International

Last week, Global Voices held a summit in Budapest, Hungary for its members and the wider community of bloggers, activists, technologists, journalists and others from around the world. Called the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008, the two day event focused on the topic of "Citizen Media & Citizenhood."

As David Sasaki notes, the summit was held to address questions such as:   read more »

Vuestar, a patent-holding company from Singapore that describes itself as "the Pioneer of visual search," is asserting patent rights in the technology that enables websites to link to other webpages using an image rather than text. According to Ars Technica, the firm recently has been sending invoices to companies that it believes are using its patented technology. The impact of this patent claim could be huge -- as another report puts it, "almost every site on the Internet" uses this technology to link photos and graphics to other webpages. This Vuestar logo is a good example (and, no, it doesn't link to Stuff on My Cat.com):

Vuestar claims to hold patents in Singapore, Australia, and the United States. The U.S. patent, titled "Method of locating web-pages by utilising visual images," was filed in 2001 and granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2006. While the patent claim itself appears to describe an image-based search engine technology (which sounds very similar to Google Image Search), Vuestar apparently believes that the claim extends further. The FAQ section of Vuestar's website makes clear that the company views ordinary website image-linking practices as within the scope of its patent.   read more »

I was sure that this was an April Fool's joke. But alas, it's true. Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, sent Engadget a letter a few weeks ago, requesting that the popular tech blog stop using the color magenta in the logo for its Engadget Mobile news blog. Here are the two logos side-by-side (courtesy of Engadget):   read more »

Ars Technica reports that the International Olympic Committee has lifted its ban on blogging. Athletes competing in Beijing 2008 will be allowed to blog about the Olympics, so long as they follow some, well, restrictive guidelines. Most notably, athletes will not be permitted to report on the overall competition or relay information from third parties; instead, the guidelines require that they focus on their own personal experiences. This is because, in the IOC's view, blogging is "a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism." Whew, I'm glad they resolved that tricky ontological question.

Additionally, athlete bloggers may not post any photographs of the sporting events (although they may post their own photos from inside and outside official Olympic areas), and their posts must be "dignified and in good taste." They also may not host any advertisements or create an affiliation with a specific company (fair enough). It's easy to make fun of all these restrictions, but it is a step forward, and it may make for some fascinating material, even within the guidelines.

Or will it? As if all these rules weren't enough, recall that the Chinese government also filters the Internet in a serious way. According to Ars,   read more »

Following up on our posting yesterday about WordPress in Turkey, the MidEast Youth project has launched a petition calling on the Turkish government to invalidate the judicial decision to block the entire WordPress blog-hosting service in that country. The petition states:

Banning WordPress is a clear violation of free speech that effects the citizens of Turkey, WordPress bloggers, and readers all over the world. Certainly these disputes can be handled more judiciously by the Turkish courts.

Please take a moment to support free speech in Turkey by reading and electronically signing the petition.

Reports (here, here) indicate that WordPress.com, in its entirety, has been blocked in Turkey. People trying to visit the website get the following message: "Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance." The founding developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, began writing about the situation last week on his personal blog, and he received a letter on Saturday night from a Turkish attorney representing Mr. Adnan Oktar, who apparently is a Turkish national and the author of books written under the pen name Harun Yahya. Mr. Oktar's attorney claims that another Turkish national, Edip Yuksel, started a number of WordPress blogs dedicated to defaming his client. The attorney says that he sent a number of letters complaining about the alleged defamatory statements to the WordPress legal department and apparently to Matt personally. According to the letter, he then brought the matter before a Turkish court, which granted Mr. Oktar's request to block access to WordPress.com in Turkey. The letter demands that WordPress "remove and prohibit any blogs in [its] site that contain my client's name Adnan Oktar or his pen name Harun Yahya or various combinations of these 4 names."   read more »

The Australian is reporting that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will likely rescind its requirement that Olympic athletes refrain from blogging during the Olympics:

This seems like a complete no-brainer. Who better to provide first-person perspectives on the Olympics than the athletes themselves. The fact that they can't currently write about their experiences is lamentable, but not surprising given the IOC's strict control of everything related to the Olympics.

Of course the IOC's change, assuming it is approved, wouldn't just open the blogging floodgates. According to The Australian, the head of the IOC Press Commission said athletes "would have to comply with some strict conditions on their blogging, including not benefiting financially and not criticising coaches or other athletes."

Not criticising coaches or other athletes?! I guess that is free speech IOC style.

At the 60th World Newspaper Congress, which opened yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, Gavin O'Reilly remarked that  read more »