Europe warms to spam ban
Spam & E-Mail
1/11/2001; 11:55:26 AM

'More and more organisations, including industry bodies and consumer groups, are beginning to understand the need to control spam.

'This in marked contrast to a year ago when representatives of EuroISPA - the European body that lobbies on behalf of service providers - attended such meetings but were alone in their condemnation of spam.

'While an outright ban on spam is plainly unworkable, there is growing support for an "opt-in" stance.'

Do You Even Know Who's Watching?
Privacy from Companies
1/11/2001; 11:48:41 AM 'A Virtual Privacy Center, established in Germany as an outgrowth of a state privacy office, could be in the vanguard of an international effort to promote and protect privacy on the Internet.

'Marit Koehntopp, head of the state-run Independent Center for Privacy Protection in Kiel, Germany, said she hopes to attract participation from around the world on behalf of the common cause of educating citizens about their rights to control access to information about themselves.'

Argentina's Anti-Corruption Net
Misc.
1/11/2001; 10:20:20 AM

'In a move to reduce corruption by functionaries in faraway places, Argentina mandated its provincial governments to publish all official transactions on the Internet.

'Under the new law, Argentina's 23 provinces must report their budget, contract and payroll information on the Net every month for public review....'

'But let's say that a Net-savvy Juan Citizen does find something fishy on a government website? Would he dare do something about it?

Fear of a Web planet
Free Speech
1/11/2001; 10:14:27 AM 'I say "perceived anarchy" and "apparent absence" because in truth, though the Internet is more decentralized and anarchic than any preceding medium with similar mass availability, it is not nearly as "out of control" as its more wild-eyed prophets have envisioned, or as its more paranoid critics, à la Carr, have insisted. The Internet is the creation of human beings and -- it's almost too obvious to point out, isn't it? -- human beings remain subject to the laws of their nations.

VeriSign in struggle with China over registration of Web add Country Watch: China1/9/2001; 2:41:03 PM 'The issue: Who has the right to register Chinese-language Internet addresses?'In November, VeriSign announced it would begin accepting Web addresses written in Chinese as well as Japanese and Korean.'The China Internet Network Information Center, the government agency that oversees the registry in China, quickly responded by unveiling a competing system. Officials quoted in state-run media called the system China's sole legal cyber-registry.'State-run newspapers, ever given to nationalistic passions, stoked the controversy. They proclaimed that the Chinese language belonged to China and that VeriSign was trampling on Chinese sovereignty.'There was even talk in the press of blocking access in China to addresses using VeriSign's system, as Beijing does now for Web sites of some foreign media and critics of communist rule.'That raised the prospect of China cutting itself off from the rest of cyberspace.'

Coalition makes concession on anti-piracy technology Misc.1/9/2001; 2:36:30 PM 'After an outcry from privacy advocates, a group of leading computer hardware makers has agreed to give consumers the right to turn off a controversial new copy-protection feature on computer hard drives.'The technology, developed by an IBM-lead consortium called 4C, would prevent consumers from making copies of music or movies without the permission of the record label or studio that holds the rights. The copy-protection feature could start appearing as early as this spring in portable devices, such as MP3 players, digital cameras and handheld organizers. But fears that it would reach computer hard drives prompted fierce backlash -- and an agreement Thursday from the consortium to set curbs on the technology....'Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the furor over the 4C copy-protection plan reveals a basic misunderstanding of the technology. It is intended solely for removable storage, such as flash and compact memory cards that can be swapped from device to device. The technology effectively locks a music track or video clip to the memory card, preventing the consumer from making duplicates or from uploading it to the Internet.'Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy's comments reveal a basic misunderstanding about why people were upset. First, why should we be less upset that only our removable media is being bastardized that way? And second, we can hardly be expected to complacently believe any large company's promises about what it will or will not do in the future. The "outcry" was fully justified, and it's completely reasonable to assume that once the technology was deployed in removable media, some interests would have wanted to have it deployed on static media as well.

Supreme Court Lets Stand Computer Anti-porn Law Free Speech1/9/2001; 12:30:28 PM 'The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) rejected on Monday a free-speech challenge by six university professors to a Virginia law that bars public employees from using state computers to access sexually explicit material on the Internet....''The professors argued the law violated the constitutional First Amendment-based academic freedom rights of university scholars and the rights of other public employees engaged in legitimate, work-related, intellectual inquiry....''Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley defended the law.... He said state employees did not have a First Amendment right to disregard the law and decide for themselves whether sexually explicit material was required for their professional, employment-related research and writing needs.'This is really the old employee-employer issue, not necessarily a "first amendment" issue. That said, it is disturbing that AG Mark Early believed that this was about "disregarding" the law. This was about whether the law was Constitutional, which is a perfectly acceptable concern, not merely "disregarding" the law. I refuse to simply accept that a law is consitutional because an AG or a legislature says it is; they have no right to say that.

Pirates Beware: We're Watching
General IP Issues
1/3/2001; 9:31:53 PM

'Content companies are slowly coming to realize that digital rights management solutions can't stop the file-trading frenzy that has gripped the Internet.

'So while continuing to work with encryption companies like Liquid Audio and Supertracks to come up with a solution that will protect their content, music and movie companies are doing what they can. New monitoring applications allow them to attack piracy not at the user level, but by going directly to the service provider.'

Yahoo To Reject Hate Items, Charge For Auctions
Free Speech
1/3/2001; 5:14:57 PM 'Human rights activists on Wednesday hailed a decision by Yahoo to stamp out online auctions of Nazi artifacts following a lengthy legal battle.

'Yahoo Inc. (stock: YHOO) on Tuesday announced two big changes to its auction service: a first-ever listing fee and a much tougher policy against the sale of hate material.

'After vigorously defending a policy under which it allowed the sale of Nazi memorabilia deemed to have some historic value, Yahoo will now ban more of these items, and will add a monitoring program that automatically screens new listings for offensive content and will kick back potentially banned material for closer review. Although the stricter listing policy encompasses a broad range of items associated with groups that promote or glorify hatred and violence, Yahoo specified Nazi militaria and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia as items that would now be banned.'

The Last Great LinkBack Feature: Implemented!
LinkBack
1/3/2001; 12:45:04 AM

I've finally implemented the Last Great LinkBack Feature: The Top (N) List of 'Logs. (N is currently set to 5, I hope to move it up to 10 later.)  The 5 weblogs with the most current links to them are now displayed on both the main weblog page, and iRights.

Unlike many "Top N" lists of 'logs floating around, automatically generated or otherwise, anybody can be on the top of this list. There have been a number of other popularity measures for the weblog community, but I believe that none of them are as fluid and current as this one. Many of the other measures have a very static top, where the same 10-20 'logs are always the highest, and will be for the forseeable future. With this measure, anybody can be on top, and those on top will truly be the most interesting blogs, not just the most popular. (Everybody may give perma-links to the standard "top" 'logs, but you actually have to be linked to on a daily basis to win this measure.)