Legal and regulatory issues

Competition

• EU - Commission clears Nordic satellite pay-TV distribution deal  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission has cleared a number of agreements regarding the exclusive co-operation between Norway's Telenor, its satellite TV platform Canal Digital and Canal+ Nordic for the satellite distribution of Canal+' premium pay-TV channels in the Nordic region.

• EU - Commission gives go-ahead for Lagardère acquisition  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission has authorised the French group Lagardère to acquire part of the publishing business of Editis (formerly known as Vivendi Universal Publishing or VUP). The transaction initially notified was for Editis to be taken over in its entirety, but this would have created or strengthened dominant positions on many of the markets making up the French-language book chain, such as those for publishing rights, marketing and distribution services and sales of books to dealers and by wholesalers. Lagardère's decision to retain only part of the Editis business satisfied the objections.

Computer crime

• EU arrest warrant enters into force  +/-

  (Euractiv.com) On 1 January 2004, the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) entered into force between Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The other EU Member States have failed to meet the implementation deadline of 31 December 2003 laid down in the Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant. The European Arrest Warrant will allow these eight EU Member States to secure the extradition of suspected terrorists or criminals more easily than before. The most significant change is the abolition of 'dual criminality' - the requirement that a person can only be extradited for an action considered to be an offence in both the country seeking extradition and the country being asked to surrender a suspect. It will also reduce political involvement in extradition by eliminating the practice of giving the justice minister the final say. The European arrest warrant covers all offences that carry a sentence of one year or more in the country seeking an extradition (including sexual exploitation of children and child pornography and computer-related crime).

• NL - Child porn cases hit Netherlands  +/-

  (BBC) Police in the Netherlands have arrested the conductor of a boys' choir after finding thousands of child pornography pictures at his home. And in a separate case, it has been announced that a former judge is to be prosecuted for possessing child pornography.

• UK - £8,000 bill for phone theft victims  +/-

  (BBC) A couple have been told they must pay a bill of more than £8,000 run up by thieves after their mobile phone was stolen in South Africa where they were on holiday. They only realised it was missing when they got back to Britain. T-Mobile says it is extremely unlikely to waive the bill which shows the phone was used non-stop every minute for a week, with calls to countries such as Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal and Ethiopia.

• US - U.K. man in Internet sex case gets 5 years imprisonment  +/-

  (AP) An Englishman was sentenced to five years in prison after he traveled to Iowa to have sex with a 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet. Barry Beadle, 52, pleaded guilty in September to enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity and traveling with intent to engage in sexual activity with a minor. The former psychiatric nurse met the girl in an Internet chat room last year and set up an in-person meeting in April. Beadle, of Merseyside, England, and the victim stayed together for six days at an Iowa motel, having sex, watching television and drinking beer, prosecutors said.

Content regulation

• Frenchman sentenced in Senegal for Internet libel  +/-

  (AFP) A French national who ran an Internet website about Senegal has been sentenced in his absence for libelling an official in and hoteliers in the south of the country, legal sources said. Christian Costeaux, who ran the 'senegalaisement.com' website, was also ordered to pay damages of 600 million CFA francs (around 915,000 euros) to the plaintiffs, the mayor of Ziguinchor, the main city in the southern Senegalese region of Casamance, and two hotelkeepers.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• FR - Des éditeurs de presse crient haro sur Google  +/-

  (01net.) Les principaux titres de la presse quotidienne nationale accusent Google de ne pas respecter les droits d'auteur, et demandent à être supprimés de son service d'agrégation de contenus, Google Actualités. Selon le président du Geste (Groupement des éditeurs de services en ligne) et directeur de l'édition électronique du quotidien Les Echos, Philippe Jannet, certains membres de la commission « presse en ligne » de cette organisation professionnelle (Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, La Tribune, L'Express, Les Echos, ... à l'exception notable du Nouvel Observateur) ont récemment adressé un courrier de mise en demeure à Google.

• NO - The Norwegian DVD case  +/-

  (Lovdata) Decision by Borgarting Appellate Court. A young person had in 1999 co-operated on the development of a program that circumvented the Content Scrambling System for DVDs on Internet. He had programmed a user interface which made the program available also for persons without any special knowledge of information technology. The appellate court found, as had the first instance court, that the development of the program was not illegal. The decision will not be appealed to the Supreme Court. English translation from the original Norwegian by Prof. Jon Bing, Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo.

• UK - Amazon investigated over cut-price CDs  +/-

  (Guardian) Record industry trade body the British Phonographic Industry is looking at whether Amazon.com breaks the law by selling American CDs to UK consumers at cheaper prices. It is not investigating Amazon.co.uk, which only sells domestically sourced CDs. The development comes as the BPI is preparing a lawsuit against UK-based retailer CDWow, which buys CDs at low prices overseas and distributes them from Hong Kong, undercutting high street stores. The BPI argues that CDWow breaks the law by importing CDs from outside the European Economic Area and selling them at cheaper prices than UK retailers without the consent of copyright owners.

Data Protection (privacy)

• EU - Commission wants database of 'wanted persons' to include biometrics  +/-

  (EurActiv.com) The second generation Schengen information system (SIS II) will be a new version of the existing Schengen database, extending its use to the accession countries and enabling the addition of new functions. It consists of national databases of 'wanted persons' in each EU country, with the central data base managed by the French administration in Strasbourg. On 11 December, the Commission adopted a Communication on the Development of the Schengen Information System and possible synergies with a future Visa Information System (VIS) (progress report for the activities carried out in the first half of 2003) COM(2003) 771. The Commission recommends: storing biometric data, such as digital photographs and fingerprints, on SIS II; setting up an agency to manage the system; integrating SIS II into the same technical architecture as the future Visa Information System (VIS) while keeping the two sets of data separate. Twenty-eight million euro are to be allocated from the EU budget to develop SIS II. see Council Regulation (EC) No 2424/2001 of 6 December 2001 on the development of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II), and SIS II takes ominous shape (Statewatch).

• UK - You can't print that  +/-

  (Guardian) Thanks to European privacy rulings, the British media may find it harder and harder to prove stories and images are in the public interest. The European data protection rules are implemented into UK law under the Data Protection Act of 1998. Under this act, the use of personal data will not usually give rise to criminal liability, even if the use contravenes the requirements of the act. However, there may be civil liability for compensation or an injunction if personal data is used improperly. There has been relatively little litigation over the act as yet but many media lawyers anticipate that it will, in the future, be used to extend rights not only in privacy but also to develop image and personality rights. Such rights would allow a famous person much greater ability to control the use of his or her image, name or personality and would potentially provide a further lucrative income for celebrities for such use.

• UK pleads for easing of $100 visa ruling  +/-

  (Guardian) British diplomats are urging Washington to relax security regulations which may force UK travellers from late October to buy a $100 visa. Pressure is building up on both sides of the Atlantic to find a way around the deadline after which all newly-issued passports presented at US airports must contain either biometric details of the carrier or a visa. At present British holiday-makers can visit the States without a visa for up to three months. The new requirement will not affect most passport holders, only those who acquire a new one after October 26. The UK Passport Agency is not expected to produce passports with biometric details - bearing a microchip recording fingerprints or face recognition data - until mid-2005.

Domain names

• UK - Wales - Teen porn link found on Euro aid site  +/-

  (Western Mail) Internet surfers looking for details of European aid programmes instead found themselves accessing pornographic images of teenage girls. Yesterday the Welsh Assembly Government launched an investigation into how the offending material became linked to its Welsh European Funding Office website. The pornographic material appeared on a site linked to the Wefo website called inforegio, which purported to give information about EU structural funds like Objective One. Instead, visitors found themselves on a website headed, "Petite Nudes Teens Models" with a topless picture of a teenage girl.

e-Government

• EU - Public sector information  +/-

  (EUR-Lex) Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information has been published. OJ L 345 31.12.2003 p. 90. The deadline for implementation by Member States is 1 July 2005.

Electronic commerce

• US - Court duel between advertisers on Internet  +/-

  (New York Times) A federal judge in New York has called at least a temporary timeout on pop-up Web advertising. A judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has issued a preliminary injunction that bars an advertising software company called WhenU.com from displaying pop-ups and other types of online advertisements for VisionDirect.com when visitors go to 1-800Contacts.com, a competing Web site.

Information society and Internet policy

• EU - E-Europe and satellite broadcasting regulation tops Irish Presidency telecoms agenda  +/-

  (EurActiv.ocm) Irish Communications Minister Dermot Ahern has outlined Ireland's priorities during its six-month Presidency of the Telecoms Council. The mid-term review of the e-Europe Action Plan ahead of the Spring summit will be the Presidency's main highlight. Broadband: Mr Ahern outlined the rollout and exploitation of broadband infrastructure as the main issue facing EU Ministers. Mr Ahern calls on the Commission to consider mandating minimum levels of broadband deployment in schools as a way of laying the foundations to meet the Lisbon targets. An informal ministerial conference is planned in late April to explore broadband stimulation from both the demand and supply sides. Spam: The Presidency will try to reach an international agreement to impose penalties on 'spammers'. Broadcasting: A Presidency proposal plans to make satellite broadcasters subject to tighter regulation by making broadcasters fall under the jurisdiction of the EU countries in which they provide services. A Ministerial Conference is scheduled on 2-3 March 2004 to deal with the revision of the Television Without Frontiers directive.

• FR - Loi Fontaine: le paysage internet français chamboulé après le vote des députés  +/- Translate

  (ZDNet France) Au menu des modifications apportées par les députés, en seconde lecture, au projet de loi pour la confiance dans l´économie numérique (LCEN): obligation de surveillance des contenus hébergés pour les prestataires, statut d'opérateur pour les collectivités territoriales, et fin du contrôle de l'ART sur les tarifs de France Télécom. Prochain stade: 2e lecture au Sénat. Le texte devait clarifier la législation applicable dans de nombreux secteurs: le commerce électronique, la responsabilité des prestataires techniques, les domaines de compétence des diverses autorités de régulation, la cybercriminalité mais aussi les télécoms. voir aussi Loi sur l'économie numérique - Résumé des amendements adoptés (Reuters), Le courrier électronique décacheté par la loi (Libération), « Vous confirmez donc le choix d'une justice privée ! » (IRIS) et Télécoms: Paris répond aux inquiétudes de Bruxelles sur les pouvoirs de l'ART (LeRevenu.com).

Internet access and use

• Competition in Broadband Provision and its Implications for Regulatory Policy  +/-

  (SSRN) by Dan Maldoom, Richard Marsden, J. Gregory Sidak, Hal Singer. This report examines mass-market broadband access and take-up, analyzing the current and prospective level of competition and drawing implications for public policy. The report was commissioned by The Brussels Round Table, a forum for leading European telecommunication operators and equipment manufacturers, including Alcatel, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, France Telecom, Siemens, Telefonica de Espana, and Telecom Italia.

Junk mail (spam)

• US - Just Fax Us the $5.4 Million  +/-

  (Associated Press) Federal regulators approved a record $5.4 million fine against a company for faxing unsolicited advertisements to consumers. The Federal Communications Commission said the fine given to Fax.com was the largest for violating do-not-fax rules that went into effect in 1992. The company sends faxes on behalf of clients that pay a fee.

• US - Spam Is Still Flowing Into E-Mail Boxes  +/-

  (Washington) Computer users hoping that a new federal law would help cut the spam flowing to their in-boxes so far have been disappointed. Since President Bush signed the new restrictions into law Dec. 16 and they went into effect Jan. 1, spam-filtering companies and Internet providers report little change in spam patterns, which have relentlessly marched to higher levels over the past two years. Estimates vary, but spam accounts for roughly 60 percent of all e-mail traffic, with costs to fight it exceeding $10 billion a year.

Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

• FR - Compétence pour un site internet en Espagne  +/- Translate

  (Forum des droits sur l'internet) Cour de Cassation, Première chambre civile, 9 décembre 2003, Société Castellblanch c/ Société Champagne Louis Roederer. Propriété littéraire et artistique - Contrefaçon - Site Espagnol - Compétence juridictionnelle - Juge français compétent (oui). En admettant la compétence des juridictions françaises pour connaître de la prévention et de la réparation de dommages subis en France du fait de l'exploitation d'un site internet en Espagne, la cour d'appel qui a constaté que ce site, fût-il passif, était accessible sur le territoire français, de sorte que le préjudice allégué du seul fait de cette diffusion n'était ni virtuel ni éventuel, a légalement justifié sa décision.

Mobile and wireless

• EU - 3rd Wave Mobile for Europe: CEOs set out a shared vision for mobile communications  +/-

  (RAPID) Fourteen CEOs from key players within the mobile communications sector set out a common vision for the future. The group set out more than twenty recommendations on steps needed to support and sustain the rollout of mobile networks and services across Europe. This involves action on research, standards, content, security, spectrum, international co-operation and regulation. The Report was the first fruit of the Mobile Communications and Technology Platform established last October, under the European Initiative for Growth, by Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society. The platform brings together leading industrial players from among mobile operators, equipment and component manufacturers and content providers.

Protection of minors

• UK - Seeing is believing  +/-

  (Guardian) The question of whether children mimic violent images they watch on television has been debated for decades. But now, says Robert Winston, he has witnessed an experiment that finally proves they do.

Racism and xenophobia

• DE - Internet: Die Rechten machen mobil  +/- Translate

  (Spiegel) Propaganda, Volksverhetzung, Menschenverachtung - im Internet gibt es unzählige Seiten, die voll sind von Hasstiraden gegen Schwächere und Außenseiter. Darunter finden sich nach Erkenntnissen des Verfassungsschutzes auch immer mehr Homepages der deutschen Rechtsextremisten.

• EU - Prodi reinstates racism talks on Jewish backing  +/-

  (FT) Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, has overturned his decision to shelve a conference on anti-Semitism in Europe after assurances from representatives of the Jewish community that they did not view the European Union's executive as anti-Semitic. see also IHT: Prodi suspends anti-Semitism talks (International Herald Tribune), Europe's moral treachery over anti-Semitism (Financial Times), Jewish leaders accuse European Commission of anti-Semitism (Reuters) and EU to host anti-Semitism seminar (EUpolitix).

Rating and filtering

• US - Court ponders Web site-blocking law  +/-

  (CNET News.com) A federal judge in Philadelphia will hear a challenge to a controversial state law that has led to more than 1 million innocuous Web sites being accidentally blocked. Although the law is only a Pennsylvania state statute, it has an international reach. When the Pennsylvania attorney general used it to force MCI to ban access to some sites with suspected child pornography, the company said it had no choice but to block those Internet addresses for all of its North American subscribers.

Safer Internet awareness

• UK - Drive to warn of net paedophiles  +/-

  (BBC) A £700,000 campaign warning children of paedophiles lurking on the internet has been launched. The government drive features radio, cinema and online advertising urging youngsters to question who they might be communicating with in chat rooms. A radio advertisement features a man posing as a streetwise schoolboy to befriend a child through the internet. The campaign also includes a leaflet telling parents how to set up filtering and monitoring systems for computers. It is the third stage of a £3m Home Office push to protect children online, which started in December 2001. see thinkuknow.co.uk.

Security and encryption

• Messaging programs bring instant risk  +/-

  (BBC) Instant messaging is gaining popularity with workers trying to get around the restrictions placed on what they can do with e-mail. A survey by filtering firm Surf Control Survey shows that workers are turning to instant messaging to do the things that company policies stop them doing with e-mail. Currently few firms subject instant messaging programs to the same scrutiny that e-mail receives to stop spam, viruses or abuse by employees.

Market & Technology

Audiovisual

• UK - The threat to TV's old guard  +/-

  (Guardian) The growth of multichannel viewing is starting to make the rivalry between the BBC and ITV look like a sideshow.

Electronic commerce

• UK - Can the internet help Lotto?  +/-

  (Guardian) Camelot has launched Lotto on the internet. So will the long-awaited move reverse waning interest in the lottery's main game?

Internet access and use

• Broadband for the unbelievers  +/-

  (Guardian) There was much back-slapping at the end of last year as broadband connections in the UK soared past 3m. And barely a week goes by without BT trumpeting its latest broadband success, whether it is a price reduction or a rise in the number of regional exchanges given the chance to upgrade to the brave new world of broadband. But the relative success in convincing three million customers to upgrade to high-speed broadband was the easy part. The majority of those customers were frustrated internet fanatics just waiting for BT to get its broadband act together and stop prevaricating over reducing the wholesale price. Moving beyond the 3m mark will prove far harder

• US - That Parent-Child Conversation Is Becoming Instant, and Online  +/-

  (New York Times) Instant messaging, long a part of teenagers' lives, is working its way into the broader fabric of the American family.

Mobile and wireless

• UK - McDonald's deal beefs up wireless web  +/-

  (Guardian) BT hopes to significantly boost the number of people connecting to the internet while on the move by signing a deal to put 'wi-fi hotspots' in more than 500 McDonald's restaurants across the country. Telecoms companies hope the technology, which allows laptop users to connect to the internet wirelessly when they are close to a so-called 'hotspot' in a hotel, coffee shop, airport or other public area, will take off in a big way in 2004. The BT Openzone areas will be installed in the McDonald's flagship London fast food restaurants in The Strand, Oxford Street and Liverpool Street and most of its drive-through outlets around Britain.

• Will Nokia kill off video calls?  +/-

  (BBC) This year, 3G providers will be pinning their hopes on video calling. All, that is, except for the market leader. So is Nokia right to resist?

• Wireless web reaches out in 2004  +/-

  (BBC) Wi-fi is something, along with hotspots, Wisps, and WLANs that we could be hearing a lot more of in 2004. Wi-fi essentially allows people to connect to the net at broadband speeds without cables, as long as they have the right equipment and, in most cases, a wi-fi account.

Portals, browsers and search engines

• Better search results than Google?  +/-

  (CNN) Some intriguing technologies are getting better at bringing order to all that chaos, and could revolutionize how people mine the Internet for information. Software now emerging analyzes search results and automatically sorts them into categories that, at a glance, present far more information than the typical textual list. Vivisimo is like a superfast librarian who can instantly arrange the titles on shelves in a way that makes sense, but unlike libraries, Vivisimo doesn't use predefined categories. Its software determines them on the fly, depending on the search results. The filing is done through a combination of linguistic and statistical analysis, a method that even works with other languages. A similar process powers Grokker, a downloadable program that not only sorts search results into categories but also "maps" the results in a holistic way, showing each category as a colorful circle. Within each circle, subcategories appear as more circles that can be clicked on and zoomed in on. Grokker is not in itself a search engine -- it only analyzes and illustrates search engines' results. see also Finding what you want on the web (BBC) and NoodleTools.

Statistics

• CN - China mobiles outstrip landlines  +/-

  (BBC) China now has more mobile phones than it has landlines, new figures show. According to the data from the Ministry of Information Industry, subscriber numbers were up by more than 30% in 2003 to 269 million. Over the same period, the number of fixed-line phones rose to 263 million in a population of 1.3 billion people.

• FR - Les voeux par SMS font le bonheur des opérateurs GSM  +/-

  (ZDNet France) Le chiffre est impressionnant: 88 millions de SMS ont été envoyés au cours du 1er janvier 2004. Les opérateurs se frottent les mains sans donner de chiffres. Estimation du profit net ramassé par Orange lors de cette journée: 5,4 millions d'euros.

• Global broadband keeps climbing  +/-

  (BBC) Broadband internet is well on the way to becoming one of the 'fastest growing new technologies in history', according to industry analysts Point Topic. There are now an estimated 100 million broadband connections globally, it said in its end of year analysis.

• Rumours fuel top Google searches  +/-

  (BBC) Google has published its 2003 'zeitgeist', which gives a flavour of what people looked for on the net. Globally, Britney Spears led the pack ahead of boy wizard Harry Potter. Prince Charles was the top search term in the UK, fuelled by rumours which the British press were banned from reporting on in detail. Michael Jackson, Winnie the Pooh and rugby star Jonny Wilkinson also featured in the UK top 10 searches, along with newcomers Paris Hilton and old favourites The Simpsons and David Beckham. The honey-loving bear has been the subject of a drawn-out legal battle over merchandising rights in 2003.

• UK - Mobile net has 'best ever month'  +/-

  (BBC) More people accessed the net on their mobile phones in November 2003 than any other month, said analysts. A record 947m Wap (Wireless Application Protocol) pages were hit, said the Mobile Data Association (MDA). Large numbers of users went online to download polyphonic ringtone versions of music hits, according to the MDA. November's huge figures mean the MDA's prediction for total downloads via mobiles for 2003 was topped, before December's figures were included.

• UK - Old mobiles 'dumped' at Christmas  +/-

  (BBC) Three quarters of a million old mobiles will have been discarded or dumped since Christmas, according to a survey. Just four per cent of those questioned in a poll for The Body Shop said they would bother to recycle them. Toxics in dumped mobiles can harm the environment, but more than a quarter of people with new models said they would just throw their old ones in the bin. It is estimated 15 million mobiles are replaced annually, with owners updating them on average every 18 months. It is thought about 3.75 million mobile handsets will have landed in Christmas stockings in 2003, according to NOP, a figure which is likely to grow next year. The Body Shop, which has teamed up with recycling firm Greener Solutions to encourage people to hand in their old phones so that they can be recycled for charity.

• UK - Text record smashed for New Year  +/-

  (BBC) New Year revellers smashed the record for the most texts ever sent in a day, said the Mobile Data Association (MDA). A thumb-numbing 111 million SMS messages were sent on all four main UK mobile networks between midnight 31 December and midnight 1 January. The new record beats last year's 102 million by 8%, and is twice the volume sent on an average day. But some well-wishes may well have never received their messages because of network traffic. O2 said it handled the largest volume of texts out of the four networks - 37.2 million - and added that the majority sent arrived within minutes. In the crucial 11pm until midnight hour, 97% were delivered in 10 seconds.

• US - Down on Downloading  +/-

  (Washington Post) A survey of 1,358 Internet users conducted in November and December found that the percentage of Americans who said they downloaded music dropped to 14 percent of Internet users (or about 18 million people), compared with 29 percent (some 35 million people) revealed in a similar survey last spring. The findings - reported by the Pew Internet & American Life Project - showed that the numbers who are downloading files on any given day have plunged since the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began filing suits against those suspected of copyright infringement. Furthermore, a fifth of those who say they continue to download or share files online say they are doing so less often because of the suits.

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