The internet today isn’t what Tim Berners-Lee pictured when he invented the World Wide Web nearly three decades ago. In a talk at the opening of the Web Summit in Lisbon on Monday, the inventor of the web called on governments, companies and individuals to back a new “Contract for the Web” that aims to …
A new report out this week shows that China is by far the most effective censor of the internet, and far from retreating, is exporting its model around the world. Beijing has consistently defied all the confident predictions (including by people far more knowledgeable about the internet than Clinton) that this would be impossible. China’s …
Rwanda’s mining boss announced on Tuesday the world’s first blockchain project to track tantalum from the pit-face to the refinery, part of a push to woo investors seeking a conflict-free source of minerals. “Blockchain is one of the technologies that has demonstrated capabilities of providing a more efficient and effective way of delivering traceability for …
Google is still considering whether to launch a censored version of its search product in China, as confirmed by CEO Sundar Pichai during a recent event. “It’s very early. We don’t know whether we could or would do this in China, but we felt it was important for us to explore,” Pichai stated at the …
The UK’s domestic-facing intelligence agency, MI5, has admitted that it captured and read Privacy International’s private data as part of its Bulk Communications Data (BCD) and Bulk Personal Datasets (BPD) programmes, which hoover up massive amounts of the public’s data. In further startling legal disclosures, all three of the UK’s primary intelligence agencies – GCHQ, …
The European Parliament has approved a controversial copyright law that threatens to ‘destroy the internet as we know it’, according to digital rights groups. Yesterday, in a vote that split almost every major EU party, Members of the European Parliament adopted every terrible proposal in the new Copyright Directive and rejected every good one, setting the …
Benin has joined a fray and growing list of African states imposing spurious taxes on citizens for using the internet. The government passed a decree in late August taxing its citizens for accessing the internet and social-media apps. The directive, first proposed in July, institutes a fee (link in French) of 5 CFA francs ($0.008) per megabyte consumed …
The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would explore regulating Google — an effort that would challenge protections around free speech online — in response to the president’s allegations that the tech giant manipulates its search results to prominently display negative stories about him and other Republicans. In the United States, regulating search results could …
A study conducted by data and analytics company, GlobalData reveals that by the end of 2018, a total of 43 out of 55 African countries (or 78%) will offer 4G services. In spite of this, there are a few laggards, one of them being Mozambique – a country of nearly 30 million people. However, in …
Cargo shipping giant Maersk and IBM today announced TradeLens, a technology that applies blockchain to the global supply chain. TradeLens takes advantage of blockchain, the decentralized public ledger behind such tech as cryptocurrency — to enable global trade to be more efficient and secure. More than 94 companies and organizations are supporting the project in …