Many of the Worlds top websites went dark on Wednesday (18 January 2012) to protest web piracy bills that are being debated in the United States House & Senate aimed at shutting down sites that share pirated movies and other content. Internet major players such as Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, and thousands other websites are taking part in the blackout. Their main concern fro them is Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) under consideration in the Senate, if passed, could be used to target legitimate sites where users share content. SOPA bill is widely criticized as threatening the freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet. I visited a number of prominent websites taking part in the protest and took screenshots of their various messages. Here are the details of the protest in pictures. Read the rest of this entry