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Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United States will soon launch new programs to police their networks in an effort to catch digital pirates and stop illegal file-sharing.

Major ISPs announced last summer that they had agreed to take new measures in an effort to prevent subscribers from illegally downloading copyrighted material, but the specifics surrounding the imminent antipiracy measures were not made available. Now, RIAA chief executive Cary Sherman has said that ISPs are ready to begin their efforts to curtail illegal movie, music and software downloads on July 12.

Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system, Sherman said during a talk at the annual Association of American Publishers meeting, according to CNET. Measures will also be taken to establish databases so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion.

Customers found to be illegally downloading copyrighted material will first receive one or two notifications from their ISPs, essentially stating that they have been caught. If the illegal downloads continue, subscribers will receive a new notice requesting acknowledgement that the notice has been received. Subsequent offenses can then result in bandwidth throttling and even service suspension.

The news comes shortly after the closure of file-sharing giant Megaupload and increased pressure on other networks thought to be major hubs for the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. Some studies show that these measures have had no impact on piracy, however, so organizations like the RIAA have been lobbying for ISPs to intervene and develop systems that will allow them to police their networks and directly address subscribers who illegally download copyrighted content.

This content was originally published on BGR.com

More news from BGR: - Anonymous OS is fake and packed with malware, hacker group says - People want supersized cell phones, new study shows - Apple sings a familar tune, seeks to ban Samsung in Japan

Read more:
Internet providers map plan to 'sink' pirates

Earlier this week, I wrote about my disappointment that granular data (the number of URLs reported, the specifics of the errors) was removed from Google webmaster tools. However, as Ive been talking with Google, Ive discovered that much of this detail is still available via the GData API. That this detail was available through the API wasnt at all obvious to me from reading their blog post about the changes. The post included the following:

And led me to believe that the current API would only provide access to the same data available from the downloads from the UI. But in any case, up to 100,000 URLs for each error and the details of most of what has gone missing is in fact available through the API now, so rejoice!

The data is a little tricky to get to and the specifics of whats available varies based on how you retrieve it. Two different types of files are available that provide detail about crawl errors:

(Thanks toRyan JonesandRyan Smithfor help in tracking these details down.)

What this means is that different slices of data are available in four ways:

What youre able to see about each error is different based on how you access it.

Eight CSV files are available through the API (you can download them all for a single site or for all sites in your account at once as well as just a specific CSV and a specific date range), but this support is not built into most of the available client libraries. Youll need to build it in yourself or use the PHP client library(which seems to be the only one that has support built in). The CSV files are:

For the topic at hand, lets dive into the crawl errors CSV. It contains the following data:

This file does not include details on crawl error sources (but that is available through the crawl errors feed, described below).

It appears that thecrawl errors feedrequest code is built into theJava andObjective Cclient libraries, but youll have to write your own code to request this if youre using a different library. You can fetch 25 errors at a time and programmatically loop through them all. The information returned is in the following format:

Originally posted here:
Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors: How To Get Detailed Data From the API

15-03-2012 13:15 Are you in? my.barackobama.com Remember how far we've come. From Academy Award®-winning director Davis Guggenheim: "The Road We've Traveled". This film gives an inside look at some of the tough calls President Obama made to get our country back on track. Featuring interviews from President Bill Clinton, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Austan Goolsbee, and more. It's a film everyone should see.

Read the original:
The Road We've Traveled - Video

The bids are now in, but whoever wants a piece of what is almost certainly a juicy contract is keeping quiet--and for good reason.

It's the bid that dares not (publicly) speak its name.

Friday was the deadline for companies to file their applications to win a piece of a Pakistani project that has stoked controversy stretching from to South Asia to Silicon Valley.

In late February, Pakistan's National ICT R&D Fund, which represents the government, began inviting bids to help create a "national-level URL filtering and blocking system." The system was described as a way to protect the public from "undesirable content."

But critics dismiss that claim as a smokescreen for the government to tighten its control over the Internet and choke off dissent. What's really going on, they say, is a Pakistani attempt to duplicate China's sophisticated content-filtering Internet--often referred to as the "Great Firewall."

"This is essentially about government agencies wanting more and more control over public spheres," said Sana Saleem, a Pakistani journalist and blogger who also runs a Karachi-based Internet free speech organization called Bolo Bhi.

The construction of the envisioned system would empower the authorities with a switch they could use to "turn off anything and everything that they deem 'objectionable'--especially in the absence of a legislation or proper definition of the term 'objectionable' or even 'national security," according to Saleem. She said that the project's opponents have heard that Pakistan's National University of Science and Technology may be involved in building and maintaining the system. "Interesting to note that it is a military run institution & beyond ironic that it teaches science and technology," she said.

In the run-up to Friday's deadline, activists published the names of some of the companies believed to be competing for the bid. However, it's difficult to verify the list's accuracy. For instance, it was reported that Cisco had dropped out of the running. But the company maintains that wasn't true. "We don't have the products they're looking for so we didn't bid," a spokesman said. Another company, Blue Coat Systems, whose Internet blocking gear has turned up in Syria also denied its participation or interest in bidding. "Blue Coat did not bid on this opportunity," according to a representative.

So who is emailing in their bids?

"Good luck trying to find out," said an executive at a technology company which sells products to many developing nations including Pakistan. "Nobody here is going to talk about that--nobody. Forget even getting something on background. And don't you dare use our company name."

Read more from the original source:
Pakistan's Internet filter has the Valley buzzing over who's bidding

15-03-2012 10:15 (www.abndigital.com) Jeremy Mansfield and his expert guest take a closer look at cutting financial costs. Joining Jeremy in studio is Joe Cimino, Corporate Solutions Director at Financial Fitness Training, and Jim Millar, MD of Financial Fitness Training.

Go here to see the original:
Cutting Financial Costs - Part 2 - Video