Net Election: Hiding Behind the Web Political Speech6/29/2000; 8:24:35 AM "The Center for Better Medicare's TV ads are well-crafted, but their agenda is transparent. The group's Web site is more cunning. It takes the Web's strengths – interactivity, depth of information and the ability to link to other sites – and turns them to the purposes of political spin. The site might rely on tricks, but at least they're new ones.

DoubleClick, referral URLs and why The Reg is wrong Privacy from Companies6/29/2000; 8:08:18 AM "Recently we [The Register] wrote a story about Web form 'leakage', under the headline Another day, another Doubleclick privacy PR disaster."DoubleClick thought the piece was inaccurate and harsh, particularly because it was singled out for "an Internet problem" - the leakage of personal information through referral URLs."We offered the company the right to reply, and here it is, unedited, from the pen of Jules Polonetsky, chief privacy officer, DoubleClick Inc.

U.K. looks to eavesdrop on Net Country Watch: Britain6/29/2000; 7:54:43 AM "The British government is seeking expansive powers to eavesdrop on Internet traffic in a move that critics say jeopardizes the country's ambition to become a global e-commerce leader."If successful, the initiative also might affect Net privacy debates in the USA and elsewhere in Europe, analysts say. "It sets a dangerous international precedent ...to create a global standard of (Internet) wiretapping,"

Protecting Intellectual Property Rights General IP Issues6/28/2000; 3:20:24 PM This is sort of the flip side of the intellectual property debates taking place in the western world, which is whether or not IP protections are too strong. This story from the Moscow Times illustrates a part of the world so far on the other side (basically no protections whatsoever) that people are actually being harmed, possibly even dying, from the lack of intellectual property protection.

McCain (and many others) Renews Porn-Filter Push Censorship6/28/2000; 8:31:44 AM "On Tuesday, the Arizona Republican and erstwhile presidential candidate introduced a sex-filtering amendment to a spending bill being debated on the Senate floor."'The amendment includes the same language as the Childrens' Internet Protection Act, which McCain introduced in January 1999. It requires any library or school receiving federal "e-rate" funds to tell the FCC it has selected "a technology for its computers with Internet access in order to filter or block Internet access.

AOL's Digital Rights Dilemma General IP Issues6/28/2000; 8:15:17 AM "AOL is about to become the world's largest content company. Along with its more than 22 million subscribers, merger partner Time Warner has well over 120 million combined subscribers for its magazines and cable services. Also on the consolidation train is Warner Music, a division of Time Warner, and EMI, a major music label." ''On Tuesday, AOL said that it would add InterTrust's InterRights Point security client to future versions of AOL's promotional CDs.

Oops Administrative 6/27/2000; 9:04:27 PM I botched the link earlier. The execution discussion David Carter-Tod started is here. It forked, too, and someone posted this message.

U.S.-EU Net Privacy Proposal in Jeopardy Privacy from Companies 6/27/2000; 9:47:53 AM "A controversial data-privacy protocol hammered out by the Commerce Department and the European Commission earlier this year could get derailed at the last minute by opponents who say it doesn't go far enough to protect European personal privacy from U.S. companies." - referring to the "safe harbor" proposal by the US, wherein the US companies promise to be really good little boys and girls, cross their hearts and hope to die.

Major Music Labels Sue MP3Board on Copyrights Music & MP3 6/26/2000; 9:31:18 AM ''Major record labels, including BMG Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Bros. Records, on Friday sued MP3Board Inc., seeking to prevent its Web site from linking users to "pirated" music on the Internet.'' It's the same old story... linking to something constitutes distributing it. If you want to shut down MP3Board, you need to shut down all the internet search engines, too.

Florida judge approves class-action lawsuit against AOL Humor/Amusing6/26/2000; 8:35:59 AM "A Florida judge has approved a class-action, multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the world's largest Internet service provider, America Online, on behalf of hourly subscribers who viewed so-called "pop-up" advertisements."This is too funny. Both sides are nuts. According to the article, AOL does let you shut the pop-ups off, but turns them on again after a while (strange). Meanwhile, the plaintiff seeks a solution of bundling all the pop-ups at once at the end of the session.