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(RAPID) The European Commission adopted a Communication on the implementation of Articles 4 and 5 of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive on promotion of the broadcasting of European works, including those of independent producers. The average broadcasting time for European works in the EU-15 was 66.95% in 2001 and 66.10% in 2002. The showing of independent producers' works broadcast by all European channels in all Member States was 37.75% in 2001 and 34.03% in 2002. The share allocated to recent European works by independent producers was 23.32% in 2001 and 21.10% in 2002.
(Guardian) Culture secretary Tessa Jowell confirmed that the analogue TV signal would not be switched off before 2012, two years later than previously promised by the government. But she said the process of switching off BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five's analogue services could start in some regions as soon as 2007.
(Guardian) Two-thirds of the public believe that the BBC should no longer be funded by the licence fee alone, according to a new government report What You Said about the BBC that will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the corporation. But the research concluded that the licence fee was the 'least worst' option for funding the BBC which was deemed to have an overall 'satisfaction rating' of 75%. However the report highlighted widespread concern even among the BBC's strongest supporters that programming had 'declined in quality'. see also Public mystified by BBC regulation.
(RAPID) The Commission has sent two separate "statements of objections" to two UK mobile network operators (MNOs), O2 and Vodafone. The objections relate to the rates that both O2 and Vodafone charged other MNOs for international roaming at wholesale level. Other MNOs needed to roam on O2's and Vodafone's UK networks in order to enable their own subscribers to use their mobile phones while in the UK. This situation is known as international roaming. The high roaming fees were detrimental to consumers travelling to the UK. see also International Roaming.
(RAPID) The European Commission has granted regulatory approval to the creation of Sony BMG, a joint venture combining the recorded music businesses of Sony and Bertelsmann after concluding that it did not have sufficiently strong evidence to oppose the deal. The Commission will keep a close watch on the music sector as it becomes even more concentrated and would very carefully scrutinise any further major concentration in the industry. Sony BMG will not stifle choice, says Monti (Guardian) EU competition commissioner Mario Monti finallwill look hard at any future mergers in the sector to make sure that any deals did not increase the music majors' domination of the market.
(RAPID) The exemption from business tax which the France Télécom group enjoyed up to the end of 2002 constituted aid that was incompatible with the EC Treaty. France Télécom has to pay back to the state an amount estimated at between ?800 million and ?1.1 billion plus interest. In addition the shareholder?s advance made available to the operator in December 2002 contains aid components.
(BBC) The BBC's commercial subsidiary launched a year ago to exploit the corporation's software and technology innovations is to close, becoming the first victim of new director general Mark Thompson's public value regime. From now on, all the BBC's public service and commercial activities must pass a public value test to prove that they fit within the corporation's remit.
(Guardian) BBC new media director Ashley Highfield has revealed that the corporation could launch its own low cost broadband service just weeks after commercial rivals accused it of breaching a 'catalogue of promises' to cap spending. And it is also likely to press ahead with plans to launch a standalone search engine to compete with US giants Google and Yahoo!. See alos (Guardian) Ashley Highfield, the head of BBC Online, tells Owen Gibson why criticism of the corporation's rapid digital expansion will not curb his plans for innovation.
(BBC) Ofcom has made its first significant foray into regulation of the BBC after its chairman Lord Currie stepped in on behalf of independent producers to help sort out 'fundamental problems' over deals to supply programming.
(AFP) China has launched a 'people's war' against pornography on the Internet, giving websites a deadline until September to rid themselves of indecent content. Officials have so far identified 500 websites across China that carry pornographic pictures and film clips. Zhou Yongkang, the minister of public security, has vowed to crack down on the activities and severely punish those found guilty of violating the law. President Hu Jintao has gone one step further, saying a 'people's war' must be waged against pornography on the Internet. It appears the Chinese have answered their president's call, filing a total of 22,000 complaints on a dedicated government website set up to make it easier for the public to report online wrongdoing.
(EurActiv.com) France, Spain and Germany have announced they will be linking up their criminal records' systems electronically from 2005 on. A joint statement issued by the three Member States called for this model to be used in setting up an EU-wide register "as soon as possible". The trio's initiative emerged as EU justice ministers were discussing ways to share information on criminals convicted of serious crimes, in response to judicial shortcomings underlined by a Franco-Belgian serial murder investigation.
(ZDNet UK) Around 230,000 attempts to reach paedophilic Web content have been blocked by BT's Cleanfeed, but AOL says this content blocker may not be the answer.
(ZDNet UK) Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has helped to smash a Russian gang involved in online extortion. Three men were arrested in a series of raids that targeted an online protection racket that threatened to crash online sport bookies' Web sites unless the gang was paid off. More arrests are expected to follow. Three men were arrested in a series of raids that targeted an online protection racket that threatened to crash Web sites unless the gang was paid off. More arrests are expected to follow.
(BBC) BT says it is blocking more than 10,000 attempts each day to access child porn. Its figures provide the first firm evidence of the extent of web paedophilia and BT is targeting the porn with its Clean Feed system. The Internet Watch Foundation called the figures 'staggering' and said children were being abused in order to supply the hardcore images. Police officials said the extent of the online porn problem was 'extremely disturbing'.
(BBC) Police have set up fake websites to catch people accessing child porn, the National Crime Squad (NCS) has said. A web sting has been set up by the NCS, who worked with the FBI, Interpol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Australian HI-Tech Crime Centre. The online operation, known as Operation Pin, targets offenders by setting up fake websites that collect details of people wanting to look at child porn. Law enforcement agencies have worked with search engine operators to ensure that the fake sites appear when a person looks for certain keywords. The aim is to prevent people joining the more clandestine community of experienced paedophiles. As yet it is unclear how many offenders have been caught as a result of this approach.
(PA News) Tony Blair announced a Government-backed summit into ways to stop paedophiles accessing child porn on the internet. The Prime Minister invited internet firms to the talks in September in a new bid to block online viewing of youngsters being abused. He also welcomed a BT initiative which used new technology to block access to child porn, but revealed the scale of the problem with 200,000 attempts to view hardcore websites in just three weeks. Mr Blair urged other firms to follow BT's lead.
(Reuters) Ukrainian police shut a modeling agency which photographed underage girls and sold images over the Internet in North America as part of their biggest crackdown on child pornography. Police are questioning about 15 people about the agency, which operated for three years across the country.
(Sydney Morning Herald) Controls on extreme pornography and other prohibited content on internet websites in Australia have virtually ceased, a newspaper claims. An investigation by the Daily Telegraph revealed the federal government's watchdog was powerless against offshore operators and that just four Australian-based sites were ordered off the web last year.
(Reporters sans frontières) The Chinese authorities have stepped up Internet censorship to include blogging, closing two sites hosting blogs - personal pages where Internet-users post their own comments on the news.
(silicon.com) Human rights organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has accused two of the biggest names in search - Yahoo! and Google - of deliberately conspiring to censor the Web. RSF called the pair 'irresponsible' for blocking some content labelled as subversive by the Chinese government - sites relating to Tibet's independence, for example. Such sites disappear from the Chinese language version of Yahoo and a Yahoo-parented search engine, Yisou, while a local search engine that Google now owns a share of, Baidu, also censors its results.
(reticon) Bundesweit wird auf Grund eines Urteils des Amtsgerichts München das Computerspiel Manhunt beschlagnahmt. Das Spiel war schon durch Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien indiziert worden. Dass ein Computerspiel beschlagnahmt wird, ist in Deutschland eher selten der Fall, zuletzt geschehen vor fast 10 Jahren bei dem Spiel "Mortal Combat II". Manhunt hatte schon bei der ersten Publizierung für viele Diskussionen gesorgt, da das Spiel äußerst brutale Gewaltszenen enthält. siehe auch Brutalo-Spiel bundesweit beschlagnahmt (Onlinekosten.de).
(BBC) Telecoms giant Cable & Wireless has been urged to use its influence in the Maldives to help free jailed net users. The press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, has written to the company's boss, asking him to put pressure on the Maldives authorities to end abusive internet censorship. Reporters Without Borders says that the Maldives is one of the world's most repressive in terms of freedom of expression on the internet.
(PA) More research was needed into how violent video games can influence the behaviour of adolescents, a psychology expert said. Professor Mark Griffiths, of Nottingham Trent University, said a link had already been proved between violence and video games in children aged eight years or below. But more study was needed into the long-term impact of blood-thirsty games on the behaviour of older children as they grow up. see also Caution call on video game storm (BBC). UK - Killing 'incited by video game' (Guardian). The parents of a 14-year-old boy who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death by another teenager blamed a video game for his murder. Stefan Pakeerah was stabbed and beaten repeatedly with a hammer in an attack his mother described as mimicking the gameplay in the video game Manhunt. see also Shops withdraw computer game and Don't blame the games (Observer) by Mary Riddell.
(Guardian) The television watchdog, Ofcom, ruled out a ban on advertising junk foods to children yesterday, saying the role of advertising in obesity was small compared to that of other factors such as exercise and family habits. It said any other action would have to wait for the government's public health white paper in the autumn. The decision to kick the issue into the long grass sets Ofcom on collision course with the growing campaign to curb marketing to children.
(New York Times) Six months after the Super Bowl, writers, producers and network executives are in a state of confusion about what they are allowed to say and show on television.
(Australian IT) Vietnam has stepped up efforts to control internet traffic, instructing service providers to terminate contracts with cybercafes that allow customers to access pornographic or anti-government websites. The directive is the latest in a string of measures unveiled in recent months to prevent 'bad and poisonous information' being circulated online. This latest regulation requires the communist nation's seven state-owned ISPs to disconnect cybercafes if they allow clients to access forbidden websites. Cafe owners are also instructed to monitor their customers' use of the web for any violations of government regulations, such as distributing viruses and accessing pornographic sites or those that 'threaten national security'.
(Guardian) The new media super-regulator has had an incredibly active first few months and it has had its share of critics. Here Ofcom's chairman David Currie tells Maggie Brown what's gone right - and wrong.
(ZDNet UK) Sony has won a landmark judgment against a man who sold modified PlayStation2 chips that circumvented copy protection. The UK high court ruled that Sony's intellectual property rights were being violated by the practice of 'modding', also known as 'chipping'. Users could install the chips in their PS2 to play imported games from other regions as well as pirated copies. Like many console and DVD-drive makers, Sony uses regional encoding that prevents European hardware, based on the PAL standard, from playing software from the US or the Far East. Mr Justice Laddie ruled that Ball had violated the European Union Copyright Directive, which came into UK law in 2003. This is the first time that the UK's copyright laws have been used to prevent the circumvention of copy protection.
(Europa) At the second meeting of the High Level Group on Digital Rights Management Systems (DRM) it was decided to launch a wider consultation of all stakeholders on the Final Report. This informal consultation will allow views to be expressed by interested circles on the outcome of the High Level Group. A workshop will be organised by the Commission in the course of November 2004, at which the issues identified as obstacles directly linked to DRM will be addressed. Stakeholders and interested circles are invited to submit their comments to the Commission until the 15 September 2004.
(AP) French Internet service providers agreed to cooperate in a crackdown against Web surfers who illegally download music online. In a government-backed charter also signed by record labels and musicians' groups, France's leading Internet companies agreed to pull the plug on pirates and step up cooperation with copyright prosecutions. The agreement was signed by representatives of Internet service providers Free, Noos, Club-Internet, Wanadoo and Tiscali France. The chief executive of Club-Internet who also is head of France's association of Internet service providers, stressed that companies like her own would "cut subscriptions only upon the decision of a judge." Nevertheless, the charter also calls on music copyright holders to carry out "targeted civil and criminal" court action against pirates by year-end. see alsoMusic downloaders to have internet connection terminated (Digital Media Europe). French music fans who download music illegally are to have their internet connection shut down as part of a severe clamp down on the practice by the French government. The termination of the account of a regular offender could be implemented very quickly. In a few hours a judge will be able to order an ISP to shut down a connection at the request of a record label monitoring peer-to-peer networks.
(Libération) Aux termes de la charte signée entre l'industrie du disque et les fournisseurs d'accès, tout abonné qui contreviendra aux droits des auteurs pourra être débranché. Des millions de Français usagers des services peer-to-peer (P2P) d'échanges gratuits de fichiers comme Kazaa sont désormais dans le collimateur. Pour officialiser le top départ de la chasse à ces «pirates», il a fallu mercredi trois ministres, des producteurs, des représentants des auteurs, dont la Sacem, et des fournisseurs d'accès à l'Internet. Du beau monde pour signer une «charte» pour le «développement de l'offre légale en ligne» et la «lutte contre la piraterie numérique». Le tout à l'Olympia, un «symbole», comme l'a souligné le ministre de la Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, présent avec ses camarades Nicolas Sarkozy (Economie) et Patrick Devedjian (Industrie). Charte d´engagements pour le développement de l´offre légale de musique en ligne, le respect de la propriété intellectuelle et la lutte contre la piraterie numérique. «Extrêmement défavorable au consommateur» Entretien avec Julien Dourgnon, de l'UFC-Que choisir. Les fournisseurs d'accès se frottent les mains Entretien avec Marie-Christine Levet, présidente de l'Association des fournisseurs d'accès (AFA) et de Club Internet.
(FT) Gangs linked to international terrorism and organised crime are relying increasingly on music piracy to fund their operations, according to music industry figures. Leading music groups saw the value of pirated sales rise by 4 per cent to $4.5bn (?3.7bn, £2.4bn) last year, and claimed the proceeds were being used for money laundering, drugs trafficking and terrorism. The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), representing music labels in 70 countries, said it had uncovered evidence of links between gangs involved in music piracy and Middle East terrorists. IFPI press release and Report
(BBC) Apple says it is looking closely at software firm RealNetworks' claim that it has found a way for tunes from its online store to be played on iPods. Real said it had created a program to mimic Apple's protection software which allows tracks downloaded from iTunes stores to be played only on iPods. Apple said it was 'stunned' at Real's 'hacker tactics'. Real has hit back by saying that consumers and not Apple should decide what music goes on their iPod. see also Is Real's 'hacking' of iPod legal? (CNET News.com). Code-crackers risk fines and prison time when they defeat copy-protection technology, but such draconian rules likely don't apply in the case of RealNetworks and its iPod 'hack,' legal experts said. Apple Shows Some Mean Colors (Silicon Valley) by Dan Gillmor. The Trouble with Tethering(Engadget). We asked Siva Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of Culture and Communication at NYU, to put things in perspective for us. He explains why RealNetworks? move might actually be good for Apple and why all these attempts by companies to tether their customers to specific products, platforms, and formats are bound to backfire.
(CNET News.com) by Declan McCullagh. The U.S. Copyright Office is about to endorse new legislation that would outlaw peer-to-peer networks and possibly some consumer electronics devices that could be used for copyright piracy. Marybeth Peters, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, is planning to announce her support for the measure at a Senate hearing. The Induce Act, which critics warn could imperil products like Apple Computer's iPod, is an 'important improvement over existing law,' according to a copy of her statement seen by CNET News.com. Peters goes even further than the politicians supporting the Induce Act, saying a 1984 Supreme Court decision 'should be replaced by a more flexible rule that is more meaningful in the technological age.' That 5-4 ruling said that VCRs were legal to sell because they were 'capable of substantial noninfringing uses' - a legal shield that one federal court has extended to cover the Grokster and Morpheus file-swapping networks.
(Washington Post) George Washington University this fall will become one of a small number of colleges to attempt a novel solution to the problem of students illegally downloading music from the Internet: It's going to give them the music, legally, for free. Through a deal worked out with the online music library Napster, students living in campus residence halls will be able to access hundreds of thousands of songs over the university's high-speed network, effectively allowing them to use their personal computers as digital jukeboxes.
(IRIS) DELIS, LDH and IRIS joint Communique. By voting identically to the National Assembly, the French Senate has allowed the final adoption on July 15, 2004, of the draft law on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data. This law revises the French Data Protection Act of January 6, 1978, and transposes the European Directive of 1995. Many aspects of the adopted text constitute a regression of the protection of citizens ensured so far by the Data Protection Act of 1978, and not all of them are a consequence of transposing the European Directive of 1995. Logically following its vote against this text, the parliamentary opposition would submit the adopted law to the French Constitutional Council. If the Council Decision does not allow to restore the level of protection enjoyed by French citizens before the adoption of this law, the DELIS coalition, the LDH and IRIS reserve themselves the possibility of filing a complaint with the European Commission, in order to have it carried by the Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Communities, against France for infringement of the Community legislation.
(out-law.com) Privacy International announced the winners of its Big Brother Awards 2004, the sixth year that the privacy group has run a competition to name those who have "done the most to devastate privacy and civil liberties in the UK".
(BBC) Plans for introducing ID cards in the UK are poorly thought out and vital details are still unclear, say MPs. The Commons home affairs committee says ID cards should go ahead and can help fight organised crime and terrorism. But it criticises a 'lack of clarity' over how the scheme will work in practice, with too much information kept secret by ministers. Committee Report. see also MPs attack Blunkett ID card plan (Guardian). Ms express alarm about what they describe as 'function creep' once a national identity register is in place. They warn that ministers are already planning to use the ID card scheme as a cover to introduce a national fingerprint system within five years.
(Guardian) A powerful new surveillance system which uses the latest automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology is being rolled out at service stations.
(Heise) Das Dreiecksverhältnis zwischen Regierungen, den Verwaltern der nationalen Länderdomains (ccTLD) und der Internet- sowie DNS-Verwaltung ICANN sorgt einmal mehr für Diskussionen. Beim Treffen in Kuala Lumpur konnte sich ICANNs Regierungsbeirat (GAC) noch nicht auf eine Aktualisierung der Prinzipien für die Delegierung und Administration der Länderdomains einigen. Angeheizt wurde die Debatte durch ein Papier, das der GAC-Vertreter des deutschen Wirtschaftsministeriums, Michael Leibrandt, vorlegte. Darin wird eine deutlichere Betonung der Rolle der Regierungen gefordert.
(The Register) he Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has just finished its bi-annual five-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur and it's feeling pretty good about itself.What in retrospect may be seen as the organisation's most vital period has gone off without hardly a hitch. Its head, Dr Paul Twomey was already calling the 'best ever' ICANN meeting at the Friday close press conference. ICANN meetings have always promised thunder and lightning yet provided sparks, but there was a big difference this time that everyone had noticed - it had actually achieved something.
(KableNet.com) The European Commission is looking for suppliers to work on a new communications infrastructure covering all national governments and EU institutions across the continent. The €100m (£66m) system will replace the existing network, known as Testa, which allows the exchange of data between European and national administrations. The deadline for responding to the tender notice is 13 September 2004.
(RAPID) To improve mapping in Europe, the European Commission is launching the INSPIRE (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in the European Union) initiative. A database with consistent geographical information, INSPIRE will support environmental protection policies as well as infrastructure development, agriculture and maritime navigation. A new Directive proposed today calls on EU Member States to put geographical information on a publicly accessible electronic network and to progressively harmonise it. At present, information on rivers, road networks and other geographical features is collected in an uncoordinated way and based on different methods and specifications, resulting in data gaps and lack of comparability.
(Reuters) Face aux protestations d'internautes, Météo France a décidé de rétablir la gratuité de ses prévisions à trois jours pour l'ensemble de la France, mais les mesures plus précises resteront payantes. La direction de l'établissement public s'est également défendue de diffuser des prévisions trop aléatoires, comme l'affirme la revue de défense des consommateurs "Que Choisir".
(Guardian) The results of publicly-funded scientific research carried out in Britain should be made freely available to all and the government should help universities fund digital archives of their academic work, a committee of MPs will urge. In its long-awaited report into the scientific publishing market, the Commons science and technology committee will also call on the Office of Fair Trading to carry out a biennial review of the market.
(Calgary Sun) Creeps who prey on children will face yet another hurdle as a successful Manitoba-based snitch line is set to expand nationally. The Canadian federal government has pledged to fund cybertip.ca - a program of Child Find Manitoba - 700,000 a year for five years to combat Internet crimes against children throughout the country. And Bell Canada has contributed a lump sum of $700,000 to expand the website by the fall. Cybertip.ca receives tips regarding Internet incidents of child pornography, luring, child sex-tourism, or child prostitution and forwards that information to the appropriate law enforcement agency. see also Bell fighting on-line child porn (Globe and Mail).
(CoE) At a meeting of the Council of Europe's Steering Committee on the Mass Media (CDMM) on 11-14 May 2004, it was decided to organise the 7th European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 10-11 March 2005. The main topics of the Conference will be 1) freedom of expression and information in times of crisis, 2) cultural diversity and media pluralism in times of globalisation and 3) human rights and regulation of the media and new communication services in the Information Society. The CDMM is now preparing the draft political texts (a draft political declaration, draft resolutions on the three main topics of the Conference and a draft action plan) to be adopted by the Ministers at the Conference, outlining priorities for future work within the Council of Europe in the area of media law and policy. In this context, the CDMM would like to invite non-governmental organisations working in the media field in Europe and other interested persons to submit their ideas and proposals as regards these future activities. The proposals should not exceed 2 pages and should be sent to the Media Division, in English or French, by 31 August 2004.
(EURIM) Status Report for MPs. Recently there has been increasing focus on the presence of, and ability to gain access to, illegal and harmful content online. This has been followed by calls to prevent access to such material and to regulate the Internet. Such calls often ignore the technical and / or legal barriers to doing so, and fail to take into account the collective responsibility of society in general for the Internet "cleaning up its act". We need to recognise that this is an international problem, and that the UK is leading the way in industry and law enforcement co-operation. Since 1997, UK hosted potentially illegal content is down from 18% to less than 1%. 99% of illegal content reported is traced to outside the UK. Child abuse content traced to the USA is now 55%, while content traced to Russia is 23%. International co-operation between law enforcement agencies is therefore a crucial component and one which may be hampered by lack of expertise or resources from country to country.
(Reuters) The United Nations is veering off-track in its discussions on whether government officials should set Internet policy, a founding father of the network says. Instead, governments should join together to fight electronic crime globally and develop best practices to encourage the growth of Internet commerce, said ICANN's chairman Vinton Cerf, who helped invent the Internet's early architecture.
(OII) The Oxford Internet Institute has received a grant from the ESRC to hold four seminars and one small conference focusing on civil society participation in the World Summit on the Information Society. Four events will be held in the run up to the 2nd summit in November 2005. A final seminar will be held early in 2006, to allow for an informed and reflective discussion of the whole WSIS process. We are currently seeking expressions of interest from researchers, civil society advocates and activists who wish to participate in, or contribute to, these seminars. Numbers are limited so please contact us as soon as possible and certainly by 1st October 2004.
(ZDNet Australia) A spam taskforce operating under the auspices of the Australian Internet Industry Association (IIA) has released a draft industry code of practice designed to block the spam epidemic. Members of the public and all relevant stakeholders are invited to submit comments by 30 August 2004.
(Digital Media Europe) OPTA, the Dutch telecom watchdog, has reported receiving 2,200 spam complaints - including 1,900 over e-mail - in the two months since anti-spam regulations went into force in the Netherlands.
(CircleID) Thankfully, a new anti-spam technology has made its way into the market. This approach, known as Sender Address Verification or SAV, is poised to cripple spammer's ability to deliver machine-generated email. [Ed: Read the comments as well as the article].
(internetnews.com) Spam is a global problem: Even though most of it originates in the United States, the bulk of it is sent from overseas on behalf of American spammers. Is law or technology the best way to solve the problem? That's the question considered by privacy experts at a conference called 'International Spam Law & Policies: The Global Case.' Most speakers firmly came down against legislation, promoting a mix of private legal action and technology.
(USA Today) Although Florida is fighting back with an anti-spam law that went into effect this month, the state has long been known as the "spam capital of the world." Florida is relatively attractive to folks who are running scam-type operations because it has very favorable personal bankruptcy laws. If they get sued, they're able to hold on to a lot more of their personal possessions.
(Reuters) Microsoft has won a judgement against a Californian spammer. A federal judge in California has awarded Microsoft $4m after finding that a California man and his company had sent spam, or unsolicited email, to users of its MSN and Hotmail services to get them to download a toolbar onto their computer desktops.
(newmediazero) by Sarah Monk. Now that the dust has settled following the House of Lords' decision in the Naomi Campbell privacy case against The Mirror, it's important to remember that this case isn't just applicable to celebrities who are routinely hounded by the paparazzi. The principles laid down by the Lords apply to anyone passing on information that could be characterised as confidential or private. This presents the online world with a major problem. Nowadays the first place that stories often circulate is in Internet chat rooms or on message boards. As with defamatory material, anyone involved in passing on private information can be fixed with liability. So we're not just talking about the person posting the material; an ISP or chat room host could also be targeted.
(BBC) Children as young as 11 are able to gamble online, according to a new report. They are able to do so because of failures by a number of websites to carry out proper age checks. The vast majority of sites tested by children's charity NCH allowed under 18-year-olds to register their details, the report found. The charity is now urging gambling websites to apply stringent age verification software. A 16-year-old girl was asked by the charity to attempt to register with around 37 UK gambling websites. She claimed she was 21 and gave her Solo debit card details. As a result, the teenager was able to register her details with 30 UK websites and she would have been able to place bets. see also Schoolgirl tests online gambling (BBC), UK bookies blamed for underage gambling and Will's Web Watch: 'Kids are gambling... quick, blame the web!' (silicon.com).
(New York Times) A new Internet-based system for issuing child-abduction alerts is being introduced in 13 states this summer and is expected to be adopted by more states soon. The system is intended to speed the process and get the alerts out to more people, including ordinary citizens who can receive text messages on their cellphones.
(RAPID) In response to an initiative by the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, the joint working party of representatives from the Commission, the European Jewish Congress and the Congress of European Rabbis met officially for the first time on 13th July to discuss the fight against anti-Semitism. The Dutch Presidency of the European Union was also represented. At the meeting the participants reaffirmed their desire to develop a coordinated long-term plan of action to combat anti-Semitism in all its guises throughout the European Union."
(Reuters) German neo-Nazis seeking to access racist propaganda on the Internet will now receive a lesson on the Holocaust when visiting a Web Site named after the Nazi victory salute 'Sieg Heil.' All traffic to the former neo-Nazi Web Site 'siegheil.de' has been redirected to 'shoa.de,' a site providing information on the origins of anti-Semitism and a detailed account of the Nazis' murder of some six million Jews. Germany's central registration authority for web addresses, Denic, revoked the license of the former operator of siegheil.de at the request of the German Internet watchdog jugendschutz.net.
(Pressemitteilung) Auf Veranlassung der Länder übergreifenden Stelle jugendschutz.net haben US-amerikanische Provider von Speicherplatz wichtige neonazistische Websites geschlossen, denen zentrale Funktion in der internationalen Vernetzung der rechtsextremen Szene zukam. Auch die deutsche Registrierungsstelle für Web-Adressen, DENIC, ist in der letzten Woche auf Veranlassung von jugendschutz.net gegen die unzulässige Website sieg-heil.de vorgegangen. Unter der Domain ist inzwischen das Aufklärungsangebot von shoa.de zu erreichen.
(New Zealand Government) Five new training modules on cyber safety for schools were launched by by Education Minister Trevor Mallard. The modules have been developed by the Internet Safety Group with funding from the Ministry of Education. They build on information in the Netsafe Kit for Schools, also supported by the Ministry of Education and distributed to all schools. The Internet Safety Group is the Ministry's designated agent for internet safety resources, advice and professional development. The training programme is made up of a comprehensive set of teaching modules with workbooks. Targeted at the specific needs of key school personnel, they will be delivered by licensed providers in a series of workshops around the country.
(BBC) Parents are still largely unaware of the risks their children take on the net, even though 75% of teenagers use the net at home. A London School of Economics study suggested 57% had seen net porn but most stumbled on it accidentally via spam or pop-ups. Only 16% of parents thought their children had seen porn online. Children are aware of net safety, but parents need help in understanding how to talk through good and bad net experiences and risks, said the report.
(CNET News.com) Sven Jaschan, self-confessed author of the Netsky and Sasser viruses, is responsible for 70 percent of virus infections in 2004, according to a six-month virus roundup by antivirus company Sophos. The 18-year-old Jaschan was taken into custody in Germany in May by police who said he had admitted to programming both the Netsky and Sasser worms, something experts at Microsoft confirmed. (A Microsoft antivirus reward program led to the teenager's arrest.)
(RAPÏD) The EU's initiative to free up parts of the radio spectrum for innovative wireless technologies is off to a good start, but will need a sustained effort from EU Member States, MEPs and industry to succeed, says the European Commission in its first annual progress report on radio spectrum policy in the EU. This looks at measures taken under the new telecoms package (in particular the Radio spectrum Decision) to allocate the radio spectrum more efficiently, to expand the single market for innovative new radio-based technologies. These technologies have huge potential to enhance competitiveness and deliver new public services.
(Europa) The final report entitled 'Study on conditions and options in introducing secondary trading of radio spectrum in the European Community' by the consortium (Analysys Consulting, DotEcon, Hogan & Hartson) tasked by the European Commission with this investigation is available. Executive Summary, Report (printable version), Report (for on-screen viewing - including hyperlinks), Annexes.
(CNET News.com) State utility commissions can have very little control over Net phone companies, a New York federal judge wrote in an order that hands another victory to Vonage and similar upstarts. State utility commissions will be able to work with Vonage to rectify customer complaints but won't be able to regulate or tax the company, according to U.S. District Judge Douglas Eaton. Eaton's order strikes at the heart of a debate between federal regulators, which want to exercise a hands-off approach to voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to let the young industry grow, and states, which rely on tax revenues to pay for public programs.
(Guardian) Everything from games consoles to PCs and hi-fis will soon be linked in the average digital household. So how will it affect the way we receive media? In June, a new body called the Digital Living Network Alliance, an umbrella group comprising more than 145 companies, including Microsoft, Intel and Sony, set down a list of common principles: their aim is to ensure that everything from pocket computers to PCs and hi-fis will be able to interact by communicating with each other within the home over a network using common standards.
(Guardian) Wanadoo, the UK's biggest internet service provider, is planning to launch a new online video-on-demand service next year and is set to begin partnership talks with pay-TV operators including BSkyB and NTL. It hopes to be able to offer channels such as Sky Sports and Sky One in addition to movies, music and big events to broadband subscribers. If BSkyB strikes a deal it would potentially mean that sports fans would no longer have to buy a package of channels they did not want, being able instead to cherry-pick their favourite events. Eric Abensur, the UK managing director of Wanadoo, also revealed that the company - formerly called Freeserve until the service was rebranded earlier this year - is working with Orange to develop a cheap all-in-one phone service. Both Orange and Wanadoo are owned by France Telecom. The company recently dropped the price of its entry-level broadband service to £17.99 a month and yesterday launched its new Livebox service, an all in one wireless "home gateway" box that will allow subscribers to link PCs, televisions, games consoles and other devices around the home wirelessly.
(ZDNet UK) The cost of subscribing to a broadband Internet service is falling all over the world and the price difference between cable and DSL services has almost disappeared.
(ZDNet UK) Up to 100 UK local telephone exchanges will be upgraded to offer symmetrical broadband services by the end of the year by Updata, a new entrant to the UK telecoms sector. Updata, which cut its teeth in the Danish telecoms market, announced this week that it is targeting the UK education market with a range of managed broadband services.
(BBC) Mobile music players are set to become the must-have gadget for music fans. A report predicts that people will buy more than 10 million players this year to listen to music while on the move. The buying frenzy is being driven by the success of Apple's iPod and the reams of copycat gadgets aiming to cash in on its popularity. The study by London-based Informa Media predicts that more than 21 million mobile music players will be in use around the world by the end of 2004.
(Stanford Magazine) You can pay $25 for Lawrence Lessig's new book. Or you can download it for free. What's the catch? None, according to Lessig, who convinced Penguin Books that releasing Free Culture online actually would increase sales of hardcover copies. Which may be true: there have been more than 180,000 downloads and Penguin is on its third printing.
(CNET News.com) by Charles Cooper. When the Democrats extended credentials to bloggers to cover the party's national convention in Boston, I was left pleasantly stunned. With all the pageantry and the circus-like atmospherics that make up an American political convention, you couldn't ask for a better backdrop to show off blogging's potential. All the more disappointing, then, to report back that blogging blew its big chance in Beantown. Most of the blogging entries I have read ranged from the insufferably pedantic to the sublimely mediocre.
(vnunet.com) T-Mobile and Orange are the latest mobile operators to launch 3G services into the UK, joining 3 and Vodafone. Both have introduced Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/GPRS datacards. T-Mobile's datacard offers speeds of 128Kbps, while Orange's runs at the full UMTS speed of 384Kbps.
(New York Times) Search engines like Yahoo and Google have spawned bidding wars among a growing number of marketers who want to place their ads next to search results. That is a beautiful thing for Yahoo and Google, of course, but in the long term, some analysts think it could haunt them.According to a report by the Internet research firm Nielsen//NetRatings, the demand for search advertising is growing far more quickly than the supply of available advertising spots. The report's author, Kenneth Cassar, said the implications could be far reaching.
(Guardian) Police battling to stay ahead in the war against online crime have unearthed a new threat to credit card holders and internet bank users. Tony Levene reveals how 'keystroke logging' works;
(Guardian) An internet virus which infects computers by infiltrating search engines caused a crippling slowdown in online connections around the world. The world's most popular search engine, Google, stopped working for a time in parts of Britain, France and America. Rivals such as Yahoo, Lycos and Altavista were also affected. Experts said search engines were bombarded with requests generated by the MyDoom virus, which sends fake emails appearing to inform people that their mail has been returned. "
(vnunet.com) Sixty-five per cent of all emails sent in June 2004 were spam - up from just eight per cent three years ago, according to email monitoring company Brightmail.The steady increase in spam rates shows no sign of slowing, and existing legislation such as the US Can Spam Act will have little effect, claimed the company.
(ZDNet UK) The number of British adults online has jumped sharply, thanks to 'silver surfers' and the broadband boom. 57 percent of all adults now use the Web, up from one in two in April. Almost half use the Internet at home, while three in ten use it at work or their place of study. Up to 10 percent access the Web at public places such as Internet cafes, libraries and on the move.
(OSCE) The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Mr Miklos Haraszti, is organizing a two-day conference on "Guaranteeing Media Freedom on the Internet" on 27 and 28 August 2004 in Amsterdam. The conference is a follow-up to the 2003 Amsterdam Internet Conference. More than 20 international experts will lecture. Interested representatives from IGOs, NGOs, academia, media and industry are invited to attend. Eventually a 'Freedom of the Media - Internet Cookbook' with best practices and benchmarks for Internet legislation, regulation and education will be produced and published at end of this year. Agenda;
(Europa) 23 - 24 September 2004 Residence Palace, International Press Centre, Brussels. The European Commission in co-operation with the GSM Europe/GSM Association and the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) organize the Second Mobile Communications Seminar on Health, Environment and Society. Following the January 2004 Conference, this one-and-a-half day seminar aims to contribute towards Europe-wide science-based public policy and regulation on health and electromagnetic fields (EMF) in order to ensure safety for everybody and improve public information. Best practices will be identified on the basis of a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective of the issues and a continuing dialogue between public policy representatives and all stakeholders.
(University of Ottawa) Friday, October 1st and Saturday, October 2nd, 2004. Bringing together leading academics from 16 countries, including Lawrence Lessig, David Post, Bernt Hugenholtz, Graham Greenleaf, and Ian Walden, the conference will explore comparative approaches to intellectual property law, e-commerce, Internet regulation, and developmental issues. The conference will begin in Ottawa on the evening of September 30, 2004 with the iCommons Canada launch party at which time the newly-ported Canadian version of the popular Creative Commons licence will be introduced to the public. The guest of honour at the celebration is Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School, founder of Creative Commons.
(Dutch EU Presidency) Under the Dutch Presidency of the European Union, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is organising this conference. Network and information security is a prerequisite for the growth of electronic businesses and the competitiveness of the whole economy. So e-Security can substantially contribute to the Lisbon objectives.
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