Hi all, This is the last of the news for 2006! So have a great christmas and new year and/or festive season, and I'll be back bright-eyed and bushy tailed in 2007, the week commencing 8 January.
Till then I'll have regular updates on my website - http://technewsreview.com.au/. Cheers, from a cool Germany! David ********************************************************** Sponsored by the Singapore Internet Research Centre http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/ Sponsored by EuroDNS and AsiaDNS - for your domain name registration http://www.eurodns.com/?refid=57d25a87c8bffdc565a16a5bf01e8825 ********************************************************** us: Poll: Internet now a big part of life http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/16282102.htm Steve Irwin and World Cup top Google popularity poll http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1974528,00.html us: Nasa signs deal with Google to put data online http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1975815,00.html au: Copyright ruling puts hyperlinking on notice http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/19/1166290520771.html au: Australian court rules against MP3 link site http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6144590.html uk: What price privacy now? http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/news_and_views/current_topics/what_price_privacy_now.aspx 2006: the year we were spammed a lot http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/18/1166290467781.html Season's greetings: it's spam for the holidays (Reuters) http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-12-20T130531Z_01_N19314994_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-WORK-SPAM.XML nz: Spammers face war on two fronts http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10415815 au: Court: Promoter can't stop eBay scalping http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16266826.htm (AP) ****************************************** CENSORSHIP, FILTERING & CONTENT REGULATION ****************************************** Russians do in blogs what few can in media: argue (Reuters) Free and open debate has become a rarity in Russia's media which is mostly controlled by the state or business moguls. In a country where three high-profile journalists have been murdered since 1991, many believe speaking out can cost you your life. http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-12-18T043131Z_01_L06662655_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-RUSSIA-BLOGS.XML sy: Cyber-dissident held four months without trial Reporters Without Borders has repeated its call for the release of cyber-dissident Ali Sayed al-Shihabi, who has been held for more than four months without trial in Adra prison near Damascus. http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20213 eg: Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman has spent six weeks in custody Reporters Without Borders has repeated an appeal for the release of blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman - known as Kareem Amer - who has been held in custody for six weeks after posting articles on his blog (www.karam903.blogspot.com), critical of Islam. http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20204 **************** CHILD PROTECTION **************** eu: Protection of minors and human dignity and the right of reply European Parliament legislative resolution on the Council common position for adopting a recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of minors and human dignity and on the right of reply in relation to the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and online information services industry http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?Type=TA&Reference=P6-TA-2006-0537&language=EN Turkey, Microsoft Fight Child Abuse Together Edmond McLoughney of UNICEF Turkey announced the Turkish premiership and Microsoft would cooperate in the fight against child abuse. http://www.zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20061216&hn=39268 Turkish police crack down on online child pornography Security Directorate General spokesperson İsmail Çalışkan said the police conduct continuous inspections of Internet cafes but noted that police monitoring was not enough to stem problems arising from Internet use in such public venues. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=61848 ca: Cleanfeed Canada - What Would It Accomplish? Bennett Haselton has another article on offer for us today, this time looking at the implications of a Canadian initiative to protect children online. Bennet writes: "Cybertip.ca, a Canadian clearinghouse for providing information to law enforcement about online child luring and child pornography, has announced that a group of major ISPs will begin blocking access to URLs on Cybertip's list of known child pornography sites. A Cybertip spokesperson says that the list fluctuates between 500 and 800 sites at any given time." http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/15/1624215 A Children Social Network Company Condemned to Pay $1 million Civil Penalty for Violation of the Children Online Privacy Act. How can some entrepreneurs profit from selling childrens private information like age, gender, school attended, date of birth, household income, music preferences, etc? Do these profiling brokers ever think who may buy this information? It could be a child predator buying their daughters or sons information, by the way. Profiling companies or euphemistically called Customer Relations Management businesses were without government control in the United States (and made huge profits) until COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act) came to limit their business. Thanks to this looked-for legislation, Xanga.com, a social networking company was condemned to pay $1 million civil penalty for violating COPPA. http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=latestnews&id=1637 *************************************** CYBERCRIME, CYBERSECURITY AND PRIVACY *************************************** au: Copyright ruling puts hyperlinking on notice A court ruling has given the recording industry the green light to go after individuals who link to material from their websites, blogs or MySpace pages that is protected by copyright. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/19/1166290520771.html au: Australian court rules against MP3 link site Linking to copyright music posted elsewhere online without permission can be illegal, an Australian appeals court ruled Monday. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6144590.html uk: What price privacy now? Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, is repeating his call for a two year jail term to deter those convicted of trading unlawfully in personal information. The report 'What prive privacy now?' reflects the six months progress made since his initial report 'What prive privacy?' was published in May 2006. http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us/news_and_views/current_topics/what_price_privacy_now.aspx EU should share web terrorism monitoring: Germany (Reuters) Germany will push the European Union's member states to agree to share the surveillance of militant Web sites when it takes over the bloc's presidency in January, a senior German official said on Monday. http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-12-18T184439Z_01_L18111220_RTRUKOC_0_US-EU-TERRORISM-INTERNET.xml sg: Bandwidth bandit faces jail term A Singapore teenager has pleaded guilty to tapping into a neighbour's wireless internet network and will be sentenced next month, a newspaper has reported. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/20/1166290603548.html uk: Man whose head injury inflamed his sex drive wins £3.2m payout A husband who claimed that he became unfaithful and sexually disinhibited after suffering a head injury at work was awarded £3.2 million in damages yesterday. Stephen Tame, 29, was transformed from a devout Christian into a sexually aggressive user of pornography after falling from a gantry in a cycle warehouse in 2002, the High Court ruled. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2512188,00.html uk: Companies to update websites and email footers before 2007 Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers before 1st January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine. http://out-law.com/page-7594 au: Court: Promoter can't stop eBay scalping An Australian court ruled Monday that a concert promoter cannot block eBay users from selling scalped tickets. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/16266826.htm (AP) http://ecommercetimes.com/story/54768.html au/us: CSIRO wins transfer of US WLAN court case A federal court in California has agreed with CSIRO that upcoming US WLAN patent cases brought against CSIRO should be heard in Texas by the same court that recently found in favour of CSIRO against Buffalo companies. The court has said that patent cases brought against CSIRO by Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Netgear should be transferred to the court which is already familiar with the CSIRO patent infringement case in the Eastern District of Texas. http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/ps2lu.html Triple threat targets Word users Malicious attackers prepare booby-trapped Word documents to catch out users. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6196213.stm us: Regulator: Morgan Stanley withheld e-mail in cases The NASD, the nation's largest self-regulatory organization for the securities industry, accused Morgan Stanley on Tuesday of routinely failing to provide e-mail messages to aggrieved customers who had filed arbitration cases against the firm over three and a half years and with making false claims that millions of e-mail messages in its possession had been lost in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-6144978.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/technology/20email.html ************************** GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC POLICY ************************** tr: New Legislation to be Prepared to Fight Child Porn Turkeys Minister of Internal Affairs Abdulkadir Aksu characterized child porn as a disgusting perversion and said that the government would prepare a new legislation on the issue. http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20061218&hn=39295 us: INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICES STANDARD FOR VALUATION OF WEBSITE The rapid development of E-commerce in last decade has created several challenges for the tax system currently in place in the United States. Inspection of the taxpayers website is every bit as important as the inspection of the place of business. As cyberspace has no boundaries, physical presence of company is not required in any particular state. The auditing technique for the tangible goods is different from the intangible goods such as website or computer software. http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?s=articles&id=040A752B-74DF-431F-8BF5-E6B29CD6EA10 ***** SPAM ***** 2006: the year we were spammed a lot Almost nine out of every ten emails sent globally is spam, and Australia was one of the most heavily targeted countries this year, according to a report released by MessageLabs. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/12/18/1166290467781.html http://home.nestor.minsk.by/networks/news/2006/12/1908.html Season's greetings: it's spam for the holidays (Reuters) The holiday season brings festive parties, family gatherings -- and a deluge of spam. Unsolicited messages, or spam, which account for nine out of 10 e-mails, fill up the inboxes of computer users more than ever at this time of year, experts say. http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-12-20T130531Z_01_N19314994_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-WORK-SPAM.XML nz: Spammers face war on two fronts Industry and the Government are gearing up to fight a war on the spam that accounts for more than 90 per cent of email traffic. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10415815 uk: Microsoft bans UK man from selling email lists Microsoft took Paul Martin McDonald, who through his company Bizads sold email addresses that were then used as spam lists, to court. Microsoft sought and was granted a summary judgement against McDonald, arguing that his actions had caused Microsoft to suffer loss and damage to the goodwill it enjoyed as owners of the web mail service Hotmail. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39285196,00.htm ***************************** INTERNET & NEW TECHNOLOGY USE ***************************** us: Poll: Internet now a big part of life The next Bill Gates is more likely to come from China or Japan than the United States, according to a poll of Americans' Internet attitudes released Wednesday. Most Americans polled also think that new camera and Internet technologies are turning the United States "into a nation of voyeurs and paparazzi." http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/16282102.htm Steve Irwin and World Cup top Google popularity poll Google survey reveals that the life and bizarre death of the Australian crocodile hunter was among the most popular search items in the UK this year. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1974528,00.html us: Nasa signs deal with Google to put data online Interactive video from the moon, Mars and elsewhere could one day be available at the click of a mouse after Nasa signed an agreement with Google to post its vast trove of images and data online. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1975815,00.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801119.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/19/nasa_4_google/ us: Cyberspace blast off (Reuters) WEB surfers may soon be able to explore the canyons of Mars and experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon thanks to a deal between Google and the NASA Ames Research Centre. http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20956674%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html cn: Google seeks Chinese solution Google is locked in a race with rival Baidu.com to find China's answer to YouTube http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2506993,00.html East Europe enjoys 'remarkable' broadband growth Eastern Europe saw the highest broadband growth in the third quarter of 2006, new research revealed. http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=43788 Internet spawns new addictions, claims UK mag The internet has given birth to a quirky range of modern addictions and maladies, the British weekly http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10416223 ************ FILE SHARING ************ Piracy Suit Being Dropped Against NY Mom (AP) The recording industry is giving up its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against music piracy. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MUSIC_DOWNLOAD_SUIT http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/16276476.htm jp: Group: YouTube to Post Copyright Warning (AP) Popular video-sharing Web site YouTube Inc. has agreed to post Japanese language warnings about respecting copyrights in an attempt to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials, a Japanese entertainment body said. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/J/JAPAN_YOUTUBE_COPYRIGHTS http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/16277795.htm http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-12-20T025801Z_01_T146637_RTRIDST_0_TECH-YOUTUBE-JAPAN-DC.XML (Reuters) fr: French music lobby says copyright law is unfinished (Reuters) France's controversial copyright law aimed at fighting Internet piracy is a "work in progress" and cannot be the final solution for the struggling industry, an influential French music lobby group said on Tuesday. http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-12-19T194535Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-280807-1.xml BBC moves to file-sharing sites The commercial arm of the BBC announces a tie-up with file-sharing company Azureus to distribute titles in the US. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6194929.stm The YouTube world opens an untamed frontier for copyright law Larry Richard is one of the millions to have discovered the world of YouTube, the free website that allows people to post, watch, and share video clips. When he receives a link to the site, usually via e-mail, he spends a few moments to click and watch a clip on his computer screen - sometimes a video of a friend's singing recital, other times a snippet of a foreign commercial or a monologue from late-night TV. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1218/p01s03-usju.html ********************************* COMMENT, MICROSOFT & DEVELOPMENTS ********************************* Internet gold-mine attitude returns to Northern Europe Northern Europe has long been a hotbed of technology innovation, and now with some of the world's highest levels of broadband usage the region is abuzz with new Internet business models. http://iht.com/articles/2006/12/20/business/ptscandi.php Google Book-Scanning Efforts Spark Debate (AP) Already facing a legal challenge for alleged copyright infringement, Google Inc.'s crusade to build a digital library has triggered a philosophical debate with an alternative project promising better online access to the world's books, art and historical documents. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DIGITAL_LIBRARY http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/16281394.htm Ebay suffers Chinese reversal Ebays decision to close its main online auction website in China and replace it with a minority-invested joint venture is a stark illustration of the difficulties facing foreign internet companies in the country. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1a02ae16-8f8a-11db-9ba3-0000779e2340.html ******************* TELECOMMUNICATIONS ******************* Convergence and the death of the traditional telco It sounds such an appealing term, convergence, conjuring up an image of things neatly slotting together. There is some indication of it in the worlds of IT and telecommunications, as proprietary forms of communication and interconnection are being replaced by one unified approachIP, the internetworking protocol at the foundation of the Internet. http://www.it-analysis.com/blogs/Quocirca/2006/12/convergence_and_the_death_of_the_t_.html The End User: The future of telecommunications may be 'comminfotainment' When Olivier Baujard looks into his digital crystal ball, he sees us all being customers of "comminfotainment" providers. Within five years or so, the familiar land-line "telco" and even the mobile operator will disappear, in his view. Instead, broadband service providers will replace them, selling packages, bundles or channels of communications, information and entertainment. http://iht.com/articles/2006/12/20/business/ptend21.php ***** VoIP ***** VoIP Risks Take Center Stage in 2007 Security experts warn that VoIP deployments could show themselves to be more vulnerable and become bigger targets for hackers in 2007. http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=196700996 http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=43811 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Check out http://auda.org.au/domain-news/ for the most recent edition of the domain news, including an RSS feed - already online! The domain name news is supported by auDA. See http://lists.technewsreview.com.au/mailman/listinfo/technewsreview for an archive of recent newsletters and to subscribe to the domain name and general internet news. Also see http://technewsreview.com.au/ for recent news updates. Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (c) David Goldstein 2006 --------- David Goldstein address: 4/3 Abbott Street COOGEE NSW 2034 AUSTRALIA email: Goldstein_David @yahoo.com.au phone: +61 418 228 605 (mobile); +61 2 9665 5773 (home) "Every time you use fossil fuels, you're adding to the problem. Every time you forgo fossil fuels, you're being part of the solution" - Dr Tim Flannery Send instant messages to your online friends http://au.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ apple mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/apple
