The Pirate Bay Responded to RIAA Search Censorship

The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has graciously welcomed the recommendation of the Recording Industry Association of America that search engines ban websites like TPB. The tracker claimed that instead of deterring people, it would attract more traffic to the site.

Recently RIAA’s head Cary Sherman told the Congress that they need to do more to stop Internet piracy. Sherman took to the stage at the Future of Audio hearing and recommended that all search engines, including Google, took responsibility in curbing Internet piracy by censoring services like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, while offering legal music services to the users.

The Pirate Bay is of course against censorship, and reacted by releasing the statement saying that the RIAA was trying to ensure that the competing search engines have to stop linking back to the TPB, which is just wonderful. The Pirate Bay also pointed out that about 10% of its traffic comes from competing search engines.

In other words, after implementation of that ban, the TPB’s traffic numbers probably will increase, because users would go directly to The Pirate Bay and use its search instead. This will provide the service a chance to grow even more massive – although it’s undoubtedly hard to compete with Google, if they aren’t able to index media search engines like the TPB, the latter will become the dominant player in the end.

Nevertheless, users in the United Kingdom might be out of luck, depending on their Internet service provider, and some already have to adhere to orders from the British courts to block direct access to The Pirate Bay. The first ISP to do so was Virgin Media, whose users now face a page saying that the ISP has received an order to prevent access to The Pirate Bay in order to protect copyright.

Another ISP, Be Broadband (an O2 subsidiary), was also reported to block the website, but The Pirate Bay proved to be still accessible. Like other major ISPs, Be admitted it will have to bow down to pressure from the court and comply with the demand to block access to TPB. The broadband provider claimed that its hands were tied and it had no other choice but to comply. Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry, mirror services and proxies are still available everywhere and easy enough to find.

Facebook Advertising Proved Useless

According to the recent poll, 80% of Facebook users have never bought anything advertised on the social network. In fact, the survey states the obvious: people aren’t using Facebook to buy something or get informed, they are rather killing time. There’s also another phenomenon revealed: Facebook fatigue. Around 34% of Facebook users admitted to spending, or wasting less time on Facebook than 6 months ago.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s controversial IPO didn’t go down well with its users either, because 44% claimed it made them less favorable toward the social network, says Reuters. So, all of this doesn’t bode well for the network, because it tries to find out how to translate its huge user base into actual profits. The fact is that people aren’t spending on Facebook, and don’t care about advertisements or comments, which means that Facebook has yet to develop a revenue generating model in the mobile space.

Moreover, the growth is slowing down and it has to, like mobile phone penetration in the developed world a decade ago. There are just not enough people to target with advertising, because more and more of them are now from the 3rd world. Meanwhile, the social network refused to comment on the poll results, but pointed to previous reports saying that Facebook advertising campaigns were successful earlier.

After the IPO, the company’s business model came under even more scrutiny, though it would have been a right way to scrutinize the model before small investors pour their retirement savings in Facebook stock, hoping that they are investing in the next Google or Apple. In the meantime, the notion that Facebook would eventually cash in on what actually amounts to the biggest information mining operation worldwide seems to be wearing off.

Although targeted ads may sound like a good idea, they can also backfire, because Internet users aren’t that keen to see personalized advertisements on their page, in some cases with awkward or downright embarrassing material. Instead, it can be regarded as a tricky balancing act between delivering proper targeted advertising and bad taste. Thus far, the largest social network in the world doesn’t seem to be making this work. So, Zuckerberg has something to consider…

The Pirate Bay Responded to RIAA Search Censorship

The world’s largest BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has graciously welcomed the recommendation of the Recording Industry Association of America that search engines ban websites like TPB. The tracker claimed that instead of deterring people, it would attract more traffic to the site.

Recently RIAA’s head Cary Sherman told the Congress that they need to do more to stop Internet piracy. Sherman took to the stage at the Future of Audio hearing and recommended that all search engines, including Google, took responsibility in curbing Internet piracy by censoring services like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt, while offering legal music services to the users.

The Pirate Bay is of course against censorship, and reacted by releasing the statement saying that the RIAA was trying to ensure that the competing search engines have to stop linking back to the TPB, which is just wonderful. The Pirate Bay also pointed out that about 10% of its traffic comes from competing search engines.

In other words, after implementation of that ban, the TPB’s traffic numbers probably will increase, because users would go directly to The Pirate Bay and use its search instead. This will provide the service a chance to grow even more massive – although it’s undoubtedly hard to compete with Google, if they aren’t able to index media search engines like the TPB, the latter will become the dominant player in the end.

Nevertheless, users in the United Kingdom might be out of luck, depending on their Internet service provider, and some already have to adhere to orders from the British courts to block direct access to The Pirate Bay. The first ISP to do so was Virgin Media, whose users now face a page saying that the ISP has received an order to prevent access to The Pirate Bay in order to protect copyright.

Another ISP, Be Broadband (an O2 subsidiary), was also reported to block the website, but The Pirate Bay proved to be still accessible. Like other major ISPs, Be admitted it will have to bow down to pressure from the court and comply with the demand to block access to TPB. The broadband provider claimed that its hands were tied and it had no other choice but to comply. Meanwhile, despite the best efforts of the entertainment industry, mirror services and proxies are still available everywhere and easy enough to find.

Iran Enlisted Hackers and Blogger

Some cyber intelligence expert revealed that Iran is stepping up its use of the Internet propaganda, hacking and other sophisticated tools some use on the Internet. It was claimed that the authorities of the country are using a number of paramilitary outfits in the effort.

There are a few interesting facts revealed, one of them being that the efforts of the Iranian government aren’t intended to take on enemies of the regime by direct actions, but instead to promote the ideals of the Islamic revolution. Their main focus is believed to preserve the philosophic foundation of the revolution and to decrease western influences on their local culture.

The experts insisted that the Revolutionary Guard has been paying bloggers $7 per hour to promote their agenda on such online resources as Facebook and forums. That may seem a pretty sweet gig for many, because the official average monthly salary in the country was estimated at about $500. For instance, an Israeli think-tank claims the running rate is $4.3 per hour.

Three years ago, the Rand Corporation also published a report which said that the IRCG played a role in monitoring online communications in the country, trying to “mitigate the influx of corrupting foreign ideals”.

Despite the fact that local propaganda campaigns might seem crude, you shouldn’t forget the Soviet approach was both “subtle” and intelligent, while many still believe in conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, Western propagandists aren’t much better, because they would have people believe in things like Iranians’ intention to put a nuclear warhead and so on.