IAMAI, Facebook partner to educate children on Internet safety:

Press Trust of India | 15-Jul-2013 14:32 PM

Mumbai: Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has joined hands with social networking giant Facebook to launch internet safety education programme in the country for students aged between 13 17 years.

The programme will train children, teachers and parents on how to reap maximum benefits from internet while not compromising on their safety and security, IAMAI and Facebook said in a joint statement today.

The campaign, which is focused on building community awareness on the issue, will also train educators and child safety NGOs about internet safety practices, it added.

As a part of the first phase, the programme will be rolled out across Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad to cover 18,000 students across about 30 schools and institutions, it added.

"IAMAI has been running the Safe Surfing campaign in India for past four years covering 6.25 lakh students across the country. We are delighted that Facebook has come forward to support this critical initiative and enrich the campaign with their global learnings," IAMAI President Subho Ray said.

The programme will conclude with a national conference in New Delhi addressing online child safety issues later this year. The program will be extended to other Indian cities through 2014.

"Safety is an ongoing conversation between parents and kids, teachers and students, companies and the people who use the Internet. We encourage parents to have conversations about safety and technology early and often, in the same way that they talk to their kids about being safe at school, in the car, on public transportation or playing sport," Facebook India Director of Public Policy Ankhi Das said.

Facebook will develop the content and training materials and translate the same in regional languages. As part of the partnership, Facebook safety specialists will work with IAMAI trainers on safety content and participate in these training programs.

Key presentations and events will be live streamed via https://www.facebook.com/FacebookIndia.

Facebook has already created a Safety Advisory Board that advises the company on safety issues. The members of that board are leading Internet safety organisations like Childnet international, Connect Safely, The Family Online Safety Institute, The National Network to End Domestic Violence and Wired Safety.

http://m.ibnlive.com/news/iamai-facebook-partner-to-educate-children-on-internet-safety/406733-11.html

DOJ Ruling That Apple Violated Antitrust Laws

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Justice Department Issues Statement on U.S. District Court Ruling That Apple Violated Antitrust Laws

Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division made the following statement today after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that Apple Inc. violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by conspiring to raise e-book prices and end e-book retailers’ freedom to compete on price:

“This result is a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically.  After carefully weighing the evidence, the court agreed with the Justice Department and 33 state attorneys general that executives at the highest levels of Apple orchestrated a conspiracy with five major publishers – Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster – to raise e-book prices.  Through today’s court decision and previous settlements with five major publishers, consumers are again benefitting from retail price competition and paying less for their e-books.

“As the department’s litigation team established at trial, Apple executives hoped to ensure that its e-book business would be free from retail price competition, causing consumers throughout the country to pay higher prices for many e-books.  The evidence showed that the prices of the conspiring publishers’ e-books increased by an average of 18 percent as a result of the collusive effort led by Apple.

“Companies cannot ignore the antitrust laws when they believe it is in their economic self-interest to do so. This decision by the court is a critical step in undoing the harm caused by Apple’s illegal actions.

“I am proud of the outstanding work done by the trial team.  The Antitrust Division will continue to vigorously protect competition and enforce the antitrust laws in this important business, and in other industries that affect the everyday lives of consumers.”

Background
           
On April 11, 2012, the department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Apple, Hachette Book Group (USA), HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C., Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which does business as Macmillan, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc., for conspiring to end e-book retailers' freedom to compete on price by taking control of pricing from e-book retailers and substantially increasing the prices that consumers paid for e-books.

At the same time that it filed the lawsuit, the department reached settlements with three of the publishers – Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. Those settlements were approved by the court in September 2012.  The department settled with Penguin on Dec. 18, 2012, and with Macmillan on Feb. 8, 2013.  The Penguin settlement was approved by the court in May 2013.  Final approval of the Macmillan settlement is pending before the court.  Under the settlements, each publisher was required to terminate agreements that prevented e-book retailers from lowering the prices at which they sell e-books to consumers and to allow for retail price competition in renegotiated e-book distribution agreements.

The department’s trial against Apple, which was overseen by Judge Denise Cote, began on June 3, 2013. The trial lasted for three weeks, with closing arguments taking place on June 20, 2013.  The court has not yet scheduled a hearing to address the parties’ proposed remedies.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/July/13-at-772.html

Sony Decides Trade-In Value of Computer is Zero:

The Consumerist

http://consumerist.com/2012/12/20/sony-decides-trade-in-value-of-my-computer-is-0/

Google No Longer Allows You To Disable Safe-Search:

WEB WORLD MANIA! / WebProNews - Google no longer allows you to disable safe-search:

Google No Longer Allows You to Disable SafeSearch, and That Makes Google Search Worse:

By Josh Wolford

Google has just made their Image search worse in an effort to protect your virgin eyes.

If you’re in the U.S. and trying to search for boobs on Google Images right now, you’re going to have a tougher time. That’s because Google has prevented U.S. users from disabling SafeSearch. And if you want to find NSFW images, you’re going to have to be more specific with your searches.

Google users should be familiar with the SafeSearch toolbar at the top right of Image searches. Until recently, that bar allowed users to select MODERATE, STRICT, or OFF. As of right now, those options have been removed from the drop-down menu – but only in the U.S.

Do you think Google should have messed with the SafeSearch format? Do you think it makes Google Image search worse?

(Read More)

U.S. Rejects Telecommunications Treaty:

By ERIC PFANNER
Published: December 14, 2012

DUBAI - Talks on a proposed treaty
governing international telecommunications collapsed in
acrimony on Thursday when the
United States rejected the agreement on the eve of its scheduled signing, citing an inability to resolve an impasse over the Internet.

"It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that the United States must communicate that it is unable to sign the agreement in its current form," Terry Kramer, head of the American delegation announced moments after a final draft appeared to have been
approved by a majority of nations.

The United States announcement was seconded by Canada and several European countries after nearly two weeks of talks that had often pitted Western governments against Russia, China and developing countries. The East-West and North-South divisions harked back to the cold war, even though that conflict did not stop previous agreements to connect telephone calls across the Iron Curtain.

While the proposed agreement was not set to take effect until 2015 and was not legally binding, Mr. Kramer insisted that the United States and its supporters had headed off a significant threat to the "open Internet."

(Read More)

About Active Search Results Page Ranking Technology ASR Ranking:

ASR Ranking is a new search engine page ranking algorithm that allows search engines to rank search results higher for websites where the owners or promoters
of those websites have a history of
performing actions or events defined as Activity.

The goal of ASR Ranking is to rank
websites higher in organic search results where there are real active people supporting those websites. Websites will rank higher in the search engines results page (SERP) when the ASR Ranking is higher.

(Read More)

To track missing children, Haryana to launch MCTS:

Express news service

In order to track missing children, Haryana is set to launch the Missing Child Tracking System (MCTS) by next year, announced Sumita Misra Director General
Woman and Child Development Department, Haryana, on Thursday.

“The Haryana government will launch a two-day training programme on the ‘formulation of web portal to track missing children’ on December 10 and 11.
The programme will be organised to effectively and efficiently monitor and generate a data bank on missing children and child tracking. The data will be co-jointly collated and fed by WCD and the Home Department that will further be amalgamated with the
central data bank at the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi,” Misra said.

“The central government has planned to develop a comprehensive, integrated and live database of children living in uncongenial and challenging
environment and to develop a national portal on missing children. The government had visualised a need to constitute an interface between WCD and
Home Department, Haryana, in order to effectively monitor the missing children and implement child protection services,” Misra added.

House Approves Resolution To Keep Internet Control Out Of U.N. Hands:

The Hill

The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a Senate resolution introduced by Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that calls on the U.S. government to oppose United Nations control of the Internet.

The 397-0 vote is meant to send a signal to countries meeting at a U.N. conference on telecommunications this week.
Participants are meeting to update an international telecom treaty, but critics warn that many countries' proposals could allow U.N. regulation of the Internet.

Read the whole story The Hill

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