European Patents
Patents
11/21/2000; 4:13:58 PM

Europe is starting to debate in earnest about the patentability of software, according to this Wired article. The Software Patent Working Group of the FFII has prepared a list of silly European patents. Some highlights:

• select cooking recipes to generate a list of items to buy: Calculate lists of things to buy with buying instructions, based on cooking recipes specified by a user. The "technical contribution" lies in the fact that a printer and a monitor are used.
• Global user interface: A help system in which commands are context specific. This patent consists of only one claim, short and broad. The description behind it refers to a command environment for the Unix system which the company allegedly created and which is similar to Niklas Wirth's Oberon.
• Method and apparatus for path name format conversion: Separation of pathnames into their components. Some subclaims refer to the normal procedure necessary for converting Windows95 filenames to WindowsNT filenames.

As any computer person could tell you, these patents are either vital to the functioning of any computer (global UI) or trivial (the other two) and do not deserve patents, either because they are trivial or because if actually enforced would completely prevent competition.

Good background info on the French Yahoo! Case
Country Watch: France
11/21/2000; 2:36:32 PM

Richard Salis has gathered a lot of good background information on the French Yahoo case, in English and French. Most notable, the translated court decision.

Support for UCITA Law Eroding
UCITA
11/20/2000; 3:25:05 PM

'After more than a year of conflict, a campaign by America Online, Microsoft and other powerful software companies to pass legislation dramatically limiting the rights of software buyers appears to have stalled in the face of growing opposition.

'Half a dozen states this year have considered the controversial legislation, which would allow software companies to ban the sale of used software, avoid fixing software bugs and even block the publication of critical reviews of their products.

Court to Yahoo: Use Nazi Filter
Country Watch: France
11/20/2000; 1:21:52 PM 'In a landmark ruling with potential implications for Web users around the world, a French court on Monday ordered U.S. Internet giant Yahoo to bar French users from sites selling Nazi memorabilia.

'Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez confirmed a ruling that he first issued on May 22 ordering Yahoo to prevent people in France from accessing English-language sites that auction Nazi books, daggers, SS badges and uniforms....

New LinkBack Feature & First User
LinkBack
11/20/2000; 10:52:44 AM

Last week, I added a new feature to LinkBack.  It can now send the results anywhere, so you can host them on your own weblogs if you want. 

Serious Instructional Technology is the first (and currently) only site using it. "Who's Linking to SiT" in the upper left is being dynamically generated and uploaded via XML-RPC every hour.... which means that iRights is now showing as linking to him (since this has been posted for long enough).

Watching for Internet Privacy Law Signals
Privacy from Companies
11/20/2000; 10:12:32 AM

'E-commerce companies and other Internet-based operations are going to face a cyberspace odyssey on the privacy front in 2001. In its next session, Congress is more likely than ever to pass online personal data protection legislation....

'The battle trenches are quickly being dug. Technology companies trying to figure out how not to break the law (remember, the Federal Trade Commission is erring on the side of the privacy advocates for the most part) will have to tune in to these key players next year.'

New documents shed more light on FBI's "Carnivore"
Surveillance and Privacy from Government
11/18/2000; 11:04:15 PM 'The FBI released additional documents about its controversial Carnivore technology Thursday, and critics immediately lambasted it as proof that the email-tapping program is more powerful and invasive than the government has disclosed.

'The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which sued the FBI for the information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), said the batch of paperwork indicates that Carnivore can capture and archive "unfiltered" Internet traffic--contrary to FBI assertions.'

Police chief slams Yahoo! chatroom silence
Free Speech
11/17/2000; 12:56:34 PM

'It has been a difficult week for Yahoo!. Three children's charities including Childnet International, NCH Action for Children and Childwatch lambasted the company for its policy on Internet chat. Later, expert child psychologists warned that Internet chatrooms are likely to increase the number of attacks on children in the UK and urged Yahoo! to act before more children fall prey to the kind of attacks Patrick Green put his victim through.'

The Bubble Has Popped: Amazon Works To Form Union
Misc.
11/17/2000; 11:15:58 AM 'Customer service workers at Amazon.com's (AMZN) Seattle headquarters have started a drive to form a union.

'The workers hope to gather support from a majority of the 400 or so customer service representatives in Seattle. They hope to obtain union recognition and eventually a collective bargaining agreement.'

The dot-com boom is now officially over Dot-coms can't just throw more stock at their employees and expect them to work 70+ hour weeks. In my opinion, this was their greatest real advantage over so-called 'conventional' businesses.

Rights fielder
Misc.
11/16/2000; 11:53:54 AM 'In order to foster and preserve the openness of the Internet, it's imperative to make the right choices now. Mr. Lessig makes clear the danger from efforts to regulate the Internet, which will have long-lasting effects on its growth and development. But following a simple laissez-faire policy is also fraught with problems. Mr. Lessig maintains the approach that the openness of digital code can be used to restructure cyberspace. He also believes that the citizens of cyberspace must grapple with these issues, or else suffer the fate of being coded into a world they don't understand, designed without their help by software developers.'