Minic Rivera, Author at The Blog Herald

‘Do Not Track Me Online’ Bill Introduced

February 15, 2011 by Minic Rivera

U.S. Representative Jackie Speier has introduced the Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011, prohibiting online marketers and analytics companies from collecting individuals’ online habits.

The bill is seen as the online version of the “Do Not Call” law that prevented telemarketers from calling people who requested not to receive calls.

The Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011 would direct the Federal Trade Commission to develop standards for a “Do Not Track” mechanism that would allow individuals to choose upfront to opt out of the collection, use or sale of their online activities, and require covered entities to respect the consumer’s choice. Failure to do so would be considered an unfair or deceptive act punishable by law. The covered entity would have to disclose its collection and sharing practices, including with whom the information is shared. The bill would allow the FTC to exempt commonly accepted commercial practices like the collection of information for billing purposes. [Read more…]

The battle is on for .gay

February 12, 2011 by Minic Rivera

With the advent of new domain name suffixes such as .car, .movie, and .web, we may be seeing soon a more wider form of navigating the entire web.

We may also be seeing groups scrambling for control. In fact, the battle is on between two gay organizations who are both willing to control the domain name suffix .gay.

The Dot-Gay Alliance and DotGay LLC are both willing to pay the steep $185,000 application fee attached to new gTLDs to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as well as the $25,000 annual fee to retain control of the suffix.

The Dot-Gay Alliance is planning to allocate 51% of its profits to different lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality and support organizations, making each .gay web address owner a contributor for the fight for LGBT equal rights.

On the other hand, DotGay LLC is planning to build communities around .gay. Imagine hotels.gay, lawyers.gay, health.gay, among others. It’s a pretty neat idea, admittedly.

What would complicate matters with future domain name suffixes is the news that the U.S. government is looking into gaining veto power over domain name suffixes. Currently, ICANN’s policy is to just ensure that a domain name suffix does not offend accepted legal norms of morality and public order that are recognized under principles of international law.

U.S. teens dropping email for SMS, Twitter, Facebook

February 9, 2011 by Minic Rivera

Is email becoming a thing of the past? Yes, if you are to ask 12 to 17 year olds in the US.

comScore’s report on 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review revealed that usage among teens went down by 59% last year. Even young adults used email lesser last year by 18% Overall usage of email dropped by a less alarming rate of 8%

Alarming? Maybe. So what’s becoming the choice for teens when it comes to form of communicaton? Text messaging, Facebook and Twitter. It’s all about informal and short form of writing for them. Email is just too much for this age group.

All is not lost for email as older people (55 to 64 year olds) in the U.S. still use email. In fact, they used it more in 2010 than the previous year.

What we would want to see now is the promised Facebook integrated messaging system. That is supposed to make email, as we know it today, a thing of the past. Well, as hinted by Mark Zuckerberg. Where is it, by the way?

In the meantime, keep email alive. You can try sending me one at [email protected] I’ll reply.