Legal and regulatory issues

Audiovisual

• OSCE - Minority-Language Related Broadcasting and Legislation  +/-

  (IViR) by T. McGonagle, B. Davis Noll & M. Price, Eds., Study commissioned by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, carried out by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP), Oxford University and the Institute for Information Law (IViR) of the University of Amsterdam.

Competition

• UK - ITV merger gets go ahead  +/-

  (Guardian) The £4bn merger between Granada and Carlton TV, effectively creating a single ITV company, has been given the go-ahead by the government. Patricia Hewitt said a merged operation would mean a huge boost for TV in the UK, creating healthy competition for the BBC and a growing Sky TV with more money available for 'programming of high quality' in ITV, the nation's second oldest network after the BBC. However, Ms Hewitt did admit there would be some 'adverse' effects of the merged operation because it would account for more than 50% of the advertising market and some stringent conditions concerning advertising needed to allay advertisers' fears that the company would abuse its dominant position. see also DTI statement and Competition Commission report.

Computer crime

• An exploration of predatory behaviour in cyberspace: Towards a typology of cyberstalkers  +/-

  (First Monday) by Leroy McFarlane and Paul Bocij. Over the last few years governments, law enforcement agencies, and the media have noted increases of online harassment. Although there has been a great deal of research into 'offline stalking', at this moment in time there has been no formal research that attempts to classify cyberstalkers. This study aimed to identify a classification of cyberstalkers by interviewing victims. Twenty-four participants were interviewed and their responses logged on a 76-item Cyberstalking Incident Checklist. A typology of cyberstalkers was developed.

• CA - Software will help track online pedophiles  +/-

  (Globe and Mail) Microsoft has been developing a child exploitation linkage tracking system, or CELTS. The program will essentially take a face print of each child in the images. Much like a set of fingerprints, those can be compared with other images seized from around the world. CELTS will allow police to build a profile of accused pedophiles from the information stored on seized computers, one that includes who they chat with and what messages they may have posted to newsgroups.

• UK - Child porn 'endlessly recycled'  +/-

  (Guardian) The NSPCC warned that children who have been abused by people producing pornographic photographs for the internet are likely to suffer life-long damage. An analysis of 140,000 images of child pornography posted on websites over six weeks found 35,000 were pictures showing the systematic abuse of just 20 children, none of whom had featured before on known pornographic sites. This worked out at an average of 1,750 images of each child, none of whom could be identified or located. Even the children's home countries were in doubt, according to University of Cork researchers, who were looking into the activities of European paedophile networks.

• UK - Internet 'groomer' gets five-year sentence  +/-

  (Guardian) A 64-year-old man who used a false teenage persona to prey on young girls in MSN internet chatrooms was sentenced to five years in prison. Police called Douglas Lindsell, 64, of Twickenham, 'the most prolific internet groomer ever caught' and said his conversations with the girls were 'overtly sexual in nature'. Scotland Yard said Lindsell pretended to be a teenage boy in online teenager zones, allowing him to correspond with 54 girls in the UK. He compiled explicit sexual profiles of over 20 girls. In addition to the five year prison sentence, Kingston crown court placed Lindsell on the sex offenders register for 10 years, and placed him under a restraining order which prohibits any employment that would engage him in contact with children under the age of 16. see also The perfect family man who preyed on young chatroom girls.

Consumer protection

• UK - Police warn world of domain scammer  +/-

  (vnunet.com) Cambridgeshire Police has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a global warning about a company called Dot Com Avenue. The company is believed to have raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds by offering to pre-register .eu domain names for companies.

• US - Yahoo settles telemarketing dispute  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Yahoo agreed to alter the way it markets to its customers as part of a settlement with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Under the agreement, Yahoo will not phone people who have opted out of receiving telemarketing calls. However, the agreement does not bar the company from calling those who do choose to receive calls. Yahoo also agreed to provide 30 days' notice to its registered customers before making additional changes to its marketing policies. The notices must include a 'clear and conspicuous' hyperlink to a page on which consumers can make changes to how they receive marketing pitches. The page must include an option to opt out of any marketing initiatives entirely. In Re: Yahoo! Inc. (FindLaw News).

Content regulation

• IN - India Bans Web Group, Blocks Yahoo Forums  +/-

  (AP) A government ban on an Internet discussion group run by an obscure separatist movement has ended up blocking access to popular, unrelated Yahoo forums in nearly all of India. India's Computer Emergency Response Team, a section of the Information Ministry that normally deals with hackers and virus attacks, ordered the discussion group blocked in mid-September for 'promoting anti-national news and containing material against the government. But for technical reasons, Indian Internet service providers were unable to block just the Kynhun site - and had to shut down every Yahoo discussion group.

• NO - European watchdog approves Norwegian cable porn ban  +/-

  (Aftenposten) The ESA (European Free Trade Agreement Surveillance Authority) will not challenge Norway's ban on cable-TV porn. ESA considered the situation after Norway's Mass Media Authority warned tougher measures against ineffective censorship of porn films broadcast on cable TV channels, and accepts the MMA stance. Norwegian authorities have long been annoyed by cable-TV channels that allowed easy workarounds to remove the black bars Norwegian censors place over strategically sensitive areas of the image in hard-porn movies. By using their remote controls to switch to Swedish versions of their porn channels, users would bring up Swedish subtitles. Since the black bars were linked to Norwegian subtitles, this change produced uncensored porn.

• NO - Norway ends 90 years of film bans  +/-

  (BBC) The Norwegian censors have abruptly reversed a ban on nearly 300 films, meaning that all films which were previously forbidden in the country can now be legally screened. It is 90 years since film censorship began in Norway, but the Norwegian Board of Film Classification has celebrated the anniversary by ending prohibition in favour of classification. see Press Release (NBFC).

• US - FCC Proposes Shock Radio Fine  +/-

  (AP) The Federal Communications Commission proposed the second-biggest fine ever for indecency: $357,000 against Infinity Broadcasting for a radio segment in which a couple was said to be having sex in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• Copyright and authors  +/-

  (First Monday) by John Ewing. For the past several hundred years, publishers have promoted a simplistic view of copyright. Copyright is a matter of fairness to authors, they argue. Authors own their creations and therefore should be free to control them. But the history of copyright and its underlying philosophy contradicts that simple view. Copyright is not about fairness to authors; copyright is about balancing interests, including the interest of the public. This article provides a (very!) brief history of copyright and its philosophy in order to show that the publishers’ simple view is inaccurate, and suggests that understanding copyright’s nature is the first step to solve the problems of copyright in the modern world.

• 'Subversive' code could kill off software piracy  +/-

  (New Scientist) Software pirates who make illegal copies of a particular computer game are finding the games companies are coming up with a radical new anti-copying strategy. Illegally copied games protected by the system work properly at first, but start to fall apart after the player has had just enough time to get hooked. As a result, the pirated discs actually encourage people to buy the genuine software, the developers say.

Data Protection (privacy)

• EU - Study: Technology Threatens Europeans' Privacy Rights  +/-

  (Associated Press) Terrorism-fighting tools and the rise of "little brother" digital devices threaten to erode Europeans' right to be left alone, according to Security and privacy for the citizen in the Post-September 11 digital age: A prospective overview (JRC), a study released by the European Commission. Policy makers need to work now to properly balance security and privacy before emerging technologies -- such as mobile phones that pinpoint drivers' locations -- become a part of daily life, the study says. . The study addresses issues of security and privacy arising from the use of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) in three relevant technology application areas: identity management systems, location-based services and "Ambient Intelligence". Executive Summary | Full report.

• US - Airline Passenger Profiling Based on Private Sector Data: Why It Raises Serious Privacy Concerns  +/-

  (FindLawx) U. Washington law professor Anita Ramasastry discusses the potential legal ramifications of airline JetBlue's release of passenger itineraries to a defense contractor, Torch Concepts -- which then matched up the itineraries with other individual data from another private sector database. Ramasastry also discusses privacy and due process issues relating to a similar program -- the proposed Enhanced Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System (CAPPS II).

• US - Do-Not-Call Recall Recalled  +/-

  (Washington Post) The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver overturned a lower court's ruling against the nationwide Do-Not-Call list. The appellate court said that the FTC would probably succeed in overturning the ruling at first instance that blocking calls by commercial telemarketers violated their free-speech guarantees. US - Telemarketers Say Can't Give FCC No-Call List (Reuters).

Domain names

• ICANN - VeriSign says .com redirect isn't dead  +/-

  (CNET News.com) VeriSign fired back at critics of its controversial - and temporarily suspended - domain-name redirect service, saying that Net regulators had no authority to force the company to shut it down. The company has been fighting criticism from much of the Internet's technical old guard since introducing its new 'SiteFinder' service three weeks ago. SiteFinder redirected all mistyped and unregistered domain names to a VeriSign search page, an action that some said interfered with spam filters and other Internet applications. After legal threats from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), VeriSign pulled the service offline, reinstating the old system of error messages. But in a press conference, VeriSign executives said ICANN did not have authority over the new service and that the company would fight back against the 'prejudice and bias of a few folks who have a set way of doing things. see also ICANN Stands Tall (Washington Post). see also The Aftermath: How ISPs Responded to Site Finder Around the World ( Berkman Center for Internet & Society - Harvard Law School) by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman.

• ICANN - VeriSign Service Spawns More Criticism  +/-

  (Washington Post) Officials from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) met technologists in Washington, D.C., to review reports that VeriSign's Site Finder service causes numerous technical problems. VeriSign shut down the service last weekend after several requests from ICANN. E-mail spam blockers are one of Site Finder's casualties. The blockers bar mail from nonexistent Internet domain names, but Site Finder makes it look like all domain names exist, rendering a key blocking mechanism useless. He also said that devices that allow blind people to read Web pages rely on specialized error messages that can be circumvented by Site Finder. Similarly, non-English-speaking web users were diverted away from error messages in their own languages onto an English-only Site Finder search page. see also VeriSign fends off critics at ICANN confab (CNET News.com).

Information society and Internet policy

• EU - Commission participates in Geneva TELECOM 2003 Conference  +/-

  (RAPID) European Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen will participate in the opening of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) TELECOM 2003 in Geneva on Sunday October 12. Throughout the conference (October 12-18), the European Commission will focus on the theme of eEurope. Each day, officials will be presenting one of the specific policy priorities that the Commission and Member States are pursuing in this context (Broadband, eSafety, eLearning, eGovernment, etc). Copies of the presentations and high resolution photos of these events will be posted to the special website for Telecom 2003. see also ITU - Chastened, telecom show turns down glitz (IHT).

Junk mail (spam)

• E-mail filters not fooled by signed spam  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Bulk e-mailers are digitally signing unsolicited messages in hopes of bypassing popular filtering programs, but updated software has been modified to detect the trick, experts said.

• Spam Fighters Turn to Identifying Legitimate E-Mail  +/-

  (New York Times) Many e-mail software experts now contend that the most powerful way to clean people's mailboxes is to focus not on catching the spam, but on identifying the legitimate mail. Put simply, these efforts are trying to develop the Internet equivalent of caller ID, a technology that will let the receiver of an e-mail message verify the identity of the sender. As with caller ID for telephones, senders will be able to choose whether to remain anonymous. But also like caller ID, recipients may presume that those who do not identify themselves are sending junk.

• UK - Spam watchdog 'needs more bite'  +/-

  (BBC) A report by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group said the Information Commissioner should be given more enforcement powers and resources to regulate spam and deal with complaints. It also recommended unsolicited e-mails sent to business addresses, not just private ones should be banned. From December, UK companies face a £5,000 fine if they send junk messages to individuals unless they are already a customer or have given their permission.

Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

• UK - Industry attacks Tory plans for ISP chatroom liability  +/-

  (newmediazero) The Internet industry has slammed Conservative Party calls for tougher liability laws which would see ISPs and chat providers legally responsible for paedophile activity taking place on their networks. In the run-up to the Conservative Party conference, Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin has lobbied for a provision in the Sex Offences Bill that would make chatroom operators liable for damages if their services are used to 'groom' children.

• UK - Web gossipmonger warned over rape allegations  +/-

  (Guardian) Lawyers for a top Premiership footballer accused of rape took the unprecedented action of starting proceedings against an individual spreading rumours by email. The sender of the email has been warned he could face a libel action for making the claims. He was also told to hand over details of those people to whom he had sent the rumours and identify the source of the claim. His intervention came in the wake of widespread coverage of allegations by a 17-year-old girl that she was attacked in a central London hotel last weekend.Meanwhile, football websites are scrambling to take pre-emptive action to avoid being sued for libel, taking down message boards on which fans are speculating about the identities of the footballers involved.

Mobile and wireless

• ITU - Shaping the future mobile multimedia society: Current status and policy priorities  +/-

  (ITU) presented by Lara Srivastava, ITU Strategy and Policy Unit, 8th International Workshop on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MOMUC), (Munich, Germany)

• NO - Crackdown on sex messages to kids  +/-

  (Aftenposten) Norway's Consumer Ombudsman and the Market Council is hunting down firms that use irresponsible and illegal telephone marketing to promote sex services. A series of complaints from parents that children as young as seven years of age have received SMS messages pushing tele-sex has prompted action. Graphics of scantily clad men and women, and a variety of offers of salacious aural services have landed in children's inboxes.

• UK - Oftel removes last regulation from calls from mobile phones market  +/-

  (Press Release) Oftel announced that sectoral regulation is no longer needed to promote competition in the market for making calls from mobile phones. Consumers have got an increasingly better deal, and none of the five mobile network operators has significant market power in this market. Oftel has therefore decided to removed the last remaining sector specific regulation to promote competition in the market. This is the first market review to be completed by any of the national telecoms regulators under the new EU Communications Directives.

Protection of minors

• ZA - M-Web Pledges to Buttress Chat Room Safety  +/-

  (Business Day Johannesburg) Chat rooms operated by M-Web, the largest consumer internet access provider in South Africa, will not be closing down despite the risk that they are haunted by paedophiles and porn merchants. The unsavoury characters chat rooms attract are prompting Microsoft to close its service in 28 countries, including SA, on October 14. But M-Web's chat sites operate under different rules from Microsoft's. M-Web's chat and instant messaging services have 60000 registered users, whose activities are monitored by teams of moderators around the clock.

Rating and filtering

• DE - Konzepte entsprechen den gesetzlichen Anforderungen für geschlossene Benutzergruppen.  +/- Translate

  (Pressemitteilung) Die Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (KJM) hat erstmals Unternehmenskonzepte zu geschlossenen Benutzergruppen in Telemedien bewertet. Sie kam zu dem Ergebnis, dass zwei der bisher vorgelegten Konzepte für Altersverifikationssysteme (AVS) den gesetzlichen Vorgaben des Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrags (JMStV) entsprechen. Die von der KJM aufgestellten Eckwerte zu den Anforderungen an geschlossene Benutzergruppen - Volljährigkeitsprüfung durch persönlichen Kontakt sowie Authentifizierung bei jedem Nutzungsvorgang - werden bei den Konzepten der Coolspot AG und von Vodafone D2 erfüllt. Das Konzept der Coolspot AG ("X-Check") ermöglicht die einmalige Identifizierung des Kunden mittels des so genannten Post-Ident-Verfahrens der Deutschen Post AG. Bei jeder Nutzung erfolgt dann ein durch einen Zentralrechner gesteuerter Authentifizierungsvorgang, für den der Kunde neben einer eigenen Software auch eine Hardware-Komponente (ID-Chip) sowie eine PIN-Nummer benötigt. Das Konzept von Vodafone D2 sieht die Volljährigkeitsprüfung des Kunden durch den persönlichen Kontakt bei Vertragsschluss in einem Vodafone D2-Shop bzw. einem angeschlossenen Partnergeschäft vor. Bei jedem Nutzungsvorgang kommt eine individualisierte Adult-PIN unter Einbeziehung einer Hardware-Komponente (SIM-Karte) zum Einsatz. Sex im Netz? Bitte nur noch mit Verhüterli! (Telepolis).

Security and encryption

• Shift key breaks CD copy locks  +/-

  (CNET News.com) A Princeton University student has published instructions for disabling the new anticopying measures being tested on CDs by BMG - and they're as simple as holding down a computer's Shift key. In a paper published on his Web site, Princeton Ph.D. student John Halderman explained how he disabled a new kind of copy-protection technology, distributed as part of a new album by BMG soul artist Anthony Hamilton. Student sued over CD piracy study (BBC). see also Threat of lawsuit passes for student (The Daily Princetonian).

Taxation and tariffs

• PlayStation 2 is a games console, not a PC  +/-

  (Out-law.com) Sony has lost an appeal over the classification of its PlayStation 2 for import tax purposes. It is officially a games console and not, as Sony had argued, a "digital processing unit" - a claim which, if successful, would have let Sony off the hook on import duty. The case resulted in a verdict from the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. It was, said the court, "undeniable that, both by the manner in which the PlayStation 2 is imported, sold and presented to the public and by the way it is configured, it is intended to be used mainly for playing video games". Accordingly Sony cannot reclaim the duties it has paid. New legislation coming into force in the New Year means that all imports of games consoles after that time will be zero rated – with no duty payable.see Sony Computer Entertainment Europe v Commission.

Telecommunications

• US - Court: Cable-based ISPs must provide line access  +/-

  (Reuters) In a pivotal decision that could shift the competitive balance among Internet service providers, a U.S. appeals court said the Federal Communications Commission erred last year in ruling that cable-based ISPs were not obliged to give rivals access to their networks. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals suggests that cable-based ISPs should be subject to the same strict rules governing phone-based Internet service providers, which are generally required to open their lines to competing services. see also FCC decision.

• EU - Commission warns eight Member States on telecom networks  +/-

  (EurActiv.com) The Commission has launched infringement proceedings against eight Member States for their failure to fully implement the EU's Directives establishing the new regulatory framework for electronic communications. The deadline for the EU-wide application of the Directives establishing the new regulatory framework for electronic communications expired on 25 July 2003. On 8 October, the Commission sent letters of formal notice to Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal, calling on these countries to report on their compliance with the Directives within two months.

• EU - The future of ENUM, VoIP, IM, mobile phones, the Internet? Click here  +/-

  (Register) An extensive and wide-ranging report to the European Commission is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of ENUM, Internet phones, Instant Messaging, mobile phones and the Internet in general. The report [pdf], written by Joe McNamee and Tiina Satuli of Political Intelligence, is intended as a guide to possible future regulation by Europe regarding new and emerging technologies and will be debated in Brussels on 14 October.

• EU diskutiert Zukunft der Netz-Regulierung  +/- Translate

  (Heise) Wenn Netze und Märkte zusammenwachsen, müssen dann auch die Regulierer konvergieren? Mit dieser Frage beschäftigt sich Mitte Oktober eine Konferenz der EU Kommission, für die Brüssel nun zwei fette Studien über die Regulierungsprobleme in konvergenten Netzen vorgelegt hat.

Market & Technology

Market

• Lawrence Lessig: The BBC's lessons for America  +/-

  (FT) Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, announced that the broadcaster would make the contents of its vast archive available to the public so long as any re-use of that content was for non-commercial purposes. (Commercial re-users will have to strike their own deal.) The BBC Creative Archive would enable the British to cultivate this national resource - for which they have already paid - for educational, critical or comedic purposes. The very structure will also make it much more likely that commercial creators will be able to identify content valuable to them, and then license that content from the BBC. The idea is a brilliant response to the extraordinary explosion of creative capacity enabled by digital technologies, in light of the BBC's founding mission - as Lord Reith put it - to 'inform, educate and entertain'.

Portals, browsers and search engines

• Craving for 'clicks' bogs down search  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Hackers and mainstream Internet companies are beginning to take extreme measures to grab Web search 'clicks' - sowing confusion for consumers and posing new challenges for search providers. Search experts point to domain name registrar VeriSign's controversial attempt to redirect mistyped domain names to its own search page as one high-profile illustration of the trend. Also, security consultants last week discovered a Trojan horse called QHosts that changed browser domain name system (DNS) settings to redirect visitors to Web sites, including Google.com, to an alternate search site laced with ads.

• Google Spam Filtering Gone Bad  +/-

  (Seth Finkelstein) An anticensorware investigation. This report describes a problem which caused Google to return very few, or no, results for particular combinations of search terms. It is almost certain this is a consequence of search results being post-processed by spam-defense which has gone awry.

Security and encryption

• Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk  +/-

  (EFF) by Seth Schoen. Computer security is undeniably important, and as new vulnerabilities are discovered and exploited, the perceived need for new security solutions grows. 'Trusted computing' initiatives propose to solve some of today's security problems through hardware changes to the personal computer.

Statistics

• UK - Mobile net growing in popularity  +/-

  (BBC) People in the UK are downloading more web pages on their mobiles than ever, figures show. On average, 28.5 million pages are viewed a day through Wap (Wireless Application Protocol), says the Mobile Data Association (MDA). It is encouraging news for the industry since Wap has been slow to take-off. Better sounding polyphonic ringtones, news, gossip and finding out where the nearest pub or cinema is are all fuelling the growth.

• US - Broadband Internet Access in the OECD Countries  +/-

  (FCC) The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis (OSP) and International Bureau (IB) has released a joint OSP/IB staff report entitled "Broadband Internet Access in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis." This report reviews the broadband policy experiences of selected OECD countries, such as South Korea, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) consists of 30 of the world's industrialized countries, including the United States.

Forthcoming events

• 2003-10-16 EU, Brussels - Workshop on Unsolicited Commercial Communications or Spam (Update)  +/-

  (Europa) A workshop on unsolicited commercial communications or spam will take place in Brussels on 16 October 2003. Building on the ‘opt-in’ regime to be introduced in all Member States by the end of October, the workshop will aim at discussing additional measures needed to address the various legal, technical and educational facets of spam e.g.: effective enforcement by public authorities, co-operation within industry (filtering, codes of conduct), consumer awareness, international co-operation. The workshop will be introduced by Commissioner Liikanen. The results will be used in the context of a Commission Communication expected later this year on the subject. The workshop is primarily addressed at Member States, industry and consumer associations, but is open to all interested parties. Attendance is free of charge but prior registration is required. see Issue paper, Proposed agenda, Basic information on the rules applicable to unsolicited communications and SPAM: European Commission goes on the offensive (Press Release of 15 July 2003).

• 2003-10-14 OSCE, Warsaw - Prevention of Discrimination, Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism  +/-

  (OSCE) Human Dimension Implementation Meeting 2003. Tuesday, 14 October. Working sessions 12 & 13. Side event: Discrimination on the Internet Convenor: International Network Against Cyber Hate. Summary: An audio visual presentation of cyber hate that can be found on the Internet. Outline of problems and facts & figures. Discussion between participants and experts about possible solutions. Experts: Ronald Eissens, director Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on Internet, Rafal Pankowski, Never Again Association Poland and Gérard Kerforn, MRAP France and Suzette Bronkhorst, International Network Against Cyber Hate.

• 2003-10-22 UK, London - Scrambling for Safety 7  +/-

  (Privacy International) A public meeting on the governments proposed regulations regarding communications data. Organised by Privacy International & the Foundation for Information Policy Research. Hosted by the Department of Information Systems of the LSE Wednesday, 22nd October 2003 2.15 - 5.00.

• 2003-11-03 CZ, Prague - World Telemedia 2003  +/-

  (NOC) 3 - 5 November 2003, Corinthia Towers Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic. Europe's Leading Voice, Mobile & Internet Event. Juicy Profit from Premium Billable Content. The 31st running of this leading conference and exhibition continues to focus on genuinely emerging markets created through the launch of new content, billing and technology opportunities such as gambling, pictures, music, games, dating, chat, MMS, voiceXML, 3G, PARTICIPATION TV etc. see Self Regulation Workshop. Wednesday 5 Nov 14.00 - 16.00. This special European Commission organised session on self regulation models for content, especially mobile, will set out the EC’s vision of regulation for services such as 3G and beyond, with input from academics at Oxford University who are studying the best ways to make self regulation of content work.

• 2003-11-22 US, Stanford - Conference on CyberSecurity, Research, and Disclosure  +/-

  (Stanford Center for Internet & Society) This conference explores the relationship between computer security, privacy, and disclosure of information about security vulnerabilities.

• 2003-11-24 FR, Paris - EGOVOS 3: Open Standards and Libre Software in Government  +/-

  (EGOVOS) 24-26 November 2003, UNESCO headquarters, Paris, France. The EGOVOS conference is a high-level international event covering the topic of free/open source software (commonly referred to as Libre Software in Europe), interoperability and open standards in the government sphere. Researchers and developers, local, regional, national and international users and stakeholders, as well as management experts and industry attend. The conference will provide an unrivalled open platform in which to debate and to exchange views on the viability of Libre Software in the design and implementation of affordable, scalable, secure eGovernment services.

• 2003-12-03 DE, Berlin - Online Educa Berlin 2003  +/-

  (Conference) The world's largest international e-learning conference and Europe's leading annual gathering of distance education professionals, with 1127 participants from 64 countries world-wide in 2002. Join us on December 3th for this year?s 9th consecutive yearly event and meet the experts in the vanguard of technology-supported learning from around the world!

• 2003-12-11 BE, Brussels - Spectrum trading workshop  +/-

  (Analysys) The spectrum trading workshop forms a major component of a project entitled Study on conditions and options in introducing secondary trading of radio spectrum in the European Community. This work, commissioned by the European Commission, is being conducted by Analysys Consulting, DotEcon and Hogan & Hartson. Work has kicked off in September and is expected to be completed in May of 2004. ee the press release or visit the EC website.

• 2004-03-13 US,Stanford - Securing Privacy in the Internet Age  +/-

  (Stanford Law School) Stanford Law School announce an open call for papers addressing the ways in which application of various legal doctrines could induce software vendors, hardware companies and system administrators to adopt security-enhancing practices, report unauthorized disclosures of private information, properly value and remedy harm flowing from privacy breaches, while promoting vigorous competition and innovation. Interested parties should submit a 200 word abstract describing the proposed paper. The deadline for submissions is October 13

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