Microsoft Pushing P3P
Privacy from Companies
4/11/2001; 11:31:07 PM

'Now Microsoft Corp. says it has a high-tech solution to the problem -- no Draconian action needed. The software giant's answer: a system, based on industry standards, that lets consumers choose how much protection they want. The approach will effectively let PC users adjust the dial on a kind of privacy thermostat built into their Web browsers.

'Known as the Platform for Privacy Preferences, or P3P, the technology promises to reshape the debate about Web privacy. For the Internet industry, P3P represents the biggest weapon yet in the fight against new regulations. And for consumers, it could provide much better control over personal information.

ACLU Ad Highlights Massive U.S. Government Surveillance
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
4/11/2001; 11:14:53 PM 'The ad, appearing in the April 15 issue of The New Yorker and the April 16 issue of The New York Times Magazine, features a large photo of a cell phone, with the headline: "Now equipped with 3-way calling. You, whoever you're dialing, and the government."'

Passport Licensing Changes Privacy from Companies4/11/2001; 12:38:41 PM As I was one of the critics of Microsoft's Passport privacy policy, I feel a moral obligation to point out that while ETP was down, Microsoft did change the policy. However, it seems that all may still not be well. The end of Dan Gillmore's column today talks about it and also mentions a colloquium will be held at Stanford:'The terms are still not what you'd call consumer-friendly. And if you want to learn just how these kinds of terms get written, you may want to stop by Stanford University this afternoon for a colloquium where Jack Russo, a Silicon Valley lawyer who specializes in intellectual-property issues, will deconstruct the Microsoft document from several points of view.'Line up the 15 major points in the terms of use, Russo said Tuesday, and look at them from a consumer's side and Microsoft's side. ``They're 180 degrees apart,'' said Russo, of Russo & Hale in Palo Alto.'The colloquium is open to the public. It starts at 4:15 p.m. today in the NEC Auditorium, which is located in -- you guessed it -- the Gates Computer Science Building. It will also be available afterward in a streaming media format (www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/).'It looks like it will be in Windows Media Player format.

Judge threatens 'disgraceful' Napster with closure - again Music & MP34/11/2001; 12:30:29 PM Or, The Judge Who Wanted The Moon.'At issue is Napster's attempt to follow Judge Patel's 5 March order that the sharing of songs nominated by the Recording Industry Association of America should be blocked. The RIAA claimed that Napster hadn't complied with the order, and brought the company before the court to demand Napster explain itself. 'Napster's argument has been that it has tried to block the 135,000 songs named by RIAA on behalf of its members, and indeed had blocked 275,000 songs hidden behind 1.6 million filenames. It also said that some RIAA members had not provided enough information on filenames for it to carry out the court's order to the letter. 'A fair point, considering Judge Patel's ruling said the music industry had to do what it could to help Napster - and that included supplying filenames as well as song titles. 'Whatever the specifics of Judge Patel's advice to the recording companies, she clearly feels they have done all they need to and that the burden should fall upon Napster.'

Europe To Adopt Strict Internet Copyright Law
DMCA
4/11/2001; 12:12:04 PM Details at the EU's site. I haven't gone over it with a fine-toothed comb (it would take a couple of days anyhow), but my intuitive take on it seems to be that they trumped the DMCA, tipping the so-called "balance" even further in favor of the content producers. It seems the idea that intellectual property exists for the purposes of improving society, not lining corporate pockets, is now an anachronistic idea to be paid lip service only.

Why do we need privacy? Surveillance and Privacy from Government4/11/2001; 11:38:36 AM This typical article on why we really don't need privacy is fairly uninteresting as is. The comments at the bottom are much more interesting. I think this one is particularly good.I'm noticing several commonalities in all anti-privacy articles:

• Inevitable conflating of government versus corporate privacy. Am I the only one to make the distinction? They're two totally different things. This article is mostly about government privacy, but does make reference to Microsoft's Windows licensing mechanisms. This allows the anti-privacy proponent to do what I think of as Dancing with the argument. By conflating two things A and B, when I argue against B, you can pull out arguments in favor of A, and when I argue against A, you can pull out arguments in favor of B, and if the listener is similarly confused, you can get away with never having to actually directly refute any arguments, because you can just "dance" to whichever part of the argument is currently in your favor.Government privacy and corporate privacy are two different things. I have a very hardline stance on corporate privacy. I consider it trivially obvious that the government will have to have more power. (Of course, that only implies that the government must have total power to those who have a black or white, "all power" or "no power", view of the world. There's still much room for debate about how much power the government should have.)
• People just want privacy so they can hide crimes. I think the comment I linked to above, Privacy means freedom from harassment, is on a right track, but I think it goes beyond that issue to a fundamental principle that the American government system is predicated on: Balance of power. By dismissing the right to privacy in this manner, we are transferring unprecedented amounts of power to the authorities to do whatever they please to us in the name of law enforcement. If you can't come up with your own examples of how this power could be abused, if you think the protections against unreasonable search and seizure don't have a good reason to exist (it's the same reason for privacy), I won't convince you anyhow. Note this argument is useful only for government debates and should not be used at all for corporate privacy.
• It is vitally important to catch crimes, by implication trumping any right to privacy. I would however point out that the truly vitally important thing is to not unjustly imprison innocent people; that's another American ideal, and it's getting more important, not less.May I also point out there's another power issue here, because this argument tends to assume that what the government defines as "crime" is a fair definition. It also blithely assumes that the definition will always be good. The power of a government to see is the power of the government to criminalize, so by removing privacy, we are giving our government the power to do whatever it wants. (Remember, it's not "unAmerican" to question our government, it's "unAmerican" to trust it!)

Generally, I'm a generous person and will willingly grant that people who disagree with me have points, but just can't find the virtue in the position that privacy is unimportant.

Jurors badly miscalculate MP3.com damages Humor/Amusing4/10/2001; 9:27:14 AM 'Jurors inadvertently let MP3.com off the hook last week when they wrote down the wrong damages figure in a court case over copyright infringement. 'On Friday the eight female jurors in a New York court, including one maths teacher, ordered the online music giant to pay around $300,000 to record label TVT (Tee Vee Toons). MP3.com was ecstatic, issuing a press release today crowing over victory. TVT had been asking for $8.5 million - and in the last year MP3.com has paid out around $130 million over copyright struggles with record companies. 'But over the weekend red-faced jurors began informing US District Judge Jed Rakoff that they had messed.... '"This matter is far from obvious in how it should be adjudicated," the judge said today.'

Crippling withdrawal strikes me as my dealer stopped dealing Personal Notes4/9/2001; 5:18:45 PM I really, really missed iRights while it was down. Yikes! I think I spoke truer then I knew: "For many people, writing and sharing it with the world (even if the world doesn't beat a path to your site) is addictive on the first hit."As I was trying to figure out what to do about it a few days ago, I decided to check my e-mail, and lo and behold, there was an e-mail from garret offering me space on dangerousmeta for the duration of the outage! I didn't have to go there, as ETP came back up in time, but I seriously appreciated the offer, and wanted to publicly thank him. It seems the lack was felt by others as well.Fortunately, I had a recent backup of iRights, so I was never seriously worried about losing all this work. (Thanks for the "owning your own data" meme, and believing in it enough to act, Dave.) I've missed some stuff, so some old news may trickle in over the next few days as I find stuff. Thanks for reading.(BTW, I observe that not only is ETP working again, it is significantly speedier, back up there with ManilaSites.com.)

DMCA provides no real protection for a small developer.
DMCA
4/9/2001; 4:56:53 PM 'This is the story of a small, naïve developer who didn't file the copyright on his software and ended up being abused by Ariston Technologies, in Huntington Beach, California. My hope is that others can learn from this situation.

'Ariston Technologies clearly violated copyright laws by distributing for profit a proprietary work without knowledge or permission of the copyright holder. Copyright laws such as the DMCA provide for collection of either statutory or actual damages. Current interpretation by the courts precludes collection of statutory damages unless the copyright was actually filed with the Copyright Office before the violation. In the case of shareware or open source software, proving damages is exceptionally difficult. However, even in cases where the copyright has been filed, most copyright lawyers do not work on a contingency basis, and so will not bother with a case involving shareware or open source software unless the potential dollar amount is significant. The alternative is for the individual to pay for prosecution out of pocket, which can quickly exceed US$20,000, for an award that may not be even half that. So even in cases where copyright laws have clearly been violated, the net effect is that they are unable to protect the small developer.'

Compressed Data: Law Newsletter Has to Sneak Past Filters Censorship4/9/2001; 4:35:04 PM From the people-are-always-smarter-then-computers dept:'There is nothing wrong with David Carney's spell-checker. It is on purpose that in his e-mail newsletter, Tech Law Journal, he misspells words like sex (sez) and pornography (pormography) and camouflages the names of computer viruses. If he did not, he explained last week in an editor's note, his journal would never get past the computers at readers' offices that screen incoming e-mail messages for references to sex or network security.'The really interesting question here is how much did those companies spend on those filters?