NYT - Cellphone Payments Offer Alternative to Cash
The New York Times reports: "A number of big and small companies — including eBay’s PayPal unit, Intuit, VeriFone and Square — are creating innovative ways for individuals to avoid cash and checks and settle all debts, public and private, using their cellphones."

My Way News - Russia considers new powers for KGB successor
My Way News reports: "Russia's parliament is considering a government-drafted bill that would increase the power of the security services and restore practices once associated with their Soviet predecessor, the KGB."

My Way News - China wants telecom companies to inform on clients
My Way News reports: "China is poised to strengthen a law to require telecommunications and Internet companies to inform on customers who discuss state secrets, potentially forcing businesses to collaborate with the country's vast security apparatus that stifles political dissent."s

CNN - Facebook makes it easier for users to share interests across web
CNN reports: "Facebook on Wednesday announced plans to turn the web into one big cocktail party [...] 'We're building toward a web where the default is social. Every application and product will be redesigned from the ground up to use a person's real identity and friends.'"

Comment: I find two things interesting about this. First, that it's all keyed to your identity. In other words, this is not anonymous aggregate data, it's very specifically tied to your likes, dislikes, favorite sites, and social network. It's all about you and the people you know. It's an advertisers dream, and a totalitarian governments holy grail. As Facebook expands into less than free countries we will have to watch how they manage government requests for this data. As Google demonstrated this week, there is a rising tide of government attempts to access user data, and we can only assume this trend will increase over time.

Second, this is a good example of a new trend online that allows you to interact with sites using your social network identity. In other words, you are already authenticated as a trusted user by virtue of your social network membership. Is it at all unreasonable to imagine a future in which the market uses similar authentication for consumers? If social networks like FB add a payment platform this will be something with profound implications. It would probably start out with mobile commerce, using your cell phone to make purchases billed to your social network account, but augmented reality apps and bluetooth connectivity could easily allow mobile assisted checkout at standard brick-and-mortar stores in much the same way a supermarket scanner can now scan a coupon directly off your cell phone.

It's not the app platform that matters, it's the concept that your identity and secure payment info are encoded in an object (with you, in you or on you) that can be easily scanned and authenticated.

My Way News - Hitler `Downfall' parodies removed from YouTube
My Way News reports: "'Downfall,' a German film released in 2004 about Hitler's last days, has been adopted for wildly popular YouTube parodies that have spanned mock rants about topics as varied as playing Xbox video games to Kanye West to Apple's new iPad."

Comment: In the U.S. a copyrighted work may be used for the purposes of parody, education or news commentary...until a large corporation complains.

Google Shares Info On Who They Share Info With:
My Way News - Google discloses demands for censorship, user data
My Way News reports: "Google Inc. has set up a new tool to show where it's facing the most government pressure to censor material and turn over personal information about its users."

The Christian Science Monitor - US, Brazil lead Google's Top 10 censorship list; China off the chart
The Christian Science Monitor: "After government's criticized Google for disclosing too much private information, the company released country-by-country data on the number of government requests for user information and data removal."

Business Week - Google Details Governments' Data Demands
Business Week reports: "China isn't the only country where Google has tussled with authorities over its freedom to operate unfettered. Nearly a month after the country stopped censoring search results there, Google (GOOG) on Apr. 21 released data that detail requests from worldwide governments to take down content from its Web sites, or to turn over information about users of Google products including its search engine, YouTube, and its Blogger software."

Wired News - VeriChip’s Merger With Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists
Wired News reports: "With a human-implantable microchip maker now running a credit-scoring and identity-theft-protection website, privacy activists are worried again."

Comment: So, mark tech is meeting up with commerce tech, interesting development, as is the name change.

ABC News - Iran Jamming Satellite Signals Carrying Foreign Media
ABC News reports: "Tehran has targeted the satellite in an effort to prevent critical foreign media coverage from reaching domestic viewers. Even though the United Nations has condemned it as an act of sabotage, the international community can do little to stop it."

NYT - China’s Censorship Machine Takes On the Internet
The New York Times reports: "Today, China censors everything from the traditional print press to domestic and foreign Internet sites; from cellphone text messages to social networking services; from online chat rooms to blogs, films and e-mail. It even censors online games. That’s not all. Not content merely to block dissonant views, the government increasingly employs agents to peddle its views online, in the guise of impartial bloggers and chat-room denizens."

Comment: The internet can no longer be assumed to be a tool for liberating the oppressed and exposing the oppressors. It can be that, as we saw in Iran, but it can also be a tool of oppression and repression. Our only real hope is that dissidents, human rights activists, missionaries, resistors and others interested him human liberty can use technology to stay one step ahead...of technology.