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.

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.'