Siva Vaidhyanthan

What to make of a "birthday reminder service, underneath of which is a global surveillance operation"

Federal regulators once tried to reign in Facebook. It didn't work.

The Internet was meant to democratize information. A look at why it has fallen short. 

Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, tallies the damage done by the Rolling Stone story, "A Rape on Campus."

This week, net neutrality advocates celebrated the FCC's ruling that bans Internet service providers from giving faster connections to websites that pay for the privilege.

This week the FCC announced that it would consider a new draft of the Open Internet rules which, if passed, would all but kill net neutrality, the principle that all content should be treated equally. Manoush talks with Siva Vaidhyanathan about how this development might radically affect online innovation as we've known it.

On Tuesday a DC circuit court of appeals dealt what many are calling a death blow to net neutrality, the principle that all content providers should be treated equally. To understand this ruling and its potential effects on the future of the internet, Brooke talks with Siva Vaidhyanathan, chair of media studies at the University of Virginia and author of The Googlization of Everything (and why we should worry).

Later today 55-year-old Eric Schmidt leaves his post as Google CEO, to be replaced by the company’s 38 year old co-founder Larry Page. The last time Larry Page lead the company was in 2001. Then, Google had about 200 employees. Today, the monolithic company employs over 24,000. Is Page ready for his old role, and more importantly, what changes will his new leadership bring to the direction and focus of the company that built its fortunes around his visionary search algorithms? For the answer we speak to Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of law and media studies at the University of Virginia and author of "The Googlization of Everything."

Earlier this week, The New York Times discovered that Google and Verizon were working on a backdoor deal which, as many online activists worried, would threaten the future of “net neutrality.” In essence, “net neutrality” means that the Internet carries traffic as quickly as it can, regardless of the source. If this neutrality were to end, particular websites could pay ISPs to carry their traffic faster than their competitors.

Yesterday, the U.S. Copyright Office declared it perfectly legal for iPhone owners to "jailbreak" their mobile devices. In reviewing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the office said that although it may break Apple's warranty, there was no legal reason why iPhone users shouldn't be able to free their phones from the software restrictions that Apple places on them. The Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Corporation responded that jailbreaking iPhones could lead to "copyright infringement, potential damage to the device and other potential harmful physical effects" to the device. The new ruling changes the sense of ownership that technology users have over their products.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the FCC has no regulating authority over how Comcast or any other internet provider manages its network. 

"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions.” ...

The French government is on the verge of passing a law that would punish Web users for downloading illegal content. Pushed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the bill proposes that...

Facebook, the incredibly popular social network, hit massive protests when they changed their terms of service to indicate that they owned all content posted on their site by users. T...

While you certainly hope your teen isn't sending explicit photos of themselves over their cellphone, if they were, would you want them to get slapped with felony pornography charges? ...

They’re calling it the modern day equivalent of the electrical grid, or the interstate highway system. Seven billion dollars of the stimulus plan making its way through Congress right...

Calls for the end of the media as we know it are not new to anyone in the business. For years media clairvoyants have been peering into their crystal balls to find ever shrinking staf...