- Asia - Antipiracy team scans P2P sites +/-
(CNET News.com) A U.S.-based software antipiracy group has begun to target Asia-Pacific Web sites and users of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, looking for those who trade in illegal software. The Business Software Alliance (BSA), whose members include large companies such as Adobe and Microsoft, has recently aimed its software-sniffing Web crawler specifically at Asia-Pacific sites. The action was prompted by the high rates of Internet-based piracy in the region, which is beginning to rival more traditional methods such as illegal discs.
- Global Software Piracy Study +/-
(BSA) 2002 marks the eighth year of the annual Business Software Alliance Global Software Piracy Study and, since the inception of the study in 1994, significant success in combating software piracy is evident. Aided by considerable decreases in the piracy rates of each of the six regions defined by the study, the 2002 world piracy rate of 39% is 10 points below the piracy rate measured in 1994. 2002 also marks the first decline in the world software piracy rate since 1999, the year in which the piracy rate hit an all-time low of 36%.
- TH - Government slams EC report on high piracy in Thailand +/-
(Bakgkok Post) Deputy Commerce Minister Watana Muangsook lashed out at the European Commission over its report on the high piracy rate of sound recording products in Thailand, saying the data used were out-of-date and distorted by Thai distributors.
- UK - Oftel consultation on conditional access regulation +/-
(Press Release) Oftel has set out proposals to continue with the current arrangements for the provision of conditional access services under the new EC regulatory regime. Oftel's proposals are subject to a consultation which runs until 7 July 2003.
- US - Fighting for a new Net copyright deal +/-
(CNET News.com) Foes of federal copyright law are launching a public campaign to create a policy that they see as better in step with the Internet age. Lawrence Lessig is leading the charge. The goal of the petition is to convince Congress to require copyright holders to pay a $1 fee every 50 years in order to extend their copyrights. The way it is now, copyrights are automatically extended whether or not their owners are alive or want their work protected by copyright.
- EU - Protection of Childen on the Internet +/-
(EESC) Is industry responding to the challenges? Is co-regulation, as advocated by the Committee, preferable to self-regulation as advocated by the European Commission? These are two key questions that 70 participants, attending a hearing organised by the European Economic and Social Committee at its headquarters in Brussels, will be answering on 5th June between 14:30 and 17:30. The hearing, organised by the TEN (Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and Information Society) Section of the Committee will be opened by its President Mr Graf von Schwerin, followed by Mrs Ann Davison, EESC rapporteur on the subject of Internet child safety. Approximately 70 participants have been invited, including representatives of industry and major European associations that are involved in protecting children. The European Commission will also be represented.
- IT - Internet e minori: esperienze internazionali e nuovi orizzonti in Italia +/-
Translate
(CLUSIT) Milano, 13 maggio 2003. Convegno eAware. Atti degli interventi. Principi della tutela dei minori in rete secondo quanto previsto dal Progetto Onde del 1996 Gigi Tagliapietra ed Il ruolo delle scuole per la creazione di ambienti positivi e sicuri nel territorio Alessandro Musumeci.
- On Video Games, the Jury Is Out and Confused +/-
(New York Times) Being a parent has never been easy, and armfuls of literature on the topic of video games aren't making it any easier. Sorting out the debate about the effects of electronic games on children and deciding on a set of guidelines can be an endless, and thankless, task. Even experts disagree. In the face of contradictory, inconclusive or just plain confusing evidence, some parents, like Ms. Taplin, agonize over what limits to set. Others agonize less, but are not always comfortable with what their children are doing or might be doing. Many parents rely on their own instincts and their knowledge of their children to set limits and construct rules.
- US - Court lifts video-game ban +/-
(CNET News.com) A federal appeals court panel has struck down a law that restricted children's access to violent video games, giving the software the same free-speech protection as that for works of art. A panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a St. Louis County, Mo., ordinance that bans the rentals or sales of graphically violent video games to minors violates free-speech rights. In doing so, the panel reversed a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and ordered the lower court to craft an injunction that would prohibit the ordinance from taking effect.
- US - Video Game Makers File Suit to Block Wash. Law +/-
(Reuters) A Washington state law that seeks to curb the sale of violent video games to minors has been challenged by the gaming industry's main trade group, which filed a lawsuit to strike down the law. The Videogame Violence Bill, which is slated to go into effect from July 27, would fine retail employees in Washington $500 if they sell violent video games depicting the killing of a police officer to anyone under 17. But the Interactive Digital Software Association, opposed the law, saying that it infringed the First Amendment free speech rights of game publishers.
- AOL Subscriber Defections Continue, Top 1 Million +/-
(Washington Post) America Online has lost more than 1 million dial-up customers since the dramatic decline in its subscriber base began late last year, sources familiar with the figures said. The Dulles-based firm is rapidly losing customers to NetZero and other lower-priced bare-bones Internet services, as well as to higher-priced high-speed cable and telephone providers. see also Web users desert AOL (Guardian).
- Corporate in-boxes choke on spam +/-
(CNET News.com) Spam has officially overtaken legitimate e-mail in the workplace, and there’s little relief in sight. The month of May marked the first time that commercial e-mail comprised 51 percent of all messages received by workers, according to MessageLabs, a provider of managed e-mail security services. MessageLabs only analyzed 133.9 million messages sent to its global network of business customers.
- Europe - Porn and music drive broadband +/-
(BBC) High-speed net access in Europe is growing fast, boosted by demand for porn and music, a study Broadband Revolutionizing Europe’s Internet Behaviour finds. The numbers of European surfers using high-speed net connections grew by 136% in the last year, according to internet measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings. File-sharing sites and adult content pull the biggest audiences among broadband surfers
- Wireless: What Do Asian Mobile Phone Users Want, Have? +/-
(CyberAtlas) Asians, like their European counterparts, are ready to adopt next generation wireless and its enhanced services - and pay extra for them - with the largest group (48 percent) interested in downloading and playing music clips. 25 percent of mobile phone owners in the 11 Asian countries surveyed are using, or likely to start using, 2.5 and 3G services within the next six months.
- 2003-06-09 UK, Oxford - Electronic Government at the American Grassroots +/-
(OII) 5.00 - 6.00pm Mon 9th June 2003, Saïd Business School, Oxford. Within the past few years, scholarly attention has begun to focus on the issue of electronic government, or e-government. Defined as the electronic provision of information and services by governments 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, in theory e-government expands and extends the ability of governmental organizations to serve their constituencies. This presentation will use data from two nationwide surveys of US local governments (2000 and 2002) and focus groups of local government CIOs and top administrative officials from 37 US city and county governments to examine the adoption and sophistication of e-government.
- 2003-06-18 UK, Oxford - Filtering Spam: New Perspectives on the False-Positive/False-Negative Trade-off +/-
(OII) 12.00 - 13.30pm, Wed 18th June 2003, Saïd Business School, Oxford. Ben Edelman, Berkman Center, Harvard Law School. Attempts to filter unsolicited bulk e-mail ("spam") tend to present two kinds of errors. Some unobjectionable messages are mistakenly flagged as spam (false positives), while some spam is not flagged (false negatives). This seminar will start with discussion of the reasons why this problem is fundamental and why it has proven difficult to solve. It will also cover research methods aimed at quantifying the scope of the errors and at comparing their prevalence in competing email filtering systems. The seminar will conclude by comparing e-mail filtering errors with the mistakes made by web filtering systems, with a view towards identifying and adopting best practices in web filtering to make e-mail filtering more accurate.
- 2003-06-23 UK, Oxford - 'This House has confidence in voting via the Internet' +/-
(OII) 17.00 - 19.00 Mon 23 June 2003, Oxford Union. Motion: 'This House has confidence in voting via the Internet'. Speaking for: Jim Adler, CEO and President of VoteHere. Speaking against: Jason Kitkat. Expert panel will include Richard Allan MP and Professor Stephen Coleman, Cisco Visiting Professor of e-Democracy, Oxford Internet Institute. The debate will be webcast with live questions taken from around the world.
- 2003-06-24 DE, Köln - Transparenz im Netz: Suchmaschinen +/-
(Bertelsmann Stiftung) Am 24. Juni 2003 von 14:00 - 16:15 Uhr. Das Panel im Rahmen des Medienforums NRW in Köln analysiert die Funktionen und Defizite von Suchmaschinen als Gatekeeper im Medium Internet. Die Bertelsmann Stiftung will als medienpolitischer Think Tank die Entwicklung eines Code of Conduct für Suchmaschinenbetreiber und Portalanbieter in Deutschland vorantreiben und als neutrales Forum dessen Etablierung befördern. Podium: Stefan Fischerländer, Fachautor (Suchmaschinentricks.de) ; Prof. Dr. Miriam Meckel, Staatssekretärin Europa, Internationales und Medien NRW; Dr. Norbert Schneider, Direktor Landesanstalt für Medien NRW; Dr. Manfred Stegger, Vorstand, allesklar.com; Christian Vollmert, Geschäftsführer luna-park (PG Suchmaschinen, dmmv). Moderation: Prof. Dr. Marcel Machill, Berater der Bertelsmann Stiftung, Universität Leipzig. Prof. Dr. Werner Wirth, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, wird die Ergebnisse der Studie "Wegweiser im Netz" zum Suchverhalten von Internetnutzern und zur Qualität und Nutzerfreundlichkeit von Suchmaschinen zusammenfassen und präsentieren.
- 2003-09-16 EU, Brussels: Payments and Confidence - How to boost security and fight risk +/-
(Europa) European Commission, Internal Market Directorate General, Brussels, 16 September 2003. This Conference aims to improve information on the security of modern payment products and systems in the Internal Market, and to discuss the security approach to enhance public trust and confidence in electronic payments. The Conference is a priority action under the Fraud Prevention Action Plan. About 450-500 participants will attend representing stakeholders from different EU institutions, national authorities and central banks, payment providers, retailers and consumer organisations.