09 May 2008

FR - Eric Besson prend une leçon de web 2.0 chez Dailymotion

(ZDNet France)
Les dirigeants de Dailymotion ont accueilli le secrétaire d'État en charge du développement de l'économie numérique, pour sa première sortie officielle depuis sa prise de fonctions. L'occasion pour lui de se frotter aux réalités du web 2.0

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UK - Brits addicted to social networking

(Guardian)
It seems that Britons are more addicted to poking and tweeting and writing on each other's walls than anyone else in Europe. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace reached 9.6 million users in the UK in 2007, according to a new report from Datamonitor. This puts it ahead of bigger countries, including France with 8.9 million and Germany with 8.6 million. Spain is in fourth place with just 2.9 million. The UK user base is forecast to almost triple to 27.1 million by 2012. For Europe overall, the user base is forecast to rise from 41.7 million now to 107.4 million over the next four years.

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US - Facebook agrees child safety plan

(BBC)
Facebook is to add a slew of new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyber bullies. At the heart of the changes are efforts to ban convicted sex offenders from the site and finding better ways to verify users' ages and identities. The agreement was announced by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in a deal along with other attorneys general around America. see also After long negotiations, Facebook agrees to safety plan with state AGs (CNET).

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MySpace lets users share data

(BBC)
The world's most popular social networking site MySpace is to allow users to make their information available to other websites. Its "data availability" project will let members share public profile information with Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and Photobucket.

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04 May 2008

US - Lovestruck MySpace teen not guilty of harassment, court says

(Iconoclast blog)
by Declan McCullagh. NeW York State prosecutors decided to charge Isaiah Rodriguez, 18, of aggravated harassment and endangering the welfare of a child over a series of MySpace.com messages professing his ardent devotion to a 14-year-old girl. Fortunately, the New York City criminal court thought otherwise. In a ruling on April 4, Judge Michael Gerstein in Brooklyn hels that while the actions of a love-struck teenager may well be foolish, reckless, or otherwise acts which might not be expected from a mature adult, they are not, without more, elevated to crimes.

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03 May 2008

UK - Vodafone offers unlimited web access

(BBC)
New monthly mobile price plans from Vodafone will offer unlimited internet access as a standard feature in a bid to meet the growing demand for access to email and social networking on the move. Facebook, Google and the BBC are the top three internet sites on the Vodafone Mobile Internet, according to the company.

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01 May 2008

The power of play on the internet

(BBC)
Game design and social networks are merging into one of the most persuasive forces on the net. That assertion was made by a string of speakers at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

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27 April 2008

FR - Le statut d'hébergeur de Dailymotion confirmé en justice

(AFP)
Le TGI de Paris a rendu une nouvelle décision favorable au site de partage de vidéos Dailymotion et débouté les humoristes Jean-Yves Lafesse et Omar et Fred qui le poursuivaient pour avoir diffusé sans autorisation plusieurs de leurs sketches. Si le tribunal a jugé que Dailymotion n'était pas un éditeur et n'était donc pas coupable de contrefaçon, il a en revanche estimé que la plateforme n'avait pas retiré suffisamment "promptement" certains des sketches, une fois que Lafesse l'avait averti de leur exploitation. A ce titre, Dailymotion devra verser 5.000 euros de dommages et intérêts et retirer les vidéos en question.

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FR - Protection de l'enfance et les sites communautaires

(ZDNet.fr)
Dailymotion, YouTube et consorts s'engagent à promouvoir un DVD éducatif édité par e-Enfance, destiné à sensibiliser les parents. Les sites communautaires veulent démontrer leur bonne volonté en matière de protection de l'enfance. L'Asic, leur organisation professionnelle, vient de signer un partenariat avec l'association e-Enfance dans le domaine de la protection des mineurs. Il s'agit pour l'instant essentiellement d'un effort de communication : les sites web 2.0 s'engagent à faire la promotion du DVD « Enfants, Ados : l'internet sans danger » sur leur site, par le biais de bandeaux publicitaires ou d'insertions dans des lettres d'information.

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Yahoo kicks off re-wiring project

(BBC)
Yahoo users will soon have one place where they can manage all the services they use on the popular website. The company has begun a mammoth re-engineering project that will unify the disparate services Yahoo runs. It hopes the project will transform the site into a vast social network where Yahoo users can quickly find and communicate with each other. The project should also aims to make it easier for web developers to use Yahoo data and services for their own ends.

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25 April 2008

UK government's guidelines for social sites

(Net Family News)
Review by Anne Collier. The UK guidelines are surprisingly digestible for a document coming from a government. The actual "Recommendations for Good Practice" are only about eight pages long (see p. 24), and they also come in convenient checklist form (p. 60). The whole report can be downloaded here. Anne Collier congratulates everyone involved in these guidelines for the milestone the document represents and lists a number of "positives", but also some "neutrals and negatives"

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Class war hits social networking sites

(vnunet.com)
The college educated turn more to Facebook, according to the report, while MySpace caters largely for those who leave school early. A preliminary report from a six-month research project by the School of Information Sciences at UC Berkeley carried out by PhD student Danah Boyd found the class divide between popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook.

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Il - Israeli soldier jailed for Facebook photo

(vnunet.com)
A member of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has been jailed for 19 days after posting a picture of himself on Facebook without permission. Reports in the Jerusalem Post claim that the soldier came from the elite 8200 military intelligence unit of the IDF, which specialises in encryption and military information.

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13 April 2008

US - Groups seek to shield minors' Web data

(Los Angeles Times)
A coalition of medical groups and child advocates called for guidelines that would prevent Internet companies from tracking the behavior of minors online, contending that many adolescents are divulging more than they realize and aren't digesting complex privacy policies. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Assn. were among those asking the Federal Trade Commission to encourage the Internet industry to stop profiling young Web surfers by monitoring the sites they visit and the interests they list on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. Childrens' Advocy Group filing. See also Microsoft not opposed to regulation of online privacy (CNet). See Online Behavioral Advertising: Moving the Discussion Forward to Possible Self-Regulatory Principles Public Comments (FTC).

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06 April 2008

UK - A generation of youth are being 'raised online'

(IPPR)
Many young people are effectively being 'raised online' spending in excess of 20 hours a week using sites such as bebo, Myspace, Facebook and YouTube, according to new research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). This is over three times higher than previous official estimates. This new research comes ahead of the final report of the Byron Review of children and new technology, set up by Gordon Brown in 2007 and headed by Dr Tanya Byron. See Behind the Screen: the Hidden Life of Youth by Kay Withers with Ruth Sheldon.

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UK - YouTube under fire over 'rape' footage

(Guardian)
YouTube, the video-sharing website owned by Google, came under attack from MPs after admitting that an error in its review procedure meant it had failed to remove footage apparently showing a gang rape. Pressed by the culture, media and sport select committee to explain how it dealt with offensive and illegal material posted to the website, Google's vice-president and general counsel, Kent Walker, said human error had been to blame for footage of an apparent gang rape being viewed more than 600 times before it was removed.

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04 April 2008

UK - Social networking safety plan unveiled

(Guardian)
Users of social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace could be faced with a swathe of safety information, privacy alerts and warnings about their behaviour under Home Office guidelines drawn up to promote best practice in the online industry. The detailed guidance, published by the Home Office taskforce on child protection on the internet, will also oblige social networking sites to publish prominent links to established advice services such as anti-bullying campaigns, and have a straightforward "report abuse" process. Facebook: parents are responsible for child safety too (Times).

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UK - Good practice guidance for the providers of social networking

(Home Office)
The first UK Social Networking Guidance provides advice for industry, parents and children about how to stay safe online. This has been developed by a taskforce of representatives from industry, charity and law enforcement agencies including Vodafone, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). Good practice guidance for the providers of social networking and other user interactive services 2008 (PDF file 1.8 MB)

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UK - Children ignore age rules on social networking sites, says Ofcom

(OUT-LAW News)
Half of the UK's internet-using children have profiles on social networking sites despite bans for users under 13 on the major sites according to research by media regulator Ofcom. The research found that users are not especially concerned with privacy. The regulator's research found that 49% of 8 to 17 year-olds who use the internet have a profile on a social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo. This is despite the fact that the major sites say that users under 13 should not register pages.

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20 March 2008

Facebook opens door to second-class friends

(Times)
Facebook is to allow its users to create a hierarchy of friends within their profiles - in a move that threatens to complicate the already delicate social etiquette that governs the site. As part of new controls to be introduced in the social networking site's privacy settings, Facebook users will be given the option of banning certain friends from seeing what they are up to and accessing sensitive information in their profile. The change will mean that, for instance, a particular friend - a former partner, say - could be prevented from seeing that a person had changed their relationship status, while others could be banned from knowing the person's political or religious views.

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13 March 2008

AOL buys Bebo in $850m cash deal

(OUT-LAW News)
AOL has bought social networking site Bebo for $850 million in cash. The Time Warner-owned web services company said that the Bebo network would be a valuable place for it to sell advertising.

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09 March 2008

When Mom or Dad Asks To Be a Facebook 'Friend'

(Washington Post)
More and more moms and dads are signing onto Facebook to keep up with their offspring. Not only are they friending (or attempting to friend) their sons and daughters, they're friending their sons' and daughters' friends.

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06 March 2008

Social Networking Moves to the Cellphone

(New York Times)
Social networks may be nothing new to habitués of the Internet. Several years of competition among Facebook, MySpace and Friendster have generated tens of millions of members. But now the market is teeming with companies that want to bring the same phenomenon to the cellphone. There are so many "mobile social networking" upstarts, in fact, that when New Media Age magazine in Britain tried to identify the "ones to watch," it ended up naming 10 companies.

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MeetMoi: dating for those on the go

MeetMoi hopes to revolutionize social networking with the first truly location-based mobile dating service. So whether it is a bar, an office, or a restaurant, users can open their cell phones and use MeetMoi to browse, chat, flirt with and meet people near them. Using groundbreaking technology, MeetMoi looks for people in a specified location and helps its users find local matches. Since MeetMoi values safety above everything, no one's actual location is ever revealed.

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UK - YouTube most popular networking site

(Guardian)
YouTube is now the most popular social networking website in the UK, overtaking the user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia with 10.4 million unique users during January. The Google-owned video-sharing site saw a 56% increase in traffic from January the previous year, cementing the popularity of online video among web users, according to newly released Nielsen Online figures. Nielsen Online estimates that nearly two-thirds of UK web users - or 20.8 million people - visited at least one of the top 10 social networking sites.

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04 March 2008

UK - Digital kids ditch homework for networking

(Guardian)
British 15-to-19-year-olds admit spending significantly less time doing homework than they used to as a result of their use of social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. While teachers and parents will be dismayed, the 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey also makes uncomfortable reading for commercial TV executives. It shows that not only does a significant proportion of the important 15- to 19-year-old audience watch less television as a result of social networking, but that the vast majority of Britain's 15-to-54-year-olds fast-forward through adverts when they watch programmes they have recorded. The report, produced by Entertainment Media Research for media law firm Wiggin, shows the way the internet has changed working, reading and viewing habits.

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01 March 2008

UK - Facebook fatigue

(Economist)
The number of Britons logging on to Facebook has fallen for the first time, according to Nielsen Online, an internet-metrics firm. In January, 8.5m unique users caught up with friends and colleagues, down by 5% from December. Facebook has added 712% more users in Britain since January 2007 and it appears that a natural plateau has been reached: Bebo and MySpace hit their user peaks in mid-2007. People may also be turning to more specialised sites, such as LinkedIn, a professional-networking site. America has already seen growth slacken.

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US - Berkman Center will head Internet Safety Technical Task Force.

(Press Release)
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School will head a newly formed Internet Safety Technical Task Force. The Task Force, comprised of leading Internet businesses and organizations, will focus on identifying effective online safety tools and technologies that can be used by many companies across multiple platforms. The Task Force will evaluate a broad range of existing and state-of-the-art online safety technologies, including a review of identity authentication tools to help sites enforce minimum age requirements. The Task Force is a central element of the Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Safety announced in January 2008 by MySpace and the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking.

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24 February 2008

IE - Social networking guide for parents launched

(ENN)
A new guide to social networking websites was launched by the Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Brian Lenihan. The parents' guide to social networking websites was produced by the Internet Advisory Board (IAB). The guide explains what social networking websites are and how they operate, all in a user-friendly format.

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10 February 2008

US - Teens posting personal info: Study

(NetFamilyNews)
We now have further insights into teens' info-sharing practices in the Journal of Adolescence. According to this, 8.8% revealed their full name, 57% included a picture, 27.8% listed their school and 0.3% provided their telephone number. The authors concluded that "the problem of personal information disclosure on MySpace may not be as widespread as many assume, and the overwhelming majority of adolescents are responsibly using the web site." Personal information of adolescents on the Internet: A quantitative content analysis of MySpace by Sameer Hindujaa and Justin W. Patchin

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Social networking in the classroom?!

(NetFamilyNews)
There was a debate going on recently over at The Economist - the house believes that social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom., and the pro-social-networking side won.

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06 February 2008

Kids safer in 'networks' than chat rooms

(Yahoo!7)
Social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook are safer places for children to chat than other types of internet sites, according to a new survey. The survey, which involved 1,588 children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old, found 28 per cent had been harassed via a social networking site, compared to 33 per cent for the internet as a whole. The survey, which was conducted by Internet Solutions for Kids in California and the University of New Hampshire, appears in the prestigious journal Paediatrics.

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04 February 2008

DE - StudiVZ-Chef fordert runden Tisch zum Datenschutz im Web 2.0

(Heise)
Der Geschäftsführer von StudiVZ, Marcus Riecke, hat sich bei einer Diskussion mit Schülern zum 2. Europäischen Datenschutztag an der Robert-Jungk-Oberschule in Berlin für die Einberufung eines runden Tischs zum Datenschutz im Web 2.0 ausgesprochen. Andere Plattformanbieter, Hüter der Privatsphäre, Werbetreibende, Jugendschützer und Innenpolitiker sollten zusammenkommen, um Rahmenbedingungen für soziale Netzwerke und andere Plattformen im Mitmach-Web abzustecken. Dabei sei etwa der "Zielkonflikt zwischen Daten- und Jugendschutz" bei der Frage der Speicherung von Logfiles der Nutzer zu erörtern.

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03 February 2008

US - MySpace regulation a must: Students agree federal government not right for task

(Fosters.com)
At least one expert and several young MySpace users are somewhat skeptical of a recent agreement between MySpace and the National Association of Attorneys General to tighten security. David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes Against Children Research Center, said there are elements of the agreement that could be "difficult to maintain." See also Key researcher's view on MySpace/AGs accord (Net Family News).

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31 January 2008

IL - Shimon Peres: Use Facebook To Fight Hate

(AP)
Israel's 84-year-old president has a novel idea on how to battle anti-Semitism: Facebook. Shimon Peres told a group of international students at Israel's Holocaust memorial that the popular social networking site was an effective means to counter the spread of hate and incitement on the Internet.

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Could social networking sites save the music industry?

(IHT)
Especially among 15- to 25-year-olds, people seem to need their peers to validate their musical tastes, making the Internet a perfect medium for the intersection of MP3s and mob psychology. The challenge is to draw young people away from file-sharing networks that don't bother with legal licenses. So "added value" has become the new hook, or as one industry participant put it at a music industry gathering this week, "a better form of free." Imeem and Bebo are two Web sites trading on the idea that music is a social phenomenon, and that the Internet is the place to be to gather around it. Imeem asks, "What's on your playlist?," while Bebo calls itself a "social media network."

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US - Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety

(Attorney-General of Massachusetts)
The text of the agreement with MySpace to better protect children on its website, including the creation of a broad-based task force to explore and develop age and identity verification technology. MySpace acknowledged in the agreement the important role of this technology in social networking safety and agreed to develop on-line identity authentication tools. The attorneys general advocate age and identity verification, calling it vital to better protecting children using social networking sites from on-line sexual predators and inappropriate material. See also Appendix A: Design and Functionality Changes and Appendix B: Design and Functionality Initiatives

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27 January 2008

UK - Review to probe suicide websites

(Press Association)
The danger of internet sites that encourage suicide will form part of a Government review that is due to report in March. Parenting guru Tanya Byron has been considering the issue as part of her probe into child safety on the web, and is expected to look at the recent cluster of teenage suicides in Bridgend, South Wales. At least seven young people who knew each other have killed themselves in the past year in what are feared to have been copycat acts. There has been speculation they may have used the internet to research and discuss suicide. see also Memorial Web Sites: Tributes or Temptation? British politician questions how memorial sites affect young people, after a rash of suicides (Reuters) and Land of the online death pact fights to save lives from the web (Times).

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25 January 2008

Social networking sites claim safety comes first

(Guardian)
In a survey by the popular teen site Piczo, which offers creative tools to help users customise their profile pages, users said they felt safer online than they did this time last year, despite what many feel are increased safety risks. Piczo's European managing director, Chris Seth, said online safety falls into two areas; access and monitoring. He said Piczo, which claims more than 10m unique users each month, has worked with the Silicon Valley start-up Keibi on the development of monitoring software. This is used in combination with a team of 20 safety officers, who check random pages and also monitor the site for blacklisted keywords and phrases, aided by scanning software. See also Teens 'under false sense of security' online (netimperative).

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Flat-rate tariffs drive mobile networking

(Guardian)
Flat-rate internet tariffs are helping drive take-up of social networking tools on mobile phones, with some users spending more than an hour a day online, according to research. Singapore-based mobile communities firm BuzzCity polled 875 users of its MyGamma service, which offers discussion groups, photo sharing, calendars, mobile blogging and virtual gifts for around 2 million users in 60 countries.

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Social sites prove hard to leave behind

(BBC)
Thousands of final-year students who've put a lot of information on social networks are starting to worry about what potential employers may find if they take a look. But one student at Nottingham Trent University has found just how hard it can be to leave one of the networks, MySpace.

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UK - Web worries after suicide spate

(BBC)
Social networking websites could be "romanticising" suicide, an MP claims after the deaths of seven young people from her area in the past year. Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon will raise internet use issues with police. Mrs Moon said she was growing increasingly worried by the appearance of so-called "memory walls" on networking sites like Bebo, where members leave messages to mark the death of a friend.

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20 January 2008

UK - Soaring number of teachers say they are 'cyberbully' victims

(Times)
Soaring numbers of teachers are calling helplines for advice on how to cope after being "cyberbullied" on the internet by their pupils. The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said that it now receives a call every day from teachers who say they have become victims. The problem was unheard of just two years ago. Pupils are scouring the internet looking for embarrassing photographs of them. They also use chatrooms and networking sites, such as Facebook or Bebo, to share incriminating material or make vicious accusations about their tutors.

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19 January 2008

UK - Facebook faces privacy questions

(BBC)
Facebook is to be quizzed about its data protection policies by the Information Commissioner's Office. The investigation follows a complaint by a user of the social network who was unable to fully delete their profile even after terminating their account. Currently, personal information remains on Facebook's servers even after a user deactivates an account. Facebook has said it believes its policy is in "full compliance with UK data protection law".

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15 January 2008

US - MySpace & 49 attorneys general: Agreement

(NetFamilyNews)
Two years of negotiation between MySpace and the US's state attorneys general culminated in an announcement that they'd reached an agreement on "Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety." Not all is new (MySpace has implemented dozens of safety measures and programs in the past year, including a 24-hour hotline for law enforcement). But a few new social-Web safety developments were announced, and the agreement is a victory for collective thinking and action appropriate to this medium and against the litigation that the attorneys general had been threatening.

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10 January 2008

Facing the future Facebook style

(BBC)
Regular commentator Bill Thompson ruminates on the inevitability of Facebook being in the news in 2008

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CN - Bloggers in China surpass 47 million

(People's Daily Overseas)
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) published the 2007 China blog survey report recently. The report showed that, by the end of November 2007, China blog spaces have totaled 72.82 million, and the number of bloggers reached 47 million. see also Blogs popular among China's youngsters, but many soon go blank (Xinhua).

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02 January 2008

UK - Regulation call for web bullies

(BBC)
Leading websites need to increase their self-regulation to tackle a rise in cyberbullying, according to Scotland's largest teaching union. The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) voiced its concerns over the amount of inappropriate material about schools, pupils and teachers. General secretary Ronnie Smith said those hosting the websites were failing to exercise proper editorial control.

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01 January 2008

US - 'Teens rule the Web'

(Net Family News)
That was just one (the Washington Post's) of an interesting range of headlines about the latest Pew Internet & American Life study about US 12-to-17-year-olds online. Here are some key findings:
  • "Publishing" as conversing: 41% of teens who are on social networks said that they routinely use those sites to send messages to their friends. When teens blog, post videos, etc., they're "looking to start a conversation as much as they are trying to promote their own creative output".
  • Privacy - 66% of teens with social-networking profiles limit access to their pages;
  • 64% of online teens in general "engage in at least one type of content creation," up from 57% in 2004. Girls dominate most elements of content creation.
  • Blogs, girls; videos, boys - 28% of online teens have created a blog (up from 19% in 2004), and almost all of the new ones are girls'; while 19% of online teen boys had posted video, compared to 10% of girls.
  • 39% post photos, videos, and other artistic content; 54% of girls and 40% of boys have posted photos.

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UK - Queen launches YouTube channel

(BBC)
The Queen has launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube. The Royal Channel will feature her Christmas Day message, and has recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family. The launch marks the 50th anniversary of the Queen's first televised festive address in 1957.

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16 December 2007

Wiki-Government

(Democracy: A Journal of Ideas)
by Beth Simone Noveck. How open-source technology can make government decision-making more expert and more democratic. The article argues that ordinary people possess extraordinary expertise that can improve the quality of government decision making; it also describes how democratic institutions can be reshaped.

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Hi-tech tools divide social sites

(BBC)
Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations. Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch. Bebo said it would also support Google's Open Social initiative which aims to create a unified system of tools that can be used on any and every social network site. The Open Social tools are due to appear in early 2008. Social networking giant MySpace is backing Google's initiative.

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Social networking sites must do more to protect child users

(E-consultancy.com)
Three of the most popular social networking sites on the Internet are not doing enough to protect their child users, an independent expert audit has concluded. The investigation by web usability consultants at User Vision, one of Europe?s leading independent user experience companies, found that Facebook, Bebo and MySpace all lacked targeted, clear information about online security for under 18s.

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Companies warned not to rush into social networking

(CNET News.com)
Many companies are thinking about how they can take advantage of social-networking technology, but analysts at Gartner are warning against getting caught up in the hype.

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Online, in touch, up to speed: UK's social network obsessives are European leaders

(Guardian)
One in four UK adults do it 23 times a month. And Britons do it more often than anyone else in world, except for Canadians. The obsession is with social networking, which according to a report from the regulator Ofcom. is categorically no longer the preserve of teenagers and students, and has been adopted by a growing army of older surfers determined to link up with old acquaintances. Thanks to their growing obsession and the widespread availability of broadband, the UK leads Europe in using sites such as Facebook and MySpace. See International Communications Market 2007 (OFCOM). Part 2 - Convergence.

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05 December 2007

For college students, if it's Facebook, it's love

(Reuters)
For the Facebook generation, love now comes with a drop-down menu. With profiles on the Facebook social-networking site almost de rigueur on college campuses, students can define their relationship status with menu choices ranging from "married" to that perennial favorite, "It's complicated." "It's complicated" could also describe the emotional calculations people in their late teens and early 20s make as they decide whether their relationships are what they call "Facebook-worthy."

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FR - AOL, Dailymotion, Google, Yahoo et PriceMinister s'organisent pour défendre leur statut

(ZDNet.fr)
Alors que la mission Olivennes s'est engagée à responsabiliser les hébergeurs, cinq acteurs du web se regroupent pour protéger leurs activités. Une initiative pour rappeler qu'ils adoptent « une démarche responsable » face au piratage et à la contrefaçon. Il s'agit de la « première organisation française qui regroupe des sociétés de premier plan du web 2.0 et vise à promouvoir le "nouvel" internet ». L'Association des services internet communautaires (Asic) vient de voir le jour sous l'impulsion d'AOL, Dailymotion, Google, PriceMinister et Yahoo.

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01 December 2007

Facebook in privacy U-turn over Beacon

(FT)
Privacy advocates declared victory after Facebook, the social networking website, moved to placate users concerned about the intrusiveness of its new Beacon advertising system. Changes to Beacon will allow users to ?opt-in? to sharing information through the service, which broadcasts purchases made on outside websites to Facebook users? friends.

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23 November 2007

UK - Young warned over social websites

(BBC)
Millions of young people could damage their future careers with the details about themselves they post on social networking websites, a watchdog warns. The Information Commissioner's Office found more than half of those asked made most of their information public.

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19 November 2007

What kids learn in virtual worlds

(CNET News.com)
Kids who are active members of virtual worlds are learning how to socialize, how to be technologically savvy, and how to be good little consumers. That's according to a group of academics and researchers who met at the University of Southern California to discuss the effects of virtual worlds on children today. Of course, virtual worlds are still so new that researchers haven't had much time to study their impact on kids. But the MacArthur Foundation, a sponsor of the panel discussion, has invested millions in research over the next several years to ask such questions.

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Friend trends -- an overview of social networking sites

(Guardian )
The growth of social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been one of the most interesting features of this century's web, and it's attracting a lot of academic interest. There's now a good overview of the field, Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship, by Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

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UK - YouTube tackles bullying online

(BBC)
The first online anti-bullying channel has been launched to encourage young people to denounce the intimidation. YouTube has set up a site where youngsters can post their own videos and messages. It follows growing concern about the increase in persecution by e-mail, mobile phone and on social networking sites, known as cyberbullying. The scheme is being launched at the start of anti-bullying week and is run jointly with charity Beatbullying.

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18 November 2007

US - Web hoax led girl to kill herself

(AP)
Megan Meier thought she had made a new friend in cyberspace when a cute teenage boy named Josh contacted her on MySpace and began exchanging messages with her. Megan, a 13-year-old who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder, corresponded with Josh for more than a month before he abruptly ended their friendship, telling her he had heard she was cruel. The next day Megan committed suicide. Her family learned later that Josh never actually existed; he was created by members of a neighborhood family that included a former friend of Megan's. See also Cyberbullying Suicide Stokes the Internet Fury Machine (Wired).

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17 November 2007

Online drama proves a lucrative hit

(Guardian)
They cost thousands, are watched by millions and attract big sponsors. No wonder social network Bebo is about to launch its third reality drama. A new reality series from Big Brother producer Endemol follows the fortunes of six young people as they travel the world - but you won't find it on BBC 3 or Channel 4. The Gap Year is online social network Bebo's third original content commission in six months; part of a bold strategy raising eyebrows among programme-makers and broadcasters. While TV-style content is widely available on social network sites such as MySpace and YouTube, it generally falls into one of three types: user-generated content, existing broadcast TV content, or brand content created for advertisers. However Bebo - with 10.7 million regular users in the UK alone, according to latest research from HitWise - is developing a portfolio of video-based, original content.

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NL - Virtual theft' leads to arrest

(BBC)
A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from "rooms" in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website. The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of virtual furniture, bought with real money. Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were contacted by the website's owners.

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16 November 2007

UK - Broadcasters woo 'lost generation' in deal with social networking site Bebo

(Guardian)
The UK's biggest social networking site announced partnerships with a string of broadcasters, including the BBC, Channel 4, Sky, ITN and CBS, in a move hailed as one of the most significant yet in marrying old and new media. Traditional broadcasters hope that distributing and marketing their programmes to Bebo's 40 million users will help them reconnect with the so-called "lost TV generation" of 13 to 24-year-olds who make up the social networking site's core audience.

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10 November 2007

FI - In Finland shooting, fallout for YouTube?

(News.com)
Seven children and one adult were shot and killed at a school in Finland, and the teen who police say did it posted several threatening screeds on YouTube prior to his rampage. Predictably, some media outlets are already producing stories that imply Google's YouTube is a scary place where hateful polemics can be broadcast, unmolested by more thoughtful minds. See also The cyber school for killers (Tiles).

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31 October 2007

Google opens up social networking

(BBC)
Google has launched a system that will allow developers to create applications for a variety of social networks. Developers currently have to customise their designs for a particular site with many partnering with the hugely popular Facebook. Google's OpenSocial system will allow a wider distribution for tools like Facebook's music recommendation service iLike and its Top Friends application.

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20 October 2007

BR - Google Under Fire Over a Controversial Site

(WSJ)
In Brazil, Google is embroiled in an embarrassing episode over its efforts to profit from social networking, one of the fastest-growing activities online. Google has gotten in hot water over its Web site Orkut, which like other social-networking sites allows people to swap information and create personal Web pages. Critics in Brazil released a report showing advertisements on Orkut alongside pictures of naked children and abused animals. Google immediately suspended the ads, but the Mountain View, Calif., company is still grappling with the fallout from critics' Orkut campaign.

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17 October 2007

US - Facebook to Strengthen Child Warnings

(New York Times)
Facebook, the popular social networking Web site, will strengthen warnings about child safety on its site and said that it would take steps to improve its process of responding to complaints about sexual or inappropriate content. The company agreed to make the changes as part of a settlement with the New York State attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, who began an investigation last month into whether the Web site was misleading its users by promoting itself as a place where high school students and younger children are safe from adult sexual predators. The settlement did not include a financial penalty, but Mr. Cuomo said it would serve as a "new model" for other sites to follow. See also Facebook made basic error with poor user safeguards, says lawyer (OUT-LAW).

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29 September 2007

US - Facebook targeted over child safety

(Times)
Facebook, the social networking site, has been accused of not keeping young users safe from sexual predators after an investigation revealed apparent defects in its safety controls. The New York State attorney general has subpoenaed Facebook asking it to explain its security policy following an an undercover investigation in which authorities posing as teenagers received sexual advances within days of setting up profiles on the site. When contacted about the message, Facebook said it would remove any post that violated its rules but a month later had still not taken any action.

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17 September 2007

US - Volkswagen files subpoena to identify YouTube user

(Wired)
A legal spat between YouTube and Volkswagen is throwing light on the increasing copyright surveillance of social networking sites. Volkswagen has filed a subpoena seeking the identity of a YouTube user who posted a Nazi-themed parody of a recent VW Golf commercial. Volkswagen's move underscores the privacy risks to a blossoming community of users on sites like YouTube and Yahoo Video, and social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Copyright holders and their agents have long been monitoring activity on file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and Gnutella. Now they're turning their attention to the social networks.

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15 September 2007

Do social network sites genuinely care about privacy?

(Guardian)
Very deeply, because it's only by guarding it jealously and parcelling it up and then selling it to someone else that they can make any money. Thus this season's poster child for social networking, Facebook, announced on its blog that in a few weeks, it will make parts of its 40 million users' details, such as their names and pictures, available to the major search engines - Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live - and so visible to anyone online. Why? Simple: money.

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AU - Task force to investigate safety of Facebook, MySpace

(ABC)
The Federal Government has announced a new working group which will investigate the safety of social networking sites and the danger they pose to Australian children. The task force will look at sites like MySpace and Facebook and see how paedophiles can infiltrate them and use the internet to get closer to young people. The Social Network Consultative Group is part of the Government's $189 million NetAlert program.

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05 September 2007

Facebook lets users publicize themselves

(Reuters)
Facebook, the social-networking site that has enjoyed explosive growth in new members over the past three months, said it plans to let users tell the rest of the world how to find them on the site. Facebook will begin notifying members they have a choice over whether to keep their listings private or to allow Facebook to make their name and profile picture available when outsiders search the site. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based site has grown to 39 million members, up 62.5 percent from 24 million in late May.

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01 September 2007

UK - Bank's U-turn on student charges

(BBC)
A student campaign using the social networking website Facebook has forced an international bank into a U-turn over charges. HSBC is to abandon plans to scrap interest-free overdrafts for students leaving university this summer. Thousands of students on Facebook had threatened to boycott the bank. The National Union of Students said this made all the difference to the protest.

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28 August 2007

Way Too Good for Facebook or MySpace?

(Business Week)
Better known as "aSW" to its members, aSmallWorld is one of a handful of private online social networks where big is bad. Membership in these networks, not unlike the exclusive country clubs where the rich and powerful hobnob, is carefully guarded.

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23 August 2007

US - Call For Better Age-Verification Methods

(BetaNews)
Attorneys General across the country banded together, calling on social networking sites to strengthen parental controls to keep minors from accessing questionable material on their sites. The efforts are being headed by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who worked previously to get MySpace to disclose the identities of sex offenders on its Web site, and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. While both are working to have the companies voluntarily change their policies, they are also pushing for actual laws.

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Half of employers restrict Facebook

(News.com)
Half of businesses are restricting employees' access to social-networking site Facebook, due to concerns about productivity and security. According to research by security company Sophos, 43 percent of workers polled said their employer blocks Facebook access completely. A further 7 percent said access is restricted depending on whether it's required for a particular job. The issue of security was also raised by the Sophos research. In a separate poll by the company, 66 percent of workers said they are concerned about colleagues sharing information on Facebook.

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UK - Bebo edges ahead of MySpace

(vnunet.com)
Teen social site Bebo has overtaken MySpace as the most visited social networking site among UK surfers, according to web monitoring firm comScore. Bebo attracted 10.6 million unique visitors, an increase of 63 per cent over the start of the year. MySpace enjoyed a 25 per cent increase in traffic, to reach 10.1 million. The fastest growing social networking site was Facebook, which has grown 366 per cent to attract an audience of 7.6 million.

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19 August 2007

Facebook users pretty willing to add strangers as 'friends'

(News.com)
IT security firm Sophos has released the results of its Facebook ID Probe, a test to see just how many users of the site are willing to divulge highly personal information to potential identity thieves. The results, to say the least, show that more than a few Facebook members might not be taking their privacy seriously enough. Sophos created a fake Facebook profile, and randomly requested 200 members to be friends with 'Freddi.' Out of those 200, 87 accepted the friend request and 82 of those gave 'Freddi' access to "personal information" such as e-mail addresses, dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers, and school or work data.

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Fighting antisocial behavior on social networking sites

(IHT)
With social networking sites exploding in growth, most young users are well aware of the risks and the seamy side of the territory, from cyber-bullying, identity theft and encounters with adults posing as children to communities that promote anorexia and bulimia eating disorders as lifestyle choices. With backing from the European Union, which is spending ?45 million on an Internet safety program through 2008, a collection of national groups are now focusing specifically on the issue of online sexual grooming.

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17 August 2007

Pull down the walled gardens

(BBC)
Internet law professor Michael Geist says the walled gardens of social networks should be pulled down. Internet users are repeatedly required to re-enter their personal information for each new network they join and find that each network is effectively a "walled garden", where the benefits of the network are artificially limited by the inability to link a friend in Facebook with one in MySpace.

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14 August 2007

Mobile operators see 10 times more potential in social networking

(Guardian)
The success of social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and even YouTube could represent the next boom for the mobile phone operators. Revenues from putting so-called user-generated content - meaning content such as videos and blogs created by consumers rather than media organisations - onto mobile phones is expected to rise more than tenfold over the next five years, according to estimates by Juniper Research.

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13 August 2007

Facebook's code leak raises fears of fraud

(Guardian)
Experts are warning internet users to be more careful with their private information after secret code from the popular social-networking site Facebook was published on the internet. This is the first time that some of the site's secret operational code has been made public. Although it does not allow hackers to access private information directly, it could help criminals close in on personal data, according to one expert.

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05 August 2007

US - Second Life sex toy creates copyright hotbed

(vnunet.com)
An entrepreneur in Second Life, maker of 'adult' items such as the SexGen bed, a piece of virtual furniture that allows Second Life users to simulate more than 150 sex acts, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against a fellow virtual resident. lthough the concept of 'virtual' property has been bantered around by lawyers in recent years, this will be the first time that such a copyright case will be taken to a US court.

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Second life bans gambling

(vnunet.com)
The creators of the online world Second Life, Linden Lab, has banned all forms of gambling in the game. While Linden Lab itself does not offer any gambling facilities in Second Life, the ability for people in the game to create just about any type of object means that virtual casinos have sprung up all over the world. This new policy will effect all users of the game, regardless of where they live in real life.

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Facebook kicks Audio off Platform, bigger questions loom

(Inside Facebook)
Facebook has completely kicked the Audio application off the Facebook Platform, a first in Platform history for an application of this size. The reasons cited were IP violations. Audio was an application that let Facebook users upload MP3 files, share them with friends, and listen to them on the site. One of the fastest growing apps after launch, Audio had about 750,000 users before Facebook pulled out the rug.

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04 August 2007

ComScore's latest numbers: Worldwide social-networking growth

(CNET News.com)
ComScore released some numbers pertaining to how quickly a handful of popular social-networking sites are growing worldwide, and which ones dominate in which regions of the globe. The main set of numbers tracks worldwide social-networking growth, with June 2006 and June 2007 as the benchmarks, for seven services: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Friendster, and Tagged. Facebook has grown quite a bit - 270 percent, from 14,083,000 uniques to 52,167,000. ComScore charts Bebo as having grown about 172 percent.

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MySpace deletes 29,000 sex offenders

(Reuters)
Popular Internet social network MySpace has detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders on its service, more than four times the figure it had initially reported. The company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., said in May it had deleted about 7,000 user profiles that belonged to convicted offenders. MySpace attracts about 60 million unique visitors monthly in the United States.

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UK - Firms withdraw BNP Facebook ads

(BBC)
Six major firms have withdrawn advertisements from the networking website Facebook, after they appeared on a British National Party page. First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential have all withdrawn ads. Virgin said it had to 'protect its brand'.

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03 August 2007

US - Social Sites Aim at Users Too Young for MySpace

(Washington Post)
Disney has announced the acquisition of Club Penguin, a virtual world for children that's been around less than two years but has grown to 12 million registered users, largely without marketing. Disney executives said the deal, valued at as much as $700 million depending on the company's performance, won't result in changes to the Club Penguin site, which requires parental permission for membership and doesn't have advertising. But the deal has prompted child advocates to ask whether kids are helped or harmed by exposure to the Web. There are a growing number of sites that claim to offer entertainment and education for children. Disney said it wants to invest in sites where parents can be assured of their children's safety against adult content and contact from strangers.

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01 August 2007

UK - Survey finds pirate downloads at all-time high and set to rise

(Guardian)
Illegal music downloading is at an all-time high and set to rise further, according to a report that urges the record industry to make legal buying easier and cheaper. Although social networking sites are boosting interest in music that translates into sales, a growing band of consumers are unconcerned about being prosecuted for illegal downloads, according to Entertainment Media Research.

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31 July 2007

US - New Scrutiny for Facebook Over Predators

(New York Times)
Facebook, the online social network, has stolen some of MySpace's momentum with users and the news media. Now, it is being subjected to the same accusations that it does not do enough to keep sexual predators off its site. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general, said that investigators in his state were looking into "three or more" cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook and had "also found inappropriate images and content" on the service. The inquiry continues, he said, and state officials have contacted Facebook and asked it to remove the profiles.

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30 July 2007

UK - Caught on camera ? and found on Facebook

(BBC)
Facebook, the social networking website, is being used as a disciplinary tool by university authorities. Staff at Oxford University are searching the website, collecting photographs of students who they say have broken rules on post-examination celebrations, and handing down fines. The student union has branded the move a "disgraceful" intrusion into privacy and has e-mailed every common room advising how to prevent dons viewing the photographs.

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07 July 2007

Etiquette pitfalls in the social web of wannabe friends

(Times)
The huge expansion of online social networking sites has opened up an etiquette minefield, complete with snubs, awkward faux pas and ample opportunity to give and take offence. With networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace expanding expedientially, the rise of cyber friendships has brought with it a new set of social niceties, conventions and potential embarrassments.

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29 June 2007

Social sites battle for new users

(BBC News)
MySpace is running out of breath, while Bebo and Facebook are fast catching up. That's the message from the latest figures on social networking in Britain.

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28 June 2007

BR - YouTube wins "supermodel sex on the beach" case

(Ars Technica)
A Brazilian judge has ruled in favor of YouTube, Globo Comunicações e Participações, and Internet Group do Brasil (iG) this week in a case involving Brazilian model Daniella Cicarelli and a sex video. Cicarelli and her boyfriend, Tato Malzoni, had sued YouTube after a video of the couple having sex on a public beach in Brazil appeared on the site. The pair argued that YouTube was violating their privacy. Judge Gustavo Santini Teodoro ruled that the couple's privacy claims were unfounded and ordered Cicarelli to pay fees to each of the defendants.

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The MySpace Dilemma: Keeping Your Kids Safe Online

(InformationWeek)
The anonymity and anything-goes nature of the Internet is a lure for sexual predators. We need to reconcile this with our children's growing passion for online social networking. see also Building a Safer MySpace (Business Week) January 24, 2007.

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22 June 2007

DE - German Flickr censorship causes web outcry

(Register)
Flickr's introduction of content filters in Germany last week has provoked protests in blogs and web forums globally. While in most countries the photo sharing site's 'SafeSearch' function can be turned off by users interested in seeing all the photos available on Flickr, that option has been axed in Germany due to 'stricter legislation and penalties in that country', parent company Yahoo! said in a statement.

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