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(Guardian) A European Union judge said he will continue to take into account testimony from former complainants in the EU's antitrust case against Microsoft, even though they had withdrawn support for the case. Judge Bo Vesterdorf said he would give a decision on whether to suspend the EU order for Microsoft to change its business practices and pay a €497m (£320m) fine by Christmas.
(FT) The landmark antitrust settlement this month between Microsoft and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, one of its oldest adversaries, resulted in a $9.75m payment to the CCIA's top official, according to confidential documents seen by the FT. Ed Black, CCIA president and for years one of Microsoft's fiercest opponents in antitrust investigations, netted almost half the $19.75m total payment Microsoft paid the association. His payment was approved by the CCIA board, whichincludes Sun Microsystems, Yahoo and Oracle.
(CNN) Spanish police say they have arrested 90 people, including 21 juveniles, in the country's largest operation against child pornography distribution. The suspects did not financially profit from the pornography that showed children engaged in sexual acts, including with adults. Instead, they received the pornographic material from abroad, stored it and distributed it among themselves on the Internet, the police said. [Ed: According to El País, the police acted following a report received from PROTEGELES, the Spanish hotline funded by the EU Safer Internet programme].
(CNET News.com) Fraudsters are achieving higher levels of automation for phishing scams, using software tools and botnets to increase the reach of their work, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group. Security experts from the APWG have witnessed massive increases in the number of phishing Web sites, which they say suggests scammers are improving their techniques.
(Europa) Directorate General Justice and Home Affairs (DG JAI) has changed its name into Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Security (DG JLS). Its mandate and structure remain unchanged. Its role is to strengthen the EU as a single area of freedom, security and justice.
(BBC) A man has been given a six month custodial sentence for taking photos in court with his mobile phone. Shaun Nash, 19, also used the phone to take video footage while sitting in the public gallery during a robbery trial at Bristol Crown Court.
(out-law.com) A national mobile database, designed to keep a record of mobile phones and their owners, has been set up to help in the recovery of lost or stolen phones. The Mobile Equipment National Database (MEND) has the support of the police's National Mobile Phone Crime Unit.
(RAPID) David Byrne, the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, announced plans for a new EU-wide network to ensuring individual citizens know their rights as consumers and have an easy access to redress. The new network will be created by merging two existing networks: the European Consumer Centres or 'Euroguichets', which currently provide information and assistance on cross-border issues; and the European Extra-Judicial Network which help consumers to resolve their disputes through alternative dispute resolution schemes such as mediators or arbitrators. The new network is due to be launched in early 2005.
(New York Times) by Frank Rich. 66 ABC affiliates revolted against their own network and refused to broadcast 'Saving Private Ryan' on Veteran's Day The reason: fear. Not fear of terrorism or fear of low ratings but fear that their own government would punish them for exercising freedom of speech.
(Curia) The expression 'investment in ... the obtaining ... of the contents' of a database in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases must be understood to refer to the resources used to seek out existing independent materials and collect them in the database. It does not cover the resources used for the creation of materials which make up the contents of a database. In the context of drawing up a fixture list for the purpose of organising football league fixtures, therefore, it does not cover the resources used to establish the dates, times and the team pairings for the various matches in the league. Case C-46/02, Fixtures Marketing Ltd v Oy Veikkaus Ab see also Case C-203/02, The British Horseracing Board Ltd and Others v William Hill Organization Ltd. The resources used to draw up a list of horses in a race and to carry out checks in that connection do not constitute investment in the obtaining and verification of the contents of the database in which that list appears.
(BBC) About 20,000 people have been banned from playing the Half-Life 2 game. Game maker Valve shut down the online accounts of the players because it had evidence that their copy of the game had been obtained illegally. Copies of Half-Life 2 had been circulating on file-sharing systems soon after it was officially released. Experts said the success of the Half-Life 2 anti-piracy system might tempt other game makers into creating their own version.
(FT) by James Boyle. Despite the fact that the European Commission has a legal obligation to review the Database Directive for its effects on competition (they are three years late in issuing their report) no attention appears to be being paid to the actual evidence of whether the Directive helps or hurts in the EU.
(out-law.com) NYPD Blue actor Carmine Caridi has been fined a total of £309,600 for his involvement in the illegal copying of two Oscar-nominated films that he was due to judge as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Screeners for the films, The Last Samurai and Mystic River, were sent to Caridi in the run up to last year's Oscars in order that he might consider his vote. Like all members of the Academy, Caridi signed an agreement promising not to circulate the films. But he breached this agreement by passing the films onto a friend, who copied the films and distributed them over the internet. The pair were caught when a watermark on the copied films was traced back to Caridi's screener.
(CNET News.com) A lawsuit brought by a group of Internet archivists against recent congressional actions expanding copyright protections has been dismissed by a federal judge. The case was led by Net pioneer Brewster Kahle, whose most recent Internet Archive project aims to make a huge digital archive of Web sites and other media. The court's ruling, issued late last week, marks another setback for a movement of activists and scholars against expanding legal protections for artistic works.
(CNET News.com) Is the entertainment industry losing its clout on Capitol Hill? At first blush, a lot of people might find that to be a laughable proposition. But a prominent architect of the Recording Industry Association of America's legal strategy confided to me last week that his colleagues are being 'outgunned' in the legislative skirmishing over new copyright laws.
(BBC) Ask the average man in the street what Wipo means to them and most will look at you blankly. But if truth be told the World Intellectual Property Organisation has a profound influence on the lives of anyone who watches TV, listens to the radio, uses the net or owns a portable music player - pretty much all of us. The treaties and agreements that Wipo agrees set the broad agenda for protection of intellectual property rights for the whole world.
(IP-Watch) In an October 15 speech, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Jonathan Dudas, vowed that the U.S. government will "fight" proposals that aim to "fundamentally change the WIPO charter and philosophy" away from its current focus on the promotion of intellectual property. In his keynote remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA - a 15,000-member U.S. bar association comprised primarily of intellectual property lawyers) Dudas stated emphatically that "our current system and international norms are properly balanced". In a not-so-oblique reference to recent discussions at WIPO of a 'Development Agenda,' Dudas derided efforts to encourage WIPO to take a more balanced approach to intellectual property as part of a "strategy to water down intellectual property protection" that is "even worse" than efforts to increase PCT application fees.
(Statewatch) The European Parliament has been asked by the Council of the European Union (the 25 EU governments) to use its 'urgency' procedure to rush through the measure on mandatory fingerprinting and biometric passports for all EU citizens at its plenary session next week (1-2 December). The Council's letter to the parliament making the request encloses the latest version of the draft proposal (Draft Regulation on biometric passports). The letter seeks to emphasise that the original proposal was sent to the parliament in February and that the Action Plan adopted on 25 March called for the measure to be adopted by the end of the year. The Council itself substantially changed the measure on 25 October (making facial images and finger-prints mandatory).
(Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) by Anna Buchta. PRIME is a 4-year research project conducted within the European Union 6th Framework Programme. Its objective is to perform research and to develop practical solutions that would enable individuals to manage digital identities and to regain control over their personal data in cyberspace. PRIME focuses on solutions for privacy-enhancing identity management that support end-users' sovereignty over their privacy and privacy-compliant data processing by enterprises. The emphasis is put on legal context of anonymity and the need to balance the right to privacy with the needs of public security and law enforcement. see also Requirements - Part 1: Legal Requirements.
(out-law.com) A report published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) provides guidance on drafting and implementing company policies to provide a workable legal solution for the overseas transfer of personal data. These policies are called 'binding corporate rules' (BCRs). A number of companies are already using BCRs in their corporate operations worldwide, but uncertainty remains about their binding legal status in some jurisdictions. The ICC hopes its report will dispel such uncertainty.
(BBC) A bill to introduce a compulsory identity card scheme for the UK has been unveiled in the Queen's Speech. The home secretary believes identity cards will help tackle international terrorism, identity theft and help the work of the UK immigration services.
(BBC) Students who use computers a lot at school have worse maths and reading performance, research suggests. Those using computers several times a week performed 'sizeably and statistically significantly worse' than those who used them less often.
(Reporters sans frontières) Several countries that harshly crack down on use of the Internet are members of a working group on Internet governance (WGIG) that met in Geneva from 23 to 25 November in the run-up to next year's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis. The group is supposed to recommend to the Tunis summit a draft Internet regulation proposal defined as a shared notion of the roles and responsibilities of governments, intergovernmental and international organisations, the private sector and civil society. The group's work will affect the free flow of material on the Internet. Cuba, China, Iran, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, which are some of the world's most repressive countries of freedom of expression and Pakistan, Russia and Egypt, which also crack down on Internet activity, belong to the group.
(Pravda) The Microsoft chairman is the world's most spammed person: about 4 million messages arrive in his mailbox on daily basis. Steve Ballmer made the startling claim at the start of a two-day Microsoft-sponsored Asia Leadership Forum in Singapore.
(ITU) Spam on mobile phones is a rising phenomenon worldwide. In order to better understand this problem, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and BMD Wireless invite you to take part in a global survey on mobile spam. There are two different surveys for different respondents: Industry players (operators, service providers); Consumers. The survey is anonymous and no personal information is required or used for any other purpose than the study.
(ITU) On Friday 19 November 2004, ITU held a virtual conference on the status of regulatory efforts to counter spam. The virtual conference was moderated by John Haydon, Executive Manager, Australia Communications Authority. The conference united regulators responsible for countering Spam from Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, China, India and the International Telecommunications Users Group.
(RedHerring) Perfect 10, a publisher of an adult entertainment web site and magazine, has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant provided Internet users with at least 800,000 unauthorized links to images of Perfect 10's nude models, stealing membership fees and advertising revenue from the Los Angeles publisher. The lawsuit is one of the first of its kind against Google.
(Süddeutsche Zeitung) Viel geredet, nichts geklärt: Die bleibt ein ungelöstes Problem.
(dpa/lrs) Nicht nur Jugendliche und Erwachsene nutzen regelmässig das Internet, sondern auch Kinder. "Etwa 40 Prozent der 6- bis 13-Jährigen sind regelmässig im Netz unterwegs", sagte Christine Feil, Wissenschaftlerin am Deutschen Jugendinstitut am Donnerstag in Mainz. Beim 6. Forum Medienkompetenz in Rheinland-Pfalz diskutierten Fachleute über das Thema "Internet - Medienkompetenz - Schule". Kinder und Jugendliche seien fasziniert von "surfen" und "chatten" gerieten dabei aber auch schnell auf pornografische Seitenangebote.
(OpenNet Initiative) ONI tested sites blocked by the Saudi Arabian government's internet filtering system. The most aggressive censorship focused on pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of Muslims, and filtering circumvention tools. In contrast, the low blocking rate of sites on gay and lesbian issues, women's rights, politics, extremist groups, most religions, alcohol, and Israel suggests that the Saudi filtering regime does not target this content.
(Safer Interent) On 18 - 19 November, Prague saw the launch of a European awareness-raising network, INSAFE. It is matched by the launching of national Safer Internet awareness nodes that coordinate actions at the national level. The major goal of INSAFE is to coordinate and reinforce actions undertaken by national nodes and raise their level of visibility. It is led by European Schoolnet, in partnership with the Cyberspace Research Unit of the University of Central Lancashire (UK) and the Norwegian Board of Film Classification.
(Europarl) Report on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a multiannual Community programme on promoting safer use of the Internet and new online technologies COM(2004)0091 Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Rapporteur: Edith Mastenbroek A6-0033/2004
(ENISA) The Executive Director of the European Network and Information Security Agency has the intention to set up a Permanent Stakeholders' Group (PSG), which may advise him in the performance of his duties under the Regulation of the Agency, in drawing up a proposal for the Agency's work programme, as well as in ensuring communication with the relevant stakeholders on all issues related to the Agency's work programme. The PSG will be composed of leading experts in the area of network and information security representing relevant stakeholders, such as information and communication technologies industry, consumer organizations and academic institutions. The Executive Director hereby calls for expert expressions of interest to be included in a list of applicants for this Permanent Stakeholders' Group. Applications should be submitted at the latest by 15th December 2004.
(BBC) UK record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with a record 237 million sold in the 12 months to September. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade body said albums by the likes of Keane and The Streets had helped drive a 3% rise compared with last year. It also said sales of single tracks were up thanks to the availability of legal download services.
(FT) NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone company, will announce an agreement next week for UK operator MMO2 to offer its i-mode services in the UK next year, according to people close to the deal. The agreement will give i-mode, DoCoMo's popular internet access service, a presence in one of Europe's most important markets, where DoCoMo had been trying for several months to find a partner after ending its alliance with Hutchison 3G.
(CNET News.com) As Firefox marks its 5 millionth download and moves to retail stores, a survey showed Microsoft's heavyweight Internet Explorer slipping below 90 percent market share.
(Harvard Law School) The Internet & Society 2004 conference, entitled 'Votes, Bits, and Bytes,' takes place over three days, December 9 - 11, 2004, on the Harvard campus. Are information and communication technologies transforming politics? The purpose of this conference is to take a hard, skeptical, results-oriented look at the election in 2004 as well as the many issue-based campaigns, emerging business models, and new technologies that affect and comprise "politics" online and off. Key topics include: - electoral politics; - issue campaigns, including NGOs and labor organizing; - business; - and international development.
(Federal Trade Commission.) December 15 & 16, 2004. The workshop is the latest in a series of efforts to assess the impact of new and significant technologies on consumers and businesses. P2P file-sharing technology enables individuals to share files, including music, video, or software. Because the files do not reside in a central location - they are stored on the hard drives of users - P2P file-sharing technology allows for faster file transfer and conservation of bandwidth.
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