Filter THIS! Librarians to sue over new law
Censorship
1/18/2001; 8:37:37 PM

'The American Library Association has decided to file a lawsuit challenging a new federal law that would require filtering in public schools and libraries....

'In its suit, the ALA will focus on the effect the law will have on all libraries, arguing that the requirement could further widen the so-called digital divide. Critics of mandatory filtering argue that the requirement forces people who rely on public computers for Internet access to see only pre-screened content--a restriction that those with home computers don't have.

Online recruiter wins ban on rival's web links
Free Speech
1/17/2001; 11:44:06 PM

'StepStone, the online recruitment company, has obtained an injunction in Germany preventing a rival from linking to its website pages. The move is one of the few cases to test the law on Deep Linking - links between sites that bypass home pages and hence banner advertising....

'"It is not, of course, every case of hypertext linking which is unlawful - the internet would grind to a halt. But the courts in Europe do have power to intervene where linking is extensive and prejudicial to the site involved," Mr Lifely added.

France Retracts Media Tax Proposal
Country Watch: France
1/17/2001; 11:29:58 PM

A slashdot story, since the media is French. It's good that they backed down, but see the high-ranking comments for some interesting theories

Cache at the End of His Rainbow General IP Issues1/16/2001; 11:52:24 AM 'Just ask Jake Savin, a San Francisco programmer who recently lost an entire website -- and three years' hard work -- but found a copy of his entire site in Google's online archive. 'It's worth pointing out that it has been questioned whether what Google is doing is legal, or if it is illegal redistribution of content. I want to point out that this could be an instance where we are being blinded to negative consequences because a high-profile good consequence is blocking consideration of the negative ones.Suppose Jake had deliberately deleted the website. Now it's still in Google's cache. Yes, legally, if he demanded that they remove it, they'd have to, but it's obvious that we can't know e who all is caching our content.I'm not suggesting that these sort of caches are bad, my real opinions are more complicated then that, I just want to point this out as an example of when a small, relatively uncommon good effect can totally obscure much larger questions about other effects. We get this in other places all the time... "it's for the children!" "we tax media because occaisionally somebody might pirate something, so we'll pay off the music companies just in case." The full stories deserves more consideration.Update: A discussion of this on geeknews, later found on dangerousmeta. (Actually, it's not very good; nobody's even mentioned the DMCA, without which you can't understand the legality of the cache.)

Group Says It Beat Music Security but Can't Reveal How Administrative1/16/2001; 11:43:09 AM 'Edward W. Felten, an associate professor computer science at Princeton , is perhaps best known for his role in the Microsoft antitrust trial. During the trial, where he demonstrated a program that he said stripped the Internet Explorer browser from the Windows operating system, he spent hours explaining what he had done and how he had done it.'But the professor has been far less forthcoming about a more recent hack, and at a conference last week he explained why: Lawyers have advised him that publicizing the details of his tinkering could violate a 1998 federal law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.'Academic freedom, or protecting the interests of corporations... that's an easy choice for politician$, isn't it?

France To Tax Computers, Disks, Phones
Country Watch: France
1/16/2001; 11:16:59 AM 'France is planning to slap levies on the sale of computers and digital recording devices to ensure musicians and film-makers are compensated for pirate copying, its Culture Minister said in an interview published on Monday. '

Shocked by the news? I more shocked that people are shocked... I'm actually posting this story because this isn't news. Many other technologies already face similar taxes in the US or elsewhere, and every time you buy or use one of these technologies, you are being presumed guilty of copyright infringement. This battle has already been lost.

The Feds'll Come A-Snoopin'
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
1/16/2001; 8:28:14 AM 'The U.S. Department of Justice this week published new guidelines for police and prosecutors in cases involving computer crimes. '

Wired does a good overview which I won't repeat here, except to point you at the actual document, which they do point at, for a change.

Tough Times for Data Robots
General IP Issues
1/12/2001; 11:11:00 AM 'In that case, Judge Ronald M. Whyte relied on the ancient law of trespass to chattels to temporarily ban an Internet company from using a "bot" to invade and copy auction listings from the computer system of eBay, the auction giant.

'Now a federal judge in Manhattan has picked up on the trespass idea and altered its requirements a bit, making it even easier for companies to use the law to stop the pesky software critters, some lawyers say.'

Privacy Foundation - The Top 10 Privacy Stories of 2000
Privacy from Companies
1/11/2001; 12:36:00 PM Six of the top ten stories are clearly Internet or technology related, and the employee surveillance story can be looked at that way. Good year-in-review article.

Toysmart.com case settled
Privacy from Companies
1/11/2001; 12:29:15 PM

'In a case that could affect other fledgling dot-coms, a defunct online toy store will be paid $50,000 and have its customer database destroyed rather than being sold off to pay creditors, federal regulators said Tuesday.'

Excellent. If there's a legal loophole that someone can use to break privacy promises, it's only a matter of time before some people start systematically exploiting it.