Andrew Orlowski

Collected Journalism

  • Net Neutrality: the Good Guys always were white

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Delicious news from the United States, where ‘Net Neutrality’ is again being recast for a new political purpose. The term long since ceased to mean anything – it now means anything you want it to mean. But as a rule of thumb, advocating Neutrality means giving your support to general Goodness on the internets, and…

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  • The Digital Economy Bill: the story so far

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Pelted from all sides by amendments, the Digital Economy Bill continues to plough its way through Parliament. This week, the Lords lined up to have their say, but since there are so many (300) Amendments, they’ll be at it again on Monday. Of course, out of the ten subject areas, the one labelled ‘online copyright…

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  • Record labels seek DMCA-style takedowns

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    Exclusive Record label trade association the BPI wants sweeping changes to UK online copyright practice in 11th hour amendments to the Digital Britain bill. The amendments would grant copyright holders injunctions against websites and service providers similar to the US DMCA act – but with no ‘safe harbour’ provision to verify whether the claim is…

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  • Nu Lab’s favourite boffin

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    New Labour’s favourite boffin has lost her job – for a very New Labour reason – and has responded with a classically New Labour riposte. Oxford neuroscientist Susan Greenfield was made redundant from her post as the Director of the Royal Institution after failing to balance the books. The full-time post itself is being abolished.…

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  • Google to mobile phone industry: ‘Fuck you very much!’

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    "It’s Google’s autistic approach to relationships," one senior phone exec told me this week. "They don’t know what hurt they’re doing, and they don’t care." It’s nothing personal, guys. Today, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, who thought they were Google’s closest partners, will begin to understand how, say, copyright holders have…

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  • Google abandons Search

    Google abandons Search

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    Andrew Orlowski

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    It’s hard to explain to people new to the web since 2004 – the Digg kids – the effect that Google had on the internet at the turn of the decade. They can’t conceive the Before and the After. Google was miraculous, and so much better than the competition that they effectively gave up trying…

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