Two days after Google announced a change to its privacy policy that made it clear to users that Google would now share user information with advertisers across the broad spectrum of products the company offers, lawmakers stepped in demanding answers from the search giant.

On Thursday, in a bipartisan inquiry, eight members of the House sent an official letter requesting more information from Google CEO Larry Page about the recent privacy policy changes that have caused an uproar in the Internet community.

“Google’s consolidation of its privacy policies potentially touches billions of people worldwide,” the members wrote that was posted on USENET newsgroups. ”As an Internet giant, Google has a responsibility to protect the privacy of its users. Therefore, we are writing to learn why Google feels that these changes are necessary, and what steps are being taken to ensure the protection of consumer’s privacy rights.”

One of the representives wrote, ”After all the controversies Google has become entangled in, the question people keep asking is, ‘How can we ever begin to trust Google?’”

“I’ve always said the private industry needs to take the lead in providing consumer choice and transparency before big government rushes in to regulate,” said the rep, ”But Google’s move to eradicate consumer choice all together across their various platforms raises additional questions about how the company’s monopoly power might hurt competition and how their action might unilaterally and unnecessarily invite even broader government regulations on everyone else.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Cliff Stearns, Henry Waxman, Joe Barton, Edward Markey, Marsha Blackburn, Dianne DeGette, G.K. Butterfield and Jackie Speier.

As always, with Thundernews, your privacy is important to us. At ThunderNews.com we do not log what newsgroups or articles you read.

Many leading internet companies chose Jan. 18 to register their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, known as SOPA in the House of Representatives and PIPA in the Senate. Both pieces of legislation are widely supported by the entertainment industry.

Until this week, entertainment industry executives thought they had the votes for new federal legislation cracking down on foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies and music and cost them billions.

They lined up support from the powerful pharmaceutical industry and labor unions, and organized an impressive bipartisan coalition in Congress.

Then Silicon Valley struck back and appears to have outflanked Hollywood.

The companies oppose bills designed to curb access and payments to overseas websites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit goods on the grounds that it could put them in legal peril.

Internet companies have furiously opposed the legislation and have stepped up lobbying efforts in recent months, arguing it would undermine innovation and free speech rights, compromise the functioning of the Internet, and would be ineffective in stopping piracy.

Sites made their views clear without cutting off surfers. Google blacked out the logo on its home page, directing surfers to a page where they could add their names to a petition against the bills.

Opponents of SOPA read like a who’s who of the Internet. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn wrote a letter to key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying SOPA poses “a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity.”

The swelling online opposition persuaded the White House to call over the weekend for lawmakers to remove the legislation’s most controversial provision, which would have required U.S. search engines and payment networks to block access to websites focused on pirated materials. Supporters of the legislation say it would target foreign websites trading in stolen intellectual property, including movies and music. Critics say it would unfairly penalize legitimate websites too, such as Google, Craigslist and even other online services including USENET newsgroups.

In short, The proposed infrastructure would damage the security of the Internet and allow the government extensive censorship abilities.
If you would like to join the protest, visit AmericanCensorship.org for instructions on contacting your Senator. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this and other issues central to your freedom online.

In the past year, on USENET, were you a cheesehead who had to rave about your team’s big win, an avid follower of world news, or a pop culture junkie whose newsgroup posts revolved around royal weddings and celebrity train wrecks?

If any of those rang a bell, you’re in company with others who posted about similar events.

Amongst the most popular posts on the web this past year you probably saw major events interspersed amid anecdotes about their kids, and at the top of the 2011 global topics were the death of Osama bin Laden, the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl victory and the Casey Anthony verdict.

Facebook culled the status updates of its 750 million-plus members and created a “Memology 2011″ that they explain as taking “the pulse of this global community by comparing this year’s status updates to last year’s, unearthing the most popular topics and cultural trends — or memes — emerging on Facebook. Whether it’s hmu, lms or tbh, each year brings a new set of three letter acronyms that go viral.”

Here are the biggest topics posted on USENET and on Facebook status updates over the past year: the ever “winning” Charlie Sheen, the death of Steve Jobs, the royal nuptials of William and Kate, Amy Winehouse’s early exit from this world, the videogame Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Libya military ops and Hurricane Irene.

As for memes, the hands-down winner in 2011, at least on Facebook, was planking.
And as for those three letter acronyms, the top 2011 ones were “lms” (like my status) and “tbh” (to be honest), with “the most iconic status update” for the year was a mash-up of the two: “lms for a tbh.”