Check out http://auda.org.au/domain-news/ for the most recent edition of the domain news, including an RSS feed - already online! The domain name news is supported by auDA. Don't forget to check out my website - http://technewsreview.com.au/ - for regular updates. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ICANN terminates RegisterFly with extreme prejudice http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/icann_withdraws_registerfly_accreditation/ How Secure Is Your Domain? http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_13/b4027077.htm ICANN: we can help Registerfly mess http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/registerfly_icann_court_accreditation/ ICANN Public Participation Site Launched for Lisbon http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-15mar07.htm If ICANN't Keep a Contract, Let the Public Enforce It by Wendy Seltzer http://www.circleid.com/posts/icann_contract_public_enforce/ An Alternative to .XXX: IANA Adult Port Assignments by George Kirikos http://www.circleid.com/posts/alternative_to_xxx_iana_assignments/ Advertising industry must help us stop cybersquatters http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate/article1515229.ece The Stealing Eyes of 'Brandits' on the Internet http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=2958608 GoDaddy hit with denial-of-service attack http://infoworld.com/article/07/03/12/HNgodaddydos_1.html Domain Name Resale Market Grows to $111 Million in 2006 (news release) http://zetetic.com/about-zetetic/press-release-3-6-2007.html Topics of Interest Beyond RegisterFly - ICANN Lisboa http://blog.icann.org/?p=50 *************** RESEARCH PAPERS *************** Beyond Internet Governance: The Emerging International Framework for Governing the Networked World by Mary Rundle ABSTRACT: Increasingly, governments are regulating the ?Net? ? that is, the Internet and people?s activities over it. Because the Net is global in nature, governments are turning to intergovernmental organizations to iron out common approaches. Taken together, these international Net initiatives foray into all areas of government traditionally dealt with by domestic regimes ? addressing foreign commercial relations, jurisdiction, infrastructure, security, monetary authority, property, relations between private parties, and citizenship. In agreeing to participate in these federated, power-sharing arrangements, governments are gradually constructing an entire framework for governing the networked world. Given the importance of these rules for the future, those who hold freedom dear must work to build democratic values into this emerging international system. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/uploads/514/2005_Rundle_BeyondInternetGovernance.pdf ********************** DOMAIN NAMES ********************** ICANN terminates RegisterFly with extreme prejudice ICANN yesterday (16 March) gave notice to terminate RegisterFly.com's right to handle domain transfers. The internet-oversight organisation has given RegisterFly 15 days notice to cease operating as an ICANN-accredited registrar. When the notice period expires on March 31, ICANN can approved the bulk transfer of domains to another ICANN registrar but in the meantime it says RegisterFly is required to provide "all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/17/icann_withdraws_registerfly_accreditation/ http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/17/1235224 http://www.calcuttanews.net/story/234887 http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/3a8a80d6f705f8cc/id/234887/cs/1/ Termination of RegisterFly.com Registrar Accreditation Agreement ICANN today (16 March) issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com's Registration Accreditation Agreement. ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate. http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-16mar07.htm http://blog.icann.org/?p=62 How Secure Is Your Domain? Problems at RegisterFly.com shed light on loose oversight of Net addresses: When Kevin Medina and John Naruszewicz joined forces nine years ago, the Internet was like an untamed frontier. There was little to discourage Medina, the owner of an office-cleaning business in New Jersey, and Naruszewicz, a recent high school dropout, from joining the dot-com gold rush. The tiny company they started, RegisterFly.com Inc., ultimately became a midsize registrar of Internet addresses for more than 200,000 customers, including entertainer Michael Jackson. Now a messy fight between the two for control has brought RegisterFly to its knees and prompted angry calls for better oversight of the Web registry industry. http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_13/b4027077.htm ICANN: we can help Registerfly mess The landslide of bad news from Registerfly has continued, as ICANN created a forum for dispute resolution for this mess, and Registerfly customers desperately tried to shift their domains to other registrars before they vanished into cyberspace. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/15/registerfly_icann_court_accreditation/ http://addict3d.org/news/72788/ICANN:%20we%20can%20help%20Registerfly%20mess ICANN dropkicks RegisterFly Showing that even a toothless tiger can roar, ICANN has issued "a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com's Registration Accreditation Agreement." The ICANN statement says RegisterFly has until March 31 to help customers transfer domain names that have been tied up by the registrar's failings, meaning those customers may no longer have to rely on poker bloggers for relief. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/12596 ICANN Public Participation Site Launched ICANN has launched a public participation website for its upcoming meeting in Lisbon on 26-30 March 2007. The site is accessible to all at http://public.icann.org and will remain in the same location for future meetings. The participation site is aimed at providing the greatest degree of interaction possible between ICANN, ICANN constituencies and the wider Internet community, and uses the latest online tools to that end. The site will contain a single webpage for each meeting taking place in Lisbon, where all relevant information for that meeting will be made immediately accessible (the schedule has yet to be finalised at time of writing so the site will be populated with this information over the next few days). http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-15mar07.htm If ICANN't Keep a Contract, Let the Public Enforce It by Wendy Seltzer Earlier in the Registerfly controversy, ICANN Vice President Paul Levins posted to the ICANN Blog, "ICANN is not a regulator. We rely mainly on contract law. We do not condone in any way whatsoever RegisterFly?s business practice and behaviour." This is disingenuous. ICANN is the central link in a web of contracts that regulate the business of domain name allocation. ICANN has committed, as a public benefit corporation, to enforcing those contracts in the public interest. Domain name registrants, among others, rely on those contracts to establish a secure, stable environment for domain name registration and through that for online content location. http://www.circleid.com/posts/icann_contract_public_enforce/ ICANN finally reacts to RegisterFly (subsequent to ICA Posts): coincidence (news release) Termination of RegisterFly.com Registrar Accreditation Agreement: ICANN today issued a formal notice of termination of RegisterFly.com's Registration Accreditation Agreement. ICANN has issued a letter to RegisterFly indicating that it will cease operating as an ICANN-Accredited Registrar on March 31, 2007. Under the terms of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN must provide 15 days written notice to RegisterFly of its intention to terminate. http://internetcommerce.org/news/icann_finally_reacts_to_registerfly_subsequent_to_ica_posts_coincidence Blogger rescues RegisterFly victims The author of a poker blog appears to have ginned up a workaround that gives desperate RegisterFly.com customers the ability to transfer thousands of domain names that have become inaccessibly ensnared inside that scandal-rocked registrar's data systems. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/12531 An Alternative to .XXX: IANA Adult Port Assignments by George Kirikos As an alternative to the creation of the .XXX TLD, ICANN/IANA can assign special port numbers that can be used to label adult content. http://www.circleid.com/posts/alternative_to_xxx_iana_assignments/ Advertising industry must help us stop cybersquatters The Times looks at cybersquatting and the problem it?s becoming. Clive Gringras, a partner at Olswang and representing Microsoft in its UK cybersquatting cases, writes of The Dyslexic Domain Name Company Limited who had registered more than 6,000 domain names, including some targeting Microsoft. When faced with the prospect of court action, the organisation agreed to hand over the domain names and pay damages to Microsoft. Another cybersquatter Olswang is pursuing has registered over 19,000 domain names. These registrations are an infringement of trade marks all over the world. Gringras gives 4 reasons why cybersquatting is widespread. First, cybersquatters have kept as quiet as possible to avoid the attention of lawyers and few brand owners are alive to the practice and have not yet focused their litigators' minds on it. Second, pay-per-click advertising provides very high profits for cybersquatters, so there are many of them. Third, cybersquatters register so many brand names, they bank on being able to surrender any complaining brand owner's domain names but be left freely to infringe the remaining brands in their portfolio. Finally, brand owners need their own sophisticated software tools to find infringing domain names. Gringras concludes ?As it stands, the economics of this infringing activity are clearly tipped in favour of cybersquatters. Until the pay-per-click advertising industry takes a more responsible attitude towards cybersquatters, we fear this practice will continue. In the meantime, brand owners should act to prevent online fraudsters profiting from their good name.? http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/corporate/article1515229.ece The Stealing Eyes of 'Brandits' on the Internet Individuals Who Profit from the Typos We All Make, Like Misspelling a Website's URL, May Now Face Legal Challenges http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=2958608 GoDaddy hit with denial-of-service attack GoDaddy.com was hit with "significant and sustained" distributed denial-of-service attacks Sunday, the company said. The attacks caused four to five hours of intermittent service disruptions, including hosting and e-mail, said Neil Warner, GoDaddy's chief information security officer, in an e-mail forwarded by the company's public-relations department. The services were back by later in the day. http://infoworld.com/article/07/03/12/HNgodaddydos_1.html http://cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=D137B95B-B05A-4838-A584-CD1DD71DDE26 GoDaddy, Get a Backbone and Protect Your Users' Rights A few weeks back, EFF wrote about how domain name registrar GoDaddy took offline Seclists.org based merely on an informal request and without providing any meaningful notice to the site's operator. Unfortunately, this isn't the only instance in which GoDaddy has carelessly ignored its users' rights. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005168.php Go Daddy holding contest for new Girl Go Daddy Group Inc., the Scottsdale domain-name registrar famous for its risque Super Bowl commercials, is holding a Go Daddy Girl Contest next Friday as part of Arizona Bike Week. The winner gets $2,500 and the chance to appear in a Go Daddy commercial. http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/0316sr-godaddy0316Z8.html Domain Name Resale Market Grows to $111 Million in 2006 (news release) The domain name aftermarket broke the US$100 million mark in 2006, reaching $111,376,000 across 17,974 domain name sales according to a report by Zetetic. Zetetic reported the average domain name resale price grew by 13 percent, from $4,954 in 2005 to $5,582 in 2006. There were also 5 domain name sales of more than $1million in 2006, compared to one in 2005, while 0.7% of all sales broke the $100,000 mark. http://zetetic.com/about-zetetic/press-release-3-6-2007.html Topics of Interest Beyond RegisterFly - ICANN Lisboa With the start of ICANN meetings in Lisbon, Portugal, rapidly approaching, some other topics of interest include: President?s Strategy Committee public session on Monday 19 March; ICANN Nominating Committee seeking Statements of Interest; Public comment period on PDP Feb 06 Report on Policies for Contractual Conditions:Existing Registries; African At-Large community Memorandum of Understanding & Asia/Australia/Pacific community Memorandum of Understanding public comment periods; gTLD Registry Data Escrow Report posted for comment and .museum registry agreement posted for public comment http://blog.icann.org/?p=50 Final Task Force Report on Whois Services The Whois Task Force completed its work and sent its Final Task Force Report on Whois Services to the GNSO Council on 12 March, 2007. The report concludes the task force phase of the GNSO policy development process (PDP) on Whois, and sets out the key findings of the Whois Task Force, since it was convened in February 2005 and began work on its terms of reference. The GNSO Council will now consider the Task Force Report and deliberate on making a policy recommendation to the ICANN Board. http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-16mar07.htm uk: 'Other' parliament website to watch MSPs THE website name "thescottishparliament.com" has been bought by a Glaswegian entrepreneur who wants to use it to flush out gossip, scandal and failings among MSPs, The Scotsman has learned. http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=411582007 us: With tax season here, IRS warns of cybersquatters Citizens are warned that irs.com, irs.org, irs.net, and any other purported IRS site that is not irs.gov could be phishing scams, but some wonder if the warning is enough http://infoworld.com/article/07/03/15/HNirscybersquatting_1.html http://origin.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_5450781 http://www2.csoonline.com/blog_view.html?CID=32555 us: IRS Urges Caution about Internet Sites that Resemble the Official IRS Site (news release) The Internal Revenue Service today reminded taxpayers that the address of the official IRS government Web site is www.irs.gov. Taxpayers may be confused by the proliferation of Internet sites that contain some form of the Internal Revenue Service name or IRS acronym with a .com, .net, .org or other designation in the address instead of .gov. Since many of these sites also bear a striking resemblance to the real IRS site, taxpayers may be misled into thinking that the site they have accessed is indeed the official IRS government site. These sites are not the official IRS Web site and have no connection to the official IRS site or to the IRS. http://www.irs.gov/irs/article/0,,id=168574,00.html General Media v. Crazy Troll: Not reverse domain name hijacking to bring ACPA case for expired domain Cyberlaw Central Commentary: Just because a domain name is available for registration, it does not mean that it should be registered. The Plaintiff here had legitimate trademark rights that were violated when the domain was registered and used by the Defendant. We?ll see how the remaining counts are dealt with in future opinions, but I agree with this one. http://cyberlawcentral.com/2007/01/20/general-media-v-crazy-troll-not-reverse-domain-name-hijacking-to-bring-acpa-case-for-expired-domain/ CENTR Welcomes 2 new members! At the 32nd CENTR General Assembly (Prague, 8-9 March 2007) CENTR welcomed Domicilium Ltd and Fundaci? puntCAT as new members. https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/03/GA32_new_members.html Communiqu? from the 32nd CENTR General Assembly and 2007 Annual General Meeting https://www.centr.org/docs/2007/03/GA32_Communique.pdf Practical Tips For Protecting Your Domain Names After experiencing a letdown following the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000, the sheer number of domain name registrations, their value and use have eclipsed their former peaks, by a number of different measures. Yet, there is a finite supply of the best top level domains. As a result, there is more pressure to own the existing good domain name registrations than at probably any time in the past, and fewer available options. http://dnjournal.com/legal/bl-practicaltips.htm us: Johnson & Johnson?s Splenda Domain Name Strategy Johnson & Johnson took a proactive approach to domain registration for its Splenda product...or did it? Johnson & Johnson registered hundreds of domains related to its Splenda sugar substitute in 2005, as revealed by Sustainable is Good and Ecologist. The blog looks at this as a negative thing, but it?s a sign that a large company is paying attention to the importance of domain names. Unfortunately, Johnson & Johnson is missing some key typo domains. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/03/16/johnson-johnsons-splenda-domain-name-strategy/ NameMedia Launches ActiveExchange Domain Sales Service NameMedia has just launched a new service called ActiveExchange. ActiveExchange allows domain name owners to list their domains for sale on multiple venues with little effort. It?s like a search engine submission service ? but to domain listing services and with guaranteed listings. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/03/14/namemedia-launches-activeexchange-domain-sales-service/ NameMedia Launches New Domain Sales Platform (news release) http://namemedia.com/about/releases/03-06-07.html UB.com Top Sale at Silent Auction The silent auction portion of Moniker?s TRAFFIC auction has ended with $1,188,000 in sales. That brings the total auction value (live and silent) to over $5M. The top sale in the silent auction was UB.com, which sold for $129,420. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/03/15/ubcom-top-sale-at-silent-auction/ Gateway Appoints NetNames For Online Brand Protection NetNames has been appointed to help protect leading PC manufacturer Gateway's critical online business. Gateway is the third largest PC manufacturer in the US and among the top ten worldwide. http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070315/20070315005900.html http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2007-03/artikel-7911631.asp us: MTA Untangles Web Mess in Holy Row Over Domain Name A missionary organization has ended a holy war with the MTA over a Web site with a tricky address. http://redorbit.com/news/technology/870186/mta_untangles_web_mess_in_holy_row_over_domain_name/ Pacific atolls host world's most dangerous websites By most measures New Zealand's remote colony of Tokelau is paradise but on the internet it has become the world's most dangerous domain for surfers. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/03/16/1173722722104.html http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/36427491D9D5289FCC2572A00015C625 Microsoft Expands Global Effort to Combat Cybersquatting (news release) Company initiates further enforcement actions in the United Kingdom and United States and reaches settlement with U.K.-based Dyslexic Domain Company Limited. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/mar07/03-13CybersquattingPR.mspx No soft option for cybersquatters Microsoft is coming down hard on cybersquatters ? people who register internet addresses that are slightly different from those of famous people or companies in order to lure unsuspecting web surfers. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1527803.ece http://technewsworld.com/story/internet/56313.html http://associatedcontent.com/article/181031/microsoft_increasing_pursuit_of_growing.html http://ecommercetimes.com/story/56313.html Where are they now? Mike Rowe, of 'MikeRoweSoft' fame As a 17-year-old high school student in Langford, B.C., Mike Rowe became an international media celebrity in January 2004 for standing his ground against Microsoft -- and its legal team -- in a trademark dispute over his use of the Web domain name, "MikeRoweSoft.com." http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/112571.asp ICANN: Anycast And Communication Foiled February's Root Server Attack ICANN's evaluation analyzes what happened during the attack on the root servers, which ones were hit the hardest, and what kept them running. http://informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001567 Domain tasting makes WIPO sick The fairness of the domain name system is being undermined by a new practice that turns domain names into commodities for speculative gain, according to WIPO, which oversees many domain name disputes. http://out-law.com/page-7878 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/wipo_domain_tasting/ http://addict3d.org/news/73770/Domain%20tasting%20makes%20WIPO%20sick Cybersquatting Remains On Rise, Concern Over New Domain Registration Practices - WIPO The number of cybersquatting disputes filed with WIPO in 2006 increased by 15% as compared to 2005. http://managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=5568 ICANN releases report on root-server attack The attack launched in February against the DNS root servers targeted six servers but only significantly affected two of the systems, according to a report issued by ICANN last week. http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/456 ********************** OTHER RESEARCH PAPERS ********************** American Latinos Online Latinos comprise 14% of the U.S. adult population and about half of this growing group (56%) goes online. By comparison, 71% of non-Hispanic whites and 60% of non-Hispanic blacks use the internet. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/204/report_display.asp Ethical Implications of Emerging Technologies: A Survey by Mary Rundle and Chris Conley (UNESCO) This story tells of a bright future in which emerging technologies are applied to the benefit of all humanity. History suggests, however, that technology can also be used to limit rather than to promote human rights and dignity. Thus, it is important to consider how these technologies may promote or thwart the realization of infoethics goals. Conclusion: The most important part of coming to terms with this ?far more connected, global computing and information-sharing? paradigm that the Information Society is entering is that (1) everyone must understand it, and that (2) each piece ultimately shares responsibility (a) for the success of the system as a whole, and (b) for the fact that a person?s actions have ramifying and amplifying effects on people far away that he might not even see. It is a challenge to educate all people to be able to live in a world like that. There are huge benefits and shared risk. To a greater extent than before because of technology, organizational heads do not represent the best knowledge to address problems. There is a systematic bias to ask only the heads to be in the room for decision-making. However, children aged 0-20 are much more aware of cultural and technological issues than older people are. They are more knowledgeable about evolving cultures than older people who assume the children will resemble them. (They will not.) Therefore it is important to incorporate children in decision-making processes more. If society cannot let them vote, it should at least listen to what they are saying and honestly try to understand the people who are adjusting to new technologies at a rapid pace. Places where de novo adoption is occurring are the places to learn. Those people are appropriating new technologies without prior constraints ? and they may show the rest of the Information Society what is possible or what is useful. The $100 Laptop is a nice example: It will teach about cultural adaptation to technology. The Information Society must recognize that the scale of things is larger and the reach of things is longer systematically. People need to learn to focus not just on local phenomenon but on global phenomenon. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001499/149992E.pdf au: Coonan's PC porn filter six months late Australians are not likely to get government-provided free online content filters for their PCs until June this year at the earliest, some six months after initially stipulated. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Coonan_s_PC_porn_filter_six_months_late/0,130061791,339274289,00.htm Mobile dangers for kids The dangers and opportunities of the internet will soon spread to mobile phones, industry experts predict, raising serious questions about how parents can control what their children see and who they contact. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/03/14/1173722475474.html nz: InternetNZ supports NetSafe with strategic partnership agreement (news release) InternetNZ (The Internet Society of New Zealand) has formed a strategic partnership with NetSafe (The Internet Safety Group), expanding further its historical support for the organisation. http://www.internetnz.net.nz/media/netsafepartnership Internet groups form alliance InternetNZ has formed a strategic partnership with internet safety group NetSafe. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/1028534 us: FBI?s Internet Crime Complaint Center Releases 2006 Statistics (news release) The FBI?s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual Internet Fraud Crime Report. From January 1 through December 31, 2006, the center received 207,492 complaint submissions. These filings were composed of fraudulent and non-fraudulent complaints primarily related to the Internet and included many different fraud types to include auction fraud, non-delivery, and credit/debit card fraud, as well as non-fraudulent complaints, such as computer intrusions, spam/unsolicited email, and child pornography. http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel07/ic3report031607.htm Internet Crime: The Latest Numbers - FBI report When it comes to crime, the Internet is like a Swiss Army knife?a multi-purpose tool that?s easy to use and highly versatile. That?s made crystal clear by the 2006 annual report just issued by our Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), which shows how criminals used the ?Net to launch nine different varieties of fraud alone. http://www.fbi.gov/page2/march07/ic3031607.htm Viacom v Google: The $1bn battle for content The article notes that YouTube will cite the Citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claiming ??safe harbour? under rules that protect web hosts from having to monitor the activities of their users - as long as they ?expeditiously disable access to material? when informed that it breaches copyright.? YouTube claims it takes down content when asked by copyright owners. But with bloggers and websites increasingly reproducing entire articles to ?provoke debate and sell advertising on their sites? this is becoming a huge issue, but a costly one for any content creator to go after legally. To deal with this, the World Association of Newspapers ?is working to create an international protocol to regulate online use of newspaper content.? The article notes that ?there is an urgent need for clear case law to set guidelines - and Viacom's case may provide this.? The case, assuming it goes to court, will have far reaching implications, some of which the article discusses. http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2368890.ece They're interfering with TV: please adjust your mindset Think of it as mud-wrestling, but at a higher level. Viacom is suing Google for a billion dollars because YouTube (which Google purchased a while back for $1.6bn) continues to host clips of Viacom's video properties. The documents launching the suit express moral outrage wrapped in three coats of prime legal verbiage. The gist, however, is clear: nasty bully Google is getting rich on the back of poor little artists and the companies that support them. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2036423,00.html Make Way for Copyright Chaos by Lawrence Lessig Last week, Viacom asked a federal court to order the video-sharing service YouTube to pay it more than $1 billion in damages for some 150,000 videos that Viacom claims it owns and YouTube users have shared. ?YouTube,? the complaint alleges, ?has harnessed technology to willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale,? threatening not just Viacom, but ?the economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy.? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/opinion/18lessig.html http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9013499 Big media strike back at Google In a landmark battle between old and new media, Viacom is suing over copyright breaches at YouTube. Dominic Rushe reports from New York http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1530010.ece http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21404564-643,00.html Privacy bodies back Google step Privacy bodies welcome Google's decision to anonymise personal data it receives from web searches. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6453137.stm au: eBay thief stole $42,000 A man stole $42,000 after hacking into eBay and Commonwealth Bank accounts last year, with eBay now set to trial individual security keys to protect members. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/03/18/1174152882305.html us: The Ol' Bait and Click The eBay vendor had a glowing record -- more than 900 successful sales, with only a single complaint amid a long series of positive testimonials from customers. So when a Georgia bidder won the seller's auction for an Olympus digital camera in January, there seemed little reason to worry about dispatching almost $700 into cyberspace. But the camera never arrived. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031501939.html German Gmail blocker wouldn't sell up for millions The German businessman behind trade mark cases that could wreck Google's email branding across Europe would refuse millions of dollars for the G-Mail trade mark he owns, according to his lawyer. The man has already turned down a Google offer of $250,000. http://out-law.com/page-7882 uk: Cricket simulation beats Newsnight painting as copyright dodge, says expert A cricketing website has found what it hopes is an inventive way to bypass copyright laws to show users action from the Cricket World Cup. http://out-law.com/page-7883 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/cricket_simulation_copyright_dodge/ UNESCO states position on ethical issues in the information society UNESCO has published a brochure entitled "Ethical Implications of Emerging Technologies" dealing with the consequences of the use of RFID chips, biometric identification systems, and location-based services (LBSs). Written by lawyers from the US, the brochure was published as part of the "NGO Geneva Net Dialogue" in which non-governmental organizations stated their case after the UN World Summit on Information Freedom and the Internet Governance Forum. The results of the dialogue are to be included in the WSIS Action Line C10 "Ethical dimensions of the Information Society." http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/86719 th: Thailand's Internet governance is a mess The state of Internet governance today in Thailand is in confusion. Online stakeholders, in government, private and civil society do not know what they are doing. Worse, they do not understand what is really going on in the cyber world. They all pursue their own agendas, thinking positively that they are indeed contributing to Internet openness and freedom of expression. http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/03/16/opinion/opinion_30029416.php eu: Mobile TV warned to standardise A European Commission (EC) official has issued a stern warning to those involved in mobile TV to agree on adopting a single technology standard. EC telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said that if the industry did not agree on one, she would do it for them. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6459161.stm us: Net Neutrality Debate Remains Contentious The haggling over whether Internet service providers should be able to charge more money for some traffic, or whether the law should mandate equal access, is increasingly contentious. Here's a guide to the players. http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001557 us: Politicians press for antispyware law yet again Members of the U.S. House of Representatives vowed Thursday not to let a bill aimed at curbing spyware die for a third time. Leaders of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee focused on consumer protection issues said they were mystified that earlier versions of the so-called Spy Act overwhelmingly passed the House in 2004 and in 2005 but were ignored by the Senate. Politicians from both parties said they hoped the third time would be the charm. http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6167595.html http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6167595.html au: Labor hopes to close child porn loophole Labor will move to close a legal loophole which means there is no specific offence of sending child pornography through the mail. ... He (Senator Ludwig said federal Labor's proposed laws would: ... create a consistent maximum penalties of 10 years' imprisonment and fines of $275,000 or both for transmission of child pornography and abuse materials by any means; increase penalties from $11,000 to $275,000 for internet service providers that fail to promptly notify authorities when they become aware child pornography and abuse materials can be accessed from their service. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/03/19/1174152895465.html http://nyngan.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?story_id=567038 If we can't sort out spam, what hope do we have for tackling global warming? Dave Rand doesn't have the air of an optimist defeated by reality, though one would have thought that someone who set up a company in 1994 with the expectation of purging the internet completely of spam within five or so years might look less happy with how things have turned out. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2033511,00.html Flat prospects: Digital media and globalisation shake up an old industry Reports of the death of paper, rampant in the 1990s, were evidently greatly exaggerated. The paperless office never materialised; nor, yet, have e-books. People still print letters and flip through pages of magazines. They also eat cereal and drink milk from cartons, and wipe their bottoms with loo roll. Computers have, oddly, failed to do away with such habits. Even so, the vast pulp-and-paper multinationals have been hard hit by the electronic age, especially in America. Demand for many types of paper there is declining, though mill closures and shrinking capacity buoy prices. Newsprint has been worst hit (see chart), as circulation and classified advertising at newspapers fall and the Wall Street Journal and other papers grow skinnier. North America's two biggest newsprint-makers, Abitibi of Canada and Bowater of South Carolina, are merging. http://economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8856093 Is this the age of the online avatar? As Internet communities grow, virtual alter-egos are becoming mainstream. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0316/p11s01-stct.html Magazine publishers see future, but no profit, in shift to Internet At conference in Hannover, industry executives from 25 countries tell of small returns for money spent on digital assets. http://iht.com/articles/2007/03/18/yourmoney/mags.php us: Social Networking Goes Niche MySpace and Friendster?s runaway popularity and exposure have helped spawn an array of targeted networking sites. Advertisers are noticing http://businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070314_884996.htm New Technology, Old Habits Despite world-class IT networks, Japanese and Korean workers are still chained to their desks http://businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2007/gb20070315_019175.htm Crotch watch A study of how people read the internet has concluded that men ?fixate on any visible genital areas in photos?. The study, by Jakob Nielsen, an expert in website usability, used an eye-tracker to measure attention. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1527803.ece Porn Industry is Booming Globally Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being produced in the United States. Every second, 28,258 Internet users view pornography worldwide and 372 Internet users are typing search keywords looking for adult-oriented material. http://redorbit.com/news/technology/872894/porn_industry_is_booming_globally/ America's Digital Divide Narrows One way or another, many Latinos and other minorities are getting online?but they're missing the full range of interactive Web features according to Latinos Online, a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (see below). http://businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070315_573361.htm Digital divide grows for older Britons as others connect to new media Mobile phones, the internet and digital televisions are increasingly transforming the lives of many British people - but also leaving millions of others stranded on the other side of the digital divide, a report from the Office for National Statistics said. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2035468,00.html ?Microsoft sucks?, says top blogger Robert Scoble, formerly Microsoft?s tame blogger has bitten the software company that made his name when it employed him as a ?technology evangelist?. Scoble writes the Scobleizer web log, one of the most-read sources of technology commentary on the internet. ... At a ?global summit? of its most-valued software developers, Microsoft repeatedly declared that it would ?win? in search and other parts of its Windows Live internet strategy. ?The words are empty,? Scoble responded. ?Microsoft?s internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that?s ?in it to win?, then I don?t get it.? He continued: ?Microsoft isn?t going away. Don?t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the internet? Come on." http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article1529988.ece uk: Church court bans phone masts on spires as work of the Devil Churches and cathedrals throughout England could lose thousands of pounds in revenue after a church court ruled against a mobile phone mast because it would ?facilitate access to pornography?. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1527809.ece Google expansion leads to impatience Wall Street seems to be losing patience with how long Google?2.0 is taking to build ? and how expensive the project is turning out to be. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/72b7dede-d579-11db-a5c6-000b5df10621.html Cisco Ups Ante in War with Microsoft In an escalating arms race for control over the unified communications market, Cisco's acquisition of WebEx is its largest yet http://businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2007/tc20070316_657554.htm Google grapples with increasingly political Web With the Internet poised to be the "epicenter" of the 2008 elections, Google is contemplating how best to keep candidate information readily accessible without allowing the Web to transform into a giant tabloid. http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/communication/stories/173192.html Google Phone in the works Google Inc. is developing its own mobile phone, according to industry insiders and analysts, while a Google official in Spain last week acknowledged the company is "investigating" such a project. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/1028544 http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN1823690420070319 Report highlights NZ's broadband woes A report by the Ministry of Economic Development is critical of the state of telecommunications in New Zealand, in particular the prices paid by private consumers and buinesses, and the lack of high-end broadband services. http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411419/1027447 nz: Call for faster action on fast net New Zealand needs to move faster to improve broadband services, Communications Minister David Cunliffe said yesterday after releasing a report that again highlights the country's poor international ranking. The Ministry of Economic Development report comparing New Zealand's telecommunications performance http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10429476 nz: Broadband waiting list shortens Telecom says the number of people waiting to be connected to its broadband network because all the ports in their local exchange or roadside cabinet are full has fallen in recent months, with 711 customers now in the queue. http://stuff.co.nz/3998024a28.html Integration is key to effective VoIP We seem to be well along the way to converging our voice and data networks, utilising VoIP. As we bring everything together and allow a single group of techies to look after the voice and data, surely we will achieve efficiency and effectiveness gains? http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/03/15/222430/integration-is-key-to-effective-voip.htm +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (c) David Goldstein 2007 --------- David Goldstein address: 4/3 Abbott Street COOGEE NSW 2034 AUSTRALIA email: Goldstein_David §yahoo.com.au phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home) "Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.comReceived on Thu Mar 22 2007 - 03:59:15 UTC
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