On Aug 28, all 21 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country have been ordered by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block the controversial Malaysia Today website.

The decision that came from MCMC was against the MSC Malaysia 10 Point Bill of Guarantees. This Bill Of Guarantee is a promise from the Malaysian Government that it won’t censor the Internet.

Yet, Malaysia-Today was blocked for more than 2 weeks before the ban was lifted by KTAK(Energy, Water & Communications Ministry). This is not the first time that the Malaysian Government has broken its promises. Just after the 12th General Election, the current Prime Minister of Malaysia said that there will be no further increase in petrol price(source) but 2 months after that, the fuel price was increased and Malaysian were promised that it will be the last one this year.

So after these broken promises, can the people still trust the Government?

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Asia will continue to deliver strong growth in the mobile phone market due to sustained demand from China and India, the world’s two biggest markets of such services, industry officials said.

But, even if Asia is the world’s largest broadband market in terms of absolute numbers, it lags the United States and Europe in overall penetration, with just 3.6 out of every 100 inhabitants connected to the high-speed Internet, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said in a report.

The ITU, which groups companies and official bodies from 191 countries, held an industry conference in Bangkok this week.
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The era of the American Internet is ending.

Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.

Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.

And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence — and conceivably military — consequences.

American intelligence officials have warned about this shift. “Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge,” Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006. “We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us.”

Indeed, Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.

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A US intelligence office Friday warned Americans traveling to the Beijing Olympics or elsewhere to expect cyber spies to surreptitiously compromise their laptops, cellphones, and other electronic devices.

The unusual advisory issued by the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) did not single out China by name, but the head of the office did in a press release and a television interview.

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AOL in US is shutting down some of its Web and mobile based services because it is not gaining enough attention in the US.

I think that AOL should look in other parts of the world for new business opportunity. For an example, service like Xdrive and AOL Pictures that it plan to shut down will work in Asia since there are not many such services based in Asia.

If AOL could launch services such as Xdrive and host it in Asia, users will definitely use it since it is localized and the files that users are uploading and downloading don’t have to travel across the other part of the world(US), thus ensuring good user experience.

The world is changing, even bigger companies like Yahoo! is trying get attention in Asia with localized services and partnership.

It is time for AOL to look out the box, if not, AOL will disappear within the next few years.

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To go shopping these days, more Americans are trading in their car keys for a keyboard.

Online shopping is gaining at a time when simply filling up a gas tank to head to the mall can seem like a spending spree.

A number of retailers — including Gap, Victoria’s Secret and J. C. Penney — are experiencing double-digit sales growth at their shopping Web sites, creating a surprising bright spot during an otherwise gloomy time for sales in brick-and-mortar stores.

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