Internet Corporations Research Articles

NEW THEORY OF TRADITIONNAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES: FEATURES AND RESTRICTIONS IN TODAY’S UKRAINIAN SOCIETY

The paper deals with new theoretical understanding of communicative and media practices as background social practices, non-reflexive everyday routines, as ways of consumption of media and participation in them and also as constructors of private and public sphere. Such theoretical approach enables to disclosure ambivalent communicative and social shifts engendered by globalizing and crisis processes in contemporary Ukraine. The ambiguity role of social media in today’s Ukrainian context is following: on the one hand they can be considered as creators of new communicative environment, new sociality that favored to finding of personal and national authenticity and on the other — they is transformed into the social field of information wars, political games and realization of economic interests of great Internet corporations. Thus, on social micro and macro levels such discrepant implications can be revealed: 1) False adaptive strategy of overcoming social atomism and personal isolation by virtual communicative practices: communications in social media generate new types of social ties: «weak social ties», as long as they don’t further the creation of long personal relations for which a modern individual hasn’t time and emotional energy; 2) Escapist model of «flight into communication» by means of TV media practices, Internet communications and mobile phones; 3) Emergence of «phatic» communications keeping up social ties and interactions without transfer of information, but only as a way of social support and joining; 4) Hiding or transformation of self-identity by authentication with a «significant» person in the situations of personal and social crises by means of Internet communications; 5) Processes of «thingification» of media and «mediation» of things; 6) Constantly «keeping in touch» by means of new communicative practices also provides to modern narcissistic person to avoid close emotional contacts and meanwhile to satisfy a need for continuous demonstration of self and continuous search of love from others.

Subaltern mediators in the digital landscape

This article explores translational literary Web 2.0 practices and user-generated cultural creations on the Internet, focusing on video poetry that re-creates canonical poets’ bodies of work. It will be argued that the use of for-profit platforms like YouTube and Vimeo by indie creators and translators of video poetry favours the emergence of new translational attitudes, practices and objects that have positive but also contentious effects. One the one hand, these online mediators explore new poetic expressions and tend to make the most of the potential for dissemination of poetic heritage, providing visibility to non-hegemonic literatures. On the other hand, however, these translational digitally-born practices and creations by voluntary and subaltern mediators might reinforce the hegemonic position of large American Internet corporations at the risk of commodifying cultural capital, consolidating English as a lingua franca and perhaps, in the long run, even fostering a potentially monocultural and internationally homogeneous aesthetics.

Disrupting the Chinese State: New Actors and New Factors

How do the development of digital technology influence the architecture of China’s governance structure? This paper will focus on two elements that, it argues, are radically transforming the modus operandi of the Chinese state. First, it will discuss the rapid emergence of the huge private corporations that have come to dominate China’s Internet, and the increasing symbiosis between them and political processes. This paper will argue that a strategic public-private nexus is forming at the centre of China’s political architecture, where the particular properties of private Internet corporations are used to counter some of the perennial problems that plague the Party-State. Second, it will discuss the leadership’s perception of how new forms of data, data gathering, processing and analysis (generally referred to as “big data” (da shuju) may enhance its governing capabilities (zhizheng nengli). Prior e-governance efforts were largely dedicated at digitization of existing data, generally held by state bodies. However, in China as elsewhere, private corporations have rapidly developed new profit modes based on the exploitation of hitherto unmined data. Unsurprisingly, China’s control-oriented government sees this as a great opportunity to enhance its ability to monitor the activities of its citizens, businesses and government officials. One particular manifestation of this approach is the social credit system (shehui xinyong tixi) that is currently under development. This paper will argue that the data-empowered agenda has the potential to radically disrupt China’s information order. From the central point of view, it will erode the separation between the centre and the periphery, as encapsulated in the well-known proverb “the mountains are high, and the emperor far away” (shan gao, huangdi yuan). Nevertheless, as Internet-based approaches become institutionalized, it is equally likely that current governance pathologies will reproduce themselves in the online sphere. Please note: this is the working version of this paper. The published version can be found through the Brill database.

KULTURA KONVERGENCIJE: POJAM I KRITIKE

Konvergencija se često navodi kao ključna odlika medija u digitalnom dobu, dok pojam kultura konvergencije nastaje kako bi se načinio otklon od tehnocentričnog poimanja promena koje donosi kompjuterska mreža. Cilj ovoga rada je da ponudi analizu kulture konvergencije i odlika koje joj pripisuje Henri Dženkins, te da kritički preispita primenljivosti ovog pojma na celinu kompjuterski posredovanog komuniciranja. Tezu da je kultura konvergencije preovlađujuća ili poželjna kultura u digitalnom okruženju osporavaju gledišta da nisu svi internetski korisnici produktivni i kreativni, da je amaterska proizvodnja internetskih sadržaja u osnovi besplatni rad na kojem profitiraju internetske korporacije i da učešće u digitalnoj kulturi ne proširuje i ne produbljuje participaciju građana u društvenom životu.

Comparative Analysis of Chinese Internet Company Listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ—Based on Financial Analysis of Baidu and Dangdang

At present, given that the research of Chinese internet companies listed overseas is rare, this article focus on the study of these companies’ financial performance, and offers some advice for Chinese internet companies wanted to list on the American capital market. In order to avoid the strict listing conditions of domestic security market, most of the Chinese internet corporations listed on the NYSE (The New York Stock Exchange) or NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Deal Automated Quotations). Therefore, this paper firstly compared the NYSE and NASDAQ. Secondly, this paper describes the difference between financial performance on different listing locations, based on Baidu listed on NSDAQ and Dangdang listed on NYSE, through the financial statements analysis. Finally, this paper puts forward some countermeasures of Chinese internet corporation listed overseas. The study suggests that the overall financial indicators performance of Baidu is better than Dangdang, which shows that the NASDAQ is better in the adaptability and adjustment for financial crisis than NYSE. Therefore, it is believed that the NASDAQ is more suitable for domestic internet enterprises listing overseas. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that both the NASDAQ and the NYSE require expensive listing fees and maintaining fees, which is strict with the listed companies’ profits.

Business Ethics and Free Speech on the Internet

The unique role of the Internet in today’s society, and the extensive reach and potentially profound impact of much Internet content, raise philosophically interesting and practically urgent questions about the responsibilities of various agents, including individual Internet users, governments, and corporations. Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side is an extremely valuable contribution to the emerging discussion of these important issues. In this paper, I will focus on the obligations of Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and Web Hosting Services (WHS’s) with respect to online hate speech. I will argue that although Cohen-Almagor is correct that we should not understand these companies’ obligation to protect and promote freedom of expression as always taking priority over potentially competing values, his argument that they ought to deny service to those who would engage in hate speech online is less than fully convincing. In part this is because his definition of hate speech is, in important respects, overly broad. In addition, I will argue that the analogies to which he appeals in defense of his position are flawed, and that a more accurate analogy appears to provide at least some support to the view that ISP’s and WHS’s ought not deny service to those who would engage in at least some forms of hate speech.

The Public Perception of Cyber-surveillance Before and After Edward Snowden’s Surveillance Revelations

The article contextualizes contemporary cyber-surveillance practices in the light of Edward Snowden’s revelations of massive espionage by intelligences services and shows the results of an online survey on the public perceptions of privacy in public telecommunication networks in Slovenia. The results relate to types and frequency of victimization; self-reported study on violating of the privacy of others; concern for the protection of one’s own privacy; perception of those carrying out surveillance; the value of privacy; views on abrogated data retention regulation; and awarness of personal data protection remedies.Despite growing distrust of large internet corporations and – after Edward Snowden’s revelations – Intelligence agencies, the findings indicate a low degree of awareness and care for the protection of personal data. In regard to the perception of primary subjects of surveillance, 56 percent of respondents chose internet corporations as the greatest threat to their privacy, followed by telecommunications companies (25 percent), and shops with loyalty programs (23 percent). According to chi-square and Cramer's coefficient calculations, gender correlation is weak, but men feel more threatened by foreign intelligence services and the Slovene Intelligence and Security Agency. By comparing responses before and after the Datagate affair, we noted that prior to this date, only a handful of people felt threatened by foreign or domestic intelligence agencies. An increased feeling of threat after this date is evident in men as well as women.

Understanding ICANN's Complexity in a Growing and Changing Internet

Historically, the primary governance of the Internet has been in the hands of the Internet Corporations for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit corporation appointed by the US government to develop policy for and manage the critical resources of the Internet: Internet Protocol addresses, Domain Names System and parameter numbers. However, because of the immense global influence of the Internet, other national governments and international organizations are seeking to rapidly become involved in this policy-development sphere. In this particularly decisive moment of the Internet, there is a need to understand the structure and processes of ICANN before any further change. This paper studies who participates in ICANN’s decision-making and policy-development processes and how. It first examines in detail the internal structure of the organization, and then its structural and financial evolution since its inception. The study is an in-depth analysis of legal, financial and public documents of ICANN, as well as the information published directly by ICANN’s internal bodies. Although other works have studied specific internal bodies of ICANN, this is the first comprehensive examination of ICANN using ICANN’s founding documents as starting point. The paper reveals the substantial expansion in scale and scope of ICANN’s initial technical mandate. ICANN’s recurring changes allowed it to adapt to growth, evolution and change in the Internet However, the permanent restructuring hinders follow-up by external interested parties that are now requesting more involvement in the policy-development processes.

Doing Well by Doing Good? Rights and Regulation on Twitter

Web 2.0 platforms promise to act as public fora, connecting people from all over the globe so that they can discuss the issues that matter to them. Yet the commercial imperatives immanent to contemporary networked sociality have been increasingly enforced by Terms of Service contracts that circumscribe users’ rights. In this way, Web 2.0 services have become quasi-regulators, with contract law outpacing state legislation around issues such as informational privacy and intellectual property. In attempting to balance this regulatory aspect of their commercial role and gain social acceptance, Web 2.0 companies often invoke the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For instance, Twitter.com frames its mandate in benevolent terms, according to the logic of CSR, in statements such as: 'We believe that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact'.1 Since internet corporations like Twitter often do have such a far-reaching social impact online, CSR policies work to reassure users that their rights as citizens, and not just as consumers, will retain some degree of institutional protection. Much of the time, however, CSR works as a mere marketing tool. This can be seen across a range of popular Web 2.0 platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Second Life and Twitter, that profit from offering users free access to their services. Political trends toward deregulation and privatization enable such platforms to integrate user-generated content without much constraint from state legislation, and thus Terms of Service contracts regulate the appropriation of users’ free labor, the collection and use of their personal information, and the licensing of their intellectual property. This paper uses the example of Twitter to highlight how a Web 2.0 platform, initially praised for its promise to bolster democratic speech by offering users a free 'real-time information network,' has mobilized the CSR ethos as part of developing its market share. An examination of Twitter’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy indicates how the site’s positioning of itself as a benevolent social service has not precluded it from retaining a license over all posted content and from collecting and using personal information. In fact, Twitter’s seeming benevolence has rendered the site hugely successful in terms of accumulating the critical mass of users necessary to contribute their free labor toward the site’s growing value. Twitter thus presents a classic example of what business ethics literature calls the “business case for CSR”: the theoretical assumption that a company will 'do well by doing good', meaning that there is an economic incentive to ethically sound behavior. The problem with this over-simplified approach is that it only takes into account economic self-interest. It thus fails to properly reflect on the rights and responsibilities of corporate actors with regards to their stakeholders and society at large (Ulrich 2008). From an ethical perspective, a more adequate approach to corporate responsibility is the language of rights (Wettstein 2008). In this context, we ask, what might be the role of business ethics or other normative frames around the protection of user rights in Web 2.0? And if Web 2.0 sites like Twitter have become the new regulators, what mechanisms could be put in place to increase user autonomy and control over their labor time, personal information and intellectual property? While answers might be speculative here, these questions are important to ask in terms of realizing something of what is at least a democratic potential of participatory Web 2.0 platforms.

Recent Issues for Competition on the Internet: Google's Search and Advertising, the Apple App Store, and the AOL Huffington Post Merger

This paper will examine three recent instances involving competition concerns on the Internet. The Internet at its inception was widely viewed as not suffering from any competition concerns, however in the last ten years, with on the one hand the emergence of major Internet corporations, and on the other the recognition of the Internet as an important trading platform for offline corporations and their subsequent use of the medium, the issue of anticompetitive behaviour by such entities has reared its head. The three instances involving competition concerns that this paper will consider are: the progress of the European Commission’s antitrust investigation into Google for alleged anticompetitive behaviour in the markets for online search and advertising; the situation with Apple’s App Store and the ability of developers to create applications for its devices (i.e. the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch); and the circumstances surrounding the merger between popular blog the Huffington Post and Internet giant AOL and any implications this may have for concentration and media plurality on the Internet. The legal and regulatory responses so far to these scenarios will be examined, along with an analysis of whether there are legitimate competition and regulatory concerns, and the extent to which they are being addressed by the appropriate authorities. Finally, based on this consideration, a determination on whether any further action should be taken to safeguard competition in these parts of the Internet will be made.

Private Power and New Media: The Case of the Corporate Suppression of WikiLeaks and its Implications for the Exercise of Fundamental Rights on the Internet

The focus of this paper will be the recent conduct of various corporations in withdrawing Internet services provided to information portal WikiLeaks in light of the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks publishing classified documents of correspondence between the US State Department and its diplomatic missions around the world in late 201'3 The implications for freedom of expression (especially the right to access information) on the Internet will be examined in the wake of WikiLeaks, particularly in the context of the infringer being a private actor, and one comprising a mono- or oligopoly. The motivation of these private actors in contributing to the suppression of WikiLeaks will be assessed to examine whether it constitutes an example of Birnhack and Elkin-Koren's 'invisible handshake' i.e. the 'emerging collaboration' between the state and multinational corporations on the Internet that they posit is producing 'the ultimate threat'. The legal recourse open to WikiLeaks and its users for the infringement of fundamental rights will be examined, especially the First Amendment to the US Constitution since the geographic location for these events has mostly been the USA. Finally, the postscript to the WikiLeaks controversy will be considered: the “information warfare” conducted by hackers will be examined to determine whether the exercise of power of these Internet corporations in a way which infringes fundamental rights can be checked by technological means, and whether hackers are indeed the true electronic defenders of freedom of expression.

Increasing internet access and freedoms with IGF participation

The Internet has in a short period of time stimulated changes in commerce, work life, and leisure activities as well as in the provision of information. These changes have brought out policy issues such as intellectual property rights, free speech, spam, privacy, terrorism, and child pornography. These issues demand solutions that require global cooperation. To provide all stakeholders - Internet users, corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) among others - a forum to address these issues, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was created in 2005 as an outcome of the discussions held at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

From strategy to e‐strategy: lessons from two success stories

PurposeThis paper examines the strategic approach of two exemplar internet firms belonging to the first generation of dot.coms. The analysis identifies and compares their corporate strategic approach as one of the factors that helped these companies to escape the internet disaster and maintain their market leadership for more than ten years.Design/methodology/approachThe study develops a methodological process for identification of growth‐oriented strategic decisions taken and implemented by the two internet corporations in a period of five years. The strategic decisions were classified and compared based on the methodology proposed by I. Ansoff.FindingsThe classification and comparison of the strategic course of the two firms reveals interesting similarities in their managerial approach and deviation from traditional strategic procedures and thinking. The most important conclusion is that successful firms in a market with low entry barriers maintain their market leadership by focusing on short‐term rather than long‐term competitive advantages. Such a strategy requires managerial flexibility and deviation from traditional strategic practices and thinking.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is required in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the strategic practices of successful virtual firms as well as in order to identify the critical differences between the online and the physical strategic practices.Practical implicationsFocusing on short‐term competitive positions as a strategy for survival and success in the virtual marketplace requires the continuous critical analysis of the external environment, efficient decision‐making processes and focus on continuous innovation and transformation.Originality/valueThe paper illustrates scientific evidence that transformation and innovation are the strategies most likely to contribute to the long‐term survival and success in unpredictable, sometimes chaotic and certainly fast evolving marketplaces like the internet One could assume that the findings could apply to physical markets characterized by evolution and change.

How the Resilient Corporation Competes

The Resilient Corporation survives adversity by refusing to follow the pack.