Google: a case for internet regulation?

October 27th, 2011

Myriam Francois-Cerrah looks at the search giant’s latest figures on government take down demands
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Rightscon: “If we don’t get this right, people will be put in jail”

October 26th, 2011

Rachel Greenspan reports from the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, where industry and activists met to discuss free expression online
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Age of insecurity

July 8th, 2011

Cooperation between the communications industry and governments creates unprecedented opportunities for surveillance. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past and allow companies to assume that users are uninterested in what happens to their data, urge Gus Hosein and Eric King of Privacy International
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China: Google email services disrupted

March 21st, 2011

Google has blamed the Chinese government for disrupting its services after users experienced problems with accessing their emails.  Some users have also claimed that their email accounts have been hacked into. Just over two weeks ago some Chinese Google email users were targets of hacking attempts that were described by Google as politically motivated, specifically aimed at activists.

Turkish journalists jailed

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.

Google lifts restrictions for Iranian users

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.

Google escapes fine for privacy breach

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
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Turkey lifts YouTube ban

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.