This Week in Global Mobile | July 23, 2010

At times its difficult to keep pace with all the latest global mobile developments. I hope this selection of news stories from the past week will help you navigate the ever-growing global network of connectivity:

  • On Tuesday Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) released a draft [PDF] of his digital consumer privacy bill, called the Best Practices Act. Meanwhile, Senator John Rockerfeller (D-WV) announced plans to introduce a Wireless Innovation Act, which moves forward the FCC’s plan to auction off spectrum.
  • A Jordanian student was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment over an Instant Message to a friend which “insulted the supreme entities” of the country.
  • MobileActive takes a look at whether content producers should be swinging towards mobile apps or the mobile Web in this article.
  • A new report by Pyramid Research indicates that broadband users in Africa will increase from 40 million in 2009 to 92 million in 2015, bringing penetration from 3.2% to 6.8%.
  • Check out this Washington Post editorial which praises the State Department’s steps to foster Internet Freedom as part of its diplomatic strategy.
  • To circumvent Vietnam’s Facebook ban, the Vietnam Reform Party has uploaded to its website directions to access Facebook through Google.
  • In a week when BCC and CNN International made splashes for introducing apps to the iPhone and iPad, Juniper Research released a study estimating that 25 billion mobile applications will be downloaded by 2015, compared to 2.6 billion in 2009.
  • The Wall Street Journal blogs about the growing role of mobile phones in delivering aid to Africa.
  • Over the weekend, thousands of Turks marched in Istanbul to protest Law Number 5651, which provides the basic infrastructure for the government’s Internet censorship policy.
  • Don’t miss tech guru Ethan Zuckerman’s review of the proceedings at e-Nigeria, an ICT symposium which took place earlier this week.
  • The government of China announced its intentions to deanonymize certain areas of the Internet, further buffering its “Great Firewall.”