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(Europarl) European Parliament legislative resolution on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities. (Codecision procedure: first reading)
(RAPID) The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of ProSiebenSat.1, the second largest German TV broadcasting group. by equity funds Permira of the Channel Islands and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) of the US.
(RAPID) The European Commission welcomes the 30th January judgment by the Court of First Instance (Case T-340/03) dismissing in its entirety the appeal by France Télécom SA, formerly Wanadoo Interactive SA, in respect of the Commission's 2003 decision concerning predatory pricing and confirming the €10.35 million fine imposed by the Commission.
(BBC) A group representing UK media companies has called on the BBC Trust not to allow adverts to be published on its international websites. The British Internet Publishers Alliance (BIPA) said the plan would hit revenue its members could make online.
(BBC) Austria has uncovered an international child pornography network involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, the interior minister said. The videos were posted on a Russian website, hosted by an Austrian company.
(Howard Journal of Criminal Justice) by Samantha Craven, Sarah Brown, and Liz Gilchrist. This article aims to outline current responses to sexual grooming; specific attention will be given to new legislation introduced in England and Wales under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Issues to be discussed include: poor definition and understanding of sexual grooming, scope of legislation in relation to non-Internet grooming, difficulties in identifying sexual grooming, and a failure of the new legislation to be truly preventative.
(BBC) The alleged international paedophile ring smashed in Austria highlights the ease with which criminal gangs have been able to exploit the internet to make money out of child abuse. According to investigators in Austria, some 2,360 suspects from 77 countries downloaded horrific images of young children being sexually abused and raped. They were believed to have been shot in Eastern Europe and uploaded to the web in Britain, posted on a Russian website hosted by an Austrian company.
(Guardian) Internet paedophiles could be forced to register all their online nicknames and email addresses with the authorities as part of a new crackdown. The home secretary, John Reid, said he hoped to bring in new laws that would force child sex offenders to disclose the details as part of a widening of the sex offenders register.
(CNET News) Individuals who sell or deliberately misuse others' personal data in the U.K. could now face a penalty of up to two years in prison. The previous penalty stipulated for the charge in the Data Protection Act 1998 was a fine. Now data thieves risk up to six months in prison for a summary conviction, while for a conviction on indictment, they could get up to two years. The change comes as the British government moves to increase data sharing as a way of offering higher-quality public services to citizens.
(Washington Post) With nearly 46,000 public access points across the country, hundreds of thousands of computer users are logging on every day to wireless networks at cafes, hotels, airports and even while sitting on park benches. And although the majority of those people are simply checking their e-mail and surfing the Web, authorities said an increasing number of criminals are taking advantage of the anonymity offered by the wireless signals to commit a raft of serious crimes - from identity theft to the sexual solicitation of children.
(OUT-LAW News) The European Commission will overhaul European contract law to make internet selling easier, more reliable and more efficient. The Commission has opened consultation on proposed changes that will affect eight EU Directives. The Commission will review all consumer contract law, which will involve a review of eight Directives. They are: the Unfair Contract Terms Directive and the Directive on Sale of Consumer Goods and Guarantees; the Distance Selling Directive; the Doorstep Selling Directive; the Package Travel Directive; the Timeshare Directive; the Directive on Injunctions; and the Price Indication Directive. See The consultation.
(BBC) Vista, the latest version of Microsoft Windows has made its long awaited consumer debut. While reviews have focused chiefly on new functions, for the past few months the legal and technical communities have dug into Vista's "fine print". Those communities have raised red flags about Vista's legal terms and conditions as well as the technical limitations built in to the software at the insistence of the motion picture industry.
(BBC) People using online dating agencies are being warned to look out for fraudsters who want to steal their money. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), as part of its scams awareness month, says dating frauds are becoming more common. The criminals create attractive online profiles for themselves, designed to attract a particular victim. They then use bogus sob stories to lure them into handing over personal information, such as their address and bank account details.
(BBC) Record label Sony BMG is to reimburse consumers up to $150 for damage to computers caused by CDs with hidden anti-piracy software. The Federal Trade Commission said the anti-piracy software wrongly limited the devices on which music could be played to those made by Sony or Microsoft. About seven million of the CDs were sold and the Digital Rights Management software installed itself on consumers' computers without their knowledge or consent.
(Reuters) Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to 'purify' the Internet, state media reported, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to master the country's sprawling, unruly online population. Hu made the comments as the ruling party's Politburo - its 24-member leading council - was studying China's Internet, which claimed 137 million registered users at the end of 2006. Hu, a strait-laced communist with little sympathy for cultural relaxation, did not directly mention censorship. see Hu Jintao asks Chinese officials to better cope with Internet (People's Daily Online).
(BBC) An Egyptian court has sentenced a blogger to four years' prison for insulting Islam and the president. Abdel Kareem Soliman's trial was the first time that a blogger had been prosecuted in Egypt. He had used his web log to criticise the country's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.
(AP) European justice and interior ministers agreed to look at ways to prevent the sale of violent video games to children across Europe amid worries that national controls are too lax. EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told reporters at the end of two-day EU talks here that he and German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries "encouraged member states to prevent, to ban violent video games."
(EDRI) French Internet regulation history seems to repeat itself, as shows a recently unveiled administrative decree project, which aims at creating a 'National Commission for the deontology of on-line public communication services'.
(OUT-LAW News) Google will appeal against a judgment from a Belgian court that it broke the law when it used newspaper material in Google News. The company will have to stop publishing links to certain newspaper sites having been found liable for copyright infringement. see also Why the Belgian court ruled against Google.
(Juriscom.net) La Circulaire du 3 janvier 2007 de présentation et de commentaire des dispositions pénales portant sur la loi nº2006-961 relative au droit d'auteur et les droits voisins dans la société de l'information et d'action publique dans le domaine de la lutte contre les atteintes à la propriété intellectuelle au moyen des nouvelles technologies informatiques.
(CNET News) Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property. In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world."
(CNET News) It's not every day that both the U.S. government and advocates of free and open-source software align themselves in court with Microsoft. But a high-stakes patent case, set to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, has attracted a slew of briefs supporting the Windows maker's stance in a complex battle with AT&T over rules governing software code exported to foreign locales.
(OUT-LAW) Social networking market leader MySpace will use software to monitor videos posted to the site in a bid to block unauthorised use of copyrighted content. The company will use technology to analyse videos' audio tracks to identify infringing posts. The move is a bid to placate the big copyright holding music and entertainment industries, which are taking legal action against social networking and video sharing sites over the copyright infringing activity of their users.
(OUT-LAW News) Business letters can be protected by copyright and forwarding them to others can be an infringement, the UK High Court has ruled. The decision could have implications for email communication because the same principles will apply. Struan Robertson, editor of OUT-LAW.COM, said: "Emails can be protected by copyright too. Just because it's easier to forward an email than a letter does nothing to weaken that protection."
(CNET News) Record companies are the ones who demand digital rights management technology, not Apple, CEO says in rare open letter. Steve Jobs urges record companies to abandon these technologies.
(CNET News) Yes, you can copyright a dance. The inventor of the "Electric Slide," an iconic dance created in 1976, is fighting back against what he believes are copyright violations. An engineer at San Francisco's Linden Lab, said he received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice about a video he had shot at a recent convention showing three people doing the Electric Slide. The 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act governs copyright infringement as well as technology whose purpose is to circumvent measures intended to protect copyrights. Under the DMCA, rights-holders can complain to services like YouTube that content uploaded by users infringes their copyrights. "You can copyright the choreography for dances and then enforce the copyright against anyone who publicly performs the dance." --Jason Schultz, Electronic Frontier Foundation
(CNET News) A federal jury has ordered Microsoft to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent in a patent dispute over MP3 audio technology used in Windows. The case could have broader implications, should Alcatel-Lucent pursue claims against other companies that use the widespread MP3 technology.
(BBC) Internet law professor Michael Geist takes a look at intellectual property protection in the US and finds it somewhat out of step with the rest of the world. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, delivered its annual submission to the US government featuring its views on the inadequacy of intellectual property protection around the world. The IIPA submission generated considerable media attention, with the international media focusing on the state of IP protection in Russia and China, while national media in Canada, Thailand, and Taiwan broadcast dire warnings about the consequences of falling on the wrong side of US lobby groups. The lobby group ultimately shines the spotlight on how US copyright policy has become out-of-touch and isolated from much of the rest of the globe.
(BBC) Viacom, the parent firm of cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon, has told popular video sharing site YouTube to remove 100,000 "unauthorised" clips. YouTube and its parent Google failed to install tools to "filter" the unauthorised video clips, said Viacom. YouTube said that it works with "all copyright holders to identify and promptly remove infringing content" as soon as it is officially notified.
(International Herald Tribune) European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.
(RAPDI) Statement from Vice-President Frattini, on behalf of the European Commission, on the occasion of Data Protection Day (28 January). Data protection issues affect everyone, but are not always well understood. That is why I welcome and support the Council of Europe's initiative to raise the profile of data protection by declaring 28 January 2007 'Data Protection Day', date of signature of the Convention 108 regulating the processing of personal data.
(BBC) Euro MPs have expressed concern at the way the US is gathering information from EU citizens that may be used in identifying terrorism suspects. The EU justice commissioner told MEPs that banks in several EU countries were unaware details of transactions were going to the US treasury. Franco Frattini also said negotiations over a new EU-US deal on air passenger data would be "a real challenge". The US has had access to data about European air passengers since 2004.
(RAPID) Revenue from online content will reach ?8.3 billion by 2010 in Europe, a growth of over 400% in five years, says 'Interactive Content and Convergence: Implications for the information Society', a new study for the European Commission. For the most advanced sectors, online content will represent a significant share of total revenue: about 20% for music and 33% for video games. Thanks to the spread of broadband, the roll-out of advanced mobile networks, and the massive adoption of digital devices, the study shows that mass market online content distribution is becoming a reality, creating unique opportunities for Europe.
(RAPID) Access to research results has a significant role to play in driving innovation and maintaining the quality of research. Developments in digital technology challenge existing business models and practices for making research results available, and with open access research funding bodies are taking different approaches. The Commission has thereforelaunched a policy document to examine how new digital technologies can be better used to increase access to research publications and data as an important driver for innovation in our increasingly knowledge-based economy.
(BBC) TV shows like Doctor Who are expected to be available for download after the BBC Trust gave initial approval to the BBC's on-demand plans. Viewers will be able to watch popular programmes online or download them to a home computer up to a week after they are broadcast. But the trust imposed tough conditions on classical music, which could stop a repeat of the BBC's Beethoven podcasts.
(CBRonline.com) The resurrected proposal to open an internet domain reserved for porn web sites is looking less likely to succeed, with ICANN's board of directors last week expressing 'serious concerns' about it. A majority of ICANN's directors are concerned that .xxx may not be wanted by the adult entertainment industry it would purport to serve, according to minutes of a February 12 ICANN board meeting.
(OUT-LAW News) UK patients' medical records could be shared across Europe in a European Commission scheme that could compound controversy over the NHS's patient records system. The Department of Health has faced a barrage of criticism over its handling of the Connecting For Health computer system. "Interoperability and integration of data can improve the care provided to patients, the reduction of medical error, and the human and economic cost savings that can be achieved," said a Commission document "Connected Health: Quality and Safety for European Citizens".
(Heise) 70.000 Anfragen haben die Betreiber der Internetbeschwerdestelle 2006 erhalten. Das teilten der Verband Eco und die Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia (FSM) mit. Anlass ist der Safer Internet Day, der in der kommenden Woche erneut stattfindet. Zum Safer Internet Day 2006 wurde die Internet-Beschwerdestelle unter anderem durch die von Microsoft mit vielen Partnern vorangetriebene Initiative Deutschland sicher im Netz, die mit der Site 'Die Internauten' seit Ende 2005 auch um Jugendschutz bemüht ist, in Zusammenarbeit mit eco und FSM in Betrieb genommen.
(EFF) The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opened a new office in Brussels to work with various institutions of the European Union (EU) on innovation and digital rights, acting as a watchdog for the public interest in intellectual property and civil liberties policy initiatives that impact the European digital environment. EFF's new European Affairs Coordinator is Erik Josefsson. previously the president of the Swedish chapter of Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII.se).
(Lawrence Lessig) Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to try to put together short presentations outlining arguments for five Internet-related proposals that I believe Congress should enact: Copyright - Orphan Works and Remix Culture; Network Neutrality; Spam; Harmful to Minors Material.
(Heise) Der Präsident des Bundeskriminalamts (BKA)hat nach dem vom Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) verhängten Verbot heimlicher Online-Durchsuchungen von Computern eine schnelle Rechtsgrundlage gefordert. Die Polizeipraxis benötige zur Bekämpfung des internationalen Terrorismus und der organisierten Kriminalität auch die Online-Durchsuchung.
(OUT-LAW News) The European Parliament has voted to make every EU member state take a common approach to cross-border privacy and defamation cases. The Council of Ministers had opposed a previous extension of the Regulation to include privacy and defamation, but the Parliament has voted to re-include it. The deadlock is likely to proceed to the formal conciliation procedure, where MEPs and Ministers in equal numbers will attempt to find a compromise.
(EurActiv) Mobile phone operators could easily afford to lower roaming charges to less than what the Commission is asking for, but are engaged in large-scale collusion to keep prices up. Mobile phone operators are "twisting the truth" when they claim to have cut the price of making phone calls abroad, according to a study on roaming charges published on 20 February 2007 by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir.
(n-tv.de) Mit einer neuen Initiative will Kulturstaatsminister Bernd Neumann "kindgerechte Internetinhalte" gezielt fördern und damit vor allem Rechtsradikalen, Gewaltbereiten und Pädophilen den Weg ins Kinderzimmer versperren. Das kündigte der CDU-Politiker aus Anlass des "Safer Internet Day" an. Neumann forderte "moderierte und kindgerechte Chats" oder auch ein "umfassendes Nachrichtenangebot für Kinder". Außerdem setzt er sich für eine so genannte Positivliste ein, in der kindergeeignete Internetinhalte aufgelistet werden. Eine solche Liste sei die Voraussetzung für die Schaffung eines sicheren Surfraumes für Kinder.
(RAPID) The Commission has adopted the Decision reserving the 116000 telephone number in all Member States as a hotline for reporting missing children. Other common Europe-wide telephone services of social value starting with 116 may soon be reserved following this Decision.
(Eur-Lex) Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 on the protection of minors and human dignity and on the right of reply in relation to the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and on-line information services industry (2006/952/EC) OJ L 378 27.12.2006 p. 72
(Courier-Mail) Up to 2.5 million Australian families are still waiting for the Federal Government to deliver on a promise to protect children from online pornography. A $93 million plan to offer every household in Australia free internet filtering software was expected to be running by the end of last year. But seven months after the announcement - billed as the 'single biggest commitment' to protecting Australian families in the history of the internet - parents are still waiting to install the promised filters on their home computers.
(ZDNet France) Testés par l´association E-enfance, les logiciels de contrôle parental sont globalement satisfaisants. AOL et Orange s´en sortent haut la main, Club-Internet et Free sont en progrès. Mais Neuf, Télé2 et Noos Numéricâble sont toujours à la traîne.
(Heise) Fit und sicher im Internet: Schüler und Erwachsene haben in Köln einen Generationen-Wettbewerb im Web begonnen und damit den bundesweiten Startschuss für eine große Medienkompetenz-Initiative gegeben. Chatten, surfen, mailen – das Internet sei aus dem Alltag von Kindern und Jugendlichen nicht mehr wegzudenken, hieß es dazu. Zugleich seien aber die Risiken und Gefahren nicht ausreichend bekannt. Das betonten die Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission, die Landesmedienanstalt Nordrhein-Westfalen und der Verein Internet-ABC als Veranstalter der Aktion.
(eGov monitor) Almost 40 countries will participate in the fourth edition of Safer Internet Day (SID) which this year takes place on 6 February. The event is organised by European Schoolnet, coordinator of Insafe, the European safer internet network. Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for the Information Society and Media is once again patron of Safer Internet Day, as in the past two years. see Ireland Worldwide blogathon to promote safe internet use ; United States i-SAFE Celebrates Safer Internet Day 2007, Enlisting Students to Make the Internet Safer (Education World).
(RAPID) 100 organisations in over 40 countries worldwide celebrated Safer Internet Day on 6 February 2007. In the EU, across all 27 Member States conferences and campaigns showcase already existing safer internet activities of the private and the public sector, from filtering technologies to media literacy programmes. The purpose is to raise awareness - in particular at schools, among parents and teachers - about the best ways for protecting minors in an online environment of growing importance for our daily lives. Safer Internet Day is organised under the patronage of the Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.
(Gouvernement luxembourgeois) Du 1er au 6 février 2007, CASES (le portail de la sécurité de l'information du ministère de l'Économie et du Commerce extérieur), petitweb.lu et Luxembourg Safer Internet organisent une exposition consacrée aux dangers d´Internet à la Belle Étoile (route d´Arlon à Bertrange).
(BBC) Efforts to make the net less risky for children are being marked by the fourth Internet Safety Day on 6 February. Events are being held in 31 nations and a blogathon will record activities held as far apart as Australia and Canada.
(CNet News.com) The Internet Content Rating Association, a nonprofit aimed at labeling adult Web sites, have launched a new institute to promote kids safety on the Web. Called the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), it will broaden its work from the ICRA rating system to include the development and support of other kid-safe technologies, educational programs and public policy work. see also Internet safety gets powerful champion (Guardian).
(CBS) The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is launching a new Web site, www.NetSmartz411.org, to answer parents' questions about Internet safety and computers. The free service features an interactive knowledge-base where parents can use natural language search to find information. If that's not enough, there's an "ask the experts" button that lets parents type in a question which will be answered by e-mail by real-life analysts at the center's headquarters.
(RAPID) The European Commission is seeking feedback on how best to safeguard our electronic networks against disruption from attack or natural hazards. This follows a public presentation of the findings of a study which identifies a range of important issues for ensuring that our future networks are sufficiently protected and resilient. As the services and processes that they support become increasingly interconnected and interdependent, the consequences of the failure of or criminal attack on a single network or sub-system could potentially be propagated more widely and faster than ever before. Protective measures need to be put in place to ensure that critical services and infrastructure are not vulnerable to such failures, and that there can be no 'domino effect' that might otherwise result in a major technological collapse of communications and the many services they support.
(Guardian) Hackers mounted the most significant attack since 2002 on the computers that direct traffic on the internet. The hackers, believed to be from Asia, bombarded the 13 computers, or root servers, that serve as the internet's central address books. But although the assault lasting several hours was the largest in the past five years, it had little effect on internet users.
(BBC) A plan to make it easier for web users to manage their online identities has won the support of Microsoft. The Open ID scheme uses web addresses that people already own to help authenticate their identity. As part of the deal Microsoft is sharing some of its technology with Open ID developers and will include it in future identity-related products.
(BBC) AOL has joined Microsoft in supporting Open ID, giving the free identification scheme 63 million new users. OpenID is a decentralised identification system that lets individuals use a single password for any site that supports it.
(Anti-Spyware Coalition) Public Comment Drafts of Best Practices and Conflict Resolution Documents. The Anti-Spyware Coalition released drafts of both its Best Practices and Conflict Resolution documents on January 25, 2007. Both documents began a public comment period that will last a month and which will close on February 26th at noon.
(RAPID) Leading European mobile operators signed in Brussels an agreement on how to protect minors using mobile phones. This agreement, brokered by the European Commission, responds to the findings of the Commission's public consultation on child safety and mobile phones published today. In the agreement, mobile operators undertake to develop self-regulatory codes by February 2008.
(Heise) Die großen Mobilfunkanbieter in Europa haben eine Vereinbarung mit der EU-Kommission unterzeichnet, in der sie sich zur Ausarbeitung von Jugendschutzmaßnahmen bis Februar kommenden Jahres verpflichten. Das teilte die EU-Kommission mit, garniert mit Lob von Viviane Reding, Kommissarin für Informationsgesellschaft und Medien, für die Mobilfunkbetreiber. Alle Unterzeichner des "Europäischen Rahmenabkommens für die sichere Nutzung von Mobilfunktelefonen durch jüngere Teenager und Kinder", das aus Anlass des Safer Internet Day heute unterzeichnet wurde, werden demzufolge an Zugangskontrollen für pornografische Inhalte arbeiten. Außerdem sollen öffentlichkeitswirksame Kampagnen, Klassifizierungsmechanismen für gewerbliche Inhalte und Kampf gegen illegale Inhalte den Jugendschutz beim Mobilfunk verbessern.
(RAPID) In a rapidly evolving digital world, self- and co-regulatory models can be attractive alternatives to traditional regulations, according to a study for the European Commission. The study on co-regulation measures in the media sector was undertaken for the Commission by the Hans-Bredow Institut for media research, at the University of Hamburg, in cooperation with the Institute for European Media Law in Saarbrücken, and presented today in Brussels. It concluded that, in general, industry needs sufficient incentives to support such a regime. Having a state run regulator in the background often gives self-regulatory bodies the power they need to work effectively. In addition, sufficient means to enforce regulations, such as adequate and proportional sanctions seem to be necessary for a co-regulatory system to be workable.
(ZDNet France) Un rapport remis au ministère de la Culture propose de décerner un label de qualité aux sites internet d´information respectant certaines règles, notamment déontologiques. Un moyen de favoriser le développement de la presse en ligne, y compris payante.
(New Europe) Vivian Reding, European commissioner for telecommunications and media scored another major victory for European citizens when leading European mobile operators signed up to measures aimed at protecting minors from accessing pornography and hate speech on cell phones.
(RAPID) A single market for a new generation of mass-market consumer electronics (laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, TVs...), that can exchange data wirelessly at very high rates over short distances is a step closer. The Commission Decision outlines the mandatory conditions for using ultra-wideband (UWB) technology in these next generation wireless devices all across the European Union. see Wider choice for users through more flexible radio spectrum use: Frequently Asked Questions.
(RAPID) The Regulatory Challenges Ahead. Speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media. 20th Plenary Meeting of the European Regulators Group. Brussels, 15 February 2007.
(BBC) Tagging or labelling online content is becoming the new search tool of choice among web users. As more and more people put their own content online, they are also being invited to tag it with descriptive keywords to help organise their data. The business of intelligently tagging content is seen as a crucial element for a next-stage, so-called "semantic web".
(BBC) The way we use the web is changing and the future lies in mixing, mash-ups and pipes, says columnist Bill Thompson.
(Pew Internet) A survey has found that 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts. On a typical day online, 7% of internet users say they tag or categorize online content. The report features an interview with David Weinberger, a prominent blogger and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
(BBC) Internet search engine Google said its ability to cash in on web advertising had helped its profits almost triple. The company made a net profit of $1.03bn (£524.4m) in the last three months of 2006 - compared to $372.2m a year ago. The result, on sales of $3.2bn, was helped by high internet traffic in the holiday shopping season.
(vnu.net) Canadian network operator Telus has bowed to pressure from the Catholic church and stopped sales of mobile porn to subscribers.
(BBC) With music downloads outselling CD singles by four to one in the UK and the music charts revamped to include download sales, the digital revolution is having a big impact on the music industry.
(The Australian) Five short films, made especially for mobile phones and commissioned by Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, were screened this week at the global mobile industry's annual shindig: 3GSM in Barcelona. After close to a decade of paying only lip service to mobile content, the booming mobile industry this week embraced it. With bundled and subscription pricing for voice taking hold of the industry, new revenues must now come from data services. Many operators are finally starting to tear down their walled gardens. The mobile industry had been trying to create a separate mobile internet but users want to access its sites and services from fixed and mobile devices alike. This is something the mobile industry is finally admitting.
(CNET News.com) In a bold move to accelerate the adoption of location services for mobile devices, the world's two largest handset makers have each introduced their own navigation services, a move that could pit them against mobile operators. Nokia and Motorola, the number one and number two handset makers in the world respectively, each introduced new products at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. In addition to adding new hardware products that will be able to receive signals from satellites to fix a subscriber's exact location, the companies have also introduced their own navigation services, which they plan to sell directly to consumers.
(The Register) Ringtones and music will always take a bigger slice of the mobile content market than games or erotica. An adult content aggregator said the introduction of age verification systems had made it easier to sell what the industry calls 'erotica' or adult content - and you'd call mobile porn - in Europe.
(BBC) Music phones are emerging as the quality players in mobile entertainment. Some of the models on show at Europe's largest mobile phone show, 3GSM, already look slick enough to nudge MP3 players off the shelf. The secret of their success is that phones can now become mass-storage devices, using tiny, removable memory chips many gigabytes in size that can take thousands of tracks. Some have embedded memory that can hold yet more.
(vnunet.com) Vodafone has secured deals with three of the web's highest-profile brands to enable Vodafone Live customers to access mobile versions of MySpace, YouTube and eBay. Applications can be downloaded to existing handsets, and future phones will have the software embedded.
(CNET News) Microsoft has flipped the switch on an IE7 feature that displays Web sites with new security. The software giant made a change that allowed Web sites fitted with a new type of security certificate to display a green-filled address bar in IE 7. This is a new weapon in the fight against phishing scams and is meant as a sign that a site can be trusted, giving Web surfers the green light to carry out transactions there.
(CNET News) A Microsoft-sponsored open-source project is to release a translator that will convert file formats between Microsoft Office and rival standard OpenDocument, or ODF. The plug-in will work with Microsoft's Word application, including the latest Office 2007 version as well the Office 2003 and Office XP editions, Microsoft said. Once installed, a person can open and save documents in the ODF format from Word.
(Heise) Acht von zehn Kindern haben nach einer aktuellen Umfrage bereits Erfahrungen mit dem Computer gesammelt. Dabei liege der Anteil bei Jungen (85 Prozent) um neun Prozentpunkte höher als bei den Mädchen (76 Prozent), wie der Medienpädagogische Forschungsverbund Südwest (mpfs) als Auftraggeber der KIMStudie 2006 mitteilte. Befragt wurden 1200 Kinder im Alter zwischen 6 und 13 Jahren und deren Erziehungsberechtigte. Der Forschungsverbund ist ein Projekt der Landesanstalt für Kommunikation Baden-Württemberg (LFK) und der Landeszentrale für Medien und Kommunikation Rheinland-Pfalz (LMK).
(ZDNet France) Une nouvelle étude sur le téléchargement montre que les internautes téléchargeant illégalement sont toujours les plus nombreux en France. Mais elle laisse apparaître qu´une amélioration des offres payantes pourrait inverser la tendance. [ copyright ]
(thinkbroadband.com) The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) held an award ceremony to celebrate the winners of the ISPA 2007 UK Internet Awards. The Internet Watch Foundation Award was handed to The Home Secretary's Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet for their multi-agency forum of a vast array of experts to contribute towards policies and good practice documents which in turn help make the Internet safer for children. The Corporate Social Responsibility Award was awarded to Orange for its support for the Internet industry through its work with the National High Tech Crime Unit and the Home Office. The Internet Villain award however was given to Commissioner Viviane Reding and the European Commission for producing 'the most arcane set of rules yet seen for prior registration of .eu domains, requiring UK registered companies to submit legal affidavits to justify the authenticity of their business.' The final award, Internet Hero, was given to Annie Mullins from Vodafone for her work with the Home Office Task Force on Protection of Children on the Internet and the EU's Safer Internet Programme.
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