QuickLinks Update

EU - The i2010 Agenda - a European Success story in the making

2008-05-15T17:37:00.001+02:00

(Europa)
Speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media. i2010 Conference - Information Society at a Crossroads, Brdo, 13 May 2008.

EU - Video games: let's go for PEGI Plus!

2008-05-15T17:35:00.000+02:00

(Europa)
Speecgh by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, Annual Conference Interactive Software Federation of Europe, Brussels, 7 May 2008

The Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances

2008-05-15T14:16:00.001+02:00

(PC World)
It's great to keep in touch with your friends and colleagues, but does the price have to be spam, zombie bites, and friend invitations from people you've never heard of?

JP - Government plans blocking of child porn sites

2008-05-15T14:11:00.000+02:00

(Yomiuri Shimbun)
The ruling parties in Japan will introduce legislation for Internet service providers to block access to child pornography sites with major providers in favor of the move. Under the blocking system, Internet service providers would use special software to block access to Web sites included on a police list of child porn sites, including sites using overseas servers. Britain, Italy, Sweden and other countries have already implemented such a system, and it is claimed the approach has been effective in limiting child porn on the Web.

FR - Nadine Morano : �Interdire l'acc�s aux sites p�dophiles�

2008-05-15T13:58:00.002+02:00

(Le Figaro)
La secrétaire d'État à la Famille s'apprête à prendre une série de mesures pour mieux protéger les enfants de la cybercriminalité. "Je rencontre aujourd'hui les fournisseurs d'accès à Internet pour qu'ils interdisent l'accès à tous les sites pédopornographiques et illégaux recensés sur une liste noire établie par le ministère de l'Intérieur. Cette pratique existe déjà dans d'autres pays comme la Grande-Bretagne, la Suède, la Norvège".

Digital Natives project

2008-05-15T13:31:00.004+02:00

Does it make sense to talk about a distinctive global culture of young people - Digital Natives - who have only known life in a digital age? An academic research team - joining people from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland - is working on a research project on Digital Natives. The focus of this research is on exploring the impacts of this generational demarcation between those born with these technologies and those who were not. See also Digital Natives session at Berkman@10. List of 9 myths floating through the ether about how young people use new technologies.

Anyone can have a social site now

2008-05-15T12:03:00.002+02:00

(Net Family News)
Google has announced Friend Connect, allowing people to add social-networking features to any existing blog or Web site for free. So now it's really true that there could be as many social-networking sites in the world as there are Internet users. Because we've arrived at where creating a blog, a Web page, or a social-networking site is as cut-'n'-paste a proposition as using Word. But let's think about the child-safety implications too. Have the US's state attorneys general thought about age verification for every young Web site owner or blogger and somehow making them as well as MySpace and Facebook impose it on every visitor to their sites? The other issue hardly anybody in the US talks about is how international the social Web is. Do US attorneys general think any law or technology could require overseas sites to verify the ages of US-based users? See also Google to Connect Friends Across the Web (Washington Post) and MySpace, Facebook, et al: Data portability.

AU - Cyber bullying an issue for Australian youth, poll finds

2008-05-14T18:24:00.001+02:00

(theage.com.au)
Cyber bullying is affecting more than one in five young Australians, said the annual Youth Poll survey. The internet plays a critical role in the lives of 15- to 20-year-olds, with 64 per cent having a social network site such as MySpace or Facebook. But 22 per cent had been harassed or bullied online.

AU - Budget provides policing for internet safety

2008-05-14T18:17:00.002+02:00

(Press Release)
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, has announced a targeted plan to create a safer online environment for Australian children. The Government's cyber-safety funding will provide $49 million to law enforcement, ensuring that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Child Protection Operations Team can expand its capacity to detect and investigate online child abuse, with 91 additional AFP members dedicated to online child protection by 2011. Central to the Government?s plan to make the internet a safer place for children is the introduction of Internet Service Provider (ISP) level filtering of material such as child pornography. The ISP filtering policy is being developed through an informed and considered approach, including a laboratory trial, extensive industry consultation, and close examination of overseas models to assess their suitability for Australia. In addition, the Government is developing a range of measures to help empower children to be responsible online participants. It will provide parents, teachers, trainee teachers, librarians and children with up-to-date, comprehensive and age-appropriate online cyber-safety resources and assistance.

US - Age verification not the 'killer app'

2008-05-14T18:09:00.002+02:00

(Net Family news)
ConnectSafely.org was invited to join the Internet Safety Task Force that is part of MySpace's settlement with 49 state attorneys general. One of the Task Force's main goals is to see if age verification technology can be used to protect minors. The Task Force's first meeting - was attended by Internet companies including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, AOL, Google, and Yahoo, age- and identity-verification companies, and online-safety organizations. Larry Magid wonders if such technology would be helpful even if it could be employed. See his commentary at CBSNEWS.com.

Google blurs the privacy issue

2008-05-14T17:56:00.002+02:00

(Guardian)
Google is hoping to avoid a fight with European privacy campaigners as it prepares to launch its controversial Street View service this side of the Atlantic later in the year, by introducing new technology that blurs the faces of people its cameras inadvertently snap while scanning the streets.

EU - Commission clears TomTom's proposed acquisition of digital map provider Tele Atlas

2008-05-14T17:37:00.001+02:00

(RAPID)
The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Tele Atlas by TomTom, both of the Netherlands. Tele Atlas is a provider of navigable digital maps and TomTom produces portable navigation devices (PNDs - often known as satellite navigation devices or SatNavs).

EU - BECTA to appeal about Microsoft Interoperability issue

2008-05-14T17:06:00.002+02:00

(ITProPortal.com)
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) is going forward with plans to appeal to the European Commission over the interoperability of Microsoft Products that are commonly used in the UK Education sector. BECTA has been pursuing two separate complaints, one regarding the way Microsoft licenses its products to schools and the other with regards to compatibility problems that have been plaguing Office 2007, especially when it comes to backward compatibility with Microsoft's own Office 2003 and Microsoft Works.

US - MySpace wins bumper spam payout

2008-05-14T17:04:00.000+02:00

(BBC)
MySpace has won a $234m legal judgement over junk messages sent to members of the social networking site. Victory in the case was awarded to MySpace after Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, the men behind the junk mail, failed to show up in court. The judgement is thought to be the largest ever given against senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail. However, anti-spam experts said MySpace had little chance of getting the cash it sought.

EU - L-Luxembourg: language barriers in the information society

2008-05-14T16:24:00.000+02:00

(TED)
2008/S 91-122817. The study should investigate how the language affects the accessing, understanding and exploiting of online services and content: what are the (lost) opportunities that could be seized by offering the content and services in the language of the user? What are the remaining technical, institutional, economic and cultural barriers for cross-lingual access? What are the expectations of the users in terms of language coverage? The study should describe, by solid quantitative indicators, how the multilingual dimension is currently addressed in the online domain, identify problems, trends and provide recommendations for the future. The budget foreseen is a maximum of EUR 200 000. Time-limit for receipt of tenders : 20.6.2008 (16:00).

Penguins offer safer surfing

2008-05-14T12:00:00.001+02:00

(FT)
Club Penguin, the virtual online world for six- to 14-year-olds is rapidly growing into a global phenomenon. Club Penguin has 20m users and analysts estimate up to 10 per cent of them have persuaded parents to pay about �4 a month for souped-up access to the site. Safety features were a big selling point from the outset. Club Penguin employs more than 100 moderators who monitor the site for unsafe behaviour. They are trained to spot bullying, or attempts to share contact details. Pictures cannot be posted on the site. Instead, children are represented by a colourful penguin. Filtering software prevents phone numbers being published.

FR - Passeports biom�triques : avis d�favorable de la CNIL

2008-05-14T09:57:00.001+02:00

(Le Monde)
Le gouvernement est passé outre l'avis de la Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) en créant le nouveau passeport biométrique, qui devra contenir, outre une photo numérisée, les empreintes digitales de huit doigts. Selon la CNIL, dont l'avis du 11 décembre 2007 a été publié au Journal officiel du 10 mai, "un sujet d'une telle importance devait passer devant le Parlement et nous n'avons pas obtenu les éléments qui permettent de justifier la création de cette banque de données", a résumé à l'AFP son président, Alex Türk.

UK - Web users back code for bloggers

2008-05-14T09:50:00.000+02:00

(Guardian)
Nearly half of all internet users would support a voluntary code of conduct for bloggers and online commentators, according to research. A survey by legal firm DLA Piper said 46% of web users think bloggers should sign up to a code that reflected the laws on defamation, intellectual property and incitement, with 15% ambivalent and 4% strongly opposed.

UK - Ofcom defends 9pm watershed

2008-05-14T09:47:00.001+02:00

(Guardian)
Ofcom has dismissed claims by a group of MPs that the 9pm watershed is failing to protect young children because they can now access television online. Giving evidence at a culture, media and sport committee hearing, the Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards, denied the regulator had put itself in an "impossible and absurd position" by not doing more to regulate objectionable content on the web. Richards was responding to claims made by Nigel Evans, the Ribble Valley conservative MP, who argued that Ofcom's powers over broadcasting should be more rigorously applied to internet content. The cross-party group of MPs raised concerns about services such as the BBC iPlayer, which make it possible for anyone to view post-watershed content at any time of the day. The Ofcom partner for content and standards, Stuart Purvis, said a lot of the responsibility rested with parents to make sure their children were not watching inappropriate material.

FR - De nouvelles solutions pour prot�ger les enfants du Net

2008-05-14T09:40:00.000+02:00

(Le Parisien)
MSN, la messagerie instantanée utilisée par 70 % des jeunes internautes français, lance officiellement aujourd'hui un nouveau logiciel gratuit de contrôle parental. Ce dernier était très attendu par les associations de lutte pour la protection des mineurs sur Internet. Il va enfin permettre aux parents de contrôler - à distance et en direct - tout nouvel « ami » qui voudrait entrer en contact avec leur enfant.

FR - Les gendarmes lancent leur premier appel � t�moins sur Internet

2008-05-14T09:34:00.001+02:00

(01net)
La gendarmerie nationale met en ligne un site consacré à une affaire criminelle, afin de recueillir de nouveaux témoignages ou indices. Une première en France alors que cette pratique a déjà cours à l'étranger, en Allemagne par exemple. L'opération a reçu l'aval du juge d'instruction chargé de l'enquête, et le ministère de la Justice finance l'opération.

UK - Facebook users warned about ads

2008-05-12T19:42:00.000+02:00

(BBC)
Credit companies are using the Facebook social networking site to target young people, a debt charity has warned. Credit Action says adverts promising cheap loans for people with poor credit ratings are appearing on the site and many break advertising regulations. In particular, they are promoting two new products - payday loans secured against a salary or logbook loans secured against a car.

New issue of QuickLinks

2008-05-12T17:09:00.000+02:00

no. 387 - 12 May 2008

European Commission launches public consultation on EU Roaming Regulation

2008-05-12T15:32:00.001+02:00

(RAPID)
the European Commission invites feedback by industry, consumers and other interested stakeholders to review the functioning and effectiveness of the EU Roaming Regulation, which entered into force on 30 June 2007. According to the provisions of the Regulation, the Commission must report to the European Parliament and the Council in 2008 about the functioning of the new roaming rules and their effects. The public consultation aims to gather responses from mobile operators, businesses, consumer associations and any interested party by 2 July 2008.

Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits

2008-05-12T15:28:00.000+02:00

(USA TODAY)
Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites have been the rage of the tech industry for more than a year. Following investments by Microsoft and News Corp., the companies are valued in the billions of dollars and are considered blueprints for how to build a website. Yet a deeper question lingers: How are they going to consistently produce profits to match their soaring valuations?