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African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Unveiled

09/13/2014

At the Internet Governance Forum in Instanbul, Turkey, the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms was unveiled.  The result of one year of discussions among NGOs, stakeholders, and interested parties, including through online comments, the Declaration is "a Pan-African initiative to promote human rights standards and principles of openness in Internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent. The Declaration is intended to elaborate on the principles which are necessary to uphold human and people’s rights on the internet, and to cultivate an Internet environment that can best meet Africa’s social and economic development needs and goals."

Russia's "Blogger law" goes into effect for sites with 3,000 daily visitors

08/01/2014

Russia's new "Blogger law" goes into effect today.  It requires all blogs in Russia that attract 3,000 daily visitors or more "to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity and follow the same rules as journalists working in conventional state-registered mass media," according to Russia Times. In the United States, treating bloggers like professional journalists usually is a good thing, offering full First Amendment protections.  In Russia, it's the exact opposite.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook-led effort to provide free Internet access in Zambia

08/01/2014

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook helped to start a cooperative effort among telecoms and Facebook to provide free Internet access to countries that lack it.  This initiative--called Internet.org--just launched an app for people in Zambia that provides limited free access to  Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Google, AccuWeather, Unicef, job search sites in Zambia, and women's health and rights organizations.  (More here.)

Google tells EU regulators of problems in implementing "right to be forgotten" requests

08/01/2014

After losing a landmark decision before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in May 2014 (Google Spain v. Costeja, C-131/12), Google has begun enforcing the controversial EU right to be forgotten.  Under the right that is recognized in EU countries, people in the EU may request search engines such as Google to remove links to web pages describing them (presumably in an unflattering way) after a certain period of time.  For example, imagine that a Google search for your name resulted in the first entry being an old article about your arrest for drunk driving as a teenager.  Since the decision, Google has received over 90,000 requests from Europeans to remove links from search terms involving people's names.

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