Mediaboss Marketing

Reporters Without Borders has added Bahrain and Belarus to its "Enemies of the Internet" list for their restrictive approach to the Web.

Bahrain and Belarus join the ranks of other countries that RWB considers to be most restricting Internet freedom, including Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

"Bahrain offers an example of an effective news blackout based on a remarkable array of repressive measures: keeping the international media away, harassing human rights activists, arresting bloggers and netizens (one of whom died in detention), smearing and prosecuting free speech activists, and disrupting communications, especially during the major demonstrations," RWB said.

Belarus President Lukashenko, meanwhile, has increasingly cracked down on the Web as citizens have used it to mobilize against his regime.

"The list of blocked websites has grown longer and the Internet was partially blocked during the 'silent protests,'" RWB said. "Some Belarusian Internet users and bloggers have been arrested while others have been invited to 'preventive conversations' with the police in a bid to get them to stop demonstrating or covering demonstrations."

The Belarus government has used Twitter to intimidate protestors, RWB continued, while the country's main ISP has diverted those trying to access social network Vkontakte to sites with malware.

A new law that took effect on Jan. 6, meanwhile, "reinforced Internet surveillance and control measures," RWB said.

Last year, Bahrain and Belarus were on RWB's "under surveillance" list, but their actions bumped them up to the official "enemies" list.

The "under surveillance" category includes countries like Egypt, where "the new regime has resumed old practices and has directly targeted the most outspoken blogger," RWB said.

But it also includes Australia, thanks to its content filtering plans, as well as France, due to its anti-piracy laws.

Read the original here:
Bahrain, Belarus Added to 'Enemies of the Internet' List

NASSAU, Bahamas, March 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Internet.bs Corp. CEO Marco Rinaudo has issued the following statement:

-- Beginning of statement --

In a frustrated attempt to tarnish ICANN Registrar Internet.bs Corp.'s reputation, the US-based company LegitScript openly admits to having employed undercover agents to register domain names suggesting the sale of illegal or regulated drugs from the USA to the USA and furthermore using fake whois data. Both actions are in breach of Internet.bs Corp. Terms and Conditions and in violation of ICANN rules.

LegitScript's report published on their website can be found here:

http://www.legitscript.com/download/LegitScript_Report_on_Internet-bs_(Large).pdf

A security backup copy can be found at the Internet.bs Corp. website:

http://www.internetbs.net/cached/LegitScript_Report_on_Internet-bs_(Large).pdf

The above report states:

"... To find out, LegitScript went undercover."

"... We went on to register with Internet.bs over one hundred seventy-five domain names such as controlled-drugs.net and oxycodonenoprescription.com that appeared to be selling products like Vicodin and Xanax ...."

Here is the original post:
Domain Name Registrar Internet.bs Corp. Reveals That LegitScript Admitted Having Registered Hundreds of Pharma Domains ...

By Eric Engleman - Mon Mar 12 18:05:10 GMT 2012

The organization that manages the Internets address system should strengthen conflict-of-interest rules for its board of directors, the groups chief executive officer said.

It is time to further tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board, Rod Beckstrom, CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said at a meeting of the group in Costa Rica today.

This is necessary not just to be responsive to the growing chorus of criticism about Icanns ethics environment but to ensure that absolute dedication to the public good supersedes all other priorities, Beckstrom said, according to excerpts of the speech provided by Icann.

Icann, which manages the Internets domain-name system under a U.S. Commerce Department contract, approved a plan in June to consider hundreds more domains such as .apple and .nyc in a move to spur online innovation. The group began accepting applications for new Web suffixes in January for a three-month window ending April 12.

Public-interest organizations, a national advertisers group and a U.S. senator criticized Icann after its previous chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, joined a company that plans to invest in new domains less than a month after the board approved the expansion in June.

General Electric Co. (GE), Coca-Cola Co. (KO) and more than 50 other U.S. companies oppose the proposed domain expansion, saying it will increase their costs, confuse customers and fuel Internet fraud.

To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Engleman in Washington at eengleman1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernie Kohn at Bkohn2@bloomberg.net.

View original post here:
Internet Overseer Icann Needs to Tighten Board Conflict Rules, CEO Says

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A new women-only Internet cafe in Afghanistan's capital is the first of its kind in this country.

Staffed entirely by women, it's a place for women to connect to the world in a country where they don't often enjoy the freedom to do what they please online away from the watchful eyes of their fathers, husbands or brothers.

[More from Mashable: In the Middle East International Womens Day Is Documented on Social Media]

The Young Afghan Women for Change -- a local group of women activists -- inaugurated the Sarah Gul Internet Cafe last week. The group wants the cafe to become a place for women in Kabul to use the Internet, away from the prying eyes of others -- especially from men.

Based on a survey we did in Kabul, we found out that women were harassed in regular cafs and were uncomfortable sitting beside men for an hour-long (Internet browsing session), says Zafar Salehi, a YAWC member.

[More from Mashable: International Womens Day 2012 Tweets Flood the Twitterverse]

The caf is named after Sahar Gul, who was kept in solitary confinement and tortured by her husband for months. Her tragic case drew a great deal of international attention.

Afghans living in the country joined expatriates in Europe and the U.S. in raising money to help the Sahar Gul Internet Caf open its doors. Additionally, a private company donated 15 laptops, and a telecommunications firm is providing the caf with a free year-long Internet connection.

The YAWC will continue to ask women around Afghanistan about their Internet privacy concerns. If they find another area that might be in need of a women-only Internet cafe, they'll build another just like the Sahar Gul shop.

"In every province where women use the Internet, they have the same problem," says Salehi. "We can hopefully expand this initiative to other places."

Visit link:
Afghanistan's First Women-Only Internet Cafe Opens [PHOTOS]

There seems to be a school of thought that Google Webmaster Tool data is useless and inaccurate. General bugginess, delayed reports, showing average position in search results, and rounding numbers has led to many disregarding the search query report in frustration.

When John Mueller was asked during a Webmaster Hangout why rounding clicks was necessary, if there could ever be an advanced option showing actual numbers, and how many people would have to sign a petition for them to reconsider, he disappointingly said they just thought itd be better if the numbers were bucketed.

While we can see how they might need to round impressions to help compensate for automated queries, clicks seem to be correlated enough with visits to make a conservative estimate of (not provided) data. This is my hypothesis. I need help experimenting, but here is my methodology.

The key is understanding how Google decided to round, or bucket clicks. After consolidating data across several sites this list was generated, showing how Google decided to bucket search query clicks.

In essence, Visits from a custom Google Analytics report need to be inserted into the downloadable Google Webmaster Tool search query report. Begin by creating two reports in your browser.

The GA Custom Report contains:

Google Webmaster Tools search query report contains:

See original here:
Recovering (Not Provided) Keyword Data