned to review a set of telecommunications regulations set in 1988. The United States claimed that it will give such countries as Russia and China an opportunity to propose the United Nations to establish a new "data security" regime or develop an alternative to ICANN.

Meanwhile, experts point out that the United Nations has been trying to take over control of the web for a while now, while giving the American government too much control over other countries affairs. The matter is that the more autocratic countries may draft technical standards to implement the methods of tracing the source of online communications and deprive Internet users of the ability to remain anonymous.

Google's chief Internet evangelist, the co-developer of the TCP/IP protocol, admitted that the ITU idea might result in “top-down control dictated by governments”, which would impact free expression, security, and other important issues.

At some point, it’s right. But on the other hand, why should countries which don't trust the United States be forced to do what they are told?