Check out http://auda.org.au/domain-news/ for the most recent edition of the domain news, including an RSS feed - already online!
Headlines from the current edition of the news include: The Impending Internet Address Shortage | ASIAN POP: Dot Community | au: Domain name deregulation is 'damaging' | au: Melbourne IT expects to do 150% better in first half | Will Helen Coonan hurt Malcolm Turnbull’s Melbourne IT investment? by Stephen Mayne | Latest reports on Jobs.com.au domain name sale | DHS publishes sector-specific protection plan for IT infrastructure | Academic Group Releases Plan to Share Power Over Internet Root Zone Keys (news release) | PPC Fraud: Every Click Counts...Or Does It? | Debate Over Confidentiality of Web Site Registration Information Continues | ICANN Calls for Proposals to Host 2008 Meetings | Satisfaction with ICANN Wanes | The man who owns the Internet - the world's largest domainer The domain name news is supported by auDA. Don't forget to check out my website - http://technewsreview.com.au/ - for regular updates in between postings. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ au: auDA Names Policy Panel releases Issues Paper for public comment (news release) http://auda.org.au/news-archive/auda-18052007/ nz: Web odyssey for the keyboard challenged http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/opin/830CEE2C94602E8BCC2572DF0018F7CE Web squatters exploit Madeleine campaign http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1810536.ece Location of Third ICANN Meeting for 2007 (hint: the nearest airport is LAX) http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-17may07.htm Survey: Biggest Threats to Domain Name Industry http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/17/survey-biggest-threats-to-domain-name-industry/ Swiss Supreme Court examines domain name jurisdiction issues http://domainnews.com/litigation/2220070517/swiss-supreme-court-upholds-lower-court-domain-dispute-decision/ ***************** GOVERNANCE ***************** ITU: Launch of the World Information Society Report 2007 ITU and UNCTAD are delighted to announce the publication of the World Information Society Report 2007, published on 16 May 2007. The Report seeks to benchmark progress in meeting the WSIS targets, to be achieved by 2015 at the latest, and evaluates the evolution of the digital divide. It presents 200 pages of analysis of the latest trends in ICTs, exploring whether consumers are 'cutting the cord', the death of dial-up and growth in broadband and 3G. It evaluates the digital divide using a variety of techniques and finds that the strong growth of mobile telephony offers the greatest potential to bridge the digital divide. http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/newslog/Launch+Of+The+World+Information+Society+Report+2007.aspx Global Information Society Watch 2007 Report A new watchdog report monitoring promises made by governments and the United Nations to ensure that information technology is used to benefit millions of people, will be launched in Geneva on May 22. http://www.socialniprava.info/article1830.html ********************** DOMAIN NAMES ********************** au: auDA Names Policy Panel releases Issues Paper for public comment (news release) auDA's 2007 Names Policy Panel is currently reviewing the policy framework for .au domain names, including: whether .au should be opened up to direct registrations (eg. domainname.au); whether the policy rules for domain names should be changed; whether registrants should be allowed to sell their .au domain names. The Panel has released an Issues Paper that sets out the current situation and invites comment on suggestions and options for change. Closing date for submissions is 15/6/2007. http://auda.org.au/news-archive/auda-18052007/ nz: Web odyssey for the keyboard challenged My wife was online recently paying some bills, shopping, surfing and generally enjoying her experience. I was walking by when she asked me something about our Fly Buys account and typed into the browser: www.flybys.co.nz. I was just about to stick my oar in and put her right, when the homepage appeared on screen. http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/opin/830CEE2C94602E8BCC2572DF0018F7CE Web squatters exploit Madeleine campaign Businesses register domain names similar to findmadeleine. com to take advantage of the official site's worldwide attention http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1810536.ece http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/news/tm_headline=conmen-target-appeal-website&method=full&objectid=19130782&siteid=66633-name_page.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=455885 Location of Third ICANN Meeting for 2007 ICANN has advised the public meeting scheduled to be held from 29 October through 2 November 2007 will take place in Los Angeles, California, USA. http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-17may07.htm ICANN Requests Proposals to Provide Registrar Data Escrow Services ICANN seeks to engage an experienced and competent agent to receive, review, verify, and store in a readily retrievable format submitted registrar data on ICANN's behalf. The agent would enter into a bilateral agreement with ICANN and would accept deposits from depositor-registrars only in its capacity as ICANN's agent, not as an "escrow agent" although the service http://icann.org/announcements/rfp-registrar-data-escrow-svs-17may07.pdf ICANN Posts Proposed 2007-08 Budget In accordance with its bylaws, ICANN posted the Proposed Budget for fiscal year 2007-08. ICANN will hold a series of consultations and take public comment on this budget through the ICANN meeting in San Juan 23-29 June 2007. http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-17may07.htm Results of the First gTLD Registry Compliance Audit ICANN performed a Registrar Website Compliance Audit of all ICANN-Accredited Registrars’ websites to determine compliance with Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) requirements. Among active ICANN-Accredited Registrars, the audit team found 19 registrars with non-working websites and 20 registrars with no Whois service available on their websites. All active ICANN-Accredited Registrars found out of compliance with RAA website requirements were notified and given an opportunity to cure cited violations. http://icann.org/compliance/reports/registrar-web-compliance-audit-report-17may07.htm ICANN Requests Proposals to Provide Registrar Data Escrow Services ICANN is requesting proposals to provide gTLD registrar data escrow services. Responses must follow the formal request and specification [PDF, 85K] . Applicants may submit proposals by email to Mike Zupke (mike.zupke [at] icann.org) by no later than 8 June 2007. Submissions received will be acknowledged by return email. Questions regarding this RFP may be directed to the same address. http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-3-17may07.htm Good News from ICANN Opinion: A deal to resolve the Registerfly crisis, attention to important technical problems and an appearance in the United States are on tap for ICANN. There has been a lot of action on the ICANN site and blog in the last couple of days. First, it was announced that a deal has been struck with Registerfly that will make all domains, even those protected by their anonymous registration service, available to registrants. I must say I'm confused, because if this is possible then Registerfly really has been stalling, perhaps for negotiating reasons, which is truly appalling. I had assumed that the data was simply lost. More outrage to come as details follow. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2133111,00.asp Mikko Hyppönen responds to FP readers One of the essays in FP's 21 Solutions to Save the World package that has attracted the most attention online is Mikko Hyppönen's solution for preventing the growing problem of online banking fraud, specifically the "phishing" technique of luring trusting users to fake bank websites and then stealing their information. Hyppönen proposes to create a special Web domain just for banks, and make securing such a domain so costly and difficult that only genuine banks would be able to obtain one. I asked Hyppönen, who is chief research officer at F-Secure, to respond to critics of his idea. Here is his response. http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/4834 Internet Passes 600,000 SSL Sites Netcraft's SSL Survey has found more than 600,000 SSL sites on the Internet for the first time this month. SSL sites are used by ecommerce sites, online banking and financial services, and other secure online service providers. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/05/15/internet_passes_600000_ssl_sites.html Survey: Biggest Threats to Domain Name Industry The domain name industry is worried about changes in the pay-per-click market and new registry contracts that allow for wholesale domain name price increases, according to the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey. 36% of respondents rated “changes in the pay-per-click market” as the top concern when asked “What do you think is the biggest issue facing the domain name market in 2007?” http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/17/survey-biggest-threats-to-domain-name-industry/ Swiss Supreme Court examines domain name jurisdiction issues The Swiss Supreme Court has confirmed a first instance decision of the commercial court of the Canton of Zurich and has held that the Swiss courts have jurisdiction to rule on a trademark infringement case against an individual domiciled in the United Kingdom using Swiss insurance company SwissLife's trademarks SWISS LIFE and LA SUISSE in his domain names. http://domainnews.com/litigation/2220070517/swiss-supreme-court-upholds-lower-court-domain-dispute-decision/ http://www.worldtrademarkreport.com//Article/?r=6590 (sub req'd) IGP Releases New Paper on DNSSEC and Securing the Root by Brenden Kuerbis IGP has published a proposal to decentralize authority over the DNS as it transitions to a new, more secure technology known as DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC). http://blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2007/5/17/2957108.html DNS root servers and DNSSEC examined A 17-page paper on DNSSEC and the DNS root servers, released Thursday by the Internet Governance Project, is well worth a read. Its main subject is a proposal for distributing the responsibility for signing the keys for the root servers, but it touches on many other interesting considerations. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/dns_root_server.html Introduction to Trademarks Podcast Trademark Blog recently recorded two podcasts with Colette Vogele, San Francisco IP lawyer and podcast empresario. The second podcast, which is descibed as it could be titled "I got a demand letter - what do I do now?" attempts to summarise all trademark law in 20 minutes. Topics include the Anti-cybersquatting act and UDRP. http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2007/05/introduction_to.html us: Use Of Competitive Business Names On The Internet An estimated 60 million adult Americans search for information on the Internet every day. E-business constitutes over $2 trillion in annual sales for our economy. Over two-thirds of American households now contain a computer with Internet access. Mobile telephone and other devices are merging telecommunications, entertainment and traditional computer services. With that backdrop, it is no surprise that businesses try to get a competitive edge with their websites. Sometimes those tactics run afoul of traditional notions of trademark infringement and unfair competition. Legislatures and courts have responded to a point where, over the past decade, a more predictable playing field has emerged for businesses with respect to their Internet ventures. Hazards remain, but now remedies exist. http://mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=48552 "ENUM Validation Information Mapping for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol" is considered as a proposed standard by IESG "ENUM Validation Information Mapping for the Extensible Provisioning Protocol" is being considered as a proposed standard, the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) said in an announcement. http://ictstandardization.com/news/200705/article20070563.html Poker.de sells for €695,000 Oversee.net’s DOMAINfest conference held its first live auction, and Poker.de went home the big winner. The domain sold for €695,000 (approximately US$940,000). This may be the highest price ever paid for a country code domain name. .De is the country code for Germany. It’s the second most registered domain behind .com. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/18/pokerde-sells-for-695000-eur/ Domain Name Ethanol.com Heading to Auction Block The domain name 'Ethanol.com' is among a number of premium generic domain names that will be put up for sale in a live auction at the inaugural T.R.A.F.F.I.C New York show on June 19-22 in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, NY. http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-national.php?Id=1133&yr=2007 Falwell internet domain names selling briskly Within hours of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s death Tuesday, buyers already were snapping up Web site names about him. Among those registered were falwelldead.com, falwelldies.com and even falwellinhell.com. http://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA%2FMGArticle%2FLNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173351234980 Geo Domain Names Rise in Value Geographic domain names are enjoying the rising tide of localization. I’m writing today from the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead. Buckhead is the world’s most expensive neighborhood. Well, in domain name terms, that is. The domain name Buckhead.com sold for $250,000 this year. $250,000 seems like what someone would pay for a city name, not a neighborhood. http://domainnamewire.com/2007/05/18/geo-domain-names-rise-in-value/ us: Cybersquatter who owns lukeravenstahl.com Web site causes buzz Eric W. Parkinson has the Pittsburgh blogosphere abuzz, not to mention parts of City Hall. Who is he? Just your average West Coast cybersquatter (someone who buys and then resells Web site names), the guy who owns lukeravenstahl.com and has had much fun with it of late. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07139/787325-96.stm http://redorbit.com/news/technology/940482/cybersquatter_who_owns_lukeravenstahlcom_web_site_causes_buzz/ us: Gubernatorial contenders reserve Web domain names (AP) At least two South Dakota politicians already have reserved a spot in cyberspace, looking ahead to the 2010 election for governor. http://rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/05/20/news/state/doc464fda0ab25be300874439.txt Sedo Hits the Road to Promote Domain Names to End-Users (news release) Sedo’s top executives have just completed a three-country tour focused on better educating corporations and Internet businesses on the advantages of investing in premium descriptive domain names as part of their online advertising strategy. http://www.sedo.com/presse/presse_1_090507.php4?tracked=1&partnerid=21172&language=us VeriSign Gets Nasdaq Notice for Failing to File 1st-Quarter Financial Statement on Time VeriSign said it received a notice Nasdaq Stock Market that it is not in compliance with listing standards because it did not file its fiscal first quarter financial statement on time. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/05/17/ap3734321.html http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D8P6DBB80 VeriSign Reports First Quarter 2007 Results (news release) VeriSign reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007. VeriSign reported total revenue of $379 million for the first quarter of 2007, compared with $373 million for the first quarter of 2006. VeriSign ended the first quarter with Cash, Cash Equivalents, Restricted Cash and Short-term Investments of $740 million and deferred revenue of $662 million. http://www.verisign.com/static/042058.pdf There's money in the foothills of that thar sex - book review of sex.com Let me declare an interest. I knew Kieren McCarthy when he worked at another plaice, and I liked the way he gave Ken Livingstone a hard time one evening. A cheery soul, he banged out stories at the other plaice like there was no tomorrow, and in those days sometimes there didn't seem like there was a tomorrow. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39721 Afnic takes measures to fight illicit use of domain names (sub req'd) http://telecom.paper.nl/news/article.aspx?id=168343 ********************** OTHER INTERNET NEWS ********************** Global net censorship 'growing' The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests. The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6665945.stm http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_5925661 Governments using filters to censor Internet, survey finds With the aid of sophisticated software, government censorship of the Internet is spreading into a global phenomenon, with tech-savvy governments filtering forbidden themes from politics and human rights to sexuality and religion, according to a new academic survey of 40 countries. http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/17/business/censor.php Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering - Edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain Many countries around the world block or filter Internet content, denying access to information--often about politics, but also relating to sexuality, culture, or religion--that they deem too sensitive for ordinary citizens. Access Denied documents and analyzes Internet filtering practices in over three dozen countries, offering the first rigorously conducted study of an accelerating trend. http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11329 Why China Relaxed Blogger Crackdown Registration Plan Was Dropped In Face of Tech-Industry Protests The Chinese government, which spent months mulling over ways to crack down on bloggers, is retreating from its campaign, a development that illustrates the difficulty China faces as it tries to control technology. Since September, the central government has been deliberating the need to enforce a real-name registration system, which would have required nearly 20 million Chinese bloggers to register their real identities on the Web and give up the anonymity many have gotten used to, even though bloggers can never be entirely anonymous as they can be traced back to an IP address. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117934424740305282.html uk: Yahoo! hinders sex case inquiries Internet companies including Yahoo! are hindering police investigations into child abuse by closing down the undercover identities used by officers to trap paedophiles. British child protection police habitually pose as children online, using false profiles to ensnare abusers trying to groom girls and boys for sex. But the companies say they will shut down all bogus identities on their sites even if they know they are being run to catch paedophiles. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1813494.ece au: Porn filters for families delayed Delays continue to plague Senator Helen Coonan's introduction of free online pornography filters for Australian families, and the Communications Minister is still unable to put a concrete date on when the project will launch. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/17/1178995291068.html au: Getting tough on cyber bullies Victoria's government schools will crack down on modern-day school bullies using computers and mobile phones. http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2007/05/18/1178995371913.html Web attackers used a million computers, says Estonia Estonia said yesterday that at least 1m computers had been used to launch an unprecedented wave of cyber-attacks on the small Baltic state over the past few weeks and indicated the damage inflicted had run into tens of millions of euros. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2082584,00.html http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1805636.ece http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm Cyberattack on Estonia stirs fear of 'virtual war' The computer attacks, apparently originating in Russia, first hit the Web site of Estonia's prime minister on April 27, the day the country was mired in protest and violence. The president's site went down, too, and soon so did those of other ministries. http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/18/news/estonia.php Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications. http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081438,00.html http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_5918836 Is Eastern Europe's cyberwar the shape of things to come? It reads like a John le Carre script. An eastern European country being attacked on an unprecedented scale with Nato sending in its top terrorism experts. Except the attack was a cyber-assault - disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers and banks. The crisis was triggered by a Distributed Denial of Service. This is where hackers hijack masses of computers using malware (basically, evil software) and, at a specific point in time, launch a concerted burst of traffic to overwhelm computer servers and bring them to a halt. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/05/17/is_eastern_europes_cyberwar_the_shape_of_things_to_come.html Warfare in cyberspace A distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) is an attempt by an individual or group of hackers to crash an internet site or computer network by flooding it with huge amounts of traffic. A common method of achieving this is to effectively hijack computers belonging to normal web surfers through a virus or some other malware. The malware, which is picked up either by opening an infected email attachment, or, more commonly these days, by visiting a website that hosts malware, is triggered at a later date. http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081699,00.html Swedish company offers new passports for computers to surf the Web Relakks and other companies are part of a struggle pitting "hacktivists" against corporate interests that wall off Web sites to control territorial rights. These walls are meant to block people in Europe from downloading television fare from U.S. sites, for example, or bar Americans from viewing programs on sites in Europe. http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/20/news/net21.php au: Suicide girls got instructions from internet The father of a teenager who killed herself in an apparent suicide pact says they followed instructions from the internet. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/20/1179601247321.html http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21765658-5005962,00.html au: Bogus debit email jams switchboard THOUSANDS of people opened their email accounts yesterday morning to be told their credit card had been debited hundreds of dollars for a digital camera they did not know they had ordered. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/17/1178995324054.html British judge halts terror trial to ask: what’s a website? A judge overseeing the trial of three alleged Muslim “cyber-terrorists” has been given a basic lesson in the internet – after admitting that he did not know what a “website” was. Mr Justice Peter Openshaw, who is conducting the trial at Woolwich Crown Court, stunned prosecutors when he said: “The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a website is.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1805663.ece http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/17/judge_website_shocker/ Study raises more questions about click fraud (AP) Deceptive clicks on Internet advertising links distributed by Google, Yahoo and other online marketing vehicles are probably occurring far more frequently than the network operators acknowledge, according to a study by fraud detection specialist Fair Isaac Corp. http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_5920147 http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-05-17-click-fraud_N.htm us: Video Pioneers Challenge Pentagon YouTube's co-founders on Thursday challenged the Pentagon's assertion that soldiers overseas were sapping too much bandwidth by watching online videos, the military's principal rationale for blocking popular Web sites from Defense Department computers. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/18/1178995365128.html ISP Spam Code of Practice released for public consultation (news release) InternetNZ released the ISP Spam Code of Practice. InternetNZ executive director Keith Davidson says the preparation of the Code is an excellent example of how the industry is working together to fight a common enemy. http://www.internetnz.net.nz/media/ispspamcoderelease Young women dominate UK net scene Young women are now the most dominant group online in the UK, according to new research from net measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings. Women in the 18 - 34 age group account for 18% of all online Britons. They also spend the most time online - accounting for 27% more of the total UK computer time than their male counterparts. Of UK males active online, the 50+ age group is the most prevalent. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6662469.stm Over 90% of British teens are MySpacers More than 90% of UK teenagers have used a social networking website and more than half use them because their friends do, according to research. The survey of 11- to 20-year-olds, conducted by Q Research for MediaGuardian.co.uk, found that one-third of teenagers have at least four social networking profiles on sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2081126,00.html In chatrooms and message boards, Madeleine hysteria grips the world If you logged on to your computer yesterday, you may have received an email that looked, at first, like spam. Forwarded many times and with crazy punctuation, it may have carried a preliminary message along the lines of "please help us!!!!!!!", before scrolling down to the original email: a sober address from Phil McCann, uncle of Madeleine, the missing four-year-old, asking for your assistance. ... In these days of mass media sophistication, no one needs it explaining to them that where a child who gets kidnapped is news, a pretty child who gets kidnapped is headline news and a pretty child who gets kidnapped and whose parents save lives for a living and go to church is rolling news. Even so, in the days since she disappeared, the Madeleine campaign has, for scale of involvement, outdone anything we've seen before. There are 90 different Madeleine-related groups on Facebook alone, circulating her photo to user communities of between six and 76,000 members. The official website has registered 60m hits and posters of her have been seen in campsites as far away as Bulgaria, translated into local languages via appeals put out by bloggers. At least four premiership football stars have made TV appeals and there is reward money on offer totalling some £2.5m. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2083248,00.html 50m hits in Madeleine website's first day A website set up by the family of the missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has received more than 50m hits in just over 24 hours, its organisers said today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2083041,00.html Exploring the Underbelly of Second Life Allegations of illegal gambling, reports of online orgies, and even an active investigation in Europe of sexual abuse and misconduct seem to have overshadowed the tamer daily goings-on in the virtual world Second Life. Yet, just this week, it was the locale of an innovative job fair in which upstanding employers like HP tried out new online recruiting strategies on hundreds of willing participants and conducted interviews with candidates for real-world positions. So, is Second Life more like "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" or an episode of "The Sopranos"? http://ecommercetimes.com/story/57456.html Firms embrace mobility as competitive tool, study shows (news release) A cross-industry survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit in co-operation with Nokia shows that mobility has become a key component of competitiveness. In industries ranging from financial services to pharmaceuticals, mobility moves decision-making closer to problems or opportunities with customers, making firms more agile and more competitive. More than one-quarter of survey respondents said that over 30% of their employees can be considered “mobile workers”, defined as those who spend at least one day of the work week away from the office. Far from being a requirement for just a few specialised technology firms, mobility is now seen as broadly applicable to companies in industries such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, accounting, and advertising. http://eiuresources.com/mediadir/default.asp?PR=2007051501 Japan is the world’s most innovative country, study finds (news release) Japan is the world’s most innovative nation, followed by Switzerland, the US and Sweden, according to Innovation: Transforming the way business creates, a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Cisco. The Economist Intelligence Unit compiled a ranking of 82 economies based on their level of innovation in 2002-06 and, using the methodology described below (see notes for editors), predicted how the ranking would change in 2007-11. The top four will maintain their positions, according to the forecast, while China will move up five places to 54th and Mexico will climb six places to 39th. http://eiuresources.com/mediadir/default.asp?PR=2007051403 au: You need help, says minister The Communications Minister suggests the Sydney man who created the Virginia Tech massacre game seek "professional help". http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/17/1178995289828.html uk: BT becomes the leading broadband provider as earnings rise 15% BT added to the woes of Virgin Media yesterday as the telecoms company passed its cable rival to become the UK's number one broadband supplier with 3.66m customers or over a quarter of the UK market. http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2082617,00.html hk: Jail for BitTorrent bandit 'Big Crook' The first person in the world to be convicted of distributing movies via BitTorrent loses an appeal against a jail sentence. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/18/1178995417708.html New Google search will find text and images Google has changed its approach to Internet searches by combining results from its established Web search service with offerings that help users find videos, images, maps and other content. http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/17/business/google.php Just one in ten businesses globally are fully monitoring their overall carbon impact (news release) Businesses are not keeping up with the growing carbon awareness of a general public disturbed by predictions of climate change, but more firms are starting to focus on the issue, according to an independent report from the Economist Intelligence Unit. A Change in the Climate Is business going green?, commissioned by UK Trade & Investment, reviews the corporate response to climate change. http://eiuresources.com/mediadir/default.asp?PR=2007051401 Quest for the top in Internet ads It's a good time to be an Internet advertising company. In the struggle for advantage in the digital advertising boom, companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL are rapidly acquiring once-obscure firms, sometimes for eye-popping prices. The payoff, they hope, will be in the relationships and technology that can deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time across a myriad of online sites. http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/20/news/msft.php uk: Wi-Fi risks in schools 'must be reviewed' The head of Britain's leading health watchdog today urgently calls for a review of potential health risks linked to wireless internet networks in schools. Sir William Stewart, the chairman of the Health Protection Agency (HPA), spoke after emissions at a school were found to be three times those from a mobile phone mast. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/21/nwifi21.xml +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (c) David Goldstein 2007 --------- 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 ___________________________________________________________________________________ How would you spend $50,000 to create a more sustainable environment in Australia? Go to Yahoo!7 Answers and share your idea. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/aunz/lifestyle/answers/y7ans-babp_reg.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- List policy, unsubscribing and archives => http://dotau.org/
