New Websites Added to TeleClick Network

Hi everyone, just a quick note to shamelessly promote a few of my latest projects. I’ve launched four new sites in the past couple of weeks to expand my network of internet content holdings.

Here are the latest additions, in order of launch date…

PDAReviews.ca - Informational reviews of several popular Palm Pilots, Pocket PCs, and Smartphones.

CameraReviews.ca - Short but useful reviews of digital cameras made by Canon, Nikon, Kodak, and several other popular manufacturers.

PrepaidMobility.com - Small website promoting the Tracfone prepaid wireless offering.

ISPReviews.ca - Service reviews and pricing information for Canada’s top cable, DSL, and dialup ISPs.

PS- I’ll be away in the UK for the next two weeks, and probably won’t get around to posting much for the rest of the month. Please bear with me, and expect to see some interesting new articles hitting this site in early July!

Counter-Amendment Seeks to Ridicule Net Neutrality Legislation

In a deliberate mockery of net neutrality, U.S. House Representative, Charles Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas, has proposed that the principle be applied not only to Internet Service Providers, but also to the internet itself.

The proposed amendment would restrict and regulate the online business activities of companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, and make it illegal for these entities to discriminate in any way. For example, Google would no long be able to reject undesirable advertisers, and Amazon wouldn’t be allowed to form exclusive relationships with retail partners.

This would obviously make it very difficult for the internet companies to do much in the way of serious business, and effectively cripple the e-commerce world as we know it. At this point, you might ask if this whole proposal is some sort of joke. And the answer is quite frankly, yes.

In reality, Charles Gonzalez almost certainly opposes net neutrality legislation, and is performing a political maneuver to make the big internet giants abandon their support for the cause. Anyone with a brain in their head, however, would see that Mr. Gonzalez’s bogus “proposal” would serve the exact opposite purpose of genuine net neutrality.

The whole point of the principle itself (at least from my perspective) is to keep the web fair and unregulated for both businesses and consumers, by preventing ISPs from filtering or regulating internet traffic.

People like Gonzalez don’t seem to understand that most net neutrality advocates aren’t trying to restrict or regulate the internet, but rather prevent service providers from doing just that. Personally, I don’t see this as a political issue that the government should be involved in at all, but instead, a battle by internet users to conserve the fair and unfiltered medium that we know and love.

I have little doubt that the Googles and Amazons of the world will have no problem seeing through this idiotic attempt by Mr. Gonzalez to ridicule the entire cause and allow ISPs to butcher the web as we know it.

Google Struggles with Chinese Censorship Issues

In a meeting with reporters earlier this week, Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, admitted that the search giant had compromised its principals by complying with the censorship demands of the Chinese government, and is now strongly considering a change of course.

“We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said, describing the government restrictions as “a set of rules that we weren’t comfortable with.”

China’s demands of search engines include blocking keywords like “Chinese torture” and “Tiananmen Square Massacre,” and generally shielding the country’s citizens from all negative information about the government.

Even after the launch of Google.cn, the censored service, the majority of Chinese users kept using the regular Google site whenever possible. Access to the non-censored site is now blocked, however, in the vast majority of Chinese provinces, according to Reporters Without Borders, a free press advocacy group.

Brin says that Google is currently trying to improve the censored search service to make it more fair and balanced, but such efforts will likely be in vain due to the Communist government’s iron-fisted and unwavering attitude.

If Google.cn can’t be brought up to standard, the search giant will likely shut it down, in an attempt to make a statement against the evils of authoritarian oppression.

Depriving the most populous country in the world of access to Google is a drastic step to say the least, but I can understand the motivation for doing so. In cases like this it is often worth sacrificing short-term financial benefit to take the high road, and work towards a greater good.

Google to Launch Internet-Based Spreadsheet Application

Search giant, Google is currently testing a new application that will let users create and edit spreadsheets over the internet.

Google Spreadsheets is compatible with Microsoft Excel, but works very differently. It is totally internet based, meaning that users can easily edit their work from any computer in the world, and share it with others. Files can be saved onto your hard drive in .xls, .csv, or HTML format.

The most revolutionary feature of all is the ability for up to 10 people at once to edit a single spreadsheet, while chatting in real time – Great for business collaboration.

Once it is publicly released this hot new application will undoubtedly be popular among business travelers, and those wanting a handy way to view and edit files on the go.

A full review of Google Spreadsheets can be viewed at C|NET News.com.