Legal and regulatory issues

Audiovisual

• EU - Parliament seeks complete overhaul of 'Television Without Frontiers' directive  +/-

  (EurActiv.com) The Parliament adopted a resolution on 4 September on the fourth report on the application of the Commission's directive on 'Television Without Frontiers'. MEPs restated their opinion that the directive requires a complete overhaul to take account of technological developments and changes in the structure of the audiovisual market. The current directive aims to ensure free movement of European television programmes, free access to events of major importance, the promotion of European and recently produced independent works and the protection of minors and of public order. MEPs want the directive to be re-presented in the form of a framework package which would bring together the current directive's underlying principles, the e-commerce directive and the directive co-ordinating certain copyright rules applicable to broadcasting and retransmission. The MEPs also reiterated that pluralism in broadcasting is an important safeguard for democracy and cultural diversity. MEPs are concerned about the integrity of the media, which they feel is threatened by growing concentration in the industry. Several amendments were adopted calling for rules to be laid down on ownership of television media in order to ensure freedom and pluralism. see European Parliament resolution and Report A5-0251/2003 rapporteur: Roy PERRY.

• EU-wide rules on TV ads should remain in force  +/-

  (EurActiv.com) The existing EU-wide rules on television advertising should remain in force, while the qualitative restrictions should be adapted to the new advertising techniques, participants in the informal Audiovisual Council decided on 12-14 September. According to the ministers meeting in Syracuse, Italy, the pertinent quantitative restrictions should be based on co-regulation, i.e., on reconciliation of the views of all affected stakeholders. In this context, Germany and Italy urged the relaxation of quantitative restrictions on advertising. The following new forms of television advertising - falling into the qualitative bracket - were considered by the Council: 'split screen', with advertising appearing simultaneously with televised content, product placement in films, interactive advertising, and 'virtual imaging' (ads that appear only on TV screens during broadcasts of live events, such as football games).

• UK - Labour orders BBC shake-up  +/-

  (Guardian) The BBC is to be subjected to the most wide-ranging review of its role in its 80-year history, amid a growing clamour for the abolition of the licence fee and a curb in the powers of the corporation's governors. Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, signalled the start of a 'root and branch' review of the BBC's purpose and funding with a guarantee that its independence from government would be preserved. see also BBC 'in deep trouble' over licence renewal.

Cable and satellite

• China joins EU's satellite network  +/-

  (BBC) China has struck a deal to invest in Galileo, the European Union's space satellite navigation network. China is already one of the biggest players in the global satellite launch industry and is making final preparations for its first manned space flight which could take place as soon as next month. 'China will help Galileo to become the major world infrastructure for the growing market for location services,' said EU transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio. China will invest 230m euros ($259m; £160m) in the Galileo satellite tracking system, roughly a fifth of the expected cost of building the 1.1bn euros network of 30 satellites.

Competition

• EU - EC seeks to refine Microsoft antitrust remedies  +/-

  (Reuters) European Commission experts have concluded that US software giant Microsoft violated EU antitrust rules, but their proposed remedies need refining to withstand court scrutiny, sources familiar with the case said. The experts have proposed two major requirements - making Microsoft share more proprietary information with its rivals, and uncoupling its Media Player audiovisual software from the ubiquitous Windows operating system, sources told Reuters.

• NL - $2.26bn Dutch telecom sell-off  +/-

  (BBC) The Dutch government has sold more than a third of its stake in struggling Dutch phone firm KPN for 2bn euros ($2.26bn; £1.4bn). 'There is no reason for the government to remain a minority stakeholder in KPN. We could sell more in the future,' a spokesman for the Dutch Finance Ministry said. It sold the 12% stake in KPN to US investment bank Citigroup, which has announced plans to sell on the 300 million shares. The state still owns 19.3% of KPN which it cannot legally sell for another 12 months.

Computer crime

• Forum gegen Pädo-Kriminalität: 182.000 Kinderporno-Websites  +/- Translate

  (Spiegel) Seit 1999 bekämpft die internationale Organisation 'Innocence in Danger' die Ausbreitung von Kinderpronografie im Internet. Am Freitag veranstaltet die deutsche Gruppe ein Forum zum Thema in Berlin - und hat Erschreckendes zu berichten. Experten aus Deutschland und dem Ausland erörtern die vielfältigen Aspekte des Themas. Berlins Bürgermeisterin und Justizsenatorin Karin Schubert (SPD) spricht das Grußwort. Die weltweite Bewegung 'Innocence in Danger' gegen sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern wurde 1999 in Paris gegründet. Seit Dezember 2002 gibt es auch eine Gruppe in Deutschland. Die deutsche Organisation hat es sich einer Sprecherin zufolge zur Aufgabe gemacht, ausgesuchte Projekte zu initiieren und zu unterstützen sowie aktive politische Lobbyarbeit zu leisten.

• Southeast Asia Unveils Cyber-Crime Fighting Plan  +/-

  (Reuters) The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced plans to share information on computer security by next year and create a regional cyber-crime unit by 2005. And it hopes to enlist the rest of Asia and then the world into the plan.

• UK - Barclays calls in cyber-police  +/-

  (Guardian) Barclays has called in the cyber-police and slapped a limit on online cash transfers in an attempt to head off an email fraud aimed at its internet banking customers. The scam is similar to recent frauds involving Citibank and auction website eBay. Over the past week, emails claiming to come from Barclays have asked customers to log on to a fake website and enter personal details and passwords, which could then be used to withdraw or transfer funds.

• US - P2P Taken to Task for Child Porn (updated item)  +/-

  (Wired) Senators turned a critical eye to file-trading networks in a hearing that explored the use of peer-to-peer services for the exchange of illegal pornography. While no new legislation was introduced, the hearing, convened by the Senate Judiciary Committee, focused on increasing criminal exploitation of file-sharing technologies to distribute child-porn images. Several witnesses, representing law enforcement and child-protection agencies, blamed peer-to-peer networks for contributing to the spread of illegal pornographic images by allowing users to cloak their identities. see also Testimony of NCMEC. See also Kazaa Chief Denies Link Between P2P and Child Porn (dc.internet.com), and the bill Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer Pornography Act of 2003 (search on HR 2885 in Thomas).

Content regulation

• Net censorship hits 'all time high' - Privacy International  +/-

  (The Register) Internet restrictions, government secrecy and communications surveillance have reached an unprecedented level across the world. The report, Silenced, by London-based Privacy International and the GreenNet Educational Trust was launched at the preparatory meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva. A year-long study of Internet censorship in more than 50 countries found that a sharp escalation in control of the Internet since September 2001 may have outstripped the traditional ability of the medium to repel restrictions. The report fires a broadside at the United States and the United Kingdom for creating initiatives hostile to Internet freedom. Those countries have 'led a global attack on free speech on the Internet' and 'set a technological and regulatory standard for mass surveillance and control' of the Net.

Convergence of telecommunications, media and information technology

• IT - Italian media bill 'does not threaten pluralism'  +/-

  (FT) Of all the measures put to Italy's parliament by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government, few have attracted more hostility than a bill that critics say will entrench the prime minister's supremacy over the national media landscape. Yet according to Maurizio Gasparri, Italy's minister for communications, who is steering the bill through its final stages, the critics could not be more wrong.

• UK - BBC boss blasts media ownership law  +/-

  (BBC) BBC director general Greg Dyke has attacked a change in the law which allows foreign firms to bid for UK television franchises. 'I was passionately opposed to the change in the law that allowed American media companies to buy ITV and Channel 5,' he said. But Mr Blair's former media advisor Ed Richards, who now works for new regulator Ofcom, said that there had been full consultation with Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and their departments before the rules were relaxed, he said. He also defended the new legislation itself. Tough rules on content would protect the quality of programming, while US companies could bring some much-needed competition into the UK television industry, he said.

• US - Senate Votes to Block FCC Media Rules  +/-

  (Washington Post) The Senate voted 55 to 40 to wipe out all of the Federal Communications Commission's controversial new media ownership rules, the broadest bipartisan repudiation yet of regulations that would free big media companies to get bigger. The Republican-controlled Senate passed a "resolution of disapproval," a little-used legislative tool that allows Congress to overturn federal agency regulations.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google  +/-

  (LawMeme) by Ernest Miller. Never have so many companies fought so hard to change the law so that they can so quickly be put out of business. A number of filesharing companies (Blubster, Grokster, BearShare, eDonkey 2000 and LimeWire - Kazaa being conspiculously absent) formed a trade association to push for, among other things, compulsory licensing, see File-Share Firms Hire a Lobbyist (New York Post). I wonder how much they have really thought this through. After all, a compulsory license that legimitized filesharing would quickly put most of these companies out of business.

• Copying isn't cool  +/-

  (Salon) by Scott Matthews. File sharing isn't just a problem for the music industry. It's a threat to anyone who depends upon intellectual property for a living. see also EFF response.

• EU - Brevets logiciels: rien n'est joué  +/- Translate

  (ZDNet France) Brevets logiciels: rien n'est joué à quelques jour d’un vote crucial pour l'Europe. Veillée d'armes avant le vote au Parlement européen du texte adaptant le droit des brevets aux logiciels. Le député des Verts Daniel Cohn-Bendit reprend à son compte les arguments des "anti-brevets". Les autres groupes politiques sont plus partagés.

• Hollywood Faces Online Piracy, but It Looks Like an Inside Job  +/-

  (New York Times) According to Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities in the Movie Production and Distribution Process, a study published by AT&T Labs, the prime source of unauthorized copies of new movies on file-sharing networks appears to be movie industry insiders, not consumers. See also Movies on Web 'leaked from studios' (CNet Asia) and Movie insiders and file sharing (p2pnet.net).

• UK - Court Issues Bizarre Copyright Ruling  +/-

  (Slashdot) The High Court in London has allowed a copyright infringement battle between two rival airline booking programs to go to trial, despite agreement by all sides that the two programs are written in different code. The airline Easyjet is being sued by software house Navitaire, creators of an online booking system called Openres, over Easyjet's booking system named eRes, developed by Bulletproof Technologies of California. Openres was written in Cobol, while eRes was written in Visual Basic, and the programs are also different in structure.

• W3C - Eolas suit may spark HTML changes  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Eolas' patent victory over Microsoft and its Internet Explorer browser has sent shockwaves through the Web and the software industry. While Microsoft has pledged to appeal the ruling, it has already prepared for a worst-case scenario, as have companies such as Macromedia and Sun Microsystems whose technologies rely on IE's ability to play plug-ins - the capability found to infringe the Eolas patent. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is on the verge of forming a patent advisory group, or PAG, in response to the Eolas patent suit. That group would conduct a public investigation into the legal ramifications of the patent on Hypertext Markup Language. see also Microsoft browser defeat has ripples (New York Times) and Patent could force web change (BBC).

Domain names

• ICANN to continue its reign over the Net  +/-

  (CNET News.com) The Bush administration has extended for three years an agreement with the organization that oversees the Internet's domain name hierarchy and address space. A key change to the agreement establishes seven deadlines for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to meet. The move is aimed at formalizing the process used to approve new top-level domain names, improving the accuracy of 'whois' contact information, and forcing ICANN to become more open and accountable to the public. see ICANN Announcement.

• Domain name disputes - Berkman Center Releases UDRP Treatise  +/-

  (Berkman Center for Internet & Society) The UDRP Opinion Guide has just been published on the Berkman Center website. The Guide was prepared by Amy Bender HLS '03 and Berkman Fellow Megan Kirk, and edited by Clinical Program Director Diane Cabell. The UDRP Opinion Guide summarizes results of UDRP domain name disputes into the various issues and types of arguments raised by the parties. Because it is difficult to adequately search the UDRP databases using keywords, the Opinion Guide was created to help counsel and users see how the panels react to various arguments posed by the parties.

• SiteFinder : ICANN and IAB Ask VeriSign to Suspend  +/-

  (CircleID) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has released an advisory concerning VeriSign's deployment of DNS wildcard (Site Finder) service. Recognizing the concerns about the wildcard service, ICANN has called upon VeriSign to voluntarily suspend the service until the various reviews now underway are completed. See also document of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), a committee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

• SiteFinder : Quantifying Traffic  +/-

  (CircelID) by Benjamin Edelman. Want a sense of just how much traffic VeriSign is receiving from its SiteFinder service? Alexa, with its Alexa Toolbar and associated traffic tracking services, makes it easy to find out: Alexa analysis of VeriSign traffic. Over the past three months, taken as a whole, VeriSign had traffic rank 1,559. But today its traffic rank is 19 -- meaning, at least among Alexa users (who are generally representative of web users), the verisign.com domain has suddenly joined the top 20 sites, measured by page views. VeriSign's climb is even more notable when reckoned in 'reach' - proportion of users who visit the site at least once. Measured in this way, verisign.com is now in position 9 - meaning there are only eight sites on the web that more users visit in a given day.

• Sitefinder: VeriSign redirects error pages  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Criticism is quickly growing over VeriSign's surprise decision to take control of all unassigned .com and .net domain names, a move that has wreaked havoc on many e-mail utilities and antispam filters. VeriSign is now redirecting domain lookups for misspelled or nonexistent names to its own site, a process that has confused Internet e-mail utilities and drawn angry denunciations of the company's business practices from frustrated network administrators. see also ISC to Cut Off Site Finder (Wired). The Internet Software Consortium, a nonprofit that publishes BIND, the software that runs many of the Net's domain name servers, is about to release an emergency patch to block VeriSign's new Site Finder service. VeriSign sued over controversial Web service (Reuters). An Internet search company filed a $100 million antitrust lawsuit against VeriSign, accusing the Web address provider of hijacking misspelled and unassigned Web addresses with its Sitefinder service.

• WSIS - Global fight looms for Net management  +/-

  (Reuters) A battle is brewing over the role of governments in managing the Internet, as policymakers prepare for a United Nations-backed summit on the network's future.Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said two camps are forming over the wording of a key article to be adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society in December. 'Some governments are arguing that the management of things like (Internet protocol) addressing, global domain names (and) privacy should be done by an intergovernmental organization because they feel the Internet is a public resource, and they have responsibility over public resources,'' said Mohamed Sharil, who is chairman of the government advisory committee for ICANN, the body that governs Internet domain names.

e-Government

• EU - Parliament sees progress on EU access to documents policy  +/-

  (Euractiv.com) A new EP report on public access to documents shows that real progress has been made by the EU institutions, but there are a number of shortcomings as regards transparency. The report A5-0298/2003 prepared by MEP Michael Cashman (PES, UK) and adopted by the Citizens' Rights Committee on 9 September, analyses the first year of full application of Regulation 1049/2001 on public access to documents. It states that the Council has a document access rate of 89.1 per cent, the Commission 68 per cent and Parliament 98.7 per cent. However, the report also concludes that the situation is still unsatisfactory in many ways and urges the Council and Commission to give direct access to documents more often. Rapporteur's draft - check Legislative Observatory for report as adopted by Committee.

• UK - Government emails to be kept on record  +/-

  (Guardian) Government departments and civil servants are to be warned to think twice before pressing the send button in the wake of the explosive email evidence that emerged at the Hutton inquiry. Embarrassing emails such as those sent by a Downing Street press officer branding the row with the BBC as a 'game of chicken' will be stored at the Public Record Office at Kew from next year.

Electronic commerce

• EU - Commission consultation on legal problems for e-business enterprises  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission has launched an eight-week Internet consultation on legal barriers that enterprises still encounter when using electronic commerce and other electronic business applications. Such problems could arise, for example, from divergent national legal provisions for electronic invoicing or from a different legal treatment of online and offline business. The Commission would be interested to learn more about remaining practical reasons for not doing business electronically. This consultation is open to all enterprises until 7 November 2003. The results of this consultation will be presented and further discussed at a conference in March/April 2004 in Brussels.

• ICC rules on e-contracting are on their way  +/-

  (ICC) The International Chamber of Commerce has started drafting voluntary rules to help companies negotiate contracts electronically. At the same time, ICC has expressed serious concerns about a projected international convention governing e-contracts. The new ICC instrument, named 'E-Terms 2004', is expected to be available for use by the end of June next year. It is a logical extension of ICC's array of rules, model contract clauses and guidelines that feature daily in countless paper-based international business transactions.

Information society and Internet policy

• WSIS - RSF barred from participating  +/-

  (RSF/Pacific Media Watch) Reporters Without Borders, an international human rights organisation, protested against a ban on its participation in the World Summit on the Information Society next December in Geneva. Calling the ban 'grotesque and absurd,' Reporters Without Borders noted that it followed the organisation's suspension for a year from the UN Commission on Human Rights.

Junk mail (spam)

• AU - Anti-spam legislation tabled in Australian parliament  +/-

  (ZDNet Australia) New anti-spam legislation was introduced in the Australian parliament that allows for penalties of up to AU$1.1 million per day for sending spam. The Spam Bill 2003 will apply to spam that originates in Australia and contains a flexible sanctions regime that includes warnings, infringement notices and court-awarded penalties. The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, said the legislation was part of a "multi-layered" approach and was meant to complement the use of e-mail filtering software. He called on the United States to follow suit with similar legislation. The legislation has won the endorsement of the Internet Industry Association, and chief executive Peter Coroneos said the Spam Bill incorporated most major elements the industry has pushed for and reflected best practice standards the Association had defined for its own members.

• UK bans spam messages  +/-

  (BBC) The UK has made spam a criminal offence to try to stop the flood of unsolicited messages. Under the new law, spammers could be fined £5,000 in a magistrates court or an unlimited penalty from a jury. But they would not be sent to jail, according to the new measures introduced by Communications Minister Stephen Timms.

Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

• US - Video games back in dock  +/-

  (BBC) Claims by teenage boys in Tennessee that they were acting out the Grand Theft Auto game when they shot at vehicles are threatening to put the US entertainment industry back on trial. Lawyer Jack Thompson has taken up the case and plans to sue the makers of Grand Theft Auto, saying they should bear some responsibility for the death and the injuries caused.

Mobile and wireless

• Mobile telecoms - The shunning of 3G  +/-

  (Economist) 3G will be introduced by stealth. Operators plan to emphasise their own brands rather than the underlying technology. A guide to the prospects for 3G is to look at how quickly data services are being adopted on 2.5G networks. The evidence looks promising. Vodafone's live! service, for example, signed up over 2m customers, primarily in Europe and Australasia, within nine months. The signs are that live! subscribers spend 7-10% more than non-subscribers per month. Evidently, many people do want to use their phones for more than just voice calls and text messaging - though whether the huge outlay on 3G licences will be justified is still uncertain.

• UK - Charities call for pre-paid mobile listing  +/-

  (FT) UK child protection charities have called for the mandatory registration of pre-paid mobile phones amid concern that paedophiles could use untraceable mobiles to access the Web. The Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), a group of seven leading UK charities, wants to extend the safeguards that apply to establishing an Internet account to mobile phones. They want service providers to compile a register so that paedophiles are not able to shelter under the cloak of anonymity in accessing chatrooms or to visit illicit Web sites. see also CHIS Letter about self-regulation of new content on mobiles.

Protection of minors

• EU - Protection of minors: meeting of experts on television, Internet and video game violence  +/-

  (RAPID) At the initiative of Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Audiovisual Policy and Youth, the Commission organised a meeting of scientific experts in Brussels on 10 September to provide input to its debate on protecting young people against television, Internet and video game violence as part of the review of the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive and the 1998 Recommendation on the protection of minors in audiovisual information services. see Speech by Mrs REDING.

Racism and xenophobia

• Le racisme ne passera plus forcément par Internet  +/- Translate

  (01net) A l'occasion d'une conférence sur le racisme, la xénophobie et les discriminations, l'OSCE (Organisation sur la sécurité et la coopération en Europe) a réclamé le renforcement des lois réprimant ces délits sur Internet, à l'instar de ce qu'elle avait demandé contre les auteurs de propos antisémites. L'OSCE a réuni pendant deux jours, à Vienne, associations non gouvernementales et officiels pour débattre du sujet. Une organisation a particulièrement retenu l'attention : le Mrap (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples). Gérard Kerforn, un des membres de son bureau national, a présenté des esquisses de solutions: l'établissement d'un état des lieux; l'élaboration, au niveau européen, d'une charte type définissant les conditions d'utilisation des services d'hébergement et de communication excluant toute expression raciste; un label qui serait pris en compte par les moteurs de recherche.

• OSCE - Anti-Semitism Conference Vienna June 2003  +/-

  (OSCE) Conference documents. voir aussi Etre antisémite, la conscience tranquille (Communauté Online) par le professeur Robert Weistrich.

• OSCE anti-racism conference ends with calls for stronger laws against hate speech on Internet  +/-

  (News release) On 5 September 2003, the OSCE concluded a conference on racism, xenophobia and discrimination with a session that included contributions on the role of the media in conveying and countering prejudice. Many speakers focused on the electronic media and several called for strengthened legislation or implementation of existing conventions to suppress access to websites that disseminate hate-speech and racist messages. Speeches by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Freimut Duve and by Gérard Kerforn.

Safer Internet awareness

• Talking to Your Children About Downloading Music - A Parent's Guide  +/-

  (WiredSafety) by Parry Aftab, Esq. It's not easy, but our job as parents to teach our children the difference between right and wrong. Even if we disagree with the RIAA's tactics, piracy is wrong. And downloading and sharing music online is piracy. This guide is designed to help parents understand the issues, and how to talk with your kids about downloading music. See also Net Family News issues September 12, 2003 and September 19, 2003.

• UK - Parents 'oblivious' to children's surfing  +/-

  (BBC) A lack of knowledge about the internet means too many parents in the UK have no clue what their children are doing online. Many worry about what their children have seen, but one in four are unsure where to get safety advice, says a survey. As a result, cable company Telewest has worked with the charity Childnet to give their customers tutorials and leaflets aimed at children and parents separately. The cableco hope they will help parents learn about the net without scaring them, while children will learn how to help their parents be 'cool' about it all.

Security and encryption

• EU - Security of payments in the EU: facing the challenge of maintaining user confidence  +/-

  (RAPID) Speech by Frits Bolkestein, Member of the European Commission in charge of the Internal Market and Taxation. Opening address at the European Commission Conference Payments and Confidence Brussels, 16th September 2003. see also Electronic payments: Commission conference and study highlight security issues and assess public perception.

• UK - Government laptops 'not secure'  +/-

  (BBC) Hundreds of government laptops with potentially sensitive information are being lost or stolen, a study shows. One in 17 key public sector workers, like government or defence officials, say they have either lost theirs or had them stolen, said security firm Thales. Those who do hold on to them admit they do not use any kind of encryption to protect sensitive information.

Market & Technology

Junk mail (spam)

• Buyer's Guide: Anti-spam  +/-

  (Network World) In addition to reviewing anti-spam tools, we also provide a series of tools to help you combat the problem, including a database of detailed specs for more than 50 anti-spam tools and services and a lesson plan from one IT pro on the tricks spammers use to evade filters - and how to combat them. see also Test: Spam in the wild. We tested 16 products on a live production network to see who could back those claims. For the entire month of June, we threw a live mail stream, spam and all, at the products to see who could survive the spam onslaught, and who would choke. Estimates of the amount of unwanted e-mail range from 40% to 75%, but we can give you an exact percentage - 69%.

Market

• No More 'AOL' for Time Warner  +/-

  (Washington Post) AOL Time Warner plans to drop "AOL" from its name, symbolizing the giant media company's effort to put the failings of the biggest merger in history behind it and begin a new phase of its corporate identity.

Statistics

• IT - Mobiles 'betray' cheating Italians  +/-

  (BBC) A new survey published by Italy's largest private investigation company says that in nearly 90% of cases, it is the mobile phone which reveals or betrays extra marital activities.

• Number of global broadband subscribers grows 72% in 2002  +/-

  (ITU Press Release) A new ITU Internet Report on The Birth of Broadband prepared by the ITU Strategy and Policy Unit. According to the report, the number of worldwide broadband subscribers grew 72 percent in 2002 to approximately 63 million. The Republic of Korea leads the way in broadband penetration, with approximately 21 broadband subscribers for every 100 inhabitants. Hong Kong (China) ranks second in the world with nearly 15 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants and Canada ranks third with just over 11 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Home users are driving the vast majority of broadband demand in all markets.

• UK - Age, Not Wealth, Determines Internet Use  +/-

  (Reuters) Age, not money, is the primary factor determining Internet usage patterns in developed Western countries. No less than 98 percent of students in Britain regularly use the Internet while only 22 percent of British retirees surf the Web, according to the findings of a new survey by Oxford University's Internet Institute. see also Net 'worth little to many Brits' (BBC). The first Oxford Internet Survey covered 2,030 Britons age 14 and upwards. This representative random sample was interviewed face to face between 23 May and 28 June 2003 (OII).

• UK - Millions 'confused' by digital TV  +/-

  (BBC) Millions of people are not using digital TV because they find it too confusing, a study has said. Elderly and short-sighted people find it 'laborious and demanding' changing channels, according to research group Generics' Dr Jeremy Klein. 'Unless improvements are made, then about two million people will not easily be able to use digital TV in its current form,' he said. It said people unused to computers were at a particular disadvantage.

Technology

• Compulsory Licensing - Where Are the Defenders of HTTP?  +/-

  (LawMeme) by Ernest Miller. In the report of the Berkman Center Summit Digital Media in Cyberspace: The Legislation and Business Effects Harvard symposium debates future of online file-sharing (Boston.com), I found the following quote by Charles Nesson rather interesting, 'There was a time that to make a copy, you needed a monk, and a desk, and months, and then Sean Fanning hit the scene.' Now, clearly, Nesson was exaggerating his statement for effect. However, his statement does point to a common misconception about filesharing - many people believe that it started with Napster. It didn't. The MP3 format itself was causing concern to the record industry at least since 1997 and Napster was not founded until 1999. So how was music filesharing taking place before Napster? Many of the usual suspects that are routinely ignored in the press even today: Usenet, FTP, IRC ... and one suspect that is no longer a major concern: HTTP.

Forthcoming events

• 2003-09-23 UK, London - Computer Crime and Abuse Protecting ICT users and their information  +/-

  (JISC) Tuesday 23 September 2003, Regent's College Conference Centre, Regent's Park, London, organised by JISC Legal Information Service. The use of ICT exposes Further and Higher education institutions to new areas of vulnerability. How can institutions protect themselves for example from 'denial of service' attacks or software piracy? Can safe use be made of chat rooms and discussion groups? As creators, suppliers and publishers of web-based materials, institutions increase their risk of liability for this content. How can the right balance between managing the risk and using materials freely be found?

• 2003-10-09 BE, Namur - Le commerce électronique après les lois du 11 mars 2003  +/-

  (CRID) L'arsenal législatif belge consacré au commerce électronique vient d'être complété par les lois du 11 mars 2003 relatives à certains aspects juridiques des services de la société de l'information. Quelques mois après l'adoption de ces textes et de certains de leurs arrêtés royaux d'exécution, le Centre de Recherches Informatique et Droit (CRID) vous invite à une première réflexion.

• 2003-10-22 FR, Nice - 11th CEPT Conference  +/-

  (ERO) The CEPT Conference addresses developments affecting regulation in the field of telecommunications. The conference aims to locate regulation in the fields of radio and non-radio telecommunications within a single perspective. 22-24 October 2003 Boscolo Hotel Plaza, Nice.

• 2003-11-03 NL, Amsterdam - European Information Security Awards  +/-

  (RSA) Presented at the opening of the RSA Conference Europe, this set of prestigious awards will recognise and reward the most significant achievements in the field of information security across Europe. The European Information Security Awards are genuinely independent and the finalists and winners will represent the absolute elite in their categories. Awards Categories: European Policy - Awarded to individuals / organisations responsible for driving and promoting security excellence through the development of public policy; Academic Research - Recognising future potential and awarded to individuals / organisations achieving security excellence in the field of academic research; Implementations - Recognising security excellence in end user implementations; in Business, in the Public Sector and in Public-Private partnerships. Entries must be received in full by September 30th, 2003.

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