Best in Blogs: Rickroll Scare, iPhone Censored, Google Smacked in Italy Top Stories for the Week of February 22-26, 2010 ![]() Early reports were grim. "After years of torturing innumerable unsuspecting web surfers, YouTube has finally pulled the plug on the original Rickroll video. The reason: it's simply one of the most horrible abuses of the music video medium ever perpetrated," said Download Squad. Really? No—it was labeled a dreaded "terms of use violation." "Is nothing sacred?" asked Digital Beat. The pulldown made no sense to dedicated terms-of-use violators. "Yes, it's a copyrighted song, but it's also been viewed millions of times precisely because it became such a popular online meme. How removing it from YouTube will help copyright owners is a mystery," says Mashable. But BREAKING NEWS ALERT: It was all a terrible mistake, says Hypebot. "You may sleep soundly tonight... the Rickster is back." Sleep easy? Not so fast, scolds Canary Trap: "These incidents aren't just a question of technological oversights. The reveal an industry build on legal and economic structures that refuse to adapt to cultural change." For more debate on this issue, click here.
![]() Boy, everybody wants to be a gatekeeper. Appmaster Apple has gone full-schoolmarm, "deciding that it's operating out of a fictional puritanical Victorian utopia," says Cult of Mac. Yes, Apple is "ridding the iPhone App Store of all apps involving boobs, sex, skin, bikinis, and sexual innuendo...except for apps with boobs, sex, skin, bikinis, and sexual innuendo produced by its friends in Big Media," explains Business Insider." Talk about a double-standard. (Here Biz Insider calls it a "prudish rampage.") Gizmodo says the ban on "booby apps" will backfire on Apple and seems hung up on the fact that the cheese dragnet has caused the women-produced "Suicide Girls" app to be taken down. Umm—oh, no, not that?
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Blogs jumped on the case quickly! "Upon learning of Apple's new policy," says John Cook's Venture Blog, "we immediately reached out to Seattle's Phil Yerkes who happens to be the developer of the Hooters Calendar iPhone app. " It remains available because Hooters is a "trusted brand" and does not showcase pornographic images. Umm—great? Now there are signs that Apple is loosening its chastity belt a little. Cult of Mac reports Apple has quietly reinstated a bikini shopping app from Simply Beach, an online beachwear retailer. (Note to Cult: we're guessing anything involving this obscure seller would be pretty quiet.) TUAW reported that Apple appeared to be building a separate "explicit" app category and could be the first sign that Apple may provide a separate "adult" App Store. But no—now explicit is gone too. "The joy didn't last long," says Giz, which helpfully points out that those really needing to see some skin on the iPhone can still access " the entire internet." ![]() All of this in case you aren't too distracted following the live blog of the White House healthcare summit at The Hill's Blog Briefing Room. Or, as Olympics Fanhouse reports, wondering what's gonna happen to NBC hockey commentator Mike Milbury for saying the defeated Russian team "brought its Eurotrash game."
Elsewhere in Europa, a legal case in Italy has Google thinking it doesn't want to be the gatekeeper for the trash people are putting online. As Crooked Timber relates: "Three Google executives have been convicted of violating Italian privacy law because of a children's bullying video posted briefly by Google." Boy Genius Report elaborates: "In 2006, several ![]() students from Turin, Italy filmed themselves bullying a classmate with Down's Syndrome. The bullying students, clearly impressed with themselves, uploaded the video to Google Video for the world to see." How cruel, moronic, and Internet-ish. None of the Google execs were involved, and the company took it down, Engadget reports. "Nevertheless, Italian judge Oscar Magi sentenced the execs to a six-month prison sentence (no jail time is expected). "A rather, well, frankly, insane story," TechPresident calls it. "Bad for Italy and bad for doing business in Italy," says Open Gardens. ![]() Can we please end this on some upbeat, cheerful news about someone online knowing what's good for you? Here we go: a 16-year old has created a search site called Good50, basically an enlarged-type mod of Google. Ergoweb explains: Sunmee Huh and her sister were inspired by seeing their grandfather struggle on Google making out text and distinguishing the ads from the organic search results. She got the "good" part of her site's name because it helps old people read the Internet better. The "50" is what she considered old. Ok, we'll bookmark this for later.
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