The US Commerce Committee met last Wednesday to discuss bills on privacy issues. Obama's administration and industry representatives, as well as federal regulators working in the sphere of consumer protection and telecommunications issues, also took part in the meeting.

Should the proposed legislation be approved, it will become the first comprehensive privacy law in US history. It will encompass the issues of e-commerce and personal information theft, and will designate the course of action  for companies if their customers’ information should be compromised. The creation of the new legislation is aimed to replace the state laws that are in force now.

One of the bills under consideration, that  prohibits companies to track consumers without giving them prior notification, has caused a lot of disagreements among the participants at the meeting. For example, Senator Pat Toomey, a member of Commerce's Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance subcommittee, claims that nowadays many people voluntarily place their personal information on social networking sites. He affirms that the new privacy rules could “break the Internet,” because “different consumers have different expectations about privacy.”

Senator Toomey calls on his colleagues to thoroughly consider the new rules before accepting them. "I'm sure no one on this committee wants to break the internet, or limit many of the popular online services that consumers can access, in order to avoid fundamentally altering the current online experience in creating these unintended consequences. I just urge that we all proceed with caution," he asserted.

However, other participants at the Wednesday hearing, including  Julie Brill, Federal Trade Commissioner, Senators John Kerry and John Rockefeller, consider that protecting Internet privacy is very important for consumers. They claim that the new legislation will not restrict the activity of online companies but  that it will make  more transparent what kind of information about users they collect, giving the users the opportunity to choose whether to share this information or not.

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The OECD is having a two day meeting during June 28th and 29th  dedicated to discuss the issues of Internet regulations and further tendencies of web development. The participants at the meeting are government ministers, industry experts and business leaders.

The main question that is to be discussed during the meeting is the implementation of Internet regulations that will facilitate the development of the web and at the same time will protect online privacy, web anonymity and intellectual property. Protecting Internet privacy and online security are of crucial importance and web censorship should not destroy them, but preserve and maintain them.

Among the other topics at the meeting are the increment of broadband access and competition, and the protection of Internet openness, especially in non-democratic countries where governments deprive users of Internet access or implement tough forms of censorship that prevent the dynamism and growth of the web.

While preparing the meeting, the OECD has released several documents, such as Communications Outlook 2011, National Broadband Plans, Next Generation Access Networks and Market Structures and Fibre Access – Network Developments in the OECD Area.

According to the OECD, “this high-level meeting builds upon the OECD Ministerial on The Future of the Internet Economy held in Seoul, Korea in June 2008. Drawing together leaders from all stakeholder communities, this new meeting aims to continue fostering the development of the Internet economy.”

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There is an opinion that anonymity is an integral part of the Internet, but a lot of examples show that nowadays web anonymity is disappearing. The collective intelligence of Internet users, as well as digital fingerprints, make it possible for everyone to be identified if their sensitive information, including photos, videos and e-mails, is made  public.

Such destruction of anonymity is the result of the availability of social media services and video web hosts. Social media sites require that people provide their real identities and make their users’ private life more public that it has ever been. Susan Crawford, professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, claims that “Humans want nothing more than to connect, and the companies that are connecting us electronically want to know who’s saying what and  where. As a result, we’re more known than ever before.”

There are different attitudes towards loss of anonymity and privacy. On the one hand, this phenomenon has a lot of positive effects. For example, it can facilitate the identification of criminals, disproval of fraud and even help people become popular all over the world.

But, nevertheless, a lot of people prefer to protect their online privacy and do not want to unveil their identity. Moreover, users from countries with repressive regimes are afraid that certain private information could affect their  future life and career should it become available. That’s why they use the best VPN services to stay protected online.

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According to a new Juniper Research report, there are few smartphones and tablets properly protected from malicious software, viruses, and theft of sensitive data. Despite the high level of threats, nearly four per cent of mobile devices have additional security software installed in them, the report says.

The popularity of mobile devices is growing day by day, more and more people store their personal data on them or use them to access their e-mails, visit web sites, send important information or make online banking and shopping  transactions. That’s why it is becoming important for users to protect these devices the same way they protect desktop or laptop computers.

Juniper Research predicts an increase in security products for mobile phones and tablets. Nitin Bhas, the report’s author, claims, “We believe that the market for mobile security products will go mainstream by late 2013 as the vulnerability of data-centric mobile devices becomes more widely appreciated both in the business and consumer sectors. High-profile security alerts are likely to heighten the public’s awareness of this growing issue.”

However, a lot of people have already used different methods to protect the private data stored on their mobile devices. The majority of users prefer a VPN connection as it is one of the most reliable ways of privacy protection. There are a variety of VPN services available on mobile devices, among them are Android and iPhone VPN.  The best VPN services provide strong data encryption and minimise the opportunity of sensitive information theft.

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Next month,  Australia is going to start censoring some websites. The two largest Internet providers, Telstra and Optus, assented to restricting access to more than 500 sites with child abuse content. It will be the beginning of the implementation of  a $9.8 million Federal Government scheme that aims to make Internet service providers to offer their customers an optional service  for  blocking sites containing Refused Classification material.

However, Internet experts claim that this kind of censorship has some drawbacks. First of all, it lacks efficiency. These restrictions won’t stop criminals from accessing the banned content because they will be able to circumvent the restrictions and unblock websites easily.

Donna Ashelford, board member of System Administrators Guild of Australia, asserts that “the effectiveness will be trivial because you're just blocking a single website address (and) a person can get around it by changing that address  by just one character. Child abuse material is more likely to be exchanged on peer-to-peer and private networks anyway, and it is a matter for law enforcement.”

Moreover, people worry that some websites can be unfairly blocked. It is not clear what criteria is taken into consideration to define the sites that should be banned. It is said that some URLs will be  unreasonably blocked and there is a need to make the process more transparent.

Colin Jacobs, member of the Electronic Frontiers Association, insists that his organization is “waiting to hear details on this from the Government. It they turn out to be zealous with the type of material that is on the list then we'd want to have a discussion about ways to introduce more transparency.”

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It is reported that the European Union is going to introduce new data protection rules. Viviane Reding, European Union justice commissioner, claimed that the new legislation would oblige all the companies to inform their customers should a case of personal information theft  occur.

However, this is not the only innovation. According to Viviane Reding, it is also planned to adopt the “right to be forgotten”, that will allow users to delete sensitive information about them from websites, and the “accountability principle”, aimed to make cloud computing usage more protected.

Nowadays, protecting internet privacy concerns almost everybody, that’s why the news caused controversy among experts. Some of them welcome it. They consider that the new rules will return customers’ trust in businesses because they will be sure that their personal information is safe, but that they will also stimulate the companies to improve their customers’ privacy protection policies. Mike Smart, solutions director, EMEA at SafeNet says that the changes “will drive the natural market mechanisms towards improving security compliance and achieving better protection of customers’ interests.”

Nevertheless, a lot of people think that these rules need to be improved before adopting them; otherwise it would be hard to implement them. Paul Davis, leader of FireEye, predicts that the new rules will likely “increase the visibility of security breaches and cause further panic about the safety of online data.” 

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The French government is not new to fighting Internet piracy. Three weeks ago, the French file-sharing site Liberty Land was shut down by law enforcement authorities and the three men who operated it were arrested. An anti-piracy law passed in 2010  promised steep fines or online bans for violators.

This trend, created to fight Internet piracy, is unlikely to reverse. France is not going to create laws to protect web anonymity and freedom of expression online. What is under discussion now is policing the Internet and blocking websites because of their “harmful” content.

The new proposed law is aimed at granting government officials the power to block access to websites. The bill may “give the French government the power to arbitrarily censor any content or service on the Net,” reports La Quadrature, a French citizen rights group,  on PC INpact. The autorities can block any web content that “harms or otherwise puts at risk public order and security, the protection of minors, of public health, national defence, or physical persons.”

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature, criticized the proposal. “This draft executive order aims to give the government a vastly disproportionate power to censor any website or content on the Internet,” said Zimmermann. “It is an obvious violation of the principle of separation of powers, and strongly harms freedom of communication online. This is an extremely disturbing draft, in direct continuity with the French government’s repressive Internet-related policies.”

Even if the bill was not passed, many people have already started to think how to bypass possible restrictions. Internet users are discussing on forums/Twitter what is going on in the world, why so many countries are considering to implement Internet censorship. People are looking at how to find the best VPN service or free web proxies to forget about restrictions of access to websites.

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There were a plenty of topics discussed at the Internet Society NY INET conference. The members of the conference debated the questions of protecting internet privacy, safety web browsing and availability of internet access. One of the key speakers of the conference Vint Cerf accentuated that nowadays it is very important to provide safety mechanisms that will protect us from cybercriminals on the one hand and will guarantee freedom of expression and keeping of anonymity on the other hand.

A lot of organizations including ISOC try to create international policies and technologies that will be able both to protect users’ online anonymity and to identify those who commit internet crimes. This is very difficult task to satisfy competing concerns and provide protection of people’s rights on internet.

There are a lot of cases when people have to use high anonymity web to protect their identity from hackers or repressive authorities. They do everything possible to remain anonymous. However, strong identification is essential while doing online shopping or banking. It is obvious that everyone will prefer to fill in a long application form in order to prevent money theft by the third party that has stolen your ID.

Cerf suggests that strong authentication can provide users reliable protection from spam or viruses because in this case people can accept e-mails and files only from trustworthy sources. He also believes that in order to stop cybercrime we need to develop international agreements that will be accepted by all states.

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It has been reported that Obama's administration has started the creation of a duplicate Internet that would be able to help people from the countries with repressive regimes to bypass censorship. According to the New York Times, the US is going to develop a so-called "shadow" Internet and mobile phone systems in order to support web anonymity and facilitate putting an end to repressive regimes.

It is also said that the US government plans to create independent cellphone networks in non-democratic countries and launch "Internet in a suitcase" that could be available in every country and would provide Internet access globally. The US authorities are reported to have allocated $ 2 million for the development of this project.

The US is financing the launch of wireless networks in non-free countries in order to give dissidents an opportunity to communicate with each other in case the Internet is blocked. The New York Times said that the government had already spent at least $50 million developing such a network in Afghanistan.

Many people from countries as Iran, Syria, Libya, and Japan use the best VPN services to bypass limitations imposed by the authorities. It is a reliable way to stay connected and protected. But even a VPN connection is not helpful if the Internet. shuts down completely. After Hosni Mubarak turned off the Internet during the political uprisings in Egypt, it has become a common practice in countries with repressive regimes.

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Last week the US Department of Commerce released a report entitled “Cybersecurity, Innovation and the Internet Economy.” This report appeared after the range of Internet security policy recommendations developed by the Obama administration.

The document emphasizes the importance of the companies providing online services for the development of the economy. Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce, claimed that their "economy depends on the ability of companies to provide trusted, secure services online. As new cybersecurity threats evolve, it's critical that we develop policies that better protect businesses and their customers to ensure the Internet remains an engine for economic growth."

The paper offers ways to strengthen security for companies that do the major part of their businesses on the Internet, like social networks, providers of online services and cloud computing firms. Such companies are included in the “Internet and Information Innovation Sector” (I3S).

To reinforce internet security and reach a high level of web anonymity and online privacy protection, the report gives some recommendations. First of all it is important to implement voluntary codes of conduct to eliminate security vulnerabilities. For example, for better protection companies may start using automated security or Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) protocols. Moreover, it is of crucial importance to enhance international exchange of cybersecurity best practices and develop incentives for the companies to succeed in this sphere.

Use the following link to read the report: http://www.nist.gov/itl/upload/Cybersecurity_Green-Paper_FinalVersion.pdf.

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