Beijing tightens its grip on the internet

Kathrin Hille Financial Times December 16, 2009 A d v e r t i s e m e n t China has banned individuals from registering internet domain names in Beijing’s toughest move so far to tighten online censorship. From Monday, people registering a domain name in China would have to present a company seal and a business licence, the China Internet Network Information Center, a government-backed body, said in a statement. Service providers said they had started to review their clients for potentially fraudulent or “harmful” individually-owned sites. “We have started to review domain names registered by individuals, as requested by CNNIC,” said an official at HiNet, one of China’s largest internet service providers. Read entire article

New Derivatives Legislation “Was Probably Written by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs”

Washington’s Blog November 16, 2009 A d v e r t i s e m e n t As I have repeatedly written (see this and this ), the new derivatives legislation is so bad that it probably increases – rather than decreases – the risk to the financial system. William Greider has a great piece in The Nation pointing out : Who drafted this dubious piece of legislation? Bankers (or their lawyers) did. The leading sellers of derivatives are an exclusive club of five very large financial institutions–Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs–that hold 95 percent of the derivatives exposure among the largest banks (the total contract value exceeds $290 trillion). These are the same folks who toppled the global economy and compelled government to intervene with gigantic bailouts. Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor and veteran federal regulator, studied the House committee’s 187-page bill and detected the fine …