Mediaboss Marketing

LISLE, IL--(Marketwire -02/23/12)- Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED) has announced that Walk Score® is live and fully integrated with its connectMLS™ system. Walk Score® was successfully launched to nearly 40,000 MRED customers, who now have access to a tool experiencing mass adoption around the world.

Walk Score® is the only international measure of walkability. More than 10,000 websites use Walk Score® and it generates over four million scores each day. Walkability is very important to listing agents in promoting the location of properties for sale and to buyers' agents in finding the appropriate properties for their clients. A Walk Score® now appears on every active listing in MRED's MLS system.

Walk Score® can also calculate commute times to work, school, or the train station, i.e. anywhere. Four metrics are also generated: drive times and estimated annual fuel cost; public transit options and time frames; walk and bike time; and all of these with routes displayed on a map. With Walk Score® you get a map of the nearest amenities for every property, including schools, restaurants, grocery stores and more. Use the search function to find nearby places like "gyms" or "forest preserves".

With all of this new functionality, it is no surprise that Walk Score® is a big hit with MRED's brokers and agents.

"Walk Score® is a great tool for selling properties," said Chaz Walters of Coldwell Banker Residential in Chicago. "The more it is used, the more helpful it will become to real estate professionals and the consumer. It is great for Realtors® to have impressive third party sources that can convey objective information to buyers and sellers."

"I love this new addition to our listings," said Corinne Guest of Royal Advocate Realty in Barrington. "It's not surprising that Internet savvy buyers want as much information about a property as they can get, including how easy it will be to walk to the local stores, train station or nightlife. Now it's available at the click of a button, in an easy to understand number format."

"Thanks for the new Walk Score®," said Kurt Bloom of Results Realty in Antioch. "It's easy to understand, fun to use and practical for our clients. Plus, it makes us look good."

"I have been including Walk Score® in the marketing of my listings and directing my clients to the site for a while now," said Andrea Geller of Coldwell Banker Residential in Chicago. "Walk Score® is the best site for neighborhood information, especially in an urban area. The partnership between Walk Score® and MRED removes the necessity to go outside the listing to obtain the neighborhood information the consumer is expecting. This addition to MRED is another example of how our regional MLS is striving to provide the real estate professional and our customers one stop/click service."

"Walk Score® is a great enhancement to our MLS," said Jeffrey Kershner of Silver Crown Real Estate in Barrington. "It immediately gives clients the nearest amenities such as shopping, dining and other services with one click; but the best part is that clients can use the commute feature to budget the cost of their commutes allowing them to compare between different neighborhoods. It may be best that a client pays a little more for a house closer to work with lower commute costs and now we can show them this from an independent source. This will be one of the most valuable tools in the MLS."

"Part of our mission at MRED is to effectively and conveniently provide products and services to enhance our real estate professionals' ability to serve the consumer," said Russ Bergeron, CEO of MRED. "Walk Score® has fast become the standard for measuring walkability, and the opportunity to provide the Walk Score® and its other benefits within our MLS system was too good to pass up. We couldn't be more pleased at the reception Walk Score® has received from our brokers, agents and appraisers."

About MRED

Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the real estate data aggregator and distributor providing the Chicagoland multiple listing service (MLS) to nearly 8,000 real estate offices and 40,000 real estate professionals, including brokers, agents and appraisers. MRED has expanded well into the "collar" counties surrounding Chicagoland, and its property information encompasses northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana.

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You'll Never Walk Alone With the Newest Service From Midwest Real Estate Data LLC (MRED)

CHICAGO, Feb. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Winston & Strawn LLP announced today that nationally recognized criminal defense attorney Daniel D. Rubinstein, as well as noted technology, media and intellectual property litigator Paul D. McGrady, Jr., have joined its litigation practice in Chicago as partners.  Rubinstein is a decorated former Assistant U.S. Attorney for both Los Angeles and Chicago, having been awarded the Department of Justice's prestigious Director's Award for Superior Performance and twice having received the Chicago Crime Commission's "Stars of Distinction" award.  McGrady is a recognized authority on the law governing the intersection of information technology and intellectual property, having authored McGrady on Domain Names, the three-volume definitive treatise on domain name law, and McGrady on Social Media, both of which are published by Lexis Nexis.  The World Trademark Review describes McGrady as having "established himself as "a leading expert" in the area of domain names.  WTR ranks McGrady in both contentious and non-contentious work.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20070820/AQM151LOGO)

Although concentrating their diverse practices on apparently different areas of the law, Rubinstein and McGrady have a number of high profile clients in common and have collaborated in litigation for their shared clients with excellent results.  They join Winston from Greenberg Traurig.

Rubinstein's practice involves defending companies and executives and other regulatory enforcement matters, as well as handling government and corporate internal investigations, including several large private or publicly traded corporations and investment funds.    He has also successfully negotiated, and often tried as lead counsel, numerous criminal cases and has litigated many complex civil matters in various federal courts and before the SEC and the NYSE.  Rubinstein is also a lecturer-in-law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he has taught Federal Criminal Practice since 2007.

McGrady, who will be joining the firm's highly-ranked Advertising, Marketing & Entertainment law practice, is a recognized legal authority on branding issues, especially as they relate to both domain names and social media.  He is a veteran of more than 300 proceedings under the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Procedure, in which the Panel ordered transfer of a domain name to his client, as well as many cases brought under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and under foreign domain name dispute policies.  McGrady represents a wide array of large brand owners, some of whom have chosen to apply for and operate a new top-level domain.  He previously served as in-house for a Fortune 500 retailer focusing in trademarks, franchising, advertising and shareholder/member relations.  McGrady also serves as an adjunct professor of law at DePaul University College of Law, teaching Cyberlaw.

"Dan and Paul bring to the firm truly exceptional experience from their challenging work on behalf of executives and large companies," said firm chairman Dan K. Webb. "Their common work on cutting edge domain name and other technology litigation is particularly a perfect complement to Winston's highly-regarded global litigation team."

"Dan's involvement in complex commercial litigation and corporate governance issues, as well as his well-known ability to defend securities and other criminal allegations and regulatory enforcement actions will greatly increase the depth of our global litigation services and will indeed be welcomed by our clients world-wide."

"I'm excited to join Winston's preeminent global litigation team," Rubinstein said. "Winston is well known for its experienced trial lawyers, international platform, and demonstrated excellence on behalf of clients when the stakes are at their highest."

"I was likewise attracted to Winston because of its acclaimed media, IP and technology litigators and look forward to contributing my experience with matters at the junction of IP, IT and social/mobile media to the team offerings," said McGrady.

Rubinstein earned his J.D. cum laude from Boston University School of Law. He previously served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ernest C. Torres, U. S. District Court, and District of Rhode Island.  McGrady earned his J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.

Winston & Strawn LLP is an international commercial law firm with 15 offices in North America, Asia, and Europe. More information about the firm is available at http://www.winston.com.

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Prominent White-Collar Criminal Defense Litigator Daniel Rubinstein, and Intellectual Property Authority, Paul McGrady ...

Twitter has responded to criticisms that it censored users parodying the French president Nicolas Sarkozy when he opened an account on the social network on 15 February.

Twitter has responded to accusations of censorship in France after it reportedly took down four user accounts for impersonating French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Image credit: Downing Street/Flickr

Digital rights group Internet Without Borders (Internet Sans Frontieres) said on Sunday that the accounts were taken down in response to a real Sarkozy account being opened. It added that they were all clear parody accounts and not an attempt to impersonate the French president.

"Speaking publicly of individual, specific cases of suspension is a breach of confidentiality and security. That said, we would like to provide this context for the recent suspensions," Twitter said in a post on its French blog.

"Parody is tolerated and encouraged on Twitter, so long as it respects not merely some, but all, of the conditions stated publicly in our parody policy. An impersonating account is suspended when it a) violates our parody policy and b) is reported by the person being impersonated," the company added.

Additionally, Twitter said it only resorts to automated suspension s for accounts which violate the spam section of the Twitter rules, and that even in this case, suspended users are "often granted" a second chance to comply with the rules.

The role of social networks, such as Twitter, for organisational and coordination purposes has been witnessed in recent world events such as the Arab Spring uprisings and London riots in 2011.

"Twitter plays an integral role in political discourse all over the world. We understand and support the critical need for citizens and politicians to engage in real-time conversations about important issues — and we would never stand in the way of that," the company said. "However, we will also protect the user experience on Twitter, which includes ensuring our policies are followed."

When ZDNet UK checked Twitter, a number of Sarkozy parody accounts were still active at the time of writing.

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Twitter explains Sarkozy 'censorship'

The country's decision to block the Uzbek-language wiki may be more about showmanship and nationalism than controlling information.

Wikipedia.org

Uzbekistan's ban on Wikipedia is censorship as performance art. The ban, enacted late last month, blocks all articles written in Uzbek while leaving articles in other languages accessible. Unlike earlier acts of online censorship, the ban on Uzbek Wikipedia articles does not prevent citizens from accessing political information. On the contrary, it blocks a prime venue of innocuous diversion: the thousands of articles about pop stars, national heroes, and sports figures that comprise the Uzbek-language Wikipedia. Uzbeks unable to access the Uzbek-language Wikipedia may now turn instead to the Russian-language Wikipedia, a virtual treasure trove of Uzbekistan's state-suppressed memories that could not possibly merit official approval. So why block the Uzbek version? What does it accomplish?

Like its English-language counterpart, the Uzbek Wikipedia is an idiosyncratic collection that represents the diverse interests of its users. The best entries, as rated by moderators, are Cristiano Ronaldo, the Republic of Korea, Philosophy, and Alisher Navoi (a 15th century Uzbek poet). Other user favorites include Kelly Clarkson, Nirvana (the band), Internet Explorer, and a Finnish symphonic metal group called Nightwish. Pop culture entries tend to skew toward foreign tastes: the recently updated Uitni Hyuston entry, for example, is longer than that of popular Uzbek singer Yulduz Usmonova. Though the Uzbek government can be capricious in its censorship, the Uzbek Wikipedia is assiduously unprovocative - indeed, Uzbeks writing about national hero Navoi is exactly the sort of thing that the state encourages. Skimming the list of 7,890 entries, I found more of the same apolitical fare: an epic piece on FIFA; a treatise on plov.

What is missing from the Uzbek Wikipedia? Information on contemporary political life. President Karimov has a short, perfunctory entry, and all opposition figures and parties are absent. The chronology of the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, a source of domestic tension for decades, terminates in 1991. The Uzbek entry for Andijon, the site of the brutal state crackdown on civilian protest in 2005, contains two lines detailing its geographic location and its founding as a city in 1297. Contrast this with the entry on Andijon in the Russian Wikipedia - not banned in Uzbekistan -  a long, contentious account that notes the deaths of innocent citizens and their subsequent labeling as "criminals" by the Karimov regime.

I have a suspicion that what prompted the Wikipedia ban at the end of the January was the addition, on January 24, of the following entries: "seks", "penis", "gey", and "jinsiy aloqa" (sexual relations), which come complete with helpful illustrations. This would be in keeping with the government's aversion to overt sexual content, which they believe threatens national values. (Note that this is simply a theory - I have no inside knowledge as to the reason for the ban, nor has the Uzbek government addressed it. ) But that still leaves the question of why the Russian or English Wikipedias remain open to the public when they contain even more sexual imagery and political content.

Here it is useful to look not only at what is being censored, but where - because the question of "where" content exists online is more complex for regimes that derive their power from narrow definitions of nationalism. Uzbekistan's ban on Wikipedia has less to do with blocking access to information than it does with territorializing an ambiguous Uzbek ethnolinguistic virtual space. As I argued in a 2010 article, the Uzbek government views the Internet as a virtual extension of its sovereign dominion, and sees Uzbek-language content as subject to its jurisdiction. Under this logic, state intervention is  more justified when Uzbeks write encyclopedia entries in Uzbek than it is when Uzbeks read encyclopedia entries in Russian, because those entries do not lie on the state's ethnically demarcated virtual "territory". (That said, I see censorship of the Russian version in Uzbekistan's future.)

Censorship in authoritarian states is not purely practical - it is an act of showmanship, and in this case, one-upmanship over a foreign threat. Large, foreign platforms challenge the Karimov regime not only through the interaction they facilitate, but through their ambiguous territorial standing. Last summer, Uzbekistan's state officials responded to Facebook by creating Muloqot, a state-run social media network which only Uzbeks in Uzbekistan can use. By censoring the Uzbek-language Wikipedia, state authorities mark a similarly ambiguous collaborative space as Uzbekistan state territory -- territory subject online, as it is on the ground, to strict government control.

This post originally appeared at Registan.net and is reproduced with permission

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Censorship as Performance Art: Uzbekistan's Bizarre Wikipedia Ban

Enlarge Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

President George W. Bush signs the Partial Birth Abortion Bill surrounded by high ranking Republican Congressmen on Nov. 5, 2003 in Washington, DC. The bill banned "partial-birth abortions" except where it is necessary to save a woman's life.

Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

President George W. Bush signs the Partial Birth Abortion Bill surrounded by high ranking Republican Congressmen on Nov. 5, 2003 in Washington, DC. The bill banned "partial-birth abortions" except where it is necessary to save a woman's life.

Jessica Valenti is the founder and editor of Feministing.com

Aspirins and short skirts and contraception, oh my! The last few weeks have seen a slew of Republican gaffes concerning women's sexuality. From Rick Santorum's billionaire supporter Foster Friess's waxing nostalgic about the good old days when women put aspirin "between their knees" in lieu of contraception to an online furor over whether the young conservative women at CPAC dressed too provocatively — the GOP has a major woman problem on their hands. Their fear of sex — of women's sexuality in particular — has become a major media talking point, and a source of outrage among American women. But what I don't understand is why anyone is surprised. Republicans have long based their agenda for women in a deep-rooted disdain for all things female. We've been down this road many, many times before.

When a picture of Congressman Darrell Issa's all-male panel on birth control (the make-up of which prompted several Democratic women to walk out of the hearing) hit the Internet and mainstream media — I couldn't help but be reminded of a similar picture of George W. Bush signing the "partial birth" abortion ban, surrounded by a group of smiling clapping men. All men. (Santorum was one of them.)

Dahlia Lithwick reported last week in Slate on a law that's poised to pass in Virginia that would make it legal to penetrate abortion-seeking women against their wills by requiring a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound — a procedure that would count as rape under state law. Delegate David Englin told Lithwick that one Republican lawmaker told him that the invasive ultrasound wasn't an issue because women seeking abortions had already made the decision to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant." Apparently once women have been penetrated, all other future penetrations should be no problem, consent notwithstanding.

If this attitude sounds radical, consider that up until 2008, it was the basis for Maryland rape law. If a woman initially agreed to sex, but later withdrew consent, any sex that followed wasn't rape. The justification was based on archaic legislation that said after the initial "de-flowering" of a woman, nothing could be considered rape because "the damage was done," she was no longer a virgin and couldn't be "re-flowered."

The focus on birth control is not new either. Conservatives and Republican appointees successfully held up emergency contraception for over-the-counter status for three years in the FDA, despite a recommendation from an independent joint advisory committee to the agency to make the drug available. Dr. W. David Hager — appointed by then President Bush to the FDA's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs — told the New York Times about why he voted against the drug's approval, noting, "What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences." (Hager also penned a book in which he argued that prayer could cure PMS — quite the expert on women's health!)

It also came out that in an internal memo FDA medical official Janet Woodcock argued against making the contraceptive available over the counter for fear that it would cause "extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B." (The same fear-based rhetoric over young women becoming promiscuous was used when conservatives tried to hold up Gardasil, the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.)

But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that this is just a problem of men attacking women's rights. Conservative women's rights groups, always eager for a patriarchal pat on the head, have long thrown other women under the bus under the guise of protecting them from their own wanton sexuality. The Independent Women's Forum — who oppose the Violence Against Women Act, Title IX and who don't believe pay inequity exists — started a campaign years ago to get the award-winning play The Vagina Monologues banned from college campuses, arguing that it's pornographic and reduces women to their body parts. (Specifically, the one they'd rather not think about.) The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, another right-wing women's organization, launched a campaign and contest in 2008 to "Bringing Back the Dowry and Hope Chest." The winner received a "cedar-lined hope chest filled with $1000 worth of dowry items" as well as $500 toward her future wedding. Retro-chic!

Given this long history of paternalism and efforts to rollback women's rights — I think the calls that the GOP is launching a "war on women" are right on, but years late.

Perhaps today, with the Internet moving information faster than ever before, Republican and conservative sexism doesn't go as easily unnoticed (just ask the folks at Komen). Perhaps the influx of young women and feminists into self-directed and social media activism has changed the course of the national debate. Or maybe women are just fed up with yet another legislator dictating how they should run their lives and use their bodies.

Whatever the reason, we need to ensure that Republicans are held accountable and don't get to brush these comments and actions off as mistakes or misunderstandings. Because they're not simple gaffes, they're a crystal clear window into the future that the GOP wants for women.

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The Nation: Men, All Men. And Birth Control