Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic are sick and seem to be dying. In the U.S., newspaper consumption has decreased by two-thirds in the last decade. The demise is partly blamed on “free news” available online. But, in fact, the actual information that appears online in blogs and sites of all kinds depends heavily on costly-to-run mainstream media. A Pew survey two years ago showed that nine-tenths of the “news” is produced by fewer than a dozen major outlets, most of them big newspapers with big journalistic staffs. Now even a prime “culprit” -- Google – seems to be drawing the smart conclusion and wanting to help preserve, if not newspapers, at least good reporting and news that it can use.

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Privacy advocates have no friend in the Italian Judge Oscar Magi, author of a 111-page verdict upholding a criminal conviction three Google executives in connection with a video of an autistic boy being bullied by classmates.

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Traditional British Law Overtaken by Evolution of Globalizing Realities

British libel law, according to The Economist, means in practice that “anyone anywhere in the world who can prove that someone in England has bought, read, or downloaded potentially defamatory material about them can start a court case.” That’s unique – and that jurisdictional sweep is not the end of it.

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Idea Google being Demonized in France as “Great Satan” of Web Hegemony

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it official that he intends to tax foreign internet companies on their online sales in France, an initiative colloquially referred to as “The Google Tax.”
The idea -- the latest in a series of legal and political moves against Google's activities in France -- proposes to tax advertising revenues from online giants such as Google to support the creative industries in France hit by the digital revolution. But critics say it is unworkable, perhaps even counter-productive and could at best simply prop up failing business models.

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The Honorable Margot Wallström, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communications Strategy discussed the challenges of communicating Europe to 500 million citizens in 27 member states, and the methods in which the European Union is utilizing to bridge the information gap between Brussels and the rest of Europe. Dr. Beth Noveck, Deputy Technology Officer for Open Government in the Executive Office of the President presented the American perspective and how methods of new media impacted the U.S. 2008 Presidential election. Ian Koski, Senior Manager at Blue State Media and Aaron Smith, Research Specialist with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, also offered their views.