The Chinese government has had a long-running history of restricting and censoring the internet. From blocking access to Google search results, to censoring websites with information that it believes provide information that would undermine the authority of the Chinese government and culture, China makes sure that it keeps tight controls on what its citizens are able to do online. Many citizens, in a quest for free access to information, have responded to these restrictions by using VPN services to get access to the outside world.

Now, it seems, the Chinese government has decided to start a new round in the war for the internet in China. As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, China has begun clamping down access to the servers of companies that provide VPN services to Chinese citizens in an attempt to close the loopholes in its censorship regime. In addition, the government, which has always seemingly been at odds with Google, has apparently begun carefully disabling certain portions of Google’s popular Gmail service. Google has accused China of disabling Gmail in a way that makes it look like a technical error on Google’s part rather than all-out censorship. Google has previously accused the Chinese government of hacking into its Gmail system to compromise the privacy of Google’s users.

Only time will tell how this new round of restrictions and regulations will play out in China. Hopefully, in the long run, the government will back down on its restrictions and allow its people free and open access to the internet.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled on January 25th that major providers of internet infrastructure could charge users and internet service providers usage-based fees for using their services. This immediately prompted companies like Bell Canada (by far Canada’s largest telecommunications provider) to implement per-gigabyte fees on data for Canadians.

These usage-based fees have been passed on to consumers. Many ISPs are now offering plans that require users to pay a monthly fee for a particular amount of bandwidth (say 25gb) and then pay a hefty per-gigabyte fee if they exceed that limit, much like purchasing extra cell phone minutes once your plan is used up. Canadian users are in an uproar, because they feel that the limits imposed are insufficient to allow them to take advantage of things like online music downloads and streaming video. (Also, they feel that the $1/gigabyte fees are unfair, given that the actual cost to the companies of transmitting a gigabyte of information is more like $.03.)

For internet entrepreneurs, this ongoing saga means two things. First, it’s likely to hurt companies like Hulu, or any other services that require sending massive amounts of data to make their products work. Even though Youtube and other services are still “free,” users will end up paying hefty fees to get all the data necessary to watch videos or download large files. Even makers of computer games are likely to be adversely affected.

The new pricing structure does create some entrepreneurial possibilities, though. Many internet companies have introduced new services to help deal with the new regulations – like services that tell you how big an online video is before you download it. Another company is offering to download files for users and then ship them to them on CD. The ruling has ultimately provided some creative opportunities for entrepreneurs to make a buck off the new market structure.

Want to read more about what’s going on? Ars Technica has a great article on the subject.

Legislation currently being debated in Congress would give the president the power to seize control of the internet during a time of “national emergency.” In fact, the bill would even give a president the authority to shut the internet down if those actions were deemed necessary.

Though the recent advent of cyber-warfare makes the legislation seem reasonable, it must also be considered in terms of its potential for curtailing free speech. Even as the current congress has been in session, the country of Egypt has completely shut off internet communications within their country in order to try to hamper the pro-democracy demonstrations that are going on within their streets. American legislators claim that the bill would never be used that way, but what’s to guarantee that it won’t other than the good will of future presidents? Surely, if a future authoritarian administration were to have people demonstrating against it, they wouldn’t have too much trouble deeming the situation a “national emergency.”

The bill also comes on the heels of new authorities taken on by the Department of Homeland security, which has in recent months begun seizing the domain names of websites it believes to be violating national or international laws. These and other actions only raise the question: how much government involvement do we want to see on the internet?

Perhaps only time will tell exactly how these issues will play out. But internet entrepreneurs can be sure that the “wild west” days of the unfettered internet are over. More government is coming and it is coming soon.

You can read more about the kill switch bill and the Egyptian riots here.

I am terrible about taking the time to watch the news or read a newspaper, but i do make an effort to stay up to date through google news. I realized recently that I have no idea where Google gets their news from. I always simply trusted Google. Thus, today I began my quest to know the source of my news.

To begin, I went to the about Google News page to find how Google defined themselves as a news provider. This was very helpful. “Google News is a computer-generated news site that aggregates headlines from more than 4,500 English-language news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader’s personalized interests.”

Now that I new Google News wasn’t simply reproducing news from CNN or FOX I wanted to know how they filtered there 4,500 sources and decide which news stories to display. As I dove deeper I found that Google’s News articles are selected and ranked by computers that evaluate, among other things, how often and on what sites a story appears online.

The same way Google gives out page rank and determines which sites are most relevant for organic search is driving what news we read. There is, however, a personalization element that changes things up. Users of Google News are offered links to several articles on every story, so one can first decide what subject are of interest and then select which publishers’ accounts of each story is preferred.

My concern is that although Google News apparently uses a democratic methodology of determining news, is that the media as a whole is not democratically controlled. News stories that make it into google by there ranking system of relevancy may be relevant by standards of controlled and biased news. The demographic that mostly uses the internet for their source of news is simply going to be spoon fed the majority opinion with little opposing view.

Google should look to better filter results by offering a the most relevant articles of  not only the majority view that is most viewed, but also the opposing perspective. This to me means relevancy.

The Drudge Report is a news website run by Matt Drudge that consists mainly of links to stories from the U.S. and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many columnists. The design of the web site is kept very simple consisting of a three column format, out sourcing links to all the major online news stories. The site gathers information from all the major online news sites, making it a one stop shop for news.

The online collaboration of all this current news information is very beneficial. Such as…

• It gives you the opportunity to check all the latest news on one site, rather than searching the  internet for all your major news stories.
• Gives you the capabilities of RSS, but is much easier to assess and understand.
• Simplicity. It offers you everything you need on one page to stay up to date.
• Updated daily, so you never miss the most important news stories.

Nielsen NetRatings reports approximately 3 million visitors per month, with visitors spending an average of 66 minutes on the site, with as many as one thousand advertisers at one time. With this amount of traffic there is no doubt that this simple yet effective website has caught on. With web sites like this it is no wonder that news papers are being read less and less. In order to find the amount of information on this site you would have to read multiple newspapers articles a day, leafing through page after page, just to find information that interests you.

People are starting to understand with websites like the Drudge Report why newspapers have begun to lose their luster….