Stello's Choice

The PEW Internet & American Life project has released a report on the state of cloud computing.  This encompasses any applications you run through your browser, from online mail services to heavier apps like online word processors (Google Docs) and Adobe Photoshop Express.  The question remains: how much privacy do users expect when using online applications?

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project April-May 2008 Survey. N=1,553 Internet users. Margin of error is ±3%.

Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez has pieced together a good article encompassing some of the privacy controversies surrounding cloud computing.

As the internet increasingly provides free alternatives to normally expensive applications like Microsoft Office, access becomes a more pressing issue.  In an effort to extend access to the internet to more people worldwide and maintain its alacrity, Tim Berners-Lee has created the World Wide Web Foundation.

The mission of the Foundation is:

• to advance One Web that is free and open,
• to expand the Web's capability and robustness,
• and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet.

These goals are remarkably similar to that of the "Internet for Everyone" initiative which focuses on access within the US, which has a long list of supporting organizations here.

Update: The US Senate Committee on Science Commerce and Transportation has called for (Press Release) quick passage of the Broadband Data Improvement Act (Full Text):

To improve the quality of Federal and State data regarding the availability and quality of broadband services and to promote the deployment of affordable broadband services to all parts of the Nation.

Ambiguous enough.  Here is Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye on the importance of broadband:

This is not about regulation or deregulation. This is about getting the facts, because from good information flows good policy. So I hope, in the remaining days of this Congress, that the members of this Committee can work together to advance this bill in the Senate.  Together we can look back and say we understood that broadband matters and that we did something about it.