This is serious. The UK government plans to introduce legislation around retaining email data and rating online content, which if implemented could seriously stifle innovation on the web, not to mention putting a cramp in the side of citizens’ civil liberties. Mike Butcher at TechCrunch UK is quite rightly in a froth about it, saying:

“…with one hand the government seeks to lock down the British Internet with an iron fist, while at the same time telling us it is boosting innovation and business online. It is quite clearly blind to the fact that one affects the other.

“Are we also expected to think that the consumers using online services are not going to be put off from engaging in the boom of ‘sharing’ that Web 2.0 created? How would you feel if every Twitter you sent, every video uploaded, was to be stored and held against you in perpetuity? That may not happen, but the mere suggestion that your email is no longer private would serve to kill the UK population’s relish for new media stone dead, and with it large swathes of the developing online economy.”

Suw Charman-Anderson suggests a few constructive ways for people to turn their anger into action,  while a commenter on the TechCrunch UK post provides a sobering overview of the monitoring, surveillance and intervention legislation introduced to date by New Labour which begs the question: ‘is this the UK or North Korea?’

Elsewhere on the web:

Jeremiah Owyang has started keeping track of social media stats for 2009; like its predecessor tracking social media stats in 2008, the post will be updated as and when new data is available, so bookmark the link and check back often.

Steve Rubel has spotted Yahoo integrating social media games in Yahoo Mail, evidence, as he sees it, of Yahoo “inching toward transforming the almighty inbox into something bigger – a social operating system”.

Mashable sends birthday greetings to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, who turned 25 yesterday. As very satisfied WordPress users, we at Social Media Influence can only add our congratulations to the pile. Happy birthday Matt!