Posts Tagged ‘Google’
March 8th, 2011
Two journalists, Nedem Sener and Ahmet Sik, were
sentenced to prison on Sunday pending an investigation into allegations that the military attempted to overthrow the Turkish government in 2003. About 60 journalists are currently imprisoned and thousands face prosecution for their work, reported the Turkish Journalists’ Association.Meanwhile, there are other concerns about
press freedom in Turkey; 600,000 bloggers cannot access their blogs, after Google’s blogging service, Blogspot, was
blocked in the country, for example. The site was banned by a Turkish court after users showed football matches on their blogs. Digiturk, a satellite TV firm, has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches in Turkey and approached the courts when it became aware of the matches being shown on the blogs.
January 21st, 2011
Google lifted some of its restrictions for on-line users in Iran on 21 January. Google unblocked access to Google Chrome, Google Earth and Picasa, previously US trade sanctions had prevented Iranian users from accessing the site. The restrictions are still in place for users linked to the Iranian government.
November 5th, 2010
Google and the Information Commissioner’s Office have displayed contempt for privacy — and free speech will suffer as a result, says Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch
(more…)
November 1st, 2010
After being blocked for two years YouTube
can now be accessed again by Turkish citizens. The Google-owned site was originally
banned in May 2008 under a 2007 law that allowed courts to block any website where there was “sufficient suspicion” that it had committed a crime. YouTube was accused of hosting videos that insulted the country’s founder, Kemal Ataturk, an offence in Turkey. The minister in charge of internet issues, Binali Yildirim, has said that the offending videos have been removed.
October 25th, 2010
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Britain’s privacy watchdog,
has reopened its investigation into Google Street View after the company admitted it copied personal data. Google is facing similar pressures from privacy watchdogs in other countries, including
Spain,
Germany, and
Canada. In May, the ICO had investigated revelations that Google had gathered unprotected information but it
concluded that no “significant” personal details had been collected. The renewed scrutiny stems from
Google’s admission, following analysis by other privacy bodies, that they had harvested more information than previously thought.
October 21st, 2010
Google has been found in
violation of Canadian privacy law. On Tuesday the Privacy Commissioner of Canada,
Jennifer Stoddart, stated in a
news release on the Commissioner’s website that Google’s Street View mapping cars had unintentionally gathered personal information about Canadian citizens. This collection of citizens information was a “serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights,” said Stoddart.
September 27th, 2010
A convicted sex offender has
sued Google after he found that an instant search of his name on Google.fr was accompanied with the words “rapist”, “Satanist”, “convicted” and “prison”. A court in Paris has ordered the internet giant to pay
5,000 euros and remove the search suggestions, which are generated automatically. The plaintiff, who is appealing against a three-month sentence for corruption of a minor, believed the search results were harmful to his reputation. Google has
said it will appeal the decision.
September 13th, 2010
Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond has said that internet censorship raises trade barriers for the US, in addition to violating human rights. Drummond added that pressure should be placed on governments in China and Turkey that practice internet censorship.
