Missing Labeling of Online Ads

One of the most crucial issues in on-line advertising is the blurring of the line between editorial content and ads. Unlike on TV and in the print media, where guidelines on the labeling of advertisements, which shall enable the customer to distinguish between editorial and ads, exist, similar conventions have not yet evolved for Internet content. Labeling of online advertisement up to now has remained the rare exception, with only few sites (e.g. http://www.orf.at) explicitly indicating non-editorial content.

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B2-92

B2-92 is an independent FM radio station based in Belgrade, which has won a number of international press and media awards. Their broadcasts and music and uncensored news heard across Serbia through a network of local partner stations. Their signal was also picked up by the BBC World Service and retransmitted via satellite around the world. In December 1996, B2-92 began using technology to stream live audio broadcasts and short video clips over the Internet.

Strategies and Policies

From its start as a terrestrial broadcaster B2-92 has been a respected source of independent news in the Balkans. Although B2-92 has been constantly subjected to repression and threat by government authorities it continued to provide music and news. When in December 1996 B2-92 was banned from broadcasting it began to distribute its content via streaming audio and video on its website. A web savvy support group was formed helping B2-92 to continue its distribution of news. Anonymous e-mail lists were developed to protect the identity of those wishing to express their views about the war, as well as a message boards linking to the Help B2-92 Campaign site. Furthermore encrypted e-mail services were provided for journalists and others in the former Yugoslavia who found themselves under threat. B2-92 also co-operates with various media activists and support groups and networks, which help B2-92 to continue its content distribution.

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Product Placement

With television still being very popular, commercial entertainment has transferred the concept of soap operas onto the Web. The first of this new species of "Cybersoaps" was "The Spot", a story about the ups and downs of an American commune. The Spot not only within short time attracted a large audience, but also pioneered in the field of online product placement. Besides Sony banners, the companies logo is also placed on nearly every electronic product appearing in the story. Appearing as a site for light entertainment, The Spots main goal is to make the name Sony and its product range well known within the target audience.

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Expert system

Expert systems are advanced computer programs that mimic the knowledge and reasoning capabilities of an expert in a particular discipline. Their creators strive to clone the expertise of one or several human specialists to develop a tool that can be used by the layman to solve difficult or ambiguous problems. Expert systems differ from conventional computer programs as they combine facts with rules that state relations between the facts to achieve a crude form of reasoning analogous to artificial intelligence. The three main elements of expert systems are: (1) an interface which allows interaction between the system and the user, (2) a database (also called the knowledge base) which consists of axioms and rules, and (3) the inference engine, a computer program that executes the inference-making process. The disadvantage of rule-based expert systems is that they cannot handle unanticipated events, as every condition that may be encountered must be described by a rule. They also remain limited to narrow problem domains such as troubleshooting malfunctioning equipment or medical image interpretation, but still have the advantage of being much lower in costs compared with paying an expert or a team of specialists.

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First Amendment Handbook

The First Amendment to the US Constitution, though short, lists a number of rights. Only a handful of words refer to freedoms of speech and the press, but those words are of incalculable significance. To understand the current subtleties and controversies surrounding this right, check out this First Amendment site. This detailed handbook of legal information, mostly intended for journalists, should be of interest to anyone who reads or writes. For example, the chapter Invasion of Privacy shows the limits of First Amendment rights, and the balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the public - or, more crudely, the balance of Tabloid vs. Celebrity. Each section is carefully emended with relevant legal decisions.

http://www.rcfp.org/handbook/viewpage.cgi

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NSFNet

Developed under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF), NSFnet served as the successor of the ARPAnet as the main network linking universities and research facilities until 1995, when it was replaced it with a commercial backbone network. Being research networks, ARPAnet and NSFnet served as testing grounds for future networks.

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