Breaking News: Internet Policy

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Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.

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Russia's ever-tightening grip on its citizens' internet access has troubling implications for online freedom in the United States and other countries that share its decentralized network structure, according to a University of Michigan study.

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Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

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Leaders in digital technology, education, business, and city governance gathered in El Segundo Dec. 14 for Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s (LAEDC) Future Forums: Cyber Security to address society’s increasing vulnerability to cyber threats.

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In their paper, “The Economics of Network Neutrality,” Ben Hermalin, Haas Economics Analysis and Policy Group,and Nicholas Economides, Berkeley-Haas visiting professor from NYU'S Stern School of Business, find that if Internet Service Providers known as ISPs initiate price discrimination in their pricing, a “recongestion effect” will occur. In other words, online delivery channels that are less congested at the onset of new pricing tiers will eventually become recongested when consumer behavior adjusts.

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Low-income city residents learn to use broadband through public programs, but they will not get home broadband until it costs less -- and government must help make that happen, says a UIC professor to the Federal Communications Commission.

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According to some estimates, the average corporate email user sends 112 emails every day. About one out of every seven of those messages, says a new study from Georgia Tech, can be called gossip. Assistant Professor Eric Gilbert of the School of Interactive Computing examined hundreds of thousands of emails from the former Enron corporation and found that 14.7 percent of the emails qualify as office scuttlebutt.

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The Internet and social media have opened up new vistas for people to share preferences in films, books and music. Services such as Spotify and the Washington Post Social Reader already integrate reading and listening into social networks, providing what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “frictionless sharing.” “But there’s a problem. A world of automatic, always-on disclosure should give us pause,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

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Although use of the internet has been credited with helping spur democratic revolutions in the Arab world and elsewhere, a new multinational study suggests the internet is most likely to play a role only in specific situations.

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Stephen B. Wicker, Cornell University professor of electrical and computer engineering, comments on obsolete federal data privacy laws. He conducts research on wireless information networks, and focuses on networking technology, law, sociology, and how regulation can affect privacy and speech rights. He is the author of “Cellular Convergence and the Death of Privacy,” a book to be published by Oxford University Press at the end of 2012.

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On a January evening in 2011, Egypt – with a population of 80 million, including 23 million Internet users – vanished from cyberspace after its government ordered an Internet blackout amidst anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The following month, the Libyan government, also under siege, imposed an Internet “curfew” before completely cutting off access for almost four days.

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Stephen B. Wicker, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University, conducts research in wireless information networks and how regulation can affect privacy and speech rights. Wicker comments on the recent WikiLeaks releases, how those releases connect to SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), and the need to balance Internet freedom.

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Internet law and copyright expert Ned Snow is available to comment on the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect IPA Act, both of which have begun to lose Congressional support. If passed, the bills would curb illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online.

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Tarleton Gillespie, a professor of communication and information science at Cornell University, comments on today’s protests by Wikipedia and other websites over potential federal antipiracy legislation.

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Bowling Green State University has two experts available to comment on the Wikipedia protest, SOPA and PIPA legislation.

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Wikipedia and other sites plan to go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act under consideration in Congress. Three law professors from Washington University in St. Louis, Kevin Collins, Gregory Magarian and Neil Richards, signed a letter to Congress in opposition to the PROTECT IP Act. Read Magarian and Richards’ current comments on SOPA and PROTECT IP.