Tech Scrape

Senator Durbin promises legislation that would force companies to protect human rights. Yesterday a leading member of Congress put pressure on Internet companies to support human rights and Internet freedom abroad. U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, the Democratic representative from Illinois and the Senate majority whip, said he plans to introduce legislation “that would require Internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face civil or criminal liability.” An aide later said the proposed legislation had not been written, but would likely be based on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act .

Distributing a search engine’s index around the world could make it faster and more efficient, researchers say.