Slashback: Google, China, Network Neutrality

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Google's reasoning behind rejecting the DoJ motion, more fodder for the Chinese censorship fire, one of last weeks "first computers" brought to life, the New York Times backs network neutrality, hard drive death dance tracks, Serenity enters the black, and the USPTO issues a final rejection in RIM patent case -- Read on for details.

Google's reasoning behind rejecting the DoJ motion. xandroid writes "Google's blog has an explanation of their response to the DoJ motion." They have also provided a link to the entire 25 page response [PDF] sent to the DoJ.

Chinese censorship continues to be a hot topic. Mercury News is running an interesting article about the recent scolding top tech companies received from Washington with regards to assisting in censoring the internet in China. However, the Washington Post also has an interesting article regarding a senior editor at the China Youth Daily who posted a 'blistering letter on the newspaper's computer system attacking the Communist Party's propaganda czars and a plan by the editor in chief to dock reporters' pay if their stories upset party officials.' And finally, Wikipedia remains blocked in China despite the continued efforts of fans to correct the problem.

1960's Digicomp toy computer back in production. Larry Groebe writes "With all the talk last week about "first computers" on Slashdot and around the net, I was surprised to see only one mention of the Digicomp. A group of us keep the memories alive on Yahoo's 'Friends of Digicomp' group, and one enterprising member has managed to reconstruct the computer and is now selling them again for the first time in three decades. Its' a nostalgia trip for some of us; an eye opener for people who never experienced it; and still carries more than a bit of educational value. After all, even in these days of MAKE magazine, how many other true build-it-from-scratch computer kits are there?"

New York Times backs network neutrality. joshdick writes "In a recent editorial, The New York Times voices strong support for legislation requiring network neutrality. From the article: 'Some I.S.P.'s are phone and cable companies that make large campaign contributions, and are used to getting their way in Washington. But Americans feel strongly about an open and free Internet. Net neutrality is an issue where the public interest can and should trump the special interests.'"

Hard drive death dance tracks. daithedragon writes "A while back Gizmodo awarded the prizes in a competition to make a dance tracks out of the recorded noises of hard drives dying."

Serenity enters the black. stuart1310 writes "According to sliceofscifi.com the DVD sales of Joss Whedon's Serenity have recently climbed out of the red and started making profit for Universal. Beware, these numbers are estimates and even if accurate we've still a sight to go before seeing Serenity on TV or in the theaters again. Here is to hoping we do."

USPTO issue final rejection in RIM patent case. tsalaroth writes "ABC News is reporting that the USPTO has officially rejected at least one of the patents in the Blackberry infringement case. From the article: 'The U.S. patent office on Wednesday issued its first of several anticipated final rejections of patents held by NTP Inc. related to Research in Motion's BlackBerry device, two days before a judge will hear arguments on an injunction on the wireless e-mail service.'"

Comments

Take Me Out Into the Black

[Aidski]

"Tell them I ain't comin back"

So I'm a Firefly nerd, sue me.

Too much irony to take

[Anonymous Coward]

The fascinating news for me is Google, a private company standing up to the fascist tyranny of the US government.
Aside from the fact that it should be the job of the US poulation to do this, and the profound irony of a corporation
standing up for rights the ordinary individual is too apathetic and mentally lazy to deal with there is the
hilarious spectre of Washington chastising Google and Yahoo over their censorship. Could the irony be any richer? As if Washington had any moral weight left in this world whatsoever. High soap opera if you ask me. The USA just looks a little sadder and more lost with each passing day.

Re:Too much irony to take

[geekee]

"The fascinating news for me is Google, a private company standing up to the fascist tyranny of the US government."

No, the US govt. wants anonymous data, but Google doesn't want to give up any data that might reveal how they do search algorithms. Google isn't looking out for your privacy. It's just a coincidence.

Re:Network Neutrality won't work

[Jherek Carnelian]

the problem with Network neutrality is that it opens up the DSL and Cable providers up to competition for their other service, and that'a a big disincentive for them to roll it out.

So, instead of giving up more control of public utilities, give them less control and put it back in the hands of the public.

Require that these companies get out of the "content" business and stick to owning and operating the 'pipes.' After all, it is only the pipes that are a public resource (or really the right-of-way to lay the 'pipes' across private property) - content is not a public resource so companies that get a government granted monopoly should not be allowed to leverage that monopoly to unfairly compete in other markets. Once upon a time, that kind of abuse would have been considered a clear violation of the sherman anti-trust act, now it seems to be taken for granted, the public good be damned.

Re:Google's next request for searchs response

[joggle]

Google claims they aren't storing any personal info though on the censored google.cn site. So while they would have to turn over anonymous search info (assuming they are storing it), they couldn't give personal information since there isn't any to give.

From google's blog:

Privacy and Security. Google is committed to protecting consumer privacy and confidentiality. Prior to the launch of Google.cn, Google conducted intensive reviews of each of our services to assess the implications of offering it directly in China. We are always conscious of the fact that data may be subject to the jurisdiction of the country where it is physically stored. With that in mind, we concluded that, at least initially, only a handful of search engine services would be hosted in China.

We will not store data somewhere unless we are confident that we can meet our expectations for the privacy and security of users' sensitive information. As a practical matter, meeting this user interest means that we have no plans to host Gmail, Blogger, and a range of other such services in China.