Despite its new CEO promising a renewed focus on marketing, Research In Motion hasn’t been known for effective campaigns of late. The company launched a sizable advertising blitz earlier this year that focused on its new BlackBerry Bold smartphones, but the commercials had no apparent impact on smartphone sales in key markets including the United States. Late last month, RIM and its Australian marketing agency Tongue began a campaign that takes a different approach to raising brand awareness, though it&...

The Free Software Foundation has created a campaign in an effort to eliminate digital rights management (DRM) and embrace DRM-free media. “While DRM has largely been defeated in downloaded music, it is a growing problem in the area of eBooks, where people have had their books restricted so they can’t freely loan, re-sell or donate them, read them without being tracked, or move them to a new device without re-purchasing all of them,” the campaign’s website reads. “They’ve ev...

The United States House of Representatives voted last Thursday to pass a piece of legislation called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. The controversial bill now sits in the hands of the Senate and faces further modifications if it hopes to gain approval from the White House, which has already gone on record with a veto threat. Legions of Internet users expressed outrage when the bill was passed, and numerous protests are being staged. According to President Obama’s office, ...

The United States House of Representatives recently voted to pass the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The bill looks to give businesses and the federal government legal protection to share cyber threats with one another in an effort to prevent online attacks. Internet privacy, neutrality advocates and even the Obama Administration feel as if the bill does not contain enough limits on how and when the government may monitor private information. Online petitions opposing the...

Reports of a staged protest outside an Apple Store emerged last week after a bus full of paid activists dressed in all black stood outside an Apple Store in Australia chanting “wake up.” Early reports suggested Samsung and marketing agency Tongue were behind the staged event, but after Samsung denied any involvement, a potential new culprit has arisen. Macworld’s Australian sister site did some digging and found code on Tongue’s Wake Up website that points not to Samsung, but instead ...

The hacker group “Anonymous operations” plans to launch further attacks on Chinese government-run websites to protest what it believes to be strict and unfair laws. The loosely knit group launched various cyberattacks on China’s goverment last week and warned that further attacks were on the horizon. “First we want to alert the Chinese government that we aren’t afraid, and we are going to show the truth and fight for justice,” Anonymous hacker “f0ws3r” said to ...

Notorious hacker group “Anonymous” on Thursday claimed responsibility for attacks on several government Web sites in China. The group has launched various Internet attacks on the country over the past week in response to what it believes to be strict and unfair laws. “All these years, the Chinese Communist government has subjected its People to unfair laws and unhealthy processes,” the group wrote on one Chinese website. “Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today we...

The Internet and mobile devices were instrumental in allowing protesters and activists to organize and even topple oppressive regimes in 2011. Global media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders called out several countries that attempted to stifle its citizens by blocking Internet access in its “Enemies of the Internet” report on Monday, but protesters may not have to rely on traditional land-based or even wireless Internet service providers in the future. Read on for more. (more…)

The RIAA’s CEO Cary Sherman said that he hopes the Stop Online Piracy Act protest were a “one-time experience.” In an op-ed piece written in The New York Times earlier this month, Sherman accused companies such as Google and Wikipedia of exploiting their popular status to “misinform” the public. He also claimed that by opposing the bill, these companies “were supporting foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans.” In a separate interview, ...

SumOfUs, the organization behind the Ethical iPhone campaign, plans to deliver new petitions to Apple during its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. Along with the petitions, the group plans to hand over a copy of a letter it distributed on Wednesday written by two factory workers who were allegedly poisoned while assembling iPhone displays. “Apple has a moral obligation to fully compensate workers like Guo Rui-Qiang and Jia Jing-Chuan and to take the hard steps required make sure that tragedies lik...

A pair of workers who claim to have been poisoned by toxins in a Suzhou, China factory while assembling touchscreens for Apple’s iPhone have written an open letter begging consumers to demand reform. SumOfUs, the organization behind the Ethical iPhone Campaign, released the letter in an email to the media on Wednesday afternoon. The letter was written by Guo Rui-qiang and Jia Jing-chuan, two former factory workers who urge consumers to sign SumOfUs’s petition and demand that Apple force its sup...

Protesters plan to stage a demonstration tomorrow in an effort to take Apple to task for partnering with Eastern manufacturers repeatedly accused of mistreating factory workers. Change.org and SomeOfUs have combined their efforts to raise awareness of poor working conditions in factories operated by Foxconn that manufacture consumer electronics for Apple and other vendors. The two organizations have gathered more than 250,000 electronic signatures on petitions that call for Apple to demand improvements be mad...

Tim Berners-Lee, father of the World Wide Web as long as you’re not asking Al Gore, has come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently causing an Internet uprising. ”If you’re in America then you should go and call somebody or send an email to protest against these bills because they have not been put together to respect human rights as is appropriate in a democratic country,” Berners-Lee told the Sydney Morning Herald. SOPA, which is currently being revised before it i...