Malawi villagers move for new Madonna school

Some 200 villagers in Malawi have ended their protests and agreed to leave their land to make way for a school being built by pop star Madonna. The villagers have finally accepted compensation of $105,000 (£67,000) after their protests had delayed the start of the building work. A local chief reportedly told the villagers to "accept reality" after the government ordered them to move. Madonna has adopted two children from Malawi, where she has an orphanage. Work is now expected to start soon on the Raising Malawi Girls Academy outside the capital, Lilongwe. The AFP news agency says it is expected to be finished in two years' time. As well as the compensation, the villagers have also been given new land elsewhere. (my view)-1,shes building nothing,shes just funding or taxing them and slapping her stage name on it....sad bitch and 2,Who the fuck does she think she is!shes hardly visited that place,she only visited to adopt and that was for MORE PR for her and to beef up her fuckingly fugly profile........i've had enough....this makes me sick to know shes only doing this for PR and money.o before you say it,yes she cut the ribbon but she DIDN'T plant a tree.she took one shovel of some dirt she dug out and tossed it aside while a villager dug out the rest,she place the tree in the centre of the hole and that same villager planet it..NOT HER....how fucking lazy is that of her,you could tell she never dug before as she just tapped the shovel with her foot expecting it to go into the soil itself so she pressed down harder and nearly fell lol......i have seen the video and was laughing and angry at the same time.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(that was me screaming at her while impaling her in her face over and over with the spine a ripped from her leathery look wrinkled back lol)

Warning over sexy instant message called 'Fembot'-FOR LONELY MEN ONLY/GAY WOMEN

Lonely internet users are being warned about Fembot, a piece of malicious software that poses as a flirtatious woman looking to chat on instant messaging services. Victims are persuaded to give out personal information that could be used for fraud or identity theft, according to security experts. Fembot was first spotted in 2007 but hasn't been seen much since then. However, there are signs she may be back on the scene in time for Valentine's Day. She may also be sporting a new, more sophisticated look, according to Richard Clooke from PC Tools. "These types of attacks have moved on significantly in this time," he said. "The intelligence has improved such that they can tailor their discussion based on the information they are getting and then change their questions or answers to reflect the responses." Researchers say Flirtbot-type software typically directs an instant messaging user to click through to a website which may request credit card details or force a virus on to their computer. "There is a certain part of the population who are willing to engage in these kinds of conversations," added Richard Clooke. In 2007, a Russian company called CyberLover.ru claimed it had developed software that could successfully pass itself off as a member of the opposite sex. There's no suggestion that CyberLover was involved in the criminal side of online virtual flirting. However, it is thought that similar technology is being used by the latest generation of Flirtbots.

Google ranked 'worst' on privacy

Google has the worst privacy policy of popular net firms, says a report. Rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data. The group said Google was leading a "race to the bottom" among net firms many of whom had policies that did little to substantially protect users. In response Google said the report was mistaken and that it worked hard to keep user data confidential.

Hostile approach

The report by the veteran cyber rights group is the result of six months' research which scrutinised 20 popular net firms to find out how they handle the personal information users gave up when they started using such services. None of the firms featured in the report got a "privacy friendly" rating. Yahoo and AOL were said to have "substantial threats" to privacy as were Facebook and Hi5 for the allegedly poor way they dealt with user data. Microsoft, one place higher in the rankings than these four firms, was described as having "serious lapses" in its privacy policy. Other net sites, such as BBC.com, eBay and Last.fm were described in the report as "generally privacy aware but in need of improvement". But Privacy International singled put Google at the bottom of its rankings for what the group called its "numerous deficiencies and hostilities" to privacy. "We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial," the group said in the report. Privacy International placed Google at the bottom of its ranking because of the sheer amount of data it gathers about users and their activities; because its privacy policies are incomplete and for its poor record of responding to complaints. "While a number of companies share some of these negative elements, none comes close to achieving status as an endemic threat to privacy," read the report. Responding to the report Nicole Wong, general counsel for Google, said in a statement: "We are disappointed with Privacy International's report which is based on numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about our services." Ms Wong added: "We recognise that user trust is central to our business and Google aggressively protects our users' privacy." Privacy International said it planned to release a more detailed report in September produced after detailed consultation with the firms covered in the first draft. (my view)-Of course google is worse....you know why?....google is a FAT CAT company...if they were a small business they would be top ranked but since they FEED on us all to keep their shit going...........like ALL big FAT companies...they couldn't care less for the public.......we are just consumers and food to them NOT human being

Google calls for web privacy laws

Search site Google has called on governments and business to agree a basic set of global privacy rules. Without global standards the health of the internet was at risk, the firm's privacy chief Peter Fleischer told a UN agency conference in Strasbourg. He said that the rise of the net meant vast amounts of personal data was now regularly shipped around the globe. That information often passed through countries with insufficient or no data protection laws, he said. "Every time a person uses a credit card their information may cross six or seven national boundaries," Mr Fleischer said before the event.

Hostile past

Three quarters of countries have no privacy rules at all and among those that do, many were largely adopted before the rise of the internet, he said. Europe, for example, has strict privacy regulations, but these rules were set out in 1995, largely before the rise of the commercial internet, he said. In contrast, the United States has no country-wide privacy laws, instead leaving them to individual states or even industries to set up. "The minority of the world's countries that have privacy regimes follow divergent models," a copy of his speech said. "Citizens lose out because they are unsure about what rights they have given the patchwork of competing regimes." Google has previously come under repeated fire about its own privacy policies. In June, rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data. A month later, the firm said it would change its policies so that its cookies, tiny files stored on a computer when a user visits a website, would auto-delete two years after a user's last visit to its site. Previously they were set to delete in 2038. Speaking at the Strasbourg Unesco conference, Mr Fleischer called for countries to adopt principles agreed by some Asia-Pacific nations. The APEC guidelines have nine principles that aim to protect the individual and safeguard data collection. They have been accepted by countries ranging from Australia to Vietnam. "If privacy principles can be agreed in such divergent countries, then we think that is a model for the rest of the world," Mr Fleischer said before the speech.

Paying the price for a free web

We are increasingly giving away personal information on sites such as Facebook. As part of a major series on the BBC about the impact of the web, producer Jo Wade has been looking at the price we pay for free information. 'Numb Fingers.' 'Wind Beneath My Wings.' '60 Single Men.' 'Ceramic Ashtrays.' 'Depression and Medical Leave.' 'Dog that urinates on everything.' 'Foods to avoid when breast feeding.' 'Fear that spouse contemplating cheating.' 'How to kill oneself by natural gas.' These are a few of the eclectic and sometimes disturbing internet searches made by the users of AOL, who believed they were using their computers in private. The relationship with what we think is a free and largely private web; how we unreservedly put our innermost thoughts and queries into what feels like a very private space - sometimes thoughts we wouldn't dare share with anyone or even put down in a diary, comes at a price.

Turning detective

In May 2006, AOL released a file containing every search made by 658,000 of their users over the previous three months. It was part of a research project and each user was identified only by a numerical code to protect their identity. But one reporter at the New York Times was intrigued by the potential value of data like this to governments or corporations. Were these outwardly anonymous searches in fact so personal that they would reveal the identity of the searcher? David Gallagher turned detective to try and prove it. After a few hours' work and using nothing other than these search terms and the telephone directory, he had correctly managed to identify his target. It was a 62-year-old woman called Thelma Arnold from Atlanta, Georgia, who was understandably rather shocked and angry. This story illustrates how we have become unwittingly complicit in a deal that is reshaping our world. Twenty years after its creation, the web appears to offer us unprecedented free access to knowledge and entertainment. However this gift comes at a price and in the end someone has to pay. Think back to the search terms you've put into a search engine in the last week. It's likely you can't remember most of them. But as the AOL story shows us, it's these incidentals that, when pieced together, can give a surprisingly revealing picture of who we are. If that information goes public - whether through accident or ill intent - we suddenly feel very exposed and very vulnerable. How much would someone have to pay before you would let them read your diaries, find out what your religious beliefs, political leanings or sexual preferences were, or where your children go to school? What many of us are not aware of is that we are freely giving away exactly this kind of information to websites that we use every day. More importantly, we are doing this on a massive scale. In this digital era, where we spend an estimated £50bn a year (source: IMRG 2009) on online goods and services, we worry about data theft and online security. But there's an even bigger, more important issue and that's how we give away information about ourselves every time we log on and how it is being used by powerful companies now shaping the web. We need to ask ourselves whether we need to be concerned.

Trading information

Every day in Britain millions of searches are carried out on Google for free. Every month we spend millions of hours on Facebook for free and read millions of articles from free newspapers.

But now look at it the other way round.

Every day Google gathers millions of search terms that help them refine their search system and give them a direct marketing bonanza that they keep for months. Every week Facebook receives millions of highly personal status updates that are kept forever and are forming the basis of direct advertising revenue. Every month free newspapers plant and track a cookie tracking device on your computer that tells them what your range of interests are and allows them to shape their adverts and in the future, even content around you. So you're not just being watched, you're being traded. The currency has changed. The currency is now information - your information. Businesses can use that information to make big money. Daily we hand over the minutiae of our lives in return for a convenient and free web. It's been a slow, almost imperceptible shift in culture and in how we value privacy. Few of us are really aware of the implications of these changes and this programme explores whether it is a trade worth making.