Internet and IP Law Roundup: Internet Law Archives

September 06, 2008

Comcast Sues FCC, Says Net Neutrality Order Legally Inappropriate

Comcast Sues FCC, Says Net Neutrality Order Legally Inappropriate:

Comcast has filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today in order to block the agency's decision to sanction Comcast for blocking certain Internet traffic.

Comcast has released the following statement attributed to David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation:

"Although we are seeking review and reversal of the Commission's network management order in federal court, we intend to comply fully with the requirements established in that order, which essentially codify the voluntary commitments that we have already announced, and to continue to act in accord with the Commission's Internet Policy Statement. Thus, we intend to make the required filings and disclosures, and we will follow through on our longstanding commitment to transition to protocol-agnostic network congestion management practices by the end of this year. We also remain committed to bringing our customers a superior Internet experience.

We filed this appeal in order to protect our legal rights and to challenge the basis on which the Commission found that Comcast violated federal policy in the absence of pre-existing legally enforceable standards or rules. We continue to recognize that the Commission has jurisdiction over Internet service providers and may regulate them in appropriate circumstances and in accordance with appropriate procedures. However, we are compelled to appeal because we strongly believe that, in this particular case, the Commission's action was legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record."

The formal petition can be seen here [PDF].

Update 9/4/2008: Statement of Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge: "We expected Comcast would appeal the Commission's order. The company opposed it every step of the way, even as they failed to disclose their throttling of Internet traffic. We believe the Commission will prevail and the rights of Internet users will be protected."

Update 9/4/2008: Martin responds to Comcast lawsuit: we still want answers

Elsewhere: BroadbandReports, GigaOm, Bits NYT

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More under: Access Providers, Broadband, Law, Net Neutrality, P2P, Policy & Regulation

Posted by mikki at 11:12 PM | Permalink

July 24, 2008

UDRP decision against 11 year old boy

Once upon a time in Narnia, a little Scots boy lost a battle with corporate lawyers … - The Scotsman:

AN 11-YEAR-OLD boy was last night ordered by a court to hand back his birthday present – a Narnia-based website address – after one of the biggest legal firms in the world said it belonged to its multi-millionaire client.
Comrie Saville-Smith, from Edinburgh, an avid fan of the CS Lewis novels, was given the domain name narnia.mobi as a gift by his parents after it became available online.

But yesterday the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Switzerland ruled in favour of New York-based law firm Baker & McKenzie, representing Lewis's estate, that the name belonged to its client.

Last night Gillian Saville-Smith, Comrie's mother and a writer, described the decision as a "scandalously one-sided appraisal of the evidence" and added: "We are shocked by the decision. We put up a spirited fight because we wanted to prove that you do not have to hand something over just because someone richer and more powerful tell you to do so."

The family's international legal battle began in April, when they received an unexpected and irate telephone call from the US lawyers demanding they hand over the domain name and threatening legal action.

The Saville-Smiths refused and rejected the offer of a refund for the cost of the site, then another offer asking them to set their own price for the address.

Mrs Saville-Smith and her husband, Richard, a charity adviser and accountant, had paid £70 for the domain name from the internet registration company Fasthosts, keeping it as a surprise for their son's 11th birthday to coincide with release of the film of the second Narnia book last month.

They then received a 128-page legal document before the case went before the WIPO.

Responding to yesterday's judgment, Mrs Saville-Smith continued: "This decision by a one-man panel, supposed to be impartial, allows a multi-million-dollar company to seize a domain name purchased entirely legitimately by ourselves which has not been used in any way improperly or illegally.

"We provided clear statements and evidence to prove we had not profited, nor sought to, from this domain name – yet these statements and evidence have simply been ignored.

"Our lawyer has presided over 80 World Intellectual Property Organisation panels. It is clear from the judgment that the panel had pre-decided to award the decision to the CS Lewis Company.

"There was absolutely no evidence of a 'bad faith' registration put forward by the CS Lewis Company's lawyer's, which was required by the WIPO rules to find against us.

"Justice has not been served, and instead the interests of corporate power and money have wrongly triumphed. 'Narnia' had great meaning before its huge commercialisation in recent years and this judgment effectively says money, not the truth, is all that matters now regarding CS Lewis's magnificent fictional kingdom – despite the values and spirituality that originally lay behind it."

The Saville-Smiths said they could not afford to continue the legal fight.

Stranger than fiction? How the tale unfolded

30 APRIL: Law firm Baker & McKenzie calls and demands that the Saville-Smiths hand over the domain name.

5 MAY: Mr Saville-Smith writes to firm: "You seek an amicable settlement, but in your first contact you threaten my wife with legal action."

8 MAY: Law firm e-mails: "Please advise whether you would be willing to transfer the domain name to CS Lewis Pte Ltd."

8 MAY: Mr Saville-Smith replies: "I am not infringing their trademark, so I see no reason why I should to accede to your request."

Later that day the law firm contacts the family, saying: "What would you consider a reasonable offer?"

9 MAY: Mr Saville-Smith writes back: "We don't want to sell the domain name, as it is a special present for a ten-year-old boy."

28 MAY: The family receives a copy of a 128-page legal complaint filed with the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Switzerland.

Posted by mikki at 11:42 AM | Permalink

July 17, 2008

Good News from Three Spam Cases in the U.S.

Good News from Three Spam Cases in the U.S.:

They say (whoever "they" are) that good things come in threes, and that certainly seems true for law enforcement against spammers this week. In New York, Adam Vitale was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $183,000 in restitution for a week of spamming AOL back in 2005... In Illinois, an FTC settlement requires Spear Systems and company executives Bruce Parker and Lisa Kimsey to give up $29,000, stop making "false or unsubstantiated claims about health benefits" of their products, and bars them from violating CAN-SPAM ever again... And finally, in Seattle, the Robert Soloway case continues... More...

Posted by mikki at 04:04 PM | Permalink

June 27, 2008

ICANN Takes First Step to Becoming a Global Content Regulator

ICANN Takes First Step to Becoming a Global Content Regulator:

There has been wide coverage of ICANN's decision this week to adopt a new process for creating new global Top Level Domains (gTLDs). Publishing a clear, transparent and objective process is thought likely to result in a considerable expansion of gTLDs—although nobody really knows whether this means "quite a lot" or "many thousands”.
The decision endorses a 2007 report from GNSO Council, an ICANN structure that makes recommendations to the ICANN Board on gTLD policy.
Less attention has been given to one of the new tests ICANN will use when considering whether to approve a new gTLD, contained in GNSO's sixth recommendation:
Strings [meaning, new top level domain names] must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under international principles of law.
The report goes on to amplify on what it means by "generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order":
Examples of such principles of law include, but are not limited to, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, intellectual property treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS).
Quite why intellectual property is included as an issue of "morality and public order" alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't explained, and probably owes more to the lobbying power of the American music and film industry associations than anything else. That aside, not everybody is comfortable with ICANN making decisions on "morality and public order".
ICANN Board member Wendy Seltzer speaking for the At-Large Community (ALAC), that represents ordinary end users, commented:
[ALAC] expressed concern that putting these criteria into the gTLD approval process, even as opportunities for objection, injects ICANN into the business of making morality and public order decisions, or injects that into ICANN's processes in a way that, as ALAC put it, debases the ICANN process. And at-large does not want to see ICANN put into the business of adjudicating or even delegating the adjudication of morality or public order or community support. And so we hope that in implementation, these criteria can be kept sufficiently narrow so that they are both administrable and understandable and so that they do not involve ICANN, the organization, in making, or allowing to be made, determinations about any claim to generally accepted morality principles.
ICANN Board member Professor Susan Crawford agreed, going on to say:
[N]either national governments acting as sovereigns nor intergovernmental organizations acting as representatives of governments should participate in management of Internet names and addresses.
[...]
This wasn't done out of enthusiasm for the free market alone. The idea was also to avoid having sovereigns use the Domain Name System for their own content, control, desires. To avoid having the Domain Name System used as a choke point for content. Recommendation 6, which is the morality and public order recommendation, represents quite a sea change in this approach, because the recommendation is that strings must not be contrary to generally acceptable legal norms relating to morality and public order that are recognized under international principles of law. That's the language of the recommendation.
Now, if this is broadly implemented, this recommendation would allow for any government to effectively veto a string that made it uncomfortable. Having a government veto strings is not allowing the private sector to lead. It's allowing sovereigns to censor.
In the formal discussions, these issues are mainly debated in the abstract, but two key examples are bandied about in private: .jihad (which even the anti-censorship USA seems keen to prohibit) and .nazi (which is an example dear to the hearts of some European governments with strict anti-Nazi laws).
Civil libertarians supporting Susan Crawford's line argue that if governments are able to pressure ICANN into prohibiting .jihad (which has perfectly non-violent meanings in Islam as well as the terrorist connotations it has recently acquired in the West), then can a prohibition on .falun-gong be far behind?
Traditionalists among the Internet technical community might be less impressed with the cry to protect freedom of expression in top level domains, arguing that domain names—let alone top level domain names—are intended as identifiers in an addressing scheme, not as a medium of expression at all. However, even on this analysis there is cause for concern about the "morality string criterion"
Is it possible for a short phrase such as would be valid as a top level domain name to constitute an incitement to violence, or other generally accepted breach of public order, in and of itself? Does it not depend on how the domain is used? Does the objection to .nazi lie not so much in its identification of content that might relate to Nazi ideology and in history, but that it might be used by people sympathetic to the ideology?
Whether or not it is possible for a domain to inherently infringe principles of morality and public order, doesn't such a rule invite ICANN to investigate how such a domain might be used in any case? Surely it is inconceivable that ICANN would not consider the likely use of a domain. Is such an invitation a good idea? Do we really think ICANN is well equipped to perform this role?
If we accept that ICANN should consider the likely use of a top level domain, and weigh that against principles of morality and public order—not to mention intellectual property law—before deciding whether such a domain should exist, why should it stop there? Why shouldn't ICANN require the registries of gTLDs (including .com) to do the same at the second level? ICANN can impose terms on such registries by contract; the only thing that restrains it is a view that this is not ICANN's proper role or purpose. If we accept the principle that ICANN can adjudicate globally "generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order", why not require gTLD registries to enforce these principles at the second level? And why stop with new domains: wouldn't actual proof of "infringing" use be even more damning than speculation about how a new domain might be used in the future?
The string criteria debate may attract less attention than the creation of new TLDs, and may not immediately affect as many people as the introduction of Internationalised Domain Names. Nonetheless, history may yet come to view this as the watershed moment when the world first acquired a global Internet content regulator.
This article was cross-posted from the LINX Public Affairs blog

Posted by mikki at 12:07 PM | Permalink

Federal court enforces Facebook trade secret settlement with ConnectU

Federal court enforces Facebook trade secret settlement with ConnectU:

[JURIST] A US District Court for the Northern District of California judge Wednesday granted a motion to enforce a previous settlement agreement between two social networking websites, Facebook and ConnectU. The ruling effectively ends the two companies' ongoing legal battle concerning ownership of source code forming the basis of Facebook, the popular social networking site. The two sides had agreed on a settlement in February, but ConnectU had sought to annul that agreement, arguing that Facebook had committed fraud in the procurement, material terms were missing, and the agreement did not reflect the parties' intentions. Judge Ware rejected ConnectU's arguments of unclear terms and fraud, writing:

Posted by mikki at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Brand Owners Express Concern Over Introduction of New Top-Level Domains

Brand Owners Express Concern Over Introduction of New Top-Level Domains:

Monika Ermert reporting on Intellectual Property Watch says: "Some think ICANN should have moved much faster to introduce new names in the Internet to join the likes of .com and .org. Others moan about the widespread trademark infringement they expect to occur when the private internet governance body introduces several long-awaited new top-level domains. But the prospect of news about the next round in extending the global domain name space has brought them all to ICANN's Paris meeting that might emerge as the largest in the organisation's history." The ICANN Board will decide on Thursday which Top-Level Domains will move and which ones will not.

Posted by mikki at 10:10 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2008

Canadian DMCA will criminalize emailing your kids' class photos to their grandparents

Canadian DMCA will criminalize emailing your kids' class photos to their grandparents:

Michael Geist continues his ongoing series on activities that will be illegal under Canada's new copyright act, the so-called Canadian DMCA (Bill C-61). Today, backing up DVDs and scanning school photos:

Diane, who is four years old, is a huge fan of the popular TV character Dora the Explorer. For her birthday, she received four Dora DVDs. Given Diane’s habit of scratching them, her dad has begun to create backup versions. That day, Diane brings home her kindergarten class photo, which was taken by a local photographer. Josee digitizes the photo and sends a copy to Diane’s grandmother.
If Industry Minister Jim Prentice’s Bill C-61 becomes law, all of these copying activities arguably violate the law.
Bill C-61 does not allow users to make backup copies of DVDs. The act of backing up the DVD is an infringement. Moreover, in order to make the backup copy, users must typically circumvent the copy-protection on the DVD, also an act of infringement.
For decades, Canadian copyright law has vested copyright in commissioned photographs – like school photographs – in the person who commissions the photo. Bill C-61 reverses that practice so that copyright now belongs to the photographer. (repeal of Section 13.2) Assuming the photograph came with an all rights reserved restriction, the act of distributing the digitized photo to Diane’s grandmother now violates the law. (Section 29.21 (1)(e))

I'm pretty sure that every Canadian reading Boing Boing knows about this law and what's wrong with it, and I hope you've all contacted your MPs. But the point of these posts is to help you communicate to your less tech-savvy friends about these issues. Did you email your grandmother a photo of your kids' kindergarten photos? Call her up and tell her that you won't be able to do it again with the grade one pics next year unless she calls up her MP and puts him on notice that he'd better oppose the CDMCA or lose her vote. Did your brother back up his DVDs to his laptop when he went away to university? Call him now and let him know that he'll be a criminal next year unless he calls and writes to his MP and lets her know what he thinks of Bill C-61.

Link

Posted by mikki at 06:09 AM | Permalink

June 18, 2008

FTC Halts Cross Border Domain Name Con Artists

FTC Halts Cross Border Domain Name Con Artists:

A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered a halt to the illegal practices of Canadian operators who deceptively posed as domain name registrars and sent bogus bills to thousands of U.S. small businesses and nonprofit organizations for their annual "WEBSITE ADDRESS LISTING." Many of the businesses and nonprofits believed they would lose their domain names unless they paid the bill, so they paid. The Federal Trade Commission alleged that in most cases the defendants did not provide domain registration services, did not provide the "search optimization" services it claimed to provide, and bilked small businesses and nonprofits out of millions of dollars. More...

Posted by mikki at 12:39 PM | Permalink

June 11, 2008

CIRA Creates Backdoor WHOIS Exceptions for Police and IP Owners - Michael Geist

CIRA Creates Backdoor WHOIS Exceptions for Police and IP Owners:

Earlier this year, I wrote glowingly about the new CIRA whois policy, which took effect today and which I described as striking the right balance between access and privacy. The policy was to have provided new privacy protection to individual registrants — hundreds of thousands of Canadians — by removing the public disclosure of their personal contact information (though the information is collected and stored by domain name registrars).

Apparently I spoke too soon. Faced with the prospect of a privacy balance, special interests representing law enforcement and trademark holders quietly pressured CIRA to create a backdoor that will enable these two groups (and these two groups alone) to have special access to registrant information. In the case of law enforcement, police can bring cases to CIRA involving immediate risk to children or the Internet (ie. denial-of-service attacks) and CIRA will hand over registrant information without court oversight. In the case of trademark holders (as well as copyright and patent owners), claims that a domain name infringes their rights will be enough to allow CIRA to again disclose registrant information.

This represents a stunning about-face after years of public consultation on the whois policy. While the law enforcement exception appears to be narrowly tailored, the exception for trademark, copyright, and patent interests undermines a crucial part of the whois policy, namely compliance with Canadian privacy law (the policy now arguably violates the law) and the appropriate balance between privacy and access. For example, consider a Canadian that registers companysucks.ca (name your company) as a whistleblower site about a particular company. They understandably wish to remain anonymous to the general public since disclosure of their personal information could lead to negative repercussions. Under the new CIRA policy, if they use fake registrant information, they risk losing the domain. On the other hand, the backdoor exception means that the trademark holder can easily smoke out the identity of the registrant as CIRA will simply hand over this information.

Just over six weeks ago, CIRA celebrated its one millionth domain name registration and claimed world class status. Today, the organization has betrayed the very principles of consultation upon which it was built and sent a discouraging message that special interests matter more its own members.

Posted by mikki at 10:53 AM | Permalink

May 30, 2008

Yahoo Sues 'Lottery Spammers' -- Yahoo -- InformationWeek

Yahoo Sues 'Lottery Spammers' -- Yahoo -- InformationWeek:

Yahoo Sues 'Lottery Spammers'

The suit accuses the defendants of sending spam e-mails trying to trick people into divulging personal information by claiming they had won a prize from Yahoo.
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
May 27, 2008 01:23 PM
Yahoo on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against spammers trying to trick people into divulging personal information by claiming they had won a lottery or prize from the Web portal.
Yahoo filed the suit in U.S. District Court in New York, accusing defendants of violating the federal Trademark Act and Can-Spam Act and related state laws. The suit, which does not name specific defendants, was filed against "Yahoo lottery spammers."

Posted by mikki at 01:19 PM | Permalink

May 29, 2008

Comcast Domain Name Hacked, Website Breached for Several Hours

Comcast Domain Name Hacked, Website Breached for Several Hours:

Shortly before 11 p.m. EDT yesterday, Comcast users began noticing that Comcast.net had been hacked. More technically, early indications are that someone hacked Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions, changing the authoritative DNS servers for Comcast.net -- rerouting portal visitors to IP addresses in Germany or elsewhere. The front page of Comcast.net was replaced with a note saying the hackers had "RoXed" Comcast, according to postings at BroadbandReports.com. More...

Posted by mikki at 05:36 PM | Permalink

May 27, 2008

Canadian Domain Whois Policy Changes Face Opposition from Law Enforcement

Canadian Domain Whois Policy Changes Face Opposition from Law Enforcement:

Sweeping changes to Canada's country code top-level domain, .ca, will put the country on the vanguard of Internet privacy. But while law enforcement isn't happy about potentially losing an important investigative tool, the half-million Canadians whose personal information is currently publicly available on the Internet shouldn't rest easy that they are safe from wired snoops. More...

Posted by mikki at 02:42 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Sues Lottery Phishers -- Identities Unknown

Yahoo Sues Lottery Phishers -- Identities Unknown:

Yahoo sues an unknown group of defendants it alleges operated a lottery scam that invoked the internet company's name as a "coordinator." Yahoo has no idea who the people behind the scheme are, but hopes to find out from third-party e-mail companies during discovery.

Posted by mikki at 12:35 PM | Permalink

May 21, 2008

Switzerland high court upholds convictions for terror website operators

Switzerland high court upholds convictions for terror website operators:

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Switzerland [official website] Wednesday upheld the 2007 convictions of a married couple for supporting criminal activities by operating websites that published statements and video footage from al-Qaeda, including the 2004 beheading of American engineer Paul M. Johnson, Jr [Washington Post report]. Moez Garsallaoui was sentenced to six months in prison, while his wife Malika El Aroud was sentenced to a six-month prison term suspended for three years. At the 2007 trial, Garsallaoui denied knowledge of the beheading video, although he admitted to hosting other videos depicting violence, which he argued were protected by freedom of the press. Swiss authorities shut down the websites in 2005. AP has more.

The ease of transmitting videos over the Internet has given rise to new concerns about terror recruiting. On Monday, US Senator Joseph Lieberman sent a letter [text and press release] to Google [corporate website], asking the Internet giant to remove videos made by terrorist groups from its Youtube video service. On Tuesday, Google said that it had removed videos that incited hatred or violence [UPI report], but contended that others were protected speech.

Posted by mikki at 01:34 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2008

Most Spam Sites Linked to Just About 10 Domain Name Registrars

Most Spam Sites Linked to Just About 10 Domain Name Registrars:

New research suggests that more than three quarters of all websites advertised through spam are clustered at just 10 domain name registrars. The data comes from millions of junk messages collected over the past year by Knujon ("no junk" spelled backwards and pronounced "new john"), an anti-spam outfit that works by convincing registrars to dismantle spam sites. More...

Posted by mikki at 03:04 PM | Permalink

Identity Theft of Root Name Servers, Reason Unknown

Identity Theft of Root Name Servers, Reason Unknown:

There have been a number of attacks on the root name servers over the years, and much written on the topic. (A few references are here, here and here.) Even if you don't know exactly what these servers do, you can't help but figure they're important when the US government says it is prepared to launch a military counterattack in response to cyber-attacks on them. More...

Posted by mikki at 03:03 PM | Permalink

May 17, 2008

MySpace sexual assault suit dismissed - CNN.com

MySpace sexual assault suit dismissed - CNN.com:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Federal law gives MySpace.com immunity from a lawsuit over the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl by a man she met on the social networking Web site, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit that a Texas girl's family filed against MySpace and its parent company, News Corp. The family said MySpace didn't protect young users from sexual predators.

The appeals court ruled that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 bars such lawsuits against Web-based services like MySpace. A federal judge in Austin, Texas, dismissed the $30 million lawsuit on the same grounds last year.

"Parties complaining that they were harmed by a Web site's publication of user-generated content have recourse; they may sue the third-party user who generated the content, but not the interactive computer service that enabled them to publish the content online," Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote in the ruling.

The girl's family argued in the appeal that MySpace isn't immune from liability because it partially creates the content of its profiles. The appeals court refused to consider that argument because it wasn't presented in district court.

The 5th Circuit also noted that the girl, identified in court papers as Julie Doe, circumvented the Web site's safety features when she lied about her age. The girl was 13 but misrepresented herself as 18 years old when she created a MySpace profile in 2005. MySpace requires its users to be at least 14.

The girl was 14 when authorities say a 19-year-old man she met on MySpace sexually assaulted her in a Texas parking lot. The man was later indicted on a sexual assault charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

MySpace applauded the court's ruling and said it "takes the safety and security of our members very seriously."

"However, a lawsuit against MySpace was not the appropriate way to redress any harm to Julie Doe," the company said. "We continue to make our site even safer by creating new features and educating our users about online safety."

Gregory Coleman, a lawyer for the girl's family, said he was disappointed but needed more time to review the ruling before he could comment.

Posted by mikki at 10:34 AM | Permalink

May 15, 2008

Study: Cox, Comcast Internet Subscribers Blocked

Study: Cox, Comcast Internet Subscribers Blocked:

It sure looks like Cox and Comcast are blocking file-sharing connections. The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbruecken, Germany surveyed 8,175 Internet users around the world and found conclusive evidence of the practice at only three ISPs, including StarHub in Singapore.

Posted by mikki at 12:36 PM | Permalink

May 14, 2008

Google Officially Announces Introduction of IPv6

Google Officially Announces Introduction of IPv6:

Google search is available over IPv6 at ipv6.google.com (you'll need an IPv6 connection to view it)... From the official blog: "We hope that by allowing every computer and mobile device on the network to talk to each other directly -- an idea known as the "end-to-end principle" that was crucial to the original design of the Internet -- IPv6 will allow the continued growth of the Internet and enable new applications yet to be invented." More...

Posted by mikki at 02:36 PM | Permalink

NATO Nations Sign Agreement on Cyber Defense Center

NATO Nations Sign Agreement on Cyber Defense Center:

Seven NATO nations gave their backing on Wednesday to a new cyber defense centre in Estonia, the ex-Soviet state which last year faced weeks of attacks on its Internet structure after a row with Russia. Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Spain agreed to help fund and staff the centre in the Estonian capital Tallinn. The United States will initially send an observer to the project, aimed at boosting defenses against such attacks. More...

Posted by mikki at 01:44 PM | Permalink

MySpace Wins $234 Million Spam Judgment

MySpace Wins $234 Million Spam Judgment:

MySpace has won a $234 million judgment over junk messages sent to its members in what is believed to be the largest anti-spam award ever. A federal judge ruled against two of the Internet's most prominent spam defendants, Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, after the two failed to show up at a court hearing Monday. Wallace earned the monikers "Spam King" and "Spamford" as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s.

Posted by mikki at 12:06 PM | Permalink

MySpace Gets $230 Million Judgment Against 'Spam King'. Good Luck Collecting.

MySpace Gets $230 Million Judgment Against 'Spam King'. Good Luck Collecting.:

A federal judge orders "Spam King" Sanford Wallace and his partner to pay MySpace about $230 million in what is believed to be the largest anti-spam judgment ever. The tough part, of course, is collecting one thin dime from the pair, who lost the case when they just didn't bother to show up to court.

Posted by mikki at 12:05 PM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Fourth Circuit Gives Boost to Spammers

Fourth Circuit Gives Boost to Spammers:

An recent decision by the Fourth Circuit held that a federal anti-spamming law protects spammers by shielding them against state anti-spam laws. The federal CAN-SPAM Act, which provides remedies against some spammers, contains a provision that preempts state anti-spam laws,...

Posted by mikki at 06:31 PM | Permalink

October 16, 2006

Wal-Mart loses case for control of boycottwalmart.com | The Register

Wal-Mart loses case for control of boycottwalmart.com | The Register:

The world's largest retailer Wal-Mart has failed in its attempt to gain control of the web address boycottwalmart.com. An arbitration panel has ruled that it was unlikely that visitors would be confused and think that it was a Wal-Mart site.
Domain name disputes are settled by the arbitration panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). That body has ruled that Wal-Mart cannot have control of the disputed domain.

The domain is controlled by Traffic Yoon of South Korea, a company which put up no defence in the case. Wal-Mart argued that the domain name was "confusingly similar" to its own addresses, which is not permitted.
"Since [Wal-Mart's] mark is embedded in the disputed domain name, it is hard to say there is no similarity, but finding that the disputed domain name is similar to the Complainant’s marks is not sufficient," said the WIPO decision. "The critical question in this Panel’s view on this aspect of the Policy is whether the similarity is “confusing”."

Posted by mikki at 05:24 PM | Permalink

October 04, 2006

Google ducks a legal bullet | Perspectives | CNET News.com

Google ducks a legal bullet | Perspectives | CNET News.com:

In the mostly uncharted territory of Internet jurisprudence, Google's policy of selling keywords has won a legal reprieve--at least for now.

A recent court ruling says Google is within its rights to include Internet links from competitors to a trademark holder when people search on the corporate name.

In a trademark lawsuit, computer franchiser Rescuecom had complained that when people typed its name into the Google search engine, the results would include URLs from competing Web sites. While U.S. District Court Judge Norman Mordue accepted the allegations in the trademark lawsuit Rescuecom filed against Google as true, he still dismissed the case.

Posted by mikki at 11:44 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2006

Yahoo! sued by dating site over Google keywords | OUT-LAW.COM

Yahoo! sued by dating site over Google keywords | OUT-LAW.COM:

Yahoo! is being sued for allegedly paying to trigger adverts when a dating site's name is typed into Google. The owner of Lovecity.com accuses Yahoo!, which also runs a dating service, and three other companies, of infringing its trade marks.

Advertising words in Google have stirred up recent controversy as companies use similar techniques to gain an edge on competitors. Courts have given mixed rulings so far in cases involving such brands as Geico, Zocor and Edina Realty.

In the Yahoo! case, JP Enterprises says that Yahoo!, HDVE LLC, Spark Networks and Insight Direct USA are guilty of trade mark dilution and infringement. It claims that anyone typing "www.lovecity.com", "lovecity" or "lovecity.com" into the search engine is presented with adverts on the side of the page detailing the services of the named competing companies.

Posted by mikki at 12:25 PM | Permalink

June 02, 2006

Morgan Stanley takes domain name from cat | The Register

Morgan Stanley takes domain name from cat | The Register:

A cat has lost its bid to retain a controversial domain name after a multinational investment bank took it to the National Arbitration Forum.

Baroness Penelope Cat of Nash DCB, who is listed as the owner of mymorganstanleyplatinum.com and was given some assistance in the case by Michael Woods, lost control of the domain to Morgan Stanley.

A key part of the case rested on whether or not Baroness Penelope was truly the owner of the domain. The first indication that the decision was unlikely to veer cat-wards came in the written decision of Arbitration Forum Panellist Richard Hill.

"Respondent maintains that it is a cat, that is, a well-known carnivorous quadruped which has long been domesticated," summarised Hill. "However, it is equally well-known that the common cat, whose scientific name is Felis domesticus, cannot speak or read or write."

Baroness Penelope argued in its submission that "the registration information is not false; there are an immense number of Domain Names registered by non human beings".

Hill was not to be swayed, however. "A common cat could not have submitted the Response (or even have registered the disputed domain name)," he wrote. "Therefore, either Respondent is a different species of cat, such as the one that stars in the motion picture 'Cat From Outer Space,' or Respondent's assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect."

"If Respondent is in fact a cat from outer space, then it should have so indicated in its reply, in order to avoid unnecessary perplexity by the Panel."

In order to retain the domain name, Baroness Penelope had to fulfill three criteria. Having failed the first two, the case rested on whether or not having a cat as a registered owner of a domain constituted "bad faith". Hill ruled that it did.

Baroness Penelope was uncontactable for comment at the time of going to press.

See: the ruling

Posted by mikki at 12:14 PM | Permalink

March 21, 2006

Google Sued Over Page Rank

Google Sued Over Page Rank:

Technology & Marketing Law Blog: Google Sued Over Rankings - KinderStart.com v. Google.

Posted by mikki at 09:31 PM | Permalink

March 20, 2006

CIRA Suspends Participation in ICANN

CIRA Suspends Participation in ICANN:

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has issued a public letter to ICANN calling on the organization to follow accountable, transparent, and fair processes. Until the concerns are addressed, CIRA says it is suspending its voluntary contributions to ICANN... more...

Posted by mikki at 11:37 AM | Permalink

March 17, 2006

Google, AOL still working out details of business deal

Google, AOL still working out details of business deal:

Blog: Google and America Online are still working out the details of their renewed business relationship. According to documents Google...

Posted by mikki at 07:19 AM | Permalink

March 16, 2006

EarthLink invests $50 million in Covad | CNET News.com

EarthLink invests $50 million in Covad | CNET News.com:

EarthLink said Thursday that it has made a $50 million equity investment in Covad Communications Group to fund the expansion of the companies' co-developed voice services to eight new markets.

As part of the deal, EarthLink will receive $10 million in Covad common shares and $40 million in convertible debt, due in 2011.

Covad, a broadband access wholesaler, will use the money to fund infrastructure construction so that EarthLink can offer its line-powered voice service using the Covad network in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

Posted by mikki at 06:33 PM | Permalink

March 15, 2006

What Right in Digital Actors?

What Right in Digital Actors?:

A Copyfight reader pointed me to a Slate story on digital thespians. Epstein talks about two kinds of digital creations: wholly new 'synthespians' as well as digitized representations of actual actors (Tom Hanks for Polar Express; Sean Connery for the From Russia with Love game). Although the technical hurdles to such captures remain quite large - especially if your goal is true-to-life, fool-an-audience reproduction - the reader's question was different.

To wit: what rights do you purchase/license/contract for in creating such a reproduction of a real person? Rights to the "likeness?" Performance rights? Do either of these cover things the actor never physically did or said? Is there an exclusivity clause? There are clearly some issues around the ownership of a character, if that character has appeared before (e.g. Connery's Bond) but usually the character rights reside with the studio. But if you want the Connery Bond instead of a generic James Bond you also have to incude Connery in the deal, as well as whatever studio or estate has the Bond character rights.

IANAL, but I'm hoping some of my readers are or can point me to resources from people who've actually worked in this area.

Posted by mikki at 10:21 AM | Permalink

March 14, 2006

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google set for court in data spat

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google set for court in data spat:

Google is to take on the US government in court on Tuesday as the internet search engine fights demands to hand over records and lists of data.
The Justice Department wants Google to provide a week's worth of search records, saying it needs the data to help it better police cyberspace.

But Google complains that complying with the request would compromise its business and the privacy of its users.

Similar requests were made of other net firms such as Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL.

Posted by mikki at 02:09 PM | Permalink

UltraDNS Extends Leading Managed DNS Service Behind the Corporate Firewall

UltraDNS Extends Leading Managed DNS Service Behind the Corporate Firewall:

Managed internal DNS service provides a high performance, cost-effective solution to address the increased complexity of corporate IP networks. more...

Posted by mikki at 12:48 PM | Permalink

Answers from Vint Cerf: The Road Ahead for Top-Level Domains

Answers from Vint Cerf: The Road Ahead for Top-Level Domains:

Earlier this year we requested your questions on one of ICANN's most heated discussions -- issues involving top-level domains (TLDs) -- which we passed on to Vint Cerft, Google's VP and Chief Internet Evangelist and chairman of the board of ICANN. Despite an understandably heavy schedule, Vint Cerf has taken the time to personally respond to more questions than we had originally anticipated. So with a special thanks, here are his responses. more...

Posted by mikki at 12:45 PM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Yahoo To Ban Bidding On Competitor Trademarks To Stop Comparison Advertising

Yahoo To Ban Bidding On Competitor Trademarks To Stop Comparison Advertising:

Yahoo No Longer Allow Bidding On Trademarked Terms on our SEW Forums has news that Yahoo will no longer be allowing companies to purchase ads linked to the trademarks of their competitors. From what's being sent to advertisers:

On March 1, 2006, Yahoo! Search Marketing will modify its editorial guidelines regarding the use of keywords containing trademarks. Previously, we allowed competitive advertising by allowing advertisers to bid on third-party trademarks if those advertisers offered detailed comparative information about the trademark owner's products or services in comparison to the competitive products and services that were offered or promoted on the advertiser's site.

In order to more easily deliver quality user experiences when users search on terms that are trademarks, Yahoo! Search Marketing has determined that we will no longer allow bidding on keywords containing competitor trademarks.

Posted by mikki at 03:16 PM | Permalink

February 05, 2006

Warner Brothers Loses DaisyDukes.com Complaint

Warner Brothers Loses DaisyDukes.com Complaint:

Warner Brothers Entertainment, which owns the rights to The Dukes of Hazzard and related characters, including DAISY DUKE, failed in its UDRP case against the registrant of the domain name DaisyDukes.com. The Panelist determined that although WB had common law rights in the DAISY DUKE mark and the registrant lacked rights and legitimate interests in the DaisyDukes.com domain name, WB failed to demonstrate that the registrant had registered and used the domain name in bad faith. more...

Posted by mikki at 12:08 PM | Permalink

January 25, 2006

Very good "fair use" opinion re Google's cache

Very good "fair use" opinion re Google's cache:

A district court in Nevada has rejected the claim that Google’s cache violates copyright law. The opinion is grounded both on “fair use” and implied license. The “fair use” part of the opinion is fantastic. But interestingly, the “implied license” part of the opinion weakens any such claim in the context of Google Book Search.

Posted by mikki at 10:47 PM | Permalink

WIPO Responds to Significant Cybersquatting Activity In 2005

WIPO Responds to Significant Cybersquatting Activity In 2005:

In a report released today, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced a 20% increase in the number of cybersquatting (abusive registration of trademarks as domain names) cases filed in 2005 as compared to 2004. The report further indicates that "in 2005, a total of 1,456 cybersquatting cases were filed with WIPO's Arbitration and Mediation Center. This increase represents the highest number of cybersquatting cases handled by the WIPO Center since 2001."

Posted by mikki at 10:39 PM | Permalink

January 20, 2006

Domain Name Containing Trademark Translation is Determined Confusingly Similar

Domain Name Containing Trademark Translation is Determined Confusingly Similar:

Interesting WIPO case (D2005-1085): Complainant (Saint-Exupery estate) owns "Le Petit Prince" in EU, US, and other countries. The translation of "Le Petit Prince" is "The little prince". Respondent registered 'thelittleprince.com'. Is such a domain name confusingly similar to the trademark?

Posted by mikki at 12:20 PM | Permalink

January 13, 2006

The Million TM-infringement homepage? (Wendy Seltzer)

The Million TM-infringement homepage? (Wendy Seltzer):

excerpt from Million Dollar Homepage How many trademark infringements can you spot in the The Million Dollar Homepage? Among all the ads for free porn, free domain names, and free gambling (only the first click is free), I spot least eBay and Yahoo! logos that don't go to those companies' websites. I can't tell whether they're associated listing services, click-through affiliate links, or phishing expeditions, but I imagine the companies would have a decent trademark claim against someone who used the logos for unrelated commercial gain. Even those offering companion services, such as eBay listing facilitators, might not win with a TM fair use defense.

See this Washington Post story for more on the site and its bubble-story.

Posted by mikki at 06:46 PM | Permalink

January 06, 2006

law.com - Chat Room Chatter Draws Lawsuit

law.com - Chat Room Chatter Draws Lawsuit:

Do the courts have jurisdiction over what people say in Internet chat rooms?

That question is being played out in what some lawyers claim is a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Ohio, where a man claims he was humiliated online in an Internet chat room, and has filed a lawsuit over the incident.

The plaintiff, George Gillespie of Medina County, Ohio, is suing America Online for allegedly failing to do anything about the abuse he endured in the chat room, and the two chat room participants who allegedly caused him emotional distress by teasing him. Gillespie v. America Online, No. 05CIV1255 (Medina Co., Ohio, Ct. C.P.).

According to court documents, the chat room participants "acted in an outrageous manner, which they knew or should have known would cause serious emotional distress to the plaintiff ... The Defendants' conduct was so extreme and contemptible as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency."

Posted by mikki at 01:22 PM | Permalink

December 30, 2005

Man Pleads Guilty to Rolling Own Botnet - John Quarterman

Man Pleads Guilty to Rolling Own Botnet:

A man, Anthony Scott Clark,
rolled his own botnet, using a worm to take over 20,000 computers,
which he then used to launch a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack
on eBay and others in July and August 2003.
Now he's

plead guilty in U.S. District Court in San Jose, 27 December 2005.
He could get 10 years in prison, a quarter million dollar fine, etc.,
notes
Paul Ferguson.

It's good that a bot herder got caught and may get time.
But this one was unusual, indiscreet, and probably easier to catch than most.

Apparently he actually sent the worm out himself and used the resulting
very large botnet himself.
Most bot herders don't do that.
They use off the shelf software,
they build smaller botnets, and they sell access to them to third parties
which then use them for spamming, phishing, pharming, DDoS, or whatever.
So this guy stuck his head up too high and got caught.
Let's see some harder cases get caught, too.

The worm used a Windows bug; no surprise.
Once again,
software diversity
would make this sort of thing more difficult.

The worm was controled via Internet Relay Chat (IRC),
the bot herder's communication medium of choice.
Nothing new in that.

Any convictions of bot herders may help convince them to move on to some
safer field of crime, but the law is still a slow blunt instrument and
this time caught only the most obvious of suspects.

-jsq

Posted by mikki at 08:31 PM | Permalink

Google Sued for Trademark Infringement Based on Third-Level Subdomain

Google Sued for Trademark Infringement Based on Third-Level Subdomain:

It's no surprise that Google has been sued again for trademark infringement, but the basis of this lawsuit is surprising. Rather than another lawsuit over the sale of trademarked keywords to deliver ads (along the lines of the GEICO, American Blinds, Rescuecom and JTH Tax cases, or the dozens of international lawsuits), this lawsuit is based on a Blogspot blog URL. Because of its comparative novelty, this lawsuit raises some complex and unsettled legal issues.

Posted by mikki at 08:26 PM | Permalink

December 06, 2005

Is a Domain Name Property?

Is a Domain Name Property?:

In an article by Sheldon Burshtein, published in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, the author examines the view on whether domain names are properties. The following is the abstract of this article: "...Domain names have become increasingly valuable assets, in some respects more valuable than trade marks. A domain name may identify not only the source of the goods, services, business or information, but also the virtual location of the source, much as an address or telephone number does. However, there is still a significant unresolved issue as to whether a domain name is a form of intangible property or merely a contractual right."

Posted by mikki at 02:31 PM | Permalink

Investigations into ICANN transparency continue | The Register

Investigations into ICANN transparency continue | The Register:

A new lobbying body calling itself itself the Campaign for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) has expanded its investigation into the internet overseeing organisation with a freedom of information request served on the US Department of Commerce.
The organisation has already served ICANN with a lawsuit in its home state of California claiming anti-trust abuses, and caused the EC to open an anti-competition investigation following a formal complaint.

Now it hopes to discover examples of ICANN being less than truthful by requesting "materials related to discussions, memos and meetings and related contact that the government agency has had with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on matters relating to the .net and .com registry agreements".

Posted by mikki at 12:16 AM | Permalink

December 02, 2005

A View From Vancouver - Karl Auerbach

A View From Vancouver:

This is the strangest of ICANN meetings. Several registrars sit in the lobby making deals; other registrars are very angry about the Verisign-ICANN "settlement"; there are domain name owners who are equally ticked off about the same thing; there are the .xxx people wearing scowls, GAC people wearing deep blue, and often shiny, suits; there are trade booths (wo-)manned with folks who could be easily mistaken for trade show bunnies; a small number of board members pass through the public areas in as short of time as they can; a larger number of board members are unseen; and ICANN "staff" is largely invisible.

Barely anybody talks about WSIS. But there is a lot of talk about lawsuits filed or contemplated.

There is a lot of quiet talk about how .xxx was suddenly removed from the agenda and how a redacted Freedom Of Information (FOIA) inquiry indicates that the Bush Administration, in the person of Karl Rove and at the behest of religious fundamentalist James Dotson, caused the US Department of Commerce to secretly instruct ICANN to deny .xxx and thus triggering a dance of the proxies as ICANN and/or the US government attempted to create a screen of deniability by getting other countries to do the dirty work.

Nobody here seems to support the ICANN-Verisign "settlement", although nobody seems to really think that ICANN will listen to the nearly universal complaints beyond making a few cosmetic adjustments.

Those who actually use domain names, the community of internet users, are nearly completely absent; the ALAC meetings were so under-attended that they could be squeezed into a small room at the end of a nearly hidden corridor. Even as UN is demonized for its incorrectly characterized attempt to "take over the internet", at least the formative UN Internet Governance Forum will probably allow individuals to obtain credentials while ICANN relegates us to a powerless limbo.

There is talk of the splitting of the internet, not as something to come but rather as something that has already happened. And that impossible as it is to trivalize the situation when the split involves China and other Asian nations ICANN has managed to pretend as if nothing of significance has happened.

And in a bit of stunning Orwellian NewSpeak the United States Federal Trade commission said that to protect privacy it has to kill it.

Matters of IP address policy are not discussed.

Questions about the fate of the 40 TLD applications left over from year 2000, for which ICANN collected $2,000,000, remain unanswered while a very glitzy and expensively printed, but otherwise vacuous and self-congratulatory, booklet from ICANN's ombudsman occupies space on the information tables.

Posted by mikki at 12:59 PM | Permalink

November 27, 2005

BS?

BS?:

Recently ICANN's
Chairman was thus quoted:

Q: Critics say the U.S. government basically controls the Internet.

A: That's bulls—t. I'm sorry, I'm not supposed to say that to reporters, but that's just a very bad misunderstanding. Ninety-nine percent of the Internet is in private hands. If you've got a computer at home, and a cable box or DSL line, you own a piece of the Internet. Most of the Internet is owned by the private sector, by businesses, by ISPs, by individuals, by governments—well, that's not [the] private sector, but it's not ICANN either and it's not the United States.

Rubbish.

The Internet is like the sea - the vast bulk is not subject to any particular
authority.

However like the seas, the Internet has its Panama and its Suez; the internet
has its Molucca Straits.

ICANN stands astride the naming systems of the internet just as Panama,
Egypt, and Indonesia stand over the oceans' most critical shipping lanes.

ICANN sprung from the loins of United States Department of Commerce.
The DoC frequently denies its role as parent, but it has most overtly and
forcefully confirmed ICANN's dependency on, and subservience to, the United
States.

Nothing happens at the top layer of the internet's naming system without
ICANN approval. And nothing happens in ICANN that is not subject to the
advice and consent of the United States Department of Commerce.

The Department of Commerce/ICANN system has suppressed competition, has cost
consumers of domain names billions of dollars, and has obstructed innovation
across the entire internet. ICANN has destroyed the internet end-to-end
principle by forcing decisions about top level domains to flow through ICANN's
expensive and arbitrary procedures.

So for ICANN's chairman to imply that the US government is not using ICANN to
control a critical part of the internet is an exercise in misdirection and is,
ultimately, untrue.

And to add insult to injury, ICANN has adopted rules, most notably the
privacy-busting WHOIS and the trademark-uber-alles UDRP that reach out and
impose a supra national law on all of those end-user "personal"
computers that ICANN's chairman claims are not the property of the US or under
the control of ICANN. If the US or ICANN do not have internet-wide powers,
then why are we users of the internet forced to list our names, addresses, and
other information in the WHOIS database and why are we forced to submit to
ICANN's UDRP?

Posted by mikki at 12:42 PM | Permalink

November 17, 2005

Flushing the 'Net Down the Tubes

Flushing the 'Net Down the Tubes:

Doc Searls has written a brilliant piece framing the battle for the 'Net at Linux Journal. The piece is long, but if you take the time to read just one essay on the 'Net and the politics surround it this year, read this one. If you're involved in public policy, it's especially important that you take the time to understand what's at stake here. One of Doc's main points: we haven't framed the conversation correctly and our poor choice of words makes the argument seem overly technical and arcane when it's really about freedom, markets, and innovation.

Posted by mikki at 11:09 AM | Permalink

WSIS Deal: Oversight

WSIS Deal: Oversight:

The UN Secretary-General has been invited to "convene a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue." Everyone can see his/her hearts' desires in the WSIS deal: ICANN can believe that it has survived for another day; governments can believe that they will have "an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance"; and there will be an enormous meeting in Greece by the second quarter of 2006 to start the Internet Governance Forum going.

Posted by mikki at 11:08 AM | Permalink

November 16, 2005

The WSIS Deal

The WSIS Deal:

There is considerable coverage this morning (or this evening in Tunis) on the last minute WSIS deal struck yesterday. The gist of the coverage rightly reports that the U.S. emerged with the compromise they were looking for as the delegates agreed to retain ICANN and the ultimate U.S. control that comes with it (note that there is a lot in the WSIS statement that may ultimately prove important but that is outside the Internet governance issue including the attention paid to cybercrime, spam, data protection, and e-commerce). This outcome begs the questions -- what happened? And, given the obvious global split leading up to Tunis, what changed to facilitate this deal?

Posted by mikki at 04:49 PM | Permalink

November 09, 2005

US court rules for 'gripe website' owner | The Register

US court rules for 'gripe website' owner | The Register:

A US court has ruled that a disgruntled customer of an insurance firm cannot be sued for defamation over statements he made on his “gripe site” because those statements are protected free speech.
The case dates back to May 2000, when Ronald DiGiovanni obtained a service warranty – provided by Pennsylvania insurance company Penn Warranty Corp – for his 1994 GMC Sonoma truck.

The truck broke down, but Penn Warranty denied DiGiovanni's warranty claim. Consequently, he brought a small claims action against the firm, alleging breach of contract. The dispute eventually settled with a payout of $2,500.
But DiGiovanni was still unhappy. He set up a 45-page website – PennWarrantyLitigation.com – complaining about the firm. The site was available online for a few weeks in January 2004 but is no longer operating.

Posted by mikki at 09:46 AM | Permalink

The U.N.'s Threat to the Net

The U.N.'s Threat to the Net:

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, writing in The Washington Post, declared that it is a "mistaken notion" that the U.N. "wants to 'take over,' police or otherwise control the Internet." Unfortunately, neither the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the WSIS' Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) or the Secretary General's column give comfort to those committed to cyber-freedom.

Posted by mikki at 09:39 AM | Permalink

November 05, 2005

Unsecured Wi-Fi would be outlawed by N.Y. county | CNET News.com

Unsecured Wi-Fi would be outlawed by N.Y. county | CNET News.com:

According to a new proposal being considered by a suburb of New York City, any business or home office with an open wireless connection but no separate server to fend off Internet attacks would be violating the law.

Politicians in Westchester County are urging adoption of the law--which appears to be the first such legislation in the U.S.--because without it, "somebody parked in the street or sitting in a neighboring building could hack into the network and steal your most confidential data," County Executive Andy Spano said in a statement.

The draft proposal offered this week would compel all "commercial businesses" with an open wireless access point to have a "network gateway server" outfitted with a software or hardware firewall. Such a firewall, used to block intrusions from outside the local network, would be required even for a coffee shop that used an old-fashioned cash register instead of an Internet-linked credit card system that could be vulnerable to intrusions.

Posted by mikki at 09:12 AM | Permalink

November 04, 2005

CDT, CIPPIC File Complaints Against Alleged Spyware Distributors

CDT, CIPPIC File Complaints Against Alleged Spyware Distributors:

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) today asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Canadian Competition Bureau to investigate the business practices of Montreal-based software distributor Integrated Search Technologies and several of its business partners. In complaints filed with the FTC and the Competition Bureau, CDT and CIPPIC allege that Integrated Search Technologies (IST) and its affiliates have engaged in a widespread campaign of installing unwanted software on users computers, and have done so using unfair and deceptive practices prohibited by federal law. The complaints come as part of CDT's ongoing effort to root out the most egregious distributors of spyware, adware and other unwanted technologies.

Posted by mikki at 09:06 AM | Permalink