A lawmaker in California wants to force Google Earth and similar services to blur images of so-called "soft targets" like schools, hospitals, churches and government buildings to protect them from terrorists. Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a Republican from San Diego, said he decided to introduce his bill after reading reports suggesting that terrorists used online map imagery to plan attacks in Mumbai and elsewhere.
European Groups Share Data to Fight Child Porn Online
A broad European alliance of industry and police began sharing private financial information in a bid to crack down on criminals who profit from distributing child pornography on the Web. Credit card companies, Internet firms, police forces, NGOs and the European Commission officially launched the initiative in London to stop the trade in the images.
Behavioral Advertising Online Prompts Legal Moves
Behavioral advertising -- the tracking of consumer's Internet surfing activity to create tailored ads -- has triggered an intense legal controversy that has law firms scrambling to stay on top of a burgeoning practice. Attorneys say that behavioral advertising is raising privacy, litigation and regulation fears among consumer advocates, the electronic commerce and advertising industries and legislators.
Woman Sues AT&T, RadioShack Over Netbook 3G Plan
An Oklahoma woman has filed a lawsuit against AT&T and RadioShack after purchasing a netbook with a 3G data plan and receiving a $5,000 bill for exceeding her monthly data cap. Last December, RadioShack offered a $99 Acer Aspire One netbook for customers willing to sign a two-year contract for AT&T's mobile broadband service.
Netbook Users Face Additional Security Threats
Netbook Web surfers beware. Their no frills nature, combined with low computing power and relative lack of sophistication among their users could combine to create the perfect storm for hackers and virus creators looking for easy targets, analysts say.
ICANN's CEO Announces He'll Leave By Year-End
The president and CEO of ICANN, the nonprofit responsible for the Internet's domain name system, announced he will be stepping down from his position at the end of 2009. Paul Twomey, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, made the announcement at the organization's 34th International Public Meeting in Mexico City.
Md. Court Upholds Privacy for Online Posters
Operators of newspaper Web sites, blogs and chat rooms that allow readers to post anonymous comments using pseudonyms do not have to readily reveal the posters' identities in defamation suits, Maryland's highest court ruled, further shaping an emerging area of First Amendment law in the Internet age. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling and ordered that NewsZap.com, an online forum run by Independent Newspapers, does not have to disclose the identities of forum participants who engaged in an online exchange about the cleanliness of a Dunkin' Donuts shop in 2006.
Supreme Court to Hear Freelance Writers' Case
The U.S. Supreme Court said that it would hear an appeal by a group of publishers seeking to reinstate a settlement with freelance writers in a copyright case involving work included in online databases. The settlement, worth as much as $18 million, was reached in 2005 after about four years of negotiations over claims by the freelance writers that their contracts did not allow for publication of their work electronically.
White House Drops YouTube for Official Videos
Responding to complaints by privacy activists, the White House has quietly abandoned YouTube as the provider of the embedded videos on the president's official home page. With the release of the latest weekly video address, the White House has shifted to a Flash-based video solution using Akamai's content delivery network.
Norwegian ISP Refuses to Black Access to Pirate Bay
Norwegian telecom group Telenor will not block access to the Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, despite demands from representatives of the entertainment industry, Telenor said. Telenor said that a demand from international and Norwegian music and film industry associations to block access to The Pirate Bay had no legal grounds and Internet service providers could not be held liable for actions by Internet users.
German Police Use eBay Tips to Snag Counterfeiters
German police used tips from EBay Inc. to score the biggest success in their probe of a counterfeiting ring, snaring 20 tons of knock-off La Martina dress shirts, Ed Hardy tank tops and other brands. EBay, the world’s largest Internet auctioneer, is helping such investigations as part of a larger effort to rid its site of fakes the San Jose, California-based company says damage its reputation as a trusted shopping place.
EU Agency Alters Approach to VoIP Investigations
Eurojust, an EU agency that co-ordinates judicial co-operation across member states, has significally altered a statement in which it said criminals were using Skype to avoid detection by the authorities. One week earlier, Eurojust announced it planned to "play a key role in the coordination and cooperation of the investigations on the use of internet telephony systems (VoIP), such as Skype."
Some News Sites Worry More About Copyright Infringement
Some media executives are growing concerned that the increasingly popular curators of the Web that are taking large pieces of the original work -- a practice sometimes called scraping -- are shaving away potential readers and profiting from the content. With the Web's advertising engine stalling just as newspapers are under pressure, some publishers are second-guessing their liberal attitude toward free content.
Amazon Lets Authors, Publishers Decide Audio Rights
Apparently, Amazon won't fight the publishing industry on the issue of whether the Kindle 2's text-to-speech function violates copyright. The retailer, which makes the popular Kindle electronic-book reader, announced that the company is modifying systems to allow authors and publishers to decide whether to enable Kindle's text-to-speech function on a per-title basis.
Facebook Asks Users to Help Create "Bill of Rights"
Facebook, angling to turn a recent user rebellion to its own advantage, called upon the users themselves to help formulate what has been portrayed as a kind of "bill of rights" to govern the social-networking giant. The proposed "Facebook Principles" cover such topics as the "freedom to share and connect," "fundamental equality" and "ownership and control of information."
ISPs Increasing Efforts to Control Bandwidth
Internet service providers like AT&T are making greater efforts to manage traffic on their networks as they seek ways to avoid congestion caused by bandwidth-hogging services like video, industry officials said. Network management of Internet traffic has become a flash point between companies and public interest groups which worry that companies will become the arbiter of what is important or discriminate against certain applications or content.
Spammers Returning to Instant Messaging
After years of ignoring instant messaging, spammers are returning to IM en masse as yet another way to make money, security researchers say. The result is "spim" -- spam over IM. "The global economy is affecting everybody, including those who spim and spam," Don DeBolt, director of threat research operations at CA's research laboratory, told InternetNews.com.
Facebook, MySpace Confront New Security Issues
Facebook and MySpace were dealing with several new security issues that could expose personal information and communications from friends. Facebook said it had removed a new rogue application that was spamming users and exposing their information.
Supreme Court Rules for AT&T in ISP Antitrust Suit
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled for AT&T in the company's antitrust dispute with an Internet service provider over prices for high-speed Internet access. The court reversed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled the telecom company was setting its wholesale prices so high that an Internet service provider could not compete with the low prices AT&T charged in the retail market.
Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Hard Drive
A federal judge has ordered a criminal defendant to decrypt his hard drive by typing in his PGP passphrase so prosecutors can view the unencrypted files, a ruling that raises serious concerns about self-incrimination in an electronic age. In an abrupt reversal, U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Vermont ruled that Sebastien Boucher, who a border guard claims had child porn on his Alienware laptop, does not have a Fifth Amendment right to keep the files encrypted.
