Toysmart.com can sell customer list Privacy from Companies7/23/2000; 7:31:45 PM The Federal Trade Commision has ruled that Toysmart.com can sell their controversial customer list, as long as the buyer agrees to follow the original Toysmart.com privacy policy.'Under the settlement agreement, Toysmart will file an order today in Bankruptcy Court ("Bankruptcy Order"), prohibiting Toysmart from selling the customer list as a stand-alone asset. The settlement only allows a sale of such lists as a package which includes the entire Web site, and only to a "

Movie studios target Scour with copyright lawsuit DVD & DeCSS7/23/2000; 12:00:05 PM 'While the movie studios have weighed in on the record industry's suit against Napster, it's the first time they've filed their own lawsuit against a file-sharing company that allows movie trading online. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) joined the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in its suit.'Scour is a file sharing service similar in architecture to Napster, but more like Gnutella in its ability to share all file types, not just MP3 music files.

DVD Update: Universal City Studios v. 2600 Magazine, Day 3 (July 19, 2000) DVD & DeCSS7/20/2000; 12:31:55 PM 'Interestingly, Judge Kaplan refused to allow questioning in any area related to when and whether buyers of Warner DVDs receive the "authority of the copyright holder", which is a critical element of whether the buyer is circumventing when they play a DVD. The judge thought it was obvious, and eventually facetiously asked Ms.

RIP branded 'zombie legislation' as it passes Lords Country Watch: Britain7/20/2000; 10:53:23 AM 'The Lords forced a fresh set of concessions on the government yesterday before passing its email snooping bill.'But industry figures are far from happy with the way the bill stands, saying it will still harm human rights and business confidence.' ...'And in the words of Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, the amended encryption powers are unenforceable and unfathomable.

Democrats Halt Meth Bill Censorship7/20/2000; 9:44:50 AM 'H.R. 2987, also known as the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999, was scheduled for a full-committee markup Wednesday but was postponed due to Democratic concerns over proposed amendments which came as a surprise to Democrats on the committee.'It was not stopped because of the provisions in the bill causing it to be covered on this site regarding censorship, it was stopped because of some amendments to the bill.

White House seems to send mixed messages on privacy Surveillance and Privacy from Government7/19/2000; 2:01:30 PM Silicon Valley News says in a happy article:'The White House plans to propose legislation designed to make it as difficult for police to legally read your e-mail as it is now for them to tap your telephone. ``It's time to update and harmonize our existing laws to give all forms of technology the same legislative protections as our telephone conversations,'' White House chief of staff John Podesta said Monday.

Movie Studios Admit DeCSS Not Related to Piracy (July 18, 2000) DVD & DeCSS7/19/2000; 8:35:46 AM 'The movie studios next called to the stand Robert Schumann, who owns a company called Cinea that receives more than 50% of its yearly income from the MPAA and the Proskaur Rose law firm. Schumann stated his expertise comes largely from being the chief architect of the DiVX security system, .... Schumann's affidavit and testimony that DeCSS was created to be a tool of piracy was severely undermined on cross-examination by EFF's defense team when asked about a report he submitted to the MPAA concluding that members of the Livid mailing list (where DeCSS was published) were attempting to build a Linux DVD player.

Slashdot : Deja Linking Ads Within Usenet Posts? Content Integrity7/19/2000; 8:15:14 AM 'skinfaxi noted that Deja has begun insert advertisements within the bodies of messages collected from usenet. Here's an example where the word 'Modem' was linked to (surprise) ads for modems! Skinfaxi attached Deja's response to her complaint below as well.'This is an unacceptable modification of people's Usenet posts and is is its most insidious form. Links are a form of speech, and by adding them to the poster's message, they are changing the content of that speech.

Internet may need new cyber-borders-U.S. legal body Misc.7/18/2000; 12:43:05 PM 'The Internet makes such light work of geographical frontiers that new cyber-borders may be needed instead, top U.S. lawyers said Monday as they presented a two-year report into preventing global online chaos. ...'If a French customer buys a rug from Turkey via a website hosted in the United States and with a Swiss credit card, for example, there are risks all round -- the rug might be a dud, the payment might be faulty and taxes might not be paid -- but where should such matters be settled?

Well-Informed Citizens Increasingly Rare in Information Age Technology & Sociology7/18/2000; 10:26:59 AM 'While more than 70% of the people the NSF surveyed knew that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, and that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist, only 16% could define the Internet and only 13% could accurately describe a molecule. At least those numbers are going up, the report's authors noted diplomatically--five years ago, only 11% could define the Internet and only 9% could describe a molecule.