ISP Grub

Spam Headlines are Headline Spam

2010-10-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

I don't blame them, I suppose. We're all bored of the "one man's spam is another man's crucial email" discussion, but it doesn't excuse misleading people about the facts, and definitely doesn't excuse hypocrisy.

Certain journalists covering the ISP sector have either become so bored by the "one man's spam" discussion that they seem to have forgotten it even existed, or purposely recently ignored it to grab a quick headline, generate a reaction, and then produce an article that didn't appropriately reflect the facts.

OK, let's not criticise them for forgetting the issue - it's only been a debate that's raged since the problem of spam became so over-powering when the Internet first gained mass adoption, after all. Of course journalists could be criticized for selectively not considering the issue at all, and not educating their readers about the scale of the problem that ISPs actually face when trying to weed out authorised, requested email from spam.

If you’ve not caught up, the case in point is the reaction to the latest press release from Return Path about "marketing emails" sent to the inboxes of ISPs. Return Path have produced their own reaction to certain journalist’s take on the release, which seems to reflect disappointment rather than disdain.

The feeling of this ISP Grub blog is more exasperation.

Yes, journalists have to get an angle on a story, but they also have to represent the facts.

They can still be cynical, as is the Guardian on this story, and yet still achieve an accurate representation which highlights the bad practice of email marketers that contributes to the problem of their legitimate emails being recognised as spam.

And journalists serve their audience if they simply decide to produce a straight-up, information focused account of the stats to help their readers in the various considerations in choosing an ISP, as was the approach of Think Broadband, which inspired the Broadband Expert article.

However, there's some which chose a different approach.

Now, say "marketing emails" and the man in the street would be forgiven for thinking "spam". But anyone working in the ISP industry, particularly a committed analyst of the ISP industry, such as ISP focused journalists and bloggers, would know the difference. Should know the difference. In fact, MUST know the difference.

They would have previously looked at the definitions from ISP trade bodies like ISPA or LINX. Both recognise the difference between spam / unsolicited bulk email, and promotional / marketing email that is legitimate and permissioned.

ISPA recognises the role ISPs have in the use of "legitimate and targeted... email [as] an effective way to market products and services" and that "Companies have a right to use email to market their services as long as they act responsibly and within the law." ISPs also have particular products that they sell to companies that allows them to send mass, commercial, permissioned, marketing email, so it would be crazy if such email was chastised when the ISP industry actually enables it to be sent – and makes money from it.

Linx delineates spam from legitimate marketing email as such "UBE [spam] is email that has been sent in large amounts without any explicit requests for it being made. It is sometimes called "junk email" or "spam". At present it usually contains advertising material for commercial ventures of dubious propriety."

And so does the Return Path press release, so quite how certain ISP journalists - with this long continuing debate, with these definitions from the UK's primary ISP policy organisations, and the explicit words in the Return Path release - managed to write the story so wrong is quite amazing.

The study was conducted on emails *requested* by European consumers. Whether as a result of selective editing, taking quotes out of context or merely an inability to read the original release, certain journalists and bloggers didn't communicate that, but just focused on "spam". Comparison website Broadband Finder, which seemed to edit their article to ignore any differentiation between legitimate marketing email and spam, an quoted Return Path's stats on blocked legitimate emails whilst praising ISPs for blocking "spam".

They may be surprised to recognise that "legitimate marketing emails" include such things as their own email newsletter which offers recipients the chance to "Keep up to date with the latest offers" - that means people opt in to receiving promotions and offers from the comparison site's advertisers. (OK, selective editing is one thing, hypocrisy is something else entirely. So are Broadband Finder saying they send spam? And if so, shouldn't the ISP industry be blocking all their email newsletters? - EXASPERATION!)

Self-styled "Mr Sarcasm" at ISP Review may well say "shame" about marketing emails, but any email updates from the ISP Review forum would fall into the category of "marketing emails". The weird thing here is that ISP Review actually wrote an article that showed that social media updates, such as those from Friends Reunited suffer blocks from ISPs, even though they too are legitimate marketing emails, and very often highly desired by the people who have requested them. Moreover, the ISP Review article chose to take an angle on the Return Path release that ran counter to its content. The ISP Review headline was: "Return Path Slams UK ISPs for Blocking Legitimate Marketing Email". Does this refer to the part in the Return Path release that said, "ISPs are just trying to do their jobs. 'ISPs are battling extremely hard to protect their customers from the scourge of spam.'" Ooh, what a slamming! Those ISPs ain't never going to get over those words. In fact, hang on - that's not a slamming. Return Path are saying it's tough for ISPs and they're blocking some emails from some marketers who have made themselves "friendly fire casualties in ISPs’ war on illegal unsolicited bulk email."

Compare those comments with what the Return Path release says about email marketers: "Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their email deliverability by following email best practice. The recent DMA National Client Email Marketing Survey 2010 shows that while marketers are concerned about deliverability, they still aren’t paying attention to where their emails are going."

Now on the slam scale, that surely doesn't amount to a slap on the wrists to the marketing community, but it's a damn sight more weighty than the comment about ISPs, surely.

I dunno. Everyone wants to get read online, I know, but give me a break – let's avoid headline spam when writing spam headlines.

Customers missing out on VMWare's Resource Pool benefits

2010-09-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Cloud hosting companies don’t seem to be passing on the benefits of VMware’s Resource Pool capabilities.

But customers can now get what is thought to be the UK’s first truly fixed-price pre-pay cloud hosting service that fully utilises VMware’s Resource Pool capabilities and guarantees no overspend and improved hosting performance.

The StratoGen Hosting Advanced Resource Pool (SHARP™) is saving companies up to 40 per cent on their monthly bills. Users pay upfront for a specified amount of processing power, memory and storage space to deploy on as many virtual machines (VMs) as are necessary.

This is a big change from most hosting plans which charge users on the number of VMs used to create their private cloud hosting environment. Charges are normally calculated based on a variety of different meters from bandwidth to RAM hours used and customers are often hit with surprise bills.

SHARP, on the other hand, works in a similar way to a mobile phone or utility contract with customers knowing exactly how much processor power, memory and storage space they have available. Users are able to prioritise resources to certain VMs and are alerted if their network is nearing capacity, with the option to adjust their infrastructure as necessary.

The hosting product gives users much greater control over their hosting expenditure, the flexibility to create their own servers and dramatically reduces waste of resources.

More authentication means less spammers

2010-07-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest injuries to the spam industry would be if every company in the world started using email authentication. The more companies that have their email authenticated the easier it will be for ISPs to identify legitimate emails and less spammers will be able to clog our inboxes with illegal phishing and spoofing messages.

Authenticating email allows ISPs to verify the IP address that sent an email, through using Sender ID/Sender Policy Framework records and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). Authentication is essential to securing brand and online reputations. It’s a win-win-win for ISPs, senders and consumers. Primary players like Google, AOL and Yahoo! already use DKIM as an email verification measure, AOL also uses SPF and Hotmail uses Sender ID.

But lots of companies still aren’t signing up to email authentication. In the US big retailers are getting it - email authentication has been adopted by three quarters of the Internet Retailer 100. But figures from Return Path’s Reputation Network, taken from over 65 million mailboxes, show less than a quarter of messages appear to be authenticated with DKIM.

It’s getting even easier for companies to authenticate their emails with Return Path’s new Domain Assurance service; a beta version is launching with the participation of Yahoo!, Comcast, Cloudmark and Tucows. This enables ISPs to ensure more subscribers receive the emails they have requested, reducing the number of legitimate emails that aren’t spam as well as reducing spam levels.

Return Path audits companies’ email infrastructure and email authentication to make sure they are properly configured. Company domains then go on a registry that states they are legitimate. This enables ISPs to further protect their customers from phishing emails pretending to be on their register, who also receive immediate notification of their brands being abused in spoofing and phishing attacks to their brands.

It sounds simple enough, and it is. Companies should authenticate more of their email. Spam levels will be reduced and more legitimate emails will reach consumers’ inboxes.

Changes made due to Bad Phorm

2010-07-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

Many would find it hard to turn down a cookie, but when it comes to the non-chocolate chip kind you would find few who could turn them off. Computer cookies, not little creatures that munch at your hard drive but those small files that websites send to web browsers to tag visitors, are currently a heated subject.

2009- in the EU's Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive things were dramatically changing. Cookies were being baked until the point of burning in the heat of the decisions. Changes demanded that storing and accessing information on users' computers was only lawful "on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his or her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information...about the purposes of the processing" the Directive said.

In summary, cookies were only allowed to be implemented on browsers with knowledgeable consent from the web user.

Exceptions exist, "strictly necessary" non-consented cookies are still allowed for services "explicitly requested" by the user- nothing 'explicitly' saucy though, the sanctioned websites were only those taking a user from a product page to a checkout page. From May 2011 all others will need consent.

In all honesty not many "average data subjects" (people) are computer literate enough to be able to turn off cookies- or even aware that their online behaviour is being tracked.

It was 2006 and 2007 when BT ran two secret trials of Phorm. The 'service' that Phorm provided for BT, Talk Talk and Virgin Media was brought to the public's attention in 2008. Considered little more that spyware, the alledged 'big brother' nature of the internet tracking and targeted ads- possible due to a collection of data gathered from private web browsing- was unwelcomed by the media and potentially broke data protection laws. A year and a half later and a lot of pressure from privacy groups like BadPhorm, an obviously named anti-Phorm group, and BT and Talk Talk have formally withdrawn any plans to implement Phorm on their networks. However legal issues still exist.

Phorm on the other hand has less power. Being basically pushed out of the UK market means it has established and focused on other markets, such as Brazil and South Korea. By moving its operational activities to Brazil, Phorm and 'Oi', the ISP that bought 'Navegador'- the re-named 'Webwise Discover', has come under scrutiny by the Brazilian Ministry of Justice over privacy concerns around its technology. Although losses have reduced since 2008, they are still amounting, and with yet more public debates joining in over the lack of privacy in private web browsing Phorm is relying heavily on the generosity of its investors to still continue business.

A Mobile Movement

2010-06-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Africa's going to be a mobile internet continent.

Imagine the obstacle Africa's vast and dynamic landscape would be to setting up fixed-line internet to the entire population. 60% of rural settlements have no internet and fixed-line will not fix this fast. A solution; apply internet to mobiles.

This is exactly the way the continent is headed. Mobile internet's lead over fixed-line has gradually been rising since the end of 2009, and although the number of handsets with such technology has only reached 4.2million by the end of 2010's first quarter, the potential for growth is there.

SMS is still the killer application in Africa, and to those 80% of Africans who cannot afford Smartphones, SMS is so far the be-all and end-all of messaging by handsets. Companies like ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser service are providing online messaging and email. Another plus is that it's easy and cheap to apply to even the most basic mobile.
Reaching remote locations is something fixed-line internet will struggle with but the Message Optimiser manages to bridge the rural-urban digital divide with such ease. The service hints towards an even bigger growth in mobile internet's popularity, and fast. Fast is necessary; many people are in desperate need of being connected to internet services and cannot wait for the prices to start getting lower.

To see what else ForgetMeNot has created for the African mobile internet industry, visit http://www.forgetmenotafrica.com/

VM's World Cup Downtime Under Scrutiny

2010-06-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Vangelis Moras' Downtime Matched Against StratoGen's Virtual Machine Uptime

The ongoing downtime of lanky, crocked Greek defender Vangelis Moras (VM) during the football World Cup is the inspiration behind business hosting company StratoGen’s special summer offer. Every week that VM is out of action during the tournament StratoGen will give its customers a week of free VMware cloud hosting.

The towering 6ft 5in central defender missed his country’s dire opening World Cup game through a groin injury, a massive balls up to the Greek nation`s hopes in the tournament. Greece’s depleted defences saw them lose 2-0 to the technically advanced South Koreans on Saturday. VM isn’t in Greece’s starting line-up for its game against Nigeria either. Unlike StratoGen’s Cloud Hosting, VM is suffering from a lack of flexibility and availability.

Karl Robinson, Director of StratoGen, said: “The best defences in the world are big, strong and secure – three qualities that StratoGen has but the Greeks are desperately missing during VM’s downtime. Judging by their less than Gladiatorial performance last weekend, VM`s lack of availability looks to have cost his team dear. In contrast, StratoGen’s customers can rely on a rock solid defence when it comes to security. All purchases come with a 100 per cent uptime service level agreement, flexibility and seamless substitution of hosting of live cloud instances, guaranteeing users the very best business hosting infrastructure. For every week of VM’s downtime during the world cup, we’ll give our customers a week of free VMware hosting uptime. If he’s out for the whole tournament, they’ll get 20 per cent off their yearly contract.”

StratoGen’s VMware Cloud Hosting gives its customers the optimum flexibility for whatever tactics they want to deploy. High Availability (HA) is the magic sponge for Cloud Hosting products. HA closes down a failing program or system and restarts it again, ensuring hosting environments are always in play with ultimate uptime and will never let customers down in the event of minor injuries. Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) optimises the cloud infrastructure, ensuring it plays to its strengths and saves energy, as well as being more reliable and cost effective for clients. The smooth passing vMotion facility substitutes live cloud instances from one physical server to another of the same performance and specification with no impact to end users.

StratoGen offers three leagues of VMware hosting – Cloud Instance, Shared Private Cloud and Dedicated Private Cloud.

Cloud Instance is a single virtual machine hosted on the StratoGen VMware vSphere 4.0 Cluster. A team of more than two virtual machines creates a Shared Private Cloud. The Dedicated Private Cloud is a custom built, fully managed VMware vSphere Cluster giving clients their own private cloud server dreamteam within StratoGen’s world class data centre.

The lengthy downtime of Greek VM on the world stage this summer is an open goal to companies looking for a cloud hosting deal. They can gain weeks of free world class performance from StratoGen’s VMware Cloud Hosting products the longer Vangelis Moras’s injury persists.

To claim the offer go to http://www.stratogen.net/

Friendly Fire Casualties in the War on Spam

2010-02-08T12:54:00.000-08:00

A cyber war is raging between internet service providers and the senders of illegal and irresponsible email.However, in their determination to rid the world of spam, there’s a few friendly fire casualties. This is making the war harder to win as, in the process of destructing illegal email, ISPs are at times blocking emails people want from legitimate senders such as friends, family or services they are subscribed to.

Today, 95% of emails sent are spam. This high spam rate is increasing the pressure on ISPs to make their spam filters tighter as well as making it harder for them to do their job and send the subscriber the emails they asked for. However, the filters can be a problem for marketing companies as marketing and personal emails do not always make it through. According to Return Path, 15% of all European commercial mail does not get delivered. This is a big problem in a world where important information is increasingly sent through email. Many people have their bank statements and information about different bills they pay as well as subscription services emailed to them. The failure to deliver these emails could cause problems for customers as they will not be receiving the information they asked for, leaving them potentially out of the loop, or even out of pocket.

Research by Return Path shows that email delivery rates from commercial senders differ between ISPs. The highest rate of delivered mail was 98.25%, whereas the lowest rate was a mere 75%. This can explain some of the frustration email marketers feel about such friendly fire filtering. The report also claimed that 24.7% and 21% of mail sent to Demon and BT mail boxes respectively, fails to reach the inbox.

However, in this ongoing war against spam, there are some things that marketers can do to support the ISPs and help their emails reach their customers.

Margaret Farmakis, senior director of Response Consulting at Response Path said, “Marketers must understand that they themselves have the most influence over their deliverability by following email best practice.” Farmakis also said, “The first step to improving email deliverability is to understand how many emails are actually being delivered to the inbox. That’s why email marketers must demand accurate metrics from their email broadcast providers, showing how many emails are actually reaching the inbox, rather than how many didn’t bounce. Only then can they begin fixing their email reputation.” The email reputation of the sender is important to ISPs when deciding whether an email is allowed thorough their filter. By understanding their email reputation, marketers can take action on how to improve it, thus improving the chances their email will make it through the filters.

ISPs don’t deploy spam filters to wage war against legitimate marketing emails just the illicit and malicious spam emails that pose a threat to the ISPs' users. If marketers take measures to maintain a good email reputation, ISPs would be one step closer to victory in their battle against spam. Hopefully one day, spam can be eliminated from our inboxes without further loss of lawful and legitimate mail.

Samknows Bandwidth Hungry Britain's Real Broadband Speeds

2009-07-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

According to a new report published today by regulator, Ofcom, the UK’s broadband speeds are getting faster but not everyone is happy.

The report shows that average connection speed across the UK is 4.1Mbps, up from 3.6Mbps in January.

A survey running alongside the tests found over a quarter of consumers (26%) said that the speeds they received were not what they expected when they signed up for their broadband service.

SamKnows spoke to Anna Bradley, chair of the Communications Consumer Panel, who has been lobbying for the current up-to speed claims to be changed to an average speed claim. “The Ofcom work is incredibly helpful because it exposes just how little the up- to speeds mean and exposes how variable the service level is from one provider to another,” she said. “The fact that they are still advertised with ‘up-to’ speeds is deeply problematic.”

Over 60 million separate service performance tests were carried out in over 1600 homes between November 2008 and April 2009.

ISPs Hit for Six by Sports Fans

2009-07-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

As the nation’s sports fans gear up for a packed summer of sport, ISPs are keeping a beady eye on their bandwidth.

Not only have online catch-up services such as the Beeb’s iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4oD and Sky’s Sky Player become increasingly popular but watching ‘live’ content is beginning to take off.

Many sports fans stuck behind their desks during Wimbledon, The Golf Open Championship and The Ashes are turning to ‘live’ online coverage to get their fix and as a result ISPs are seeing spikes in traffic.

Trefor Davies, Timico’s Chief Technology Officer, has provided an interesting graph in his blog about their network traffic during Wimbledon. Take a look at his blog here.

Furthermore it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any easier for ISPs with bandwidth sapping high definition (HD) content beginning to rear its head on the ‘net.

BT Would be Web-Wise to Get Back on Phorm

2009-07-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Although BT stated that it ditched Phorm’s Webwise system because of cost-saving issues, it seems clear enough that it was only to refrain from offending its customers. Phorm's behavioural targeting system tracked sites visited by Internet users to facilitate relevant ad-delivery and became controversial after criticism of privacy invasion. These privacy concerns did not come from ISP consumers but instead have been voiced by a small group of mis-informed privacy advocates.

The negative publicity that has been whipped up against Phorm – and, as a result, behavioural targeting internet ad-delivery in general – is unfortunate. The benefits for customers themselves are too often overlooked. Targeted advertising is a great way for ISPs to generate income which can be ploughed back into improving networks for customers and reducing the cost of broadband packages. The dropping of Webwise means that BT has missed this golden opportunity to deliver a better quality and potentially cheaper service to consumers.

The privacy issue has also arguably been blown out of proportion. Of course privacy should always be a concern in this day and age, but as often stressed by Phorm, the privacy of customers is protected as identities remain anonymous. Simon Davies, founding member of surveillance and privacy watchdog Privacy International, even commends Webwise’s minimal collection of personal information.

Although privacy advocates have called for an opt-in approach to be made available to users of Phorm, this would be disastrous as opt-in means behavioural targeting ad providers like Phorm would have the consent of users to access all their personal information and surfing habits.

Phorm could have made things much easier for themselves by being completely transparent about their service and opt-in/opt-out approach. That way, not only would all legal issues surrounding Phorm be irrelevant, customer satisfaction would also still be fully guaranteed.

Misunderstood NebuAd Forced to Close down

2009-06-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

This week American online advertising company NebuAd closed its doors for good and with it disappeared a much needed new revenue stream for ISPs.

The company ran out of money, and seemed to be struggling after the US Congress held hearings last year to examine its Internet practice which was deemed to be an invasion of privacy. Congress subsequently dropped the investigation, of course. But whilst NebuAd's customers took the very proper position not to use the service whilst the investigation was going on, the systems didn't seem to go back on, NebuAd seems to have lost cash and closed shop.

NebuAd gathered information at an ISP level to serve customers with relevant ads.

Unfortunately, the upshot seems to be that ISPs have lost out on a great opportuinity. The ad revenue, which would have been shared with ISPs, could have been invested in improving existing technology, cutting overall costs or even used to reduce the price of services for existing and potential customers.

NebuAd explicitly stated in their privacy policy that they would "specifically not store or use any information relating to confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, religious beliefs, or sexuality which are tied to personally identifiable information ('sensitive personal information')."

However, if NebuAd actually used technology that made the customer anonymous, hasn't the public lost something that would have protected their privacy as well?

And how many people are opting into services - either inadvertently or lazily - and are giving their consent for companies to totally profile them without any attempt at anonymity. It'll be a very sad occurrence if the end of this company means the end of any attempt at anonymity by companies offering advertising on the Internet, with the excuse that, "Well, you opted in, so we can glean whatever information we like about you."

Pirate Bay No Longer A Safe Haven for Internet Buccaneers

2009-04-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Last week a Swedish Court found four founders of file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay, guilty of “assisting making available copyrighted content” but what should ISPs make of this ruling and is it somewhat of a poisoned chalice?

Similar to UK ISPs, The Pirate Bay had previously cited “mere-conduit” status but, unlike UK ISPs, had used it as a means of evading the long arm of the law. A quick look at their ‘About Us’ reveals:-

“Only torrent files are saved at the server. That means no copyrighted and/or illegal material are stored by us. It is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker. Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site.”

This latest ruling is set to be fought and will not sink the site but it’s definitely a sign of stormy waters ahead.

Some commentators have also speculated that search engines such as Google or Ask may be in the firing line because they can return results that link to copyright infringed material. Outlaw’s Struan Robertson argues these search engines have nothing to worry about because links to copyright infringed material are not central to their business model.

“A crucial part of the case against The Pirate Bay was that the vast majority of content that people sought through the site was infringing copyright. Google returns some links to infringing content and eBay hosts some auctions for pirated goods but that does not make their operations illegal.”

On the other hand this does not bode well for ISPs. If a website can be found guilty of assisting in making copyrighted material available then it logically follows that ISPs who, through no intent of their own, are directly involved in the distribution of copyright infringed material could suffer.

Speed: Know Your Limits

2009-03-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

It seems that this week everyone's jumping on the 'Speed issue' bandwagon and has something to say about all that data whizzing (or not) around the 'net.

The week started with the Broadband Stakeholder Group(BSG),"the industry-government forum tackling strategic issues across the converging broadband value chain.", releasing some interesting info about how telephone line lengths affect broadband speeds. This is certainly nothing new to those in the industry but it is important information for consumers who need to be aware of the limitations of the broadband service provided by their ISP.

On the very same day T-Mobile announced that it's topped a YouGov mobile broadband survey of 1,958 coming first in 9 out of 13 categories, including upload and download speeds. Although speed isn't everything and there's no point in having a super fast connection if it's not reliable, T-mobile managed to secure second spot for staying connected. As the number of users choosing flexible mobile broadband over fixed line access increases, it'll be interesting to see if T-Mobile can keep it up or if a traditional fixed line ISP can catch them up.

On Wednesday, Virgin Media questioned the reliability of online speedtesters which Virgin Media's Director of Broadband, Jon James, claimed, "Consumers rely on these sites for clear advice and honest results. The fact that many of them cannot accurately measure speeds of 20Mb, and some cannot even accurately measure speeds of 10Mb, demonstrates there is a clear need for more transparency."

Further announcements included Manx Telecom boasting an average broadband speed of 5.5Mbps for their customers; Point Topic, partnering with Gavurin, giving free access to a website containing the results of the speed and uptake of ISP broadband services by region; and the independent watchdog, Consumer Focus, criticising Lord Carter's interim Digital Britain Report for its lack of vision, neglecting consumer interests and risk of leaving the UK in the Internet "slow lane".

Illegal Download Sites Used by Half of Web Surfers

2009-02-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

Tiscali survey reveals 46% of respondents have used one or more of the sites most associated with illegal downloading

A recent survey from UK ISP, Tiscali has found that even though half (46%) of respondents are users of P2P sites, over half (53%) say they have never knowingly downloaded music illegally.

Granted there are a growing number of ‘legal’ download sites (Take a look at ‘Where to download music legally’ which is a pretty comprehensive list from The Guardian) but the survey refers to sites mostly associated with illegal downloading such as BitTorrent, Limewire, Gnutella, emule, Ares or DirectConnect. If users aren’t accessing and sharing copyrighted material on these sites then what are they sharing, their own latest hits and home movies? I find that very hard to believe.

The survey also showed that even though 75% of respondents knew what was legal and illegal in their music use, they didn’t think that their actions were damaging the music industry or maybe they’re just not bothered by the current lack of law enforcement.

The UK culture secretary, Andy Burnham, is trying to address this lack of current law enforcement by calling on Europe and the US for support. He’s planning to have an international strategy that combats illegal internet downloads by the autumn.

According to The Guardian, Burnham would like to see a 70-80% reduction in illegal downloading in the UK.

“The ultimate aim of the plan, Burnham told MediaGuardian.co.uk, would be to develop a consensus with other governments that would make the UK's own initiatives to combat internet piracy more likely to succeed. Burnham said the government is seeking a 70% to 80% reduction in illegal downloads with its plans in the UK.

"I am working towards an international memorandum of understanding, it is time for much more serious dialogue with European and US partners. No solely national solution will work. It can only be durable with international consensus," he added.

An interesting development in trying to find a workable business model for the music industry is the emergence of online music service Spotify - ‘A world of music. Instant, simple and free’. In return for having to listen to a few ads you get to choose your own playlist from a huge catalogue of tracks or let the company choose for them for you. You’d have thought that this was a pretty amicable solution for all parties involved but already the service has fallen foul to the music industry’s licensing laws with some tracks being restricted from play in certain countries.

The site's global community manager, Andres Sehr believes, "These restrictions are a legacy from when most music was sold on tapes and CDs and they have continued over into streaming music," Sehr said, adding, "our hope is that one day restrictions like this will disappear for good."

For now we’ll just have to keep our ears open and see what happens.

Watchdog Bites Before Children’s Charities Bark

2009-02-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Today, almost three weeks after Internet filtering experts, Watchdog International, announced that Talk Internet was the first UK ISP to implement a cost effective one size fits all blocking and filtering service, children's charities are warning that a number of UK broadband providers are still ignoring government requests to block illegal websites.

Previously ISPs have had problems implementing certain filtering systems due to their varying infrastructures which have posed both technical difficulties and cost issues.

Watchdog International's MD, Peter Mancer, told Grub, "It's true that until relatively recently there has been no affordable, one size fits all system to block images of child sex abuse. However the technology now exists. Watchdog International is able to offer ISPs in the UK a system that blocks their subscribers' access to URLs on the Internet Watch Foundation's list for as little as £250 a month. Contrary to popular opinion even small and medium sized ISPs can play their part in combating access to this illegal content. We're active in the UK and are pursuing partnerships with ISPs to provide them with an affordable, one size fits all blocking and filtering service for child sex abuse images."

"Dealing with Child Sexual Abuse Images (CSAI) on the Internet is not an optional extra"

2009-02-04T15:00:00.000-08:00

Secretary of the Children's Charities' Coalition for Internet Safety, John Carr, says, "Dealing with CSAI on the Internet is not an optional extra. It's part of the cost of doing business for a modern ISP. Governments round the world know that, technically, access to CSAI can be blocked and can be blocked inexpensively."

No ISP wants illegal activity on their network and contrary to popular opinion even small and medium sized ISPs can play their part in combating access to CSAI.

ISPs are able to block access to CSAI by deploying the first affordable one size fits all system from Internet filtering experts, Watchdog International.

Talk Internet is the first UK ISP to implement the system and is a good example for other UK ISPs to follow in making the Internet a safer place by embracing new technology.

Watchdog International’s MD, Peter Mancer, said, “The UK Internet industry has an excellent track record of fighting illegal content on the Internet, exemplified by the establishment of the IWF. On the technical side we recognise that no ISP's network is the same. There has been no one size fits all technical method of blocking CSAI. Now UK ISPs can implement a low cost system that protects their users from CSAI content without interfering with the speed and reliability of their network.”

Kangaroo gets thrown on the Barbie

2009-02-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

There's no need to worry about blowing your bandwidth restriction on Project Kangaroo, the new joint IPTV venture between the Beeb, ITV and Channel 4.

Today, the Competition Commission(CC) has blocked the new service citing threats to the video on demand(VoD) market.

Peter Freeman, CC Chairman and Chairman of the inquiry group, said: "After detailed and careful consideration, we have decided that this joint venture would be too much of a threat to competition in this developing market and has to be stopped."

"The case is essentially about the control of UK-originated TV content. VOD is an exciting and fast-moving development in TV, which makes programmes previously broadcast available to viewers at a time of their choice. The evidence we saw showed that UK viewers particularly value programmes produced and originally shown in the UK and do not regard other content as a good substitute."

Kangaroo's Hopping Onto our Screens in the New Year

2008-11-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

It would seem that despite the current financial climate the whole IPTV/Video on Demand market is bubbling along nicely.

Recent reports suggest that the joint TV on demand venture between ITV, Channel 4 and the Beeb will be hitting our screens early 2009.

According to the Guardian

"It is understood that Project Kangaroo will go into alpha mode in December with the uploading of programming content and aims to launch trials of the service early next year.

The trials, or beta phase, will see a limited number of users allowed to access the service in a strictly closed test of the service's usability and functionality."

Should we be asking Santa for an ADSL 2+ net connection or will the project be killed off by the Competition Commission before it even gets going?

Pirates Français de P2P Feel the Noose Tightening

2008-11-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

French file-sharers take note. This week the French senate voted 297 to only 15 in favour of introducing the controversial “three-strike” rule, giving ISPs the right to disconnect suspected illegal file-sharers if two warnings are ignored.

This position runs contrary to the European Parliament’s view which rejected the “three-strike rule” in a vote back in April.

After the vote one MEP said, “The vote shows that MEPs want to strike a balance between the interests of rights holders and those of consumers, and that big measures like cutting off internet access shouldn't be used."

In Britain, ISPs favour a self regulatory approach and have formed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreement between copyright holders and six of the UK's largest ISPs, accounting for around 9 in 10 consumer connections. However, the MOU doesn’t go as far as suggesting how persistent file-sharers should be dealt with and we are still waiting to find out exactly what happens to these alleged infringers.

Orange Turn Phorm Blue

2008-10-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

Orange might not be the first ISP to denounce the behavioural advertising service of Phorm (take a look at the 'Proud to be Phorm free! ISP) but they're certainly the largest.

Paul-François Fournier, senior vice-president of Orange’s online advertising division, told the FT that there was “huge potential” for telecommunication companies to use customer data to target advertising but managing customers’ privacy was “critical”.

“Privacy is in our DNA, so we need to be honest and clear about what we are doing,” Mr Fournier said. “We have decided not to be in Phorm because of that ... The way it was proposed, the privacy issue was too strong.”

However, he didn't go quite so far as to say they'd never use it or a company in the same space such as NebuAd or FrontPorch.

Currently Orange appear to be the consumer champions and perhaps this is something that BT should have thought about before unleashing the service on 10,000 unsuspecting customers back in 2006 and 2007. Although it would seem that it's not a case of once bitten twice shy as BT has gone for round two with Phorm.

World Wide Web Cast Further By Mobile Internet

2008-09-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Browsing the www used to be confined ‘within four walls’ by a fixed line access point provided by an Internet service provider(ISP). However, the www made a bid for freedom with new technologies such as WAP being developed in the late 90’s. This enabled people to access the ‘net with their mobile phones but speeds were very slow and data charges expensive. Further developments, like GPRS, 3G, HSDPA have speeded things up but even today this method of browsing is only just getting started using devices such as PDAs and Smartphones.

ISPs had complete control on the connectivity market but today face challenges from traditional mobile phone network providers, especially when it comes to being able to provide access to the www on the move. It’s no fun trying to browse the web on a small mobile screen but if you can browse on a laptop screen that’s a whole different story.

The dramatic fall in the cost of laptops has opened up a new market and made offering mobile broadband worthwhile. Mobile operators have been able to capitalize on their network capabilities and offer mobile broadband to a new generation of ‘net surfing travellers. You can surf the web on you laptop while travelling courtesy of 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone; and they’re now even starting to bundle in free laptops with their price plans. A handy guide to price plans can be found here.

Wankster’s Paradise

2008-09-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

This week we’ve seen lots of talk about two flashy new browsers that have recently been launched in beta versions. First up, we have the latest iteration of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, IE8, with which it hopes to gain ground on – among others – Mozilla’s successful Firefox application.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft comes Google’s first foray into the browser market with its own beta, called Chrome. (Chromium is the name of the open-source project which led to its development, for all you curtains-closed bed-sit dwellers out there.)

Of course, both these betas come with spangly new features and functions – higher speeds, more robust security, clearer user interfaces and so forth. It’s a shame, then, that most of the public and press have focused on their respective privacy features: Google’s Incognito and Explorer’s InPrivate modes. When activated, these settings prevent the browser from storing any history information or cookies from websites visited. Inevitably, this has been dubbed “porn mode” by…well, everyone.

Of course, both companies attempted to re-define their “porn modes” with spurious alternative reasons for use. Quote of the week comes from a spokesman for Google who (presumably sticking a needle into his thumb to stop himself from dissolving into giggles) straight-facedly claimed Incognito was “…for times when you want to…plan surprises like gifts or birthdays.”

No – it’s to stop the wife from knowing, rather than merely suspecting, that you look at some of the most repulsive pornography on the web.

Hairy-palmed husbands will no doubt welcome both browsers, as will the latest generation of gangly girl-shy teenagers who still use their parents’ Internet connection.

But will the “porn modes” prevent Microsoft and Google from storing your search terms and IP address? As we know, search engines already store records of who you are (IP address), where you’ve been (URLs) and what you’ve looked for (search terms). What’s to stop, say, Google from identifying you and your browsing behaviour for definitely-not-evil-at-all uses?

Er…nothing. Users who leave Chrome's auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider will be giving Google access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser's Omnibox, even before they hit enter. Google have been good enough to admit this: a representative said that that about “two per cent” of the data would be stored along with the IP address of the computer that sent the information.

In theory, that means that if one were merely to type the address of a site into the Omnibox, even without hitting enter one could leave incriminating evidence on Google's servers.

I’ve got no problem with anyone – website publisher, search engine, browser – knowing where I’ve been. My problem is in them knowing who I am. Since they store IP addresses – and God knows what other personally identifiable information – that’s exactly what they do know.

Google says that turning on the Incognito mode will prevent it from harvesting your search queries alongside your IP address. If that’s true (and why would anyone doubt good-guy-Google’s word?) then the privacy modes could have an audience outside of the dirty mac brigade; I for one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/google_chrome_comic_funnies/

UK Web Servers Unnecessarily Emit CO² Equivalent to Over One Million Return Flights to India

2008-08-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

A study of over 3,500 dedicated servers by Amenworld.com – the European hosting company – found that on average servers needlessly use 1000 kWh of energy, producing an excess of 632Kg of CO2 per server per year. This is the equivalent of one person making over a million return trips to India in a year.

The research has resulted in Amenworld.com’s launch of a new range of servers in the UK that consume only half the power of conventional servers. A reduction of up to 632 Kgs of CO2 emissions per server is estimated year on year with these greener alternatives.

The new servers will enable webmasters to become more eco-friendly by shrinking their carbon footprint and lowering electricity consumption – without compromising on quality.

Olivier Djidjelli, Amen UK Country Manager, said, “Like other industries, the hosting industry has a role in the global effort to reduce levels of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. Amenworld.com is playing its part by offering customers Eco Servers, a more environmentally conscious alternative to hosting. Our new Eco Range will allow webmasters to have a dedicated server at their disposal which combines both high technical performance and a significant reduction in greenhouse gasses.”

The Eco Range’s dedicated, high-performance servers are available with 80GB or 160GB of storage space, with technical specifications that can be adapted to match client need.

Components are optimally located to boost cooling airflow through the servers reducing the system’s temperature and the amount of power consumed.

Amenworld.com’s Eco Servers have up to 3GB of RAM which helps to reduce the pressure on the low energy AMD dual core processors, further decreasing power consumption.

At only £39 ex. VAT Amenworld.com’s Eco Range is an affordable option for the environmentally aware webmaster.

Spam Fighters Throw Off The Gloves

2008-07-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

ISPs have been urged in new guidelines from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) to block port 25.

Although, the idea of blocking port 25 is by no means new, take a look at Larry Seltzer's article 'Shutting down the Highway to Internet Hell’ from back in 2005.

Many ISP’s already provide email filtering tools to protect their users and offer advice about limiting and reporting spam but according to the BBC "Even if the guidelines are taken up by a majority of ISPs, experts admit it is unlikely that people will see a drastic reduction in spam any time soon."

Stars of the Little Screen Continue to Arrive on Your Monitor

2008-07-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

It seems that everyone is jumping on the IPTV band wagon with the latest addition being Channel 5’s Demand Five

ISPs are already questioning who’s going to pay for the large amounts of bandwidth being taken up by these new services and now another one appears on the scene.

PlusNet has revealed that broadband streaming TV services now account for nearly a tenth of all evening downloaded traffic on their network and it looks like this is set to continue.

Will BT’s £1.5bn investment into a fibre-optic network save the UK’s bandwidth woes or will Ofcom step in and stifle the project by not allowing them the return on investment they’re looking for?