Herdict - a way to dob in Conroy's filter?

From The Future of the Internet and how to stop it a new feature was launched last week:

Jonathan Zittrain’s brainchild Herdict was officially released today. (Watch the project’s mascot — a sheep — demonstrate “the verdict of the herd” in a short video… does its voice sound familiar?)
Herdict is a tool that employs the distributed power of the Internet community to provide insight into what users around the world are experiencing in terms of web accessibility.
People can participate by reporting websites that they cannot access, testing sites that others have reported, or downloading the browser add-on for reporting sites on the fly.
Herdict is a portmanteau of ‘herd’ and ‘verdict.’ Using Herdict Web, anyone anywhere can report websites as accessible or inaccessible. Herdict Web aggregates reports in real time, permitting participants to see if inaccessibility is a shared problem, giving them a better sense of potential reasons for why a site is inaccessible. Trends can be viewed over time, by site and by country.
Herdict Web builds out from the OpenNet Initiative’s research on global Internet filtering.
The OpenNet Initiative tests Internet filtering through an academic methodology. Herdict Web takes a different approach, crowdsourcing reports to learn about and display a real-time picture of user experiences around the globe.
Watch Prof. Z discussing Herdict Web at a recent Berkman luncheon, or listen to a podcast of Herdict on Radio Berkman.

Try Herdict Web courtesy of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard University).

Report that Senator Xenophon may be changing his support for the national Internet censorship plan.

St. George, NAB and other banks to charge 'disloyalty' fees when customers use another bank's ATM machine from 3rd March 2009

Sign Bradbury's petition against increase in bank fees:

Say 'NO' to hidden ATM fees

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Link to this Hansard source

Last week the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Glenn Stevens, appeared before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics and commented on some impending reforms to ATM fees. The RBA, in consultation with the banking sector, has put together a package of reforms that will have an impact on the way people use ATMs. These reforms come into effect from next Tuesday, 3 March. Under the proposed regime, transaction fees will be charged by the owner of the foreign ATM—that is, an ATM operated by a bank other than the customer's bank—to the customer directly.

To provide greater transparency in relation to these fees, the fee will be displayed on the screen during the transaction—allowing the customer to cancel the transaction if they do not wish to proceed and pay the fee. This relatively simple reform is intended to make ATM fees more transparent and promote competition between financial institutions and ATM operators by allowing customers to identify and choose to use the cheapest ATMs. Underpinning these reforms is the abolition of the interchange fee. Under the existing arrangements, each time a customer uses an ATM that is not operated by their own bank their bank is charged an interchange fee by the ATM operator, and that fee is generally passed on to the customer through a transaction fee. Depending on the bank, these fees could range from 50c to $2 per transaction. Now that the customer will be required to pay the ATM fee directly to the foreign ATM operator under the new rules, there is no longer any real cost to the customer's bank and therefore no justification for a customer's bank to impose any transaction fee upon the customer for using the foreign ATM. The only possible argument for the imposition of a fee is to recoup the cost of processing the transaction.

Mr Stevens estimates that any such administrative cost would be 'at most 10c and quite possibly a lot less'. If these new arrangements are designed to ensure better disclosure of ATM fees then this simply will not be achieved if the customer's own bank continues to levy a fee, which will not be disclosed at the point of the transaction, on their customer for using a foreign ATM. The only way that customers will be able to have any faith that these new arrangements will lead to a better disclosure of ATM fees is if banks and other institutions do not impose transaction fees upon their own customers for using ATMs not operated by them.

However, I understand that some institutions are planning to continue to charge customers a fee. These fees have been described as 'disloyalty fees'. I think most customers would find the notion of a fee for 'disloyalty' just a little bit rich coming from their bank. To my knowledge, only the Commonwealth Bank and Citibank have announced that they will not charge their customers a disloyalty fee for using a foreign ATM. I congratulate these two institutions for doing the right thing by their customers. I am concerned that other institutions have foreshadowed an additional foreign ATM transaction fee, which will mean that customers will be slugged twice every time they use a foreign ATM. The National Australia Bank say that they will charge a 50c fee every time a customer uses a foreign ATM, on top of the fee the customer will directly pay to the operator of the ATM. There is no justification for these 'disloyalty fees'. The costs to the banks of processing these transactions are negligible, yet some have seen this as an opportunity to profiteer.

While banks in other countries have been collapsing and governments spend billions or even trillions of dollars to recapitalise and bail out their banks, four of our banks are among the only 18 banks in the world to have a AA credit rating. This is unquestionably a good thing. Ensuring our banks have strong balance sheets and return profits in these difficult times is critical to the overall health of our economy. It is, however, reprehensible that banks and other financial institutions propose to slug customers a fee for using a foreign ATM when the bank is not bearing any real cost, especially when many of these institutions have been the beneficiaries of significant government support in the form of bank guarantees.

I know many people in my electorate—and, no doubt, right around the country—are very angry. That is why I am launching an online petition on my website, www.davidbradbury.com.au, where people can sign on and register their opposition to being hit with these unfair bank fees. I will keep those people who sign my petition updated with further information on the charges that institutions choose to impose from next week. I call on the banks to do the right thing and drop these absurd and unfair fees.

{From Open Australia 26/02/09}

A tale about three Aussie Test Cricketers on debut

Ben Hilfenhaus

Making their first appearances in Test cricket, Australians Phillip Hughes, Marcus North and Ben Hilfenhaus made very different contributions to the team's effort in the First Test against South Africa at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg.

Opening the innings and taking strike, Hughes lasted just four balls before throwing his wicket away with a stroke that is best forgotten.

North had a dream start to Test cricket. He scored 117 and became just the 18th Australian cricketer to post a century on debut.

Hilfenhaus, picked for his bowling and not his batting, didn't trouble the scorers and was dismissed first ball for a golden duck. However, he showed his 'goods' soon after when he took a wicket with the second ball he bowled in Test Cricket.

At the end of Day 2 Australia is well positioned.
Scores: Australia 466, South Africa 85/3

Yamba at night

Yamba at night - a pic of the roundabout near Yamba's Fountain on the Mountain

(aka the Pacific Hotel)

Pic - thanks to Joe Damage on Flickr