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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Economic structure; transparent customers

Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people.

User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.

"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent."

(David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)

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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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Economic structure; introduction



"Globalization is to no small extent based upon the rise of rapid global communication networks. Some even go so far as to argue that "information has replaced manufacturing as the foundation of the economy". Indeed, global media and communication are in some respects the advancing armies of global capitalism."

(Robert McChesney, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy")

"Information flow is your lifeblood."

(Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft)

The usefulness of information and communication technologies increases with the number of people who use them. The more people form part of communication networks, the greater the amount of information that is produced. Microsoft founder Bill Gates dreams of "friction free capitalism", a new stage of capitalism in which perfect information becomes the basis for the perfection of the markets.

But exploitative practices have not disappeared. Instead, they have colonised the digital arena where effective protective regulation is still largely absent.

Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people.

User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.

"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent."

(David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)

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An Economic and therefore Governmental Issue

While the digital divide might bring up the idea that enterprises will be able to sell more and more computers during the next years another truth looks as if there was no hope for a certain percentage of the population to get out of their marginalization, their position of being "have nots".

Studies show that the issue of different colors of skin play a role in this, but more than "racial" issues it is income, age and education that decides about the have and have nots.

There exist ~ 103 million households in the USA.
~6 million do not even have telephone access. Why should they care about computers?

The digital divide cuts the world into centers and peripheries, not into nations, as it runs through the boarder between the North and the South as well as through nations.

http://www.digitaldivide.gov/
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/
http://www.pbs.org/digitaldivide/
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-344552.html
http://racerelations.about.com/newsissues/racerelations/msubdigdivide.htm
http://www.techweek.com/articles/11-1-99/divide.htm
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/falling.html

The most different institutions with various interests in their background work in that field; not rarely paid by governments, which are interested in inhabitants, connected to the net and economy.
see also: http://www.washington.edu/wto/digital/

Searching information about the digital divide one will find informations saying that it is growing all the time whereas other studies suggest the contrary, like this one
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-341054.html

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1900 - 2000 A.D.

1904
First broadcast talk

1918
Invention of the short-wave radio

1929
Invention of television in Germany and Russia

1941
Invention of microwave transmission

1946
Long-distance coaxial cable systems and mobile telephone services are introduced in the USA.

1957
Sputnik, the first satellite, is launched by the USSR
First data transmissions over regular phone circuits.

At the beginning of the story of today's global data networks is the story of the development of satellite communication.

In 1955 President Eisenhower announced the USA's intention to launch a satellite. But it in the end it was the Soviet Union, which launched the first satellite in 1957: Sputnik I. After Sputnik's launch it became evident that the Cold War was also a race for leadership in the application of state-of-the-art technology to defense. As the US Department of Defense encouraged the formation of high-tech companies, it laid the ground to Silicon Valley, the hot spot of the world's computer industry.

The same year as the USA launched their first satellite - Explorer I - data was transmitted over regular phone circuits for the first time, thus laying the ground for today's global data networks.

Today's satellites may record weather data, scan the planet with powerful cameras, offer global positioning and monitoring services, and relay high-speed data transmissions. Yet up to now, most satellites are designed for military purposes such as reconnaissance.

1969
ARPAnet online

ARPAnet was the small network of individual computers connected by leased lines that marked the beginning of today's global data networks. An experimental network it mainly served the purpose of testing the feasibility of wide area networks and the possibility of remote computing. It was created for resource sharing between research institutions and not for messaging services like E-mail. Although US military sponsored its research, ARPAnet was not designed for directly martial use but to support military-related research.

In 1969 ARPANET went online and linked the first two computers, one located at the University of California, Los Angeles, the other at the Stanford Research Institute.

Yet ARPAnet did not become widely accepted before it was demonstrated in action to a public of computer experts at the First International Conference on Computers and Communication in Washington, D. C. in 1972.

Before it was decommissioned in 1990, NSFnet, a network of scientific and academic computers funded by the National Science Foundation, and a separate new military network went online in 1986. In 1988 the first private Internet service providers started offering access to NSFnet to a general public. After having become the backbone of the Internet in the USA, in 1995 NSFnet was turned into a consortium of commercial backbone providers. This and the launch of the World Wide Web added to the success of the global data network we call the Net.

In the USA it was already in 1994 that commercial users outnumbered military and academic users.

Despite the rapid growth of the Net, most computers linked to it are still located in the United States.

1971
Invention of E-Mail

1979
Introduction of fiber-optic cable systems

1992
Launch of the World Wide Web

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United Brands Company

American corporation formed in 1970 in the merger of United Fruit Company and AMK Corporation. United Fruit Company, the main company, was founded in 1899 producing and marketing bananas grown in the Caribbean islands, Central America, and Colombia. The principal founder was Minor C. Keith, who had begun to acquire banana plantations and to build a railroad in Costa Rica as early as 1872. In 1884 he contracted with the Costa Rican government to fund the national debt and to lay about 50 more miles of track. In return he received, for 99 years, full rights to these rail lines and 800,000 acres of virgin land, tax exempt for 20 years. By 1930 it had absorbed 20 rival firms and became the largest employer in Central America. As a foreign corporation of conspicuous size, United Fruit sometimes became the target of popular attacks. The Latin-American press often referred to it as el pulpo ("the octopus"), accusing it of exploiting labourers, bribing officials, and influencing governments during the period of Yankee "dollar diplomacy" in the first decades of the 20th century.

INDEXCARD, 1/5
 
MIT

The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is a privately controlled coeducational institution of higher learning famous for its scientific and technological training and research. It was chartered by the state of Massachusetts in 1861 and became a land-grant college in 1863. During the 1930s and 1940s the institute evolved from a well-regarded technical school into an internationally known center for scientific and technical research. In the days of the Great Depression, its faculty established prominent research centers in a number of fields, most notably analog computing (led by Vannevar Bush) and aeronautics (led by Charles Stark Draper). During World War II, MIT administered the Radiation Laboratory, which became the nation's leading center for radar research and development, as well as other military laboratories. After the war, MIT continued to maintain strong ties with military and corporate patrons, who supported basic and applied research in the physical sciences, computing, aerospace, and engineering. MIT has numerous research centers and laboratories. Among its facilities are a nuclear reactor, a computation center, geophysical and astrophysical observatories, a linear accelerator, a space research center, supersonic wind tunnels, an artificial intelligence laboratory, a center for cognitive science, and an international studies center. MIT's library system is extensive and includes a number of specialized libraries; there are also several museums.

INDEXCARD, 2/5
 
Industrial design

Industrial design refers to the ornamental aspect of a useful article which may constitute of two or three-dimensional elements. To be qualified for intellectual property protection the design must be novel or original. Protection can be obtained through registration in a government office and usually is given for 10 to 15 years.

INDEXCARD, 3/5
 
Avatar

Traditionally, an avatar is a mythical figure half man half god. In Hindu mythology, avatars are the form that deities assume when they descend on earth. Greek and Roman mythologies also contain avatars in animal form or half animal, half man. In virtual space, the word avatar refers to a "virtual identity" that a user can construct for him / herself, e.g. in a chat-room. Avatars have also been a preferred object of media art.

INDEXCARD, 4/5
 
Proxy Servers

A proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary between a workstation user and the Internet so that security, administrative control, and caching service can be ensured.

A proxy server receives a request for an Internet service (such as a Web page request) from a user. If it passes filtering requirements, the proxy server, assuming it is also a cache server, looks in its local cache of previously downloaded Web pages. If it finds the page, it returns it to the user without needing to forward the request to the Internet. If the page is not in the cache, the proxy server, acting as a client on behalf of the user, uses one of its own IP addresses to request the page from the server out on the Internet. When the page is returned, the proxy server relates it to the original request and forwards it on to the user.

Source: Whatis.com

INDEXCARD, 5/5