The Domination of the English Language in the Global Village: Efforts to Further Develop the Internet By Populating It With Non-Latin-Based Languages

At the top of the homepage of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a choice of nine different languages in which to read information about the organization; four of them are languages written in non-Latin script (Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian). Clicking upon any of the language options brings the reader to a new website in that language and, presuming the reader has a computer and screen that can handle non-Latin script, the webpage reads legibly and clearly. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL), however, still reads in Latin script despite the webpage’s content being in a foreign script. This article will examine the current state of affairs in policy-oriented Internet realms and suggest that the cohesive development of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), which are domain names in character sets other than American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), is a critical step to take in order to more fully utilize the potential the Internet offers for international communication

Trademark Vigilance in the Twenty-First Century: An Update

The trademark laws impose a duty upon brand owners to be vigilant in policing their marks, lest they be subject to the defense of laches, a reduced scope of protection, or even death by genericide. Before the millennium, it was relatively manageable for brand owners to police the retail marketplace for infringements and counterfeits. The Internet changed everything. In ways unforeseen, the Internet has unleashed a tremendously damaging cataclysm upon brands—online counterfeiting. It has created a virtual pipeline directly from factories in China to the American consumer shopping from home or work. The very online platforms that make Internet shopping so convenient, and that have enabled brands to expand their sales, have exposed buyers to unwittingly purchasing fake goods which can jeopardize their health and safety as well as brand reputation. This Article updates a 1999 panel discussion titled Trademark Vigilance in the Twenty-First Century, held at Fordham Law School, and explains all the ways in which vigilance has changed since the Internet has become an inescapable feature of everyday life. It provides trademark owners with a road map for monitoring brand abuse online and solutions for taking action against infringers, counterfeiters and others who threaten to undermine brand value

Towards A knowledge-Based Economy - Europe and Central Asia - Internet Development and Governance

The diversity and socio-economic differentiation of the real world prevents the full-scale cultivation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the benefit of all. Furthermore, the lack of determination and political will in some countries and slowness of responses to new technological opportunities in some others are responsible for the creation of another social divide – a digital one. The above problems were fully acknowledged by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit called for a joint international effort to overcome the digital divide between and within the United Nations Member States under the Digital Solidarity umbrella. This report was prepared as a follow-up to the Summit and represents a brief review of the status and trends in the area of ICT and Internet development in the UNECE region and provides background information on the state of the art in some relevant ICT subsectors in the Member States. The report focuses on the state of the Internet critical resources and, consequently, on the ICT and Internet penetration across countries and social groups. It also looks into existing Internet governance arrangements and makes some recommendations. The report contains three parts and conclusions. The first part, “Towards a Knowledge-based Economy: Progress Assessment”, highlights the situation in the region with regards to the digital divide, both between and within countries, and national strategies and actions aiming at overcoming barriers to accessing the Internet. The second part, “Internet Development: Current State of Critical Internet Resources in the UNECE Region”, concentrates on reviewing the physical Internet backbone, interconnection and connectivity within the Internet in the UNECE Member States. The third part, “Governing the Evolving Internet in the UNECE Region”, focuses on the issues of Internet Governance in the countries of the region, challenges faced by the countries and participation of key stakeholders in ICT and Internet policy formulation and implementation. The final part contains conclusions and recommendations.Internet, governance, knowledge-based economy, Europe, Central Asia, transition economies

Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem

With the contributions of international experts, the book aims to explore the new boundaries of universal bibliographic control. Bibliographic control is radically changing because the bibliographic universe is radically changing: resources, agents, technologies, standards and practices. Among the main topics addressed: library cooperation networks; legal deposit; national bibliographies; new tools and standards (IFLA LRM, RDA, BIBFRAME); authority control and new alliances (Wikidata, Wikibase, Identifiers); new ways of indexing resources (artificial intelligence); institutional repositories; new book supply chain; “discoverability” in the IIIF digital ecosystem; role of thesauri and ontologies in the digital ecosystem; bibliographic control and search engines

Untangling the Web: A Guide To Internet Research

[Excerpt] Untangling the Web for 2007 is the twelfth edition of a book that started as a small handout. After more than a decade of researching, reading about, using, and trying to understand the Internet, I have come to accept that it is indeed a Sisyphean task. Sometimes I feel that all I can do is to push the rock up to the top of that virtual hill, then stand back and watch as it rolls down again. The Internet—in all its glory of information and misinformation—is for all practical purposes limitless, which of course means we can never know it all, see it all, understand it all, or even imagine all it is and will be. The more we know about the Internet, the more acute is our awareness of what we do not know. The Internet emphasizes the depth of our ignorance because our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. My hope is that Untangling the Web will add to our knowledge of the Internet and the world while recognizing that the rock will always roll back down the hill at the end of the day

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the ‘digital’ is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the ‘digital’ is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today

The Normative Order of the Internet: A Theory of Rule and Regulation Online

There is order on the internet, but how has this order emerged and what challenges will threaten and shape its future? This study shows how a legitimate order of norms has emerged online, through both national and international legal systems. It establishes the emergence of a normative order of the internet, an order which explains and justifies processes of online rule and regulation. This order integrates norms at three different levels (regional, national, international), of two types (privately and publicly authored), and of different character (from ius cogens to technical standards). The author assesses their internal coherence, their consonance with other order norms and their consistency with the order's finality. The normative order of the internet is based on and produces a liquefied system characterized by self-learning normativity. In light of the importance of the socio-communicative online space, this is a book for anyone interested in understanding the contemporary development of the internet.