Internet

Google Analytics, Privacy, and Legalese

/ Christopher Parsons / 3 Comments

Google Logo in Building43Google Analytics have become an almost ever-present part of the contemporary Internet. Large, small, and medium-sized sites alike track their website visitors using Google’s free tools to identify where visitors are coming from, what they’re looking at (and for how long), where they subsequently navigate to, what keywords bring people to websites, and whether internal metrics are in line with advertising campaign goals. As of 2010, roughly 52% of all websites used Google’s analytics system, and it accounted for 81.4% of the traffic analysis tools market. As of this writing, Google’s system is used by roughly 58% of the top 10,000 websites, 57% of the top 100,000 websites, and 41.5% of the top million sites. In short, Google is providing analytics services to a considerable number of the world’s most commonly frequented websites.

In this short post I want to discuss the terms of using Google analytics. Based on conversations I’ve had over the past several months, it seems like many of the medium and small business owners are unaware of the conditions that Google places on using their tool. Further, independent bloggers are using analytics engines – either intentionally or by the default of their website host/creator – and are ignorant of what they must do to legitimately use them. After outlining the brief bits of legalese that are required by Google – and suggesting what Google should do to ensure terms of service compliance – I’ll suggest a business model/addition that could simultaneously assist in privacy compliance while netting an enterprising company/individual a few extra dollars in revenue.

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Review of The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy, and Reputation

/ Christopher Parsons

9780674050891-lgThe Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy, and Reputation is an essential addition to academic, legal, and professional literatures on the prospective harms raised by Web 2.0 and social networking sites more specifically. Levmore and Nussbaum (eds.) have drawn together high profile legal scholars, philosophers, and lawyers to trace the dimensions of how the Internet can cause harm, with a focus on the United States’ legal code to understand what enables harm and how to mitigate harm in the future. The editors have divided the book into four sections – ‘The Internet and Its Problems’, ‘Reputation’, ‘Speech’, and ‘Privacy’ – and included a total of thirteen contributions. On the whole, the collection is strong (even if I happen to disagree with many of the policy and legal changes that many authors call for).

In this review I want to cover the particularly notable elements of the book and then move to a meta-critique of the book. Specifically, I critique how some authors perceive the Internet as an ‘extra’ that lacks significant difference from earlier modes of disseminating information, as well as the position that the Internet is a somehow a less real/authentic environment for people to work, play, and communicate within. If you read no further, leave with this: this is an excellent, well crafted, edited volume and I highly recommend it.

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ISPs, Advocates, and Framing at the 2011 Telecom Summit

/ Christopher Parsons

3183290111_989c5b1bec_bEach year Canada’s leaders in telecommunications gather at the Canadian Telecommunications Summit to talk about ongoing policy issues, articulate their concerns about Canada’s status in the world of telecommunications, and share lessons and experiences with one another. This years Summit was no exception. While some commentators have accused this year’s event of just rehashing previous years’ content – it is true that each Summit does see similar topics on the conference agenda, with common positions taken each year – there are some interesting points that emerged this year.

Specifically, discussions about the valuation of telecom services regularly arose, discussions of supply and demand in the Canadian ISP space, as well as some interesting tidbits about the CRTC. For many people in the industry what I’ll be talking about isn’t exactly new; those not inside the industry’s fold, however, may find elements of this interesting. After outlining some of the discussions that took place I will point to something that was particularly striking throughout the Summit events I attended: Open Media loomed like a spectre throughout, shaping many of the discussions and talking points despite not having a single formal representative in attendance.

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Publications in OpenMedia’s ‘Casting an Open Net’

/ Christopher Parsons

Openmedia.caFor the past several months I’ve been working away at a series of ‘traditional’ publication-type writings. One of those pieces included major sections of OpenMedia.ca’s report that was released today, entitled “Casting an Open Net: A Leading Edge Approach to Canada’s Digital Future.”

More specifically, I worked as the lead author on the economic section of the report, arguing that obtrusive network management practices, bandwidth speeds, and download/upload capacities that unduly favor one party over another are damaging to innovation in Canada. I’m also third author of the technical section, where I brought my expertise around deep packet inspection and usage based billing to the group of excellent authors who led that section. I’ve included the introduction, below, as well as links to download the report. Comments are, of course, welcome.

The Open Internet: Open for Business and Economic Growth

The Internet is widely regarded as one of the modern era’s greatest engines of economic growth and innovation. Ensuring ubiquitous, affordable, and open access to the Internet across all social sectors supports and promotes economic growth. By providing a reliable platform for applications development, communications improvements, and content distribution, we create the potential for greater efficiencies and growth in business-to-business, business-to-consumer, peer-to-peer, and consumer-to-business transactions.

In this section, we delve deeper into the essential role that the open Internet plays in the Canadian economy as an engine of innovation and growth. The unique characteristics of the Internet have allowed Canadians to create some of the world’s leading websites and applications. We argue that when businesses and citizens are forced to pay more for Internet access in Canada, or face other restrictions on use — especially compared to our global counterparts — we have fewer opportunities to invest in and develop the kind of innovations that make our economy flourish.

In Section One, we argue that co-invention and web-based entrepreneurship flourish best in neutral networks and that the Internet’s innate openness enables a democratization (i.e. of access and success) that fosters creativity, competition, and innovation. In Section Two, we argue that Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are transitioning towards technical architectures that discriminate against and seek to control certain applications, and we warn that this gradual enclosure of the Internet threatens to restrict user access, choice, and innovation, and thus threatens to reduce the value of the Internet overall. In particular, we discuss how ISPs use the practice of bandwidth throttling of specific applications (e.g. P2P file sharing) and usage-based pricing to discriminate against certain types of online activities in an effort to centralize control. Finally, we conclude by emphasizing that ISP interference undermines the core values of equality and neutrality operating at the heart of the Internet and that this interference threatens the Internet’s invaluable role as an engine of innovation and economic growth.

The ability for Canadians to innovate is more and more central to our economic well-being and competitiveness. As we explain below, the open Internet is an essential engine of innovation; without a fast, ubiquitous, and open Internet, Canada will continue to fall behind in economic productivity. E-commerce, the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector, and increasingly, traditional businesses, depend heavily on open access to the Internet. Any barrier to Internet use is a barrier to business development in general.

Review: Network Nation – Inventing American Telecommunications

/ Christopher Parsons / 4 Comments

Image courtesy of Harvard University Press

I spend an exorbitant amount of time reading about the legacies of today’s telecommunications networks. This serves to historically ground my analyses of today’s telecommunications ecosystem; why have certain laws, policies, and politics developed as they have, how do contemporary actions break from (or conform with) past events, and what cycles are detectable in telecommunications discussions. After reading hosts of accounts detailing the telegraph and telephone, I’m certain that John’s Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications is the most accessible and thorough discussion of these communications systems that I’ve come across to date.

Eschewing an anachronistic view of the telegraph and telephone – seeing neither through the lens that they are simply precursors to contemporary digital communications systems – John offers a granular account of how both technologies developed in the US. His analysis is decidedly neutral towards the technologies and technical developments themselves, instead attending to the role(s) of political economy in shaping how the telegraph and telephone grew as services, political objects, and zones of popular contention. He has carefully poured through original source documents and so can offer insights into the actual machinations of politicians, investors, municipal aldermen, and communications companies’ CEOs and engineers to weave a comprehensive account of the telegraph and telephone industries. Importantly, John focuses on the importance of civic ideals and governmental institutions in shaping technical innovations; contrary to most popular understandings that see government as ‘catching up’ to technicians post-WW I, the technicians have long locked their horns with those of government.

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Released: Literature Review of Deep Packet Inspection

/ Christopher Parsons

Scholars and civil advocates will be meeting next month in Toronto at the Cyber-surveillance in Everyday Life workshop. Participants will critically interrogate the surveillance infrastructures pervading daily life as well as share experiences, challenges, and strategies meant to to rein in overzealous surveillance processes that damage public and private life. My contribution to the workshop comes in the form of a modest overview of literature examining Deep Packet Inspection. Below is an abstract, as well as a link to a .pdf version on the review.

Abstract

Deep packet inspection is a networking technology that facilitates intense scrutiny of data, in real-time, as key chokepoints on the Internet. Governments, civil rights activists, technologists, lawyers, and private business have all demonstrated interest in the technology, though they often disagree about what constitutes legitimate uses. This literature review takes up the most prominent scholarly analyses of the technology. Given Canada’s arguably leading role in regulating the technology, many of its regulator’s key documents and evidentiary articles are also included. The press has been heatedly interested in the technology, and so round out the literature review alongside civil rights advocates, technology vendors, and counsel analyses.

Downloadable .pdf version of the literature review.