by Matthew L. Schafer

Note: This report originally appeared in the media blog Lippmann Would Roll.

On Friday, D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff lifted a restraining order she had placed to prevent the National Law Journal from publishing information in an article relating to an ongoing federal investigation of the juice company POM Wonderful.

The information that Judge Bartnoff sought to prevent the NLJ from publishing and that POM Wonderful also wanted sealed were details relating to an investigation of POM over $600,000 of legal bills it had not paid.  The judge’s order amounted to prior restraint, and was most likely a violation of the First Amendment and would not have stood on appeal.

“If I am throwing 80 years of First Amendment jurisprudence on its head, so be it,” Bartnoff said upon issuing the order preventing the NLJ from publishing the information it gathered from public court documents that were supposed to be sealed, but had not been due to an error by the court.

“Specifically, we are not allowed to name a government agency conducting a regulatory inquiry into one of the subjects of the article, POM Wonderful,” the NLJ wrote upon publishing a redacted version of the article on July 26.  “We fought this order vigorously in court; we thought and continue to think that it is a violation of the First Amendment.”

On July 30, The Washington Post, The American Society of News Editors, The Associated Press, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, NPR, Gannett Newspapers, Dow Jones & Company, the Society of Professional Journalists, and The New York Times filed an amicus brief (friend-of-the-court brief).

“Government censorship of the press in the form of a prior restraint on publication constitutes ‘the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights,’” the news organizations argued.

Shortly after the brief was filed, Judge Bartnoff withdrew her order, perhaps after she realized that the United States’ Supreme Court has never upheld an order which resulted in prior restraint.

This new venture would have text, images, sound and video exclusively designed to meet iTunes app format. The content won't either be a newspaper or a news website. This is not going to be based on any of the existing newspapers of News Corp.

By Shabina Khatri

On Wednesday, Qatar added an eighth digit to all mobile and landline phone numbers in the country. Officials said the move is an effort to create more phone numbers in a country that has seen its population double in the last five years.

Hukoomi, Qatar's government website, explains the change:

Under the plan, the first digit of both the fixed and mobile numbers will be repeated.

Thus, if your old number started with 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 all you need to do is to repeat the first digit such as 33, 44, 55, 66 and 77…

All emergency telephone numbers within Qatar, including 999 and 112, will not be affected by the change, and the country code will remain +974.

Numbers beginning with 1, 2, 8 and 9 will not be changed.

Though residents were initially worried that the change would cause widespread confusion, the transition seems to have been made with little incident.

That's thanks in part to several renumbering applications for mobile phones that automatically update users' contact lists.

The apps, however, didn't appear to work for everyone.

On Twitter, @NazQatar said:

Thanks to screw my phonebook with those apps!! it DOESN'T recognize all numbers start with 00974 #Qatar

@omerm27 said:

its getting kind of annoying already. it's only been two hours

Others were more accepting (and tongue-in-cheek) about the new number scheme.

On Facebook, Fahad Qureshi said:

because too many people are moving to this country, they ran out of phone numbers lol….so now the first digit of every number is repeated….if you ever plan on calling me in the future lol…update your phone books.

On Twitter, mohamed said:

The upside of the telco's in Qatar changing the number format is that I will have to speak to fewer people today. #antisocial

And though the change seems to have gone over peacefully, some continue to worry about the inconvenience having a new number would cause.

On the popular social forum Qatar Living, ajmani said:

All business cards, stationeries, resume's, job sites, other sites, etc etc needs to be updated… i doubt if everyone has fixed it already! Hope there will be a recorded message whenever someone calls on the old number, guiding them to add 3, or 4 or 5 or 6…!

Indeed, for the next three months, those dialing seven-digit numbers will hear an automated message advising them of the new scheme.

Whether that gives people away for the summer and Ramadan enough time to acclimate to the renumbering plan remains to be seen.

Apple earns a royalty of around 20-25% from such brands which are licenced under 'Made for iPod' program. Unauthorized vendors are not only giving economic setback to Apple but also violate many of the Apple's patents.

by Matthew L. Schafer

Note: This report originally appeared in the media blog Lippmann Would Roll.

On Friday, Congressmen Gene Green [D-TX] and Fred Upton [R-MI] introduced a concurrent resolution that “directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to wait for Congress to enact a law prior to issuing rules, regulations, or orders concerning additional regulation of broadband Internet service.”

Since the FCC lost a case to Comcast last April, which stripped the FCC’s ability to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic online, it has been pursuing what FCC Chairmen Julius Genachowski has called a “Third Way.”  The “Third Way” would prevent Internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T from discriminating against certain types of traffic.

The move to “reclassify” the Internet in this way would give the FCC tailored authority that is neither as lenient as regulation under Title I or information services and not as strict as Title II or telecommunications services.  Despite the FCC’s attempt at tailored regulation, the concurrent resolution introduced today would urge the FCC not to move forward with reclassification.  Reps. Green and Upton were joined in their resolution by 46 other congressmen, including 24 Democrats.

“If the FCC continues its pursuit of reclassification, the certain result will be lengthy court battles that will reduce, or even halt, capital investments and effectively cease the improvement and expansion of access to the unserved and underserved areas of the country,” Rep. Green said.

While Green attempts to halt FCC efforts to reassert its authority over ISPs, Comcast and other service providers are free to discriminate against content online without repercussions from the FCC.  This comes despite the court’s admission in the Comcast case that “Congress gave the [Commission] broad and adaptable jurisdiction so that it can keep pace with rapidly evolving communications technologies.”

Green and Upton’s concurrent resolution comes after this week’s heated letter writing exchange between Rep. John Dingell [D-MI] and Genachowski and a speech by Rep. Al Franken [D-MN.] in support of reclassification.  While Dingell told Genachowski to “abandon” reclassification, Franken argued that the protection reclassification brings is necessary for a free and open Internet.

While Green’s office says the current resolution is not an appraisal of the merits of “net neutrality,” in the past Green has been an avid opponent of this move to prevent ISPs from slowing or stopping some online traffic.  In an October 2009 speech on the floor of the House, Green called FCC attempts to prevent online content discrimination “micromanag[ing].”

Both Upton and Green have financial ties with the telecommunications industry.  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Green has accepted over $80,000 from AT&T in campaign donations.  Upton has also accepted thousands in campaign donations from Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable and holds $1,001-$15,000 in Verizon stock, $15,001-50,000 in AT&T stock, and $1,001-$15,000 in Comcast stock.

The resolution, which Green says “reinforces the powers that are reserved for Congress under the Constitution,” is unlikely to pass the House.  Even if the concurrent resolution did pass, it would does not carry the weight of the law or require President Obama to sign it.

By Alexey Sidorenko

YouTube under fire in the Russia's Far East. Photo by mauritsonline

On July 16, 2010, Komsomolsk-on-Amur city court issued a decision [RUS] requested by the city prosecutor, obliging a local Internet provider “Rosnet” to block IP-addresses of five websites: lib.rus (the judge meant lib.rus.ec, a Russian Internet library), thelib.ru, www.zhurnal.ru, web.archive.org, and… youtube.com. The websites were accused of hosting extremist content (several online copies of “Mein Kampf” and a video “Russia for Russians” that accompanied a skinhead-related song uploaded by a user from Serbia [RUS]), while the provider was accused of “not blocking them.” The court decision says:

…проведенная прокуратурой проверка показала, что интернет-провайдер в лице ответчика не обеспечивает должным образом безопасность пользователей в глобальной сети. Жители г. Комсомольска-на-Амуре имеют свободный доступ к сайтам экстремисткой и террористической направленности, которые пропагандируют идеи общественных организаций, содержат высказывания, направленные на возбуждение ненависти и вражды к группе лиц по признакам национальности, отношения к религии, а равно принадлежности к власти, органам управления, а также оправдание террористической деятельности, запрещенных на территории Российской Федерации.
[…]
в целях восстановления нарушенных прав граждан и во исполнение действующего законодательства, доступ к … к Интернет - сайтам … следует ограничить, посредством добавления на пограничном маршрутизаторе правил фильтрации IP - адресов указанных сайтов.

…the inspection conducted by the Prosecutor's Office showed that the Internet provider (the defendant) failed to ensure the security of the users of the global network properly. Komsomolsk-on-Amur residents have free access to extremist and terrorist websites that promote ideas of public organizations, contain statements aimed at inciting hatred and hostility towards a group of people based on ethnicity, attitude towards religion, as well as belonging to the authorities, and justification of the terrorist activities prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.
[…]
in order to restore the violated rights of the citizens and to enforce the current law, access… to the Internet sites … should be limited by adding rules of the IP-filtration of the aforementioned websites to the router.

Marker.ru published [RUS] an interview with prosecutor Vladimir Pakhomov, who said that “a provider is obliged to filter information that goes through its channels to the World Wide Web,” and didn't exclude the possibility of filtering Vkontakte.ru and other social networks.

The court's decision, however, hasn't been enforced yet. The provider managed to appeal [RUS] on time and is waiting for the decision of a higher instance court.

Numerous mistakes (both spelling and factual) in the court decision attracted attention [RUS] of various bloggers, highlighting a low level of computer (and general) literacy of a person who wrote the decision. Besides, the measure of IP-filtering is both expensive and inefficient (for various reasons), argued Rosnet in a detailed press release published on its website. Russian Google said [RUS] the decision might be a serious threat for the development of the Internet in Russia's Far East.

Previously, GV reported on other cases of similar accusations against providers (here, here, and here/a>, and many others that were not documented). Until now, however, prosecutors have been demanding to close only small websites. With YouTube, the technique of content removal/blocking was slightly different. The Russian authorities addressed YouTube directly with demands to delete certain videos, and the service usually complied [RUS].

“Rosnet” cited [RUS] two similar cases that were initiated but lost by the same Prosecutor's Office in April and May 2010. Recently, Sova-center reported on a court decision in Chita region, also in the Far East Region: Chita city court obliged a local provider to block the website of “Russian Zabaikalie” because of the neo-Nazi content. Both Chita and Komsomolsk-on-Amur are within 200-300 kilometers from the border with China, a country with the most severe Internet filtering systems. Besides, Komsomolsk-on-Amur has some of the highest Internet prices [EN] and some of the lowest numbers of social network users among cities with the population of more than 200,000 people.

So what is it? Is it geographical proximity that makes blocking practices so tempting, or a technical backwardness? Or, a general trend towards a nation-wide system of content blocking? Stupidity of the local authorities or the beginning of the Great Russian Firewall?

Both, concludes Anton Nossik, IT entrepreneur and a popular blogger. In his column at snob.ru, where Nossik analyzed [RUS] the unusual expansion of the list of extremist materials [RUS] (which grew from 218 items in 2008 to almost 700 now), he quite cynically writes about such prosecution of “extremism”:

грандиозный замысел опустился на уровень исполнителей, у которых в общем случае никакой собственной мотивации насчет идеологического контроля не было. И система принялась отрабатывать начальственный указ… У милиции и прокуратуры появился «план по валу», предусматривающий выявление и запрет экстремистских материалов на подконтрольной территории, физической и виртуальной. …подобрались «эксперты», готовые штамповать по заказу прокуратуры заключения об экстремистском характере любого поступившего от заказчика материала. Устаканилась процедура вынесения судебных решений. Идею требовать от уездных провайдеров фильтрации запретных серверов по IP обкатало УФСБ по Новосибирской области четыре года назад […].

[…]

В результате этой суеты по всей стране оформился внушительный и нелепый конвейер, продуктами работы которого являются и сам Федеральный список запретных материалов, и недавнее постановление о запрете YouTube в Комсомольске-на-Амуре, которое на нем основано. В работе конвейера задействованы тысячи милицейских, прокурорских и судейских работников по всей стране. Которые в гробу видали и свободу слова, и борьбу с ней, но у них у всех есть разнарядка, и нужно ежеквартально отчитываться о проделанной работе. На выходе имеем то, что имеем: нагромождение нелепых и неэффективных запретов, с нулевым практическим выходом — будь то для реальной борьбы с экстремизмом или даже для локального ограничения доступа к цензурируемым произведениям. Весь этот мартышкин труд осуществляется строго для галочки, для отчетности. А главный стимул, которым объясняется высокий уровень активности уездных бюрократов по этому направлению, — чрезвычайная простота всех процедур, позволяющих затем рапортовать об успешно проделанной работе, в условиях нулевого контроля сверху за ее полезностью или эффективностью.

The master plan made it down to the level of executives, who actually didn't have any motivation for ideological control. So the system started working on the order from the bosses… The police and the prosecutor's office got an [overall plan] that foresaw the exposure of extremist materials on the territory they control, virtual or real. … “experts” appeared, who were ready to replicate assessments recognizing as extremist any material they received from their [superiors]. The practice of issuing court decisions also became routine. Novosibirsk region's Federal Security Service was the first one to try out the idea of demanding IP-filtration of banned servers from local providers four years ago […].

[…]

As a result of all this mess, the country got a significant and absurd production line. The federal list of extremist materials, as well as the recent decision to ban YouTube in Komsomolsk-on-Amur are its products. Thousands of police officers, prosecutors and court employees are involved in the work of this production line all over the country. All these people couldn't care less about freedom of speech or about suppressing it, but they all have a plan, and [every three months] they have to report about the completed work. And we have what we have: a pile of absurd and inefficint bans with zero practical result - be it in the fight against extremism or even local limiting of access to the censored works. All this futile activity is being carried out only for appearance's sake, for paperwork. And the main stimulus for the local bureaucrats that could explain the high level of activity in this direction is the extraordinary simplicity of all these procedures, the ease of reporting a successfully-fulfilled job, and no control whatsoever of its usefulness and efficiency from the above.

Nossik concluded that Russia's police “are able to bury any disgusting totalitarian idea,” be it censorship or total surveillance. Although the reality described by Nossik is somewhat true, the case of the first YouTube ban in Russia is the result of a steady and consistent development. Blog or video platforms (like YouTube) are becoming more dangerous for individual bloggers, since the attempts to ban LiveJournal or Facebook after they hosted questionable material are becoming increasingly probable.

Ballmer said that the tablet hardware is set to be based on Intel processors rather than ARM chips. The tablets will run on the Windows OS which will have a look and feel of Windows 7 rather than the much talked Windows Phone 7.

The device adds both voice calls and messaging functionality to iPod Touch. It is very easy to setup on your iPod Touch as it is a hassle free technique. One has to just slip the iPod Touch inside the case and it starts working.

The dual display featuring Nintendo 3DS measures 130mm x 74mm x 20mm and weighs in at 230g. The top display on the device is a 3D display and the bottom one, in the middle of the keys, is a 2D display.

The smartphone, HTC EVO 4G will get the Android 2.2 aka Froyo on the 3rd day of August 2010. This will bring a host of new features on the smartphone which has made waves on its launch.

By Ndesanjo Macha

Erik looks at mobile payment services in Kenya: “Kenya is quickly gaining a competitive advantage in the mobile payments space. Led by mobile operator giant Safaricom with their Mpesa product, the market locally sees huge value in mobile money transactions.”

 

Srinagar, July 30 (Scoop News)– Former Joint Director Information,  Bashir Ahmad Wani passed away at SKIMS, Soura here today after prolonged illness. His death has come as a shock to all his friends and acquaintances who knew him as a very sociable and pleasing person who had cultivated lot of admirers during his long service career spanning three decades.

 Wani had been ailing for some time and was shifted to SKIMS about a fortnight ago where the end came in the afternoon today.

 Wani had served all along in the Information Department except for a brief spell when he was posted as Joint Director Handicrafts, Kashmir. He had joined Information Department as Assistant Information Officer (AIO) and had risen to the position of Joint Director in which capacity he headed the Kashmir Division office of the Department. He served the department in various capacities and also headed its Public Relations wing. He was also posted as the chief of the New Delhi Bureau office of the department.

 Wani was gifted with the qualities of a professional public relations man and enjoyed a close rapport with the media both in Srinagar and Jammu. He had a great sense of dress and always wore a disarming smile. He is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.

 Wani was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard at Malkha near the Zaroo Gun Factory. According to family sources, the chaharum will be held on Monday, August 2ndat 10. 30 A.M. after which a condolence meeting will be held at his Sadrabal residence.

The demise of  Wani has grieved the employees of the Information Department and the media fraternity. A condolence meeting was held by the employees of the Department with Director Information,  Zaffar Ahmad in chair, in which rich tributes were paid to the departed colleague. His contribution to the development of the department and his warm relationship with his colleagues especially his subordinates was specifically recalled.  

www.scoopnews.in 

 

By Alexey Sidorenko

Habrahabr users discuss [RUS] the latest Akamai's “State of the Internet” report. According to the research, 12 percent of all the Internet-attacks in the first quarter of 2010 were carried out from the territory of Russia, while the U.S. hackers took the “second prize” for 10 percent of the world's aggressive Internet-traffic.

The Samsung LED televisions use LED as their primary light source and not the traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL). The other benefits that this series of tv's have are ultra-high contrast ratios, slim depths and increased energy saving.

by Matthew L. Schafer

Note: A version of this report originally appeared on the media blog Lippmann Would Roll and Stop Big Media.

In front of a crowd of 2,000 bloggers and citizen activists at Netroots Nation last week, Sen. Al Franken [D-MN] delivered an explosive speech about media consolidation, Net Neutrality and corporate influence over policy (video). “Now, corporations with government permission pose the greatest threat to your First Amendment rights,” he said.

Franken was not only citing the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision, which will allow corporations to inject millions of dollars into the election process, but also the likely ramifications of the proposed Comcast-NBC Universal merger on free speech and the open Internet.

“If no one stops them how long to do you think it would take before four or five corporations effectively control the flow of information in America not only on television, but online?” Franken asked his audience.

A prominent opponent of the Comcast-NBC merger, Franken argued that it could open the door to even more mega mergers that would unite on a massive scale content creators and content distributors, while relegating independent content to the dark corners of the Internet and other platforms. A merger like Comcast-NBC, Franken said, is likely to lead to the favoring of corporate content over that of individuals.

Without vital Net Neutrality protections, and tough but fair regulation for corporations like Comcast, Franken sees a dark future where the flow of information in the United States will be controlled by just a few multinational corporations. Without Net Neutrality and other protections, Franken told the Netroots audience that the foundation of their movement – the open Internet – is next in line for a corporate takeover.

Franken repeatedly brought attention to the Comcast/NBCU merger, saying that empty promises from both Comcast and NBCU are not going to be enough. Instead, he said, it is absolutely necessary to proceed with the greatest amount of caution and skepticism.

“If we don’t protect Net Neutrality now, how long do you think it will take before Comcast-NBC Universal, or Verizon-CBS Viacom or AT&T-ABC-DirecTV or BP-Haliburton-Walmart-Fox-Domino’s-Pizza start favoring its content over everyone else’s?” Franken said.

If the government and the people do not voice their opposition to the Comcast-NBC merger, it is all too possible the media landscape will be dotted with even larger mega companies that control every form of our communications systems. Franken argued that the Comcast merger is just the first domino in a line of future mergers that will stifle innovation, investment, and Internet freedom.

“If it falls, the rest will soon follow,” he said. “It’s almost too late to stop this from happening, but not quite.”

Amazon has not only introduced a better reader at a lower price but plans to stay in the market and make life tough for the existing e-book readers like Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Sony Reader.

YouTube announced today July 29 that the video upload limit increasing by 50% to 15 minutes. YouTube previously allowed its users to upload however many videos they wanted, but no video could be more than 10 minutes in length.

By Eleonora Pantò · Translated by Bernardo Parrella · View original post [it]

While the recent WikiLeaks experience [EN] reveals aspirations to build “information freedom zones” with some help from Iceland [EN], the Italian government seems to be heading in the opposite direction.

A Media and Wiretapping Bill [EN] that was under consideration by the Italian parliament for two years (harshly criticized by the United Nations) [all links in Italian from here] would have introduced a “gag rule” by restricting journalists from publishing wiretapping records during investigations, possibly in the public interest. Thanks to sustained protest by citizens and journalists, these restrictions were formally removed from the text of the bill on July 21. Yet somehow the new version still includes a small clause aimed at directly restricting online free speech,the so-called “blog-killing” provision (par. 29 of art. 1). As the group blog MAVAFFANCULP explains it:

Una norma introdotta riguarda infatti proprio il mondo del web e non si capisce cosa c'entri con le intercettazioni telefoniche. E' infatti fatto obbligo a qualsiasi blog e quindi a qualsiasi blogger di rettificare nello spazio di 48 ore una notizia o un articolo che possa contenere una informazione non corretta.

In sostanza, se la norma venisse approvata, tutti i blogger dovrebbero stare all'erta per pubblicare una eventuale rettifica che gli sia richiesta pena una multa di 12.500 euro. Non c'è verso di fare neppure una settimana di vacanza tranquilli! E' evidente che questo porterà molti siti a una scelta drastica. O si chiude o si smette di occuparci di argomenti su cui i potenti, e i loro agguerriti avvocati, sono particolarmente sensibili.

One of the proposed provisions is specifically aimed at the online world and it is not clear what this has to do with wiretaps. It would become mandatory for any blog to rectify within 48 hours any news or articles that might contain incorrect information.

Basically, if the law is approved like it is now, all bloggers are required to promptly fix any requested correction or be fined up to 12,500 Euros. No way that we can even take a short vacation! Obviously this will force many sites to make a drastic choice. Either to close down entirely or stop dealing with issues about which powerful people, and their aggressive lawyers, are particularly sensitive.

Once again, people are voicing their discontent on the Net and on the streets. The web-community Valigia Blu coordinated most of the activity in the last weeks, including a large rally scheduled for Thursday July 29 at 4pm, in Piazza Montecitorio, in downtown Rome, to mark the beginning of the final bill discussion on the Parliament floor.

No Gag Rule protest, Piazza Navona,
Rome, 1 July (CC BY-NC-SA)

In the meantime people are encouraged to sign a letter to MPs in order to “reopen the debate and par. 29 of art.1″: it has been signed by over 11,000 citizens so far, along with other 240,000 signatures gathered during the previous rally held in Rome on July 1st – see picture on the left, from the Valigia Blu photostream on Flickr.

Many self-produced videos are circulating on YouTube, including the following video by nikilnero.

Information is also spread via Twitter under the hashtag #nobavaglio:

- http://nobavaglio.adds.it has a petition against the Gag Rule, can you please help me get people to sign it?

- local Web-TV risks closure, this strict law is threatening the life of 350+ of them

- confusion reigns here, as in the most backward, forgotten, anonymous state…

The Facebook group No Legge Bavaglio has passed 6,500 members (reaching 11,000 if adding the website supporters) and continues to share updates and news stories:

- You can’t even stop for a minute here, not even the time for a coffee! (arianna)

Therefore it’s quite bizarre what's happening in the Parliament. Or maybe it isn’t, actually. The web has in fact decentralized the news production, with the result that the control on information created by citizens is getting weaker day by day. For some, this is evidently a problem. For all the others it is, indeed a success to be extended and improved.

Mainstream media also oppose the proposed regulation, explaining that anybody sharing content on the web (including radio and TV websites) would be subject to the same “correction requirement”. The website of the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano writes:

Tutte le web tv ed i video blogger italiani, in forza degli emanandi regolamenti, dovranno chiedere all’Agcom un’autorizzazione – o almeno indirizzarle una dichiarazione di inizio attività -, versare 3000 euro per il rimborso delle spese di istruttoria (quali?) e, soprattutto, finiranno assoggettati, tra gli altri al solito obbligo di rettifica, sempre entro 48 ore e sempre sotto la minaccia di una sanzione fino a 12 mila e 500 euro .

L’obiettivo dell’ultimo scellerato progetto di Palazzo sembra evidente: ora che il Cavaliere si accinge a sbarcare in Rete avendone forse, almeno, subodorato le enormi potenzialità, la vuole tutta per lui, per i suoi amici e per i soli suoi nemici che ha, comunque, la garanzia di poter controllare almeno in termini economici.

According to these forthcoming regulations, all Italian Web-TV and video-bloggers must file an application with the Communications Authority - or at least inform them of their official activity - pay 3,000 Euros for a potential investigation reimbursement (what kind?) and, above all, will be subject to the same correction requirement applied to mainstream media, always within 48 hours and at risk of a penalty up to 12,500 euros.

The objective of this now infamous bill by Berlusconi seems clear. Now that he is about to arrive on the Net, having perhaps sensed its enormous potential, he wants to keep it all to himself, his friends and the few enemies he can control in economic terms.

Other online comments address the negative consequences of this “gag rule” on e-commerce activities, as explained by Enrico Giubertoni on Buzzes:

È immorale poiché impedisce de facto ogni forma di critica, è antieconomico poiché impedirà di affermare un principio cardine del Social Media Marketing ovvero il giudizio su un prodotto. Se scriverò che il prodotto A non è bene mentre B è meglio, il produttore di A potrà obbligarmi a rettificare. Come faremo a fare InfoCommerce con l’Ammazza Blog?

It is immoral because it actually prevents any form of criticism, it is anti-economical since it reverses the basic principle of social media marketing, which is the user rating of a product. If I write that product A is not so good, while item B works better, the producer of A could force me to rectify that statement. How are we going to pursue InfoCommerce with this “blog-killing” provision?

Some specific amendments to repeal the “blog-killing” clause have already been announced, but the broader context reveals a new government crisis looming and an on-going intent to impose limitations on the democratic expression of citizens. However, in the Parliament everybody keeps mum. Nobody even seems to know how and why that tiny provision ended up in the wiretap bill.

In a blog post titled  “Il legislatore fantasma” (The Ghost Lawmaker), Massimo Melica says:

Ho provato in ogni stanza, corridoio, stanzino ministeriale…nessuno conosce o ricorda chi ha redatto il testo inserito nel “ddl intercettazioni”, nella parte che riguarda Internet.
Ho sfidato il Sig. Nessuno e nessuno ha accettato la mia sfida.
Quindi ci ritroveremo una norma (comma 29 art.1 ddl intercettazioni) pensata da Nessuno, voluta da Nessuno e scritta da Nessuno ma alla fine approvata dal Parlamento italiano.
Inutile gridare al complotto perchè non c’è, si tratta della burocrazia e della politica incapace di tener traccia dei suoi movimenti.

I've looked in every room, hallway, closet of the Ministry … nobody knows or remembers who wrote that provision about the internet included in the “wiretap bill”.
I challenged Mr. Nobody and nobody has met my challenge.
So we will have a law (par. 29 of art. 1) thought up by Nobody, wanted and drafted by Nobody, but finally approved by the Italian Parliament.
It's pointless arguing against a conspiracy that doesn't exist, perhaps at fault are just bureaucracy and politics unable to keep track of their own developments.

UPDATE (30 July): The Parliament eventually decided to post-pone the bill discussion to September.

The GVO Italian team contributed to the original post and its translation.

Right now the LG Application Store aims to provide around 4000 apps to 33 countries. Though this figure is way lower than Apple's more than 250,000 apps, but a start is always good.

Though Apple has already issued an update on iOS 4, namely iOS 4.0.1 and has released second beta of iOS 4.1 to the developers. The Apple iPhone 3G users can have a sigh of relief as Apple is looking into the matter.