Twitter Decides To Censor Locally, Rather Than Block Globally, In Response To Government Demands

from the choices... dept

Twitter just announced that it has set up the ability to block content on a country specific basis (e.g., if Germany demanded some content be taken down, Twitter can now just have that content blocked in Germany). I know some people saw this and got upset about "censorship!" but looking at the details, it actually looks like Twitter is doing a smart thing here. You could argue that the proper response would be to stand up to local governments and say, "sorry, we don't block anything" -- and I'd actually have sympathy with that response. But the truth is that if a government is demanding censorship, then Twitter is likely going to have to comply or face complete blocking. The solution that it came up with is somewhat more elegant: it will just block the specific content in the specific location and (importantly) will try to let users know that the content is blocked while also sending as much info as it can to the Chilling Effects website so that people can learn about what's being censored. This is a lot more transparent and hopefully actually shines more light on efforts to censor Twitter.

As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld. As part of that transparency, we’ve expanded our partnership with Chilling Effects to share this new page, http://chillingeffects.org/twitter, which makes it easier to find notices related to Twitter.

Oh, one useful tidbit of info? While it says it hasn't had to use this country by country blocking yet... and it uses the example of Nazi-related content, the place where it's already been censoring content... is in the US, in response to DMCA complaints as per Danny Sullivan:

Twitter’s already been pulling content where piracy or copyright claims are lodged, under the existing DMCA law. Today’s announcement isn’t changing that, though potentially, Twitter might begin disclosing DMCA takedowns within its own search results and Twitter timelines. That doesn’t happen yet, but Twitter says it hopes to do so over time.

We've covered some of those activities in the past, and if this actually brings more attention to highly questionable takedowns (such as many we've seen issued to Twitter...) that might actually be a good thing.

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, free speech, global, location
Companies: twitter

Judge Actually Recognizes The 4th Amendment: Says Police Can't Get Location Info From Telcos To Arrest You

from the they-have-other-ways... dept

With all the reports of law enforcement collecting tons of location info from telcos without a warrant, as well as a bunch of court rulings that seem to chip away at what's left of the 4th Amendment, it's somewhat surprising to see a magistrate judge say that police cannot use a warrant to find out your location from a mobile operator, for the purpose of arresting you. From Orin Kerr's summary of the ruling:

Here’s the basic reasoning of the opinion. First Judge Gauvey creates what a appears to be a new distinction in Fourth Amendment law: a distinction between (a) Fourth Amendment rights in location at a given time, and (b) Fourth Amendment rights in movement over time. According to Judge Gauvey, individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in both. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy as to a person’s location if a person cannot be visually observed in that same way. And there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in movements, which Judge Gauvey seems to be taking from the DC Circuit’s Maynard/Jones “mosaic theory” case (which the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear). Judge Gauvey then reasons that if everyone has this Fourth Amendment right, people who have warrants out for their arrest have this right to privacy, too. For that reason, the information held by the phone company as to the location of the phone user is protected by the Fourth Amendment.

Judge Gauvey then considers whether the Fourth Amendment allows a warrant to be issued based on probable cause that the information will help execute an arrest warrant. She concludes the answer is no: A Fourth Amendment warrant requires probable cause that evidence or contraband is located in the place to be searched or that a person who committed a crime is in the place to be searched. Mere probable cause to believe that location information would help the police execute a warrant is not enough under the Fourth Amendment.

Kerr suggests that the case law actually disagrees with the judge in this case, and even the judge appears to admit that she thinks the Supreme Court might disagree, but she said without specific guidance from the Supreme Court, she believes her ruling is correct.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, gps, location, privacy

Twitter Tries To Move Patent Trial By Saying All Twitter Users Agree To Settle Legal Disputes On Twitter's Home Turf

from the nice-try,-but-no dept

It's no secret that patent holders suing for infringement prefer certain venues. And, many tech companies based in the Bay Area like to try to get those cases moved to a local court instead. There's been some efforts to move cases to better locations, but thanks to some tricky games, lawyers can frequently keep the cases where they were filed.

Apparently Twitter thought that it might try some tricky lawyers' games of its own to get one case transferred. The company tried arguing that because the patent holder, Dinesh Agarwal, who was suing them was also a Twitter user, it meant he'd agreed to Twitter's terms of service... which state that all lawsuits against the company must be brought in San Francisco. That's pretty clearly a tortured reading of the Terms of Service, because this lawsuit had nothing, whatsoever, to do with Agarwal's use of the service... and the judge didn't buy it, allowing the case to continue in Virginia, where it was filed. As the judge noted, agreeing to this "would potentially foster satellite litigation in every patent case involving a social networking market participant," basically guaranteeing that such lawsuits could only be brought where social networking companies wanted them to be brought.

Filed Under: jurisdiction, location, patents, terms of service
Companies: twitter

Apple Takes Credit For 'Uncovering' Its Patented Location 'Bug' That Isn't Really Tracking You, But Which It'll Fix

from the reality-distortion dept

Apple and Steve Jobs are semi-famous for the "reality distortion field" that sometimes comes with Apple product announcements. But can it do the same when it screws up. It took a week after the kerfuffle last week concerning iPhones and iPads storing your location for Apple to finally respond, and the full response is an amusing study in corporate doublespeak.

As far as I can tell, Apple's key points are:

1. Apple (not researchers, or tons of other people who have noted this "bug" for a year or so) "discovered" a bug with location data on the phone:

   The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly

2. There's no tracking going on. There's nothing to see here.

   Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

3. Even though there's no tracking and nothing to see here, it's still a bug which will be fixed.
4. The reason people are concerned about this is because people are confused.

Got that? People are confused and there's nothing to see here, but Apple has discovered a minor bug which will be fixed.

Oh, and did we mention that Apple has also applied for a patent on this particular "bug"?

Filed Under: bug, ipad, iphone, location, patents, privacy, tracking
Companies: apple

Facebook Patents Foursquare?

from the ah,-modern-competition dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the news that Facebook has apparently been granted a very broad patent covering all sorts of location-based "check-in" type services. The patent in question (7,809,805) almost certainly would cover what Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Lattitude and others have done. Of course, it's interesting to note that Facebook itself started offering a product in this space just a couple months ago, when lots of folks noted that it was "late to the game."

The patent filing appears to predate most of the competitors in the space, so it's not like those competitors directly represent prior art. However, Dodgeball, the company that Google acquired (and basically killed) whose founders went on to start FourSquare definitely predates this patent. Even so, there are lots of companies exploring various location-based offerings for many years. The problem wasn't that it needed some big "invention" over how to create a location-based social network. The problem was that the technology hadn't caught up yet: i.e., there weren't that many smartphones with GPS. Once that happened, it was natural to build more location-based services. So it seems particularly silly to patent something that was naturally going to come about once GPS in phones became more common... but that's how the patent system works.

To be fair, to date, Facebook hasn't been known for asserting its patents against other companies (trademarks are another story). But, it's still pretty ridiculous. After all, as it stands right now, there's healthy competition in this particular market, and it's causing all of the players (and some new ones) to keep on innovating and trying to offer better service. If Facebook actually asserted its patent here, it would do the opposite -- and that seems like a clear situation of hindering progress, rather than enabling it.

Filed Under: location, patents
Companies: facebook, foursquare, gowalla

Are Automated Status Updates From Location Check-In Apps Degrading Your Social Network?

from the this-dept.-is-checking-out dept

Does this look familiar?

@YourBuddy
 I'm at the Apple Store Palo Alto in Palo Alto http://gowalla.com/spots/9591
 about 7 hours ago via Gowalla

It looks all too familiar to me. And these messages are increasing in frequency in inboxes and social sites. What's going on here is that a fairly new kind of app, the "location check-in" service, is starting to get more traction among early adopters, and the usage is resulting in rapidly increasing "10-20" updates. Last week, the SXSW conference was ground-zero for this battle, as two of the hottest players, Foursquare and Gowalla, battled it out a year after both launching at the same event. Gowalla, behind for most of the year, gained steam at SXSW, winning a SXSW Web Award. Gowalla launched an updated app in Austin...and that's where my trouble began.

It seems that many of my social contacts have decided to try Gowalla this past week, and as a result, my Status Updates from my Contacts in LinkedIn, and "What's Hapenning" in Twitter are getting stuffed with spammy updates of every time one of them shows up at some coffee shop. This is the worst of social...the anecdotal "I'm brushing my teeth now" update that we all made fun of before we discovered the real value of Twitter.

What has happened is that these Check-In apps are degrading the average value of the messages my friends send. As a "follower", I tend to only follow people who put tight filters on their tweets, usually offering some deliberate thought about politics, telecom, or technology. But once these people connected Check-In apps to Twitter, their deliberate, pensive, witty tweets are being overrun by location spam. I'm not your mom, and I don't care where you are!

To be fair, the Check-In apps, by themselves, are not bad, and can be quite cool. I like being able to sign into locations, leave virtual notes there, leave pictures on a virtual board, rate the place, get discounts. Many of the uses are fun, informative, and even whimsical. I like the goofy competition for "being the mayor" of the bubble tea shop. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Shane Snow over at Mashable describes the leading apps well, including a head-to-head feature chart. So while the apps can be engaging, it's just the optional connection of these apps to automatic outbound messages that is problematic and can generate too much chaff.

Not only can automated messages add up in quantity, but they can occasionally send the wrong signals, or be cause for embarassement. On one funny occasion, my wife visited someone at the hospital, and she turned on Foursquare. Because of the lingo of these apps, her Facebook page and friends were pushed the message "Liz just checked-in @ Kaiser Permanente Medical Center - Walnut Creek". Now, much as we liked the free flowers, we're not sure she was sending the right signals.

Like email and spam in the 90s, the good-quality, human written missives are being substituted by pointless, automated messages. It's far easier for a server to crank me out a message than for a person to type out 140 characters, so I predict this unfortunate trend to continue. An increasing number of status updates will be coming - not from your friends - but from machines they've allowed to send on their behalf. Too bad. I wanted to stay in touch with my friends, not their software.

Filed Under: check-ins, location, social networks, spam

Court Says Domain Name Is Located Where Its Registrar Registry Is Located

from the oh-really? dept

It's been nearly a decade since we first heard about John Zuccarini -- an internet character who made his name by registering a ton of typosquatting domain names, and was sued a bunch of times for it, but avoided dealing with things for a while by being impossible to find. And, even when he was found, he was notoriously vague in answering questions. From a bit of testimony from back in the day:

Question: What is your current address?

Zuccarini: 957 Bristol Pike, Apartment D-6, Andalusia, Pennsylvania, 19020.

Q: Is that where you currently reside?

Zuccarini: Not necessarily.

Q: Where do you currently reside?

Zuccarini: I don't have - that's my legal address. I really don't have a permanent address at this time.

Q: Where do you currently reside?

Zuccarini: Right now, I am staying at the Millennium Hotel in New York.

Q: When you are not in New York for a deposition, where do you live? Where have you lived in the past two weeks?

Zuccarini: I have been living in various places.

Q. What are the various places that you have been living?

Zuccarini: Friends' places. You know, that type of thing. Different hotels.

Q. 957 Bristol Pike is not your residence?

Zuccarini: No, it's not. It's my legal address. I have a lease on the apartment and that's where I have - some things are sent there which I get.

Q: Do you live in Pennsylvania?

Zuccarini: I don't know. I don't have a permanent address so I can live anywhere. I don't live anywhere right now. I can't give you a permanent address.

Eventually, the FTC ordered that thousands of his sites should be shut down. And then it fined Zuccarini $1.9 million. But, still no one could find him. A year and a half later, he was finally found and arrested leading to an eventual guilty plea. Of course, that didn't stop him. In 2007, he was fined yet again by the FTC, this time for typosquatting on domain names that kids were likely to visit -- and sending them to hardcore porn sites. Yeah. He's that kind of evil.

Anyway, going all the way back to a decade ago, when various companies were filing lawsuits against him, one such lawsuit involved Office Depot, which was none too pleased about Zuccarini's registration and use of offic-depot.com. Office Depot sued and won, but given Zuccarini's slippery nature, was unable to collect its judgment. Eventually, Office Depot handed over the judgment to a company called DS Holding, who then wanted to get paid. It eventually asked a court in Northern California to hand over some of Zuccarini's other domains to fulfill the judgment. The court agreed, but Zuccarini appealed, claiming that the court in California had no jurisdiction over his domain names.

Eric Goldman points us to the ruling in the case where the court finds that, indeed, domain names are considered property, and that jurisdiction should be based on where the registrar registry of that domain is located (pdf) rather than wherever John Zuccarini may be hiding at the moment. Since, in this case, the registry was VeriSign, and VeriSign is in Northern California... the court was ruled to be the proper jurisdiction. Update: Originally, we noted that this said it was where the registrar was located, but it actually goes further -- saying that it's where the registry is located. Way back when, the two things were the same (and they were all Network Solutions), but now you have different registrars for top level domains, but one registrar that maintains the overall database of each top-level domain name. This ruling says that while in the past people might focus on the registrar, it also applies to the registry.

While the court does explain that this appears to be exactly what our anti-cybersquatting laws say when it comes to jurisdiction, that does lead to some other interesting legal questions when it comes to jurisdictions. It seems like it could be somewhat troubling if your domain is officially located wherever the registrar is in other types of cases, as suddenly anyone registering a domain name needs to take into account the location of the registrar in case of a lawsuit.

Filed Under: domain name, john zuccarini, location

Should The Feds Need A Warrant To Find Out Where Your Mobile Phone Is?

from the seems-reasonable dept

A couple months ago, we wrote about Julian Sanchez's realization (due to odd choices in gov't agencies redacting already publicly available info) that it appeared the government was likely regularly getting location info from mobile phone providers on users, using a much lower standard, without much oversight. In a somewhat related case, a court is now trying to determine if the location info on your mobile phone requires a warrant. The federal government is saying, no, claiming that Americans have no expectation of privacy as to where their phone is (even though that's likely where they are as well).

That seems like a very troubling bit of reasoning -- but no surprise from a federal government, that for years, has been stretching its ability to secretly spy on Americans. Hopefully the court shuts this down, but just the fact that the government would defend such a blatant overreach is troubling enough.

Filed Under: location, privacy, warrants

White House Says Feds Should Have Unfettered Access To Mobile Phone Location Info

from the *sigh* dept

Many civil libertarians were hopeful that the Obama administration would be a lot more reasonable on certain issues, like warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of Americans. So far, that hasn't really been the case. The new administration has already sided with the old on the legality of warrantless wiretapping, and is now saying that it shouldn't need a warrant to demand location records from mobile phone providers. This certainly seems like the sort of private info that, under the 4th Amendment, would require a warrant, but not according to the administration(s). It feels that mobile phone providers should freely hand over records of what mobile phone tower any phone was connected to, even without the administration bothering to get a warrant (i.e., whenever and for whomever it wants to keep tabs on). This is tremendously problematic if you believe in the basic principles of the 4th Amendment. The EFF and the ACLU have asked a court to stop this practice, and it's rather disappointing that the administration is pushing in the other direction.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, civil liberties, location, privacy, white house

The Real Impact Of Google's Latitude: Getting People Comfortable With Location Sharing

from the What's-Your-10-20 dept

There's been a lot of coverage around about Google's new friend finder, built into its Maps app for smartphones. The feature, called Latitude, is able to share your location with friends that you select, and who also carry a compatible mobile device (or laptop) with the app installed and a data connection to Google's servers. This kind of service has lots of uses for the enterprise, families, and among friends, and it seems like Google has added the necessary controls to avoid the worst of the privacy issues. But the privacy issue has been discussed elsewhere, and frankly it's hardly worth debating since usage is optional. Yes, you sacrifice privacy to use such a service, but YOU choose can when it's useful enough to be worth the privacy sacrifice, and turn it off at other times. Seems simple. I make the same trade-off with my toll-paying RFID tag.

So let's discuss the competitive implications of this latest move, instead. Other firms, such as Loopt, Networks in Motion, Wavemarket, OmniTRAKS, FindWhere, Motorola Rhino, Autodesk have been offering various location tracking services for years, with the first in the US consumer phone services popping up around 2005. Historically, the services were offered for prices of $10/mo or more. Loopt offers their consumer service through carriers for free or $4/mo, but Latitude is user-installed and free. Now, it's no surprise that consumer-grade tracking services are offered for free: consumers tend to like that price, and the providers can make revenue by driving consumers to local business through advertising. But the free Google application also threatens enterprise-grade tracking solutions, especially in an era of cost-cutting. Like enterprise-grade solutions, Google can display a map with the location of all the tracked "friends" or staff on a PC as well as a phone. Zoinks! Looks like the bottom just fell out of the low end of the enterprise tracking market.

So, how do enterprise vendors "compete with free"? Well, so far, Latitude cannot replace an elaborate employee tracking solution that records breadcrumbs, integrates time-carding, optimal dispatch routing, offers geo-fencing, and other high-end functions. The existing enterprise vendors can compete quite well by offering premium features, integration into management tools, and verticalized solutions that deliver incremental value over the free services. How do you compete with a free product? Offer a product that's worth more -- and which the free version can't easily copy.

Google's entry signals a tipping point for tracking, as its brand penetration and price will push this type of service into many more handsets. Since Latitude also works on laptops, we can expect much better targeted location-aware advertising on our laptop Google searches, too... whether that impresses you or creeps you out. Bottom line is that the Twitter-types, who constantly update their network with short text messages, can save themselves some typing with Latitude. Privacy advocates will shun it, and others like me will manage it, enabling Latitude when we need it, and shutting it off most of the day. However, in the long run, this can be quite good for competitors in the market who can successfully incorporate advanced features worth paying for. Let Google educate the market, and have demand for such apps in the enterprise level bubble up.

Filed Under: latitude, location, tracking
Companies: google