Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
type of algorithm in question. That type of algorithm was not
even mentioned in the Web site. Consider how it might have
happened that the search engine's response to the student
query contained such a reference.
2.
Recent statistics suggest that gaming and gambling interests
are becoming at least as popular on the Web as pornography.
Here are a few statistics:
The research group Datamonitor forecasts that the online
gaming market will grow from $670 million in 2002 to
$2.9 billion in 2005. Although South Korea was the largest
market for online gaming in 2003, NUA Internet Surveys
indicates that the United States will bring in the most on
line gaming revenue by 2005.
A research report published by the Informa Media Group
(and reported by eMarketer through various third parties)
estimates that worldwide revenue from egambling will
reach $14.5 billion by 2006.
With such projections, Jupiter Media Metrix predicts that rev
enues from online music, games, and audiovisual entertain
ment will far outweigh revenue from online porn by 2006.
Such statistics and projections raise several questions.
a.
How might such business ventures influence what we see in
our browsers or in email in the coming years?
b.
To what extent can such ventures be monitored or regu
lated through governmental policies or laws?
c.
What impact will Internet traffic related to gaming or gam
bling have on the use of the Web for other purposes?
Conduct some additional research on any of these areas, and
discuss possible answers.
3.
Suppose you were writing a filtering program to identify and
divert email that might be spam. One approach might be to
scan messages for various keywords that might be considered
objectionable. However, this simple approach does not al
ways work. In the following examples, determine why look
ing for specific words might not catch some spam messages,
or why it might label some appropriate messages as spam.
