Articles by date
19 January 2008
China flags crackdown on 'undesirable' online games (ZDNet)
China said it would issue new rules cracking down on "undesirable" elements of online games amid fears of growing Internet addiction as the number of players soar, state media reported on Thursday.
EU-Kommission und nationale Parlamente sollen Internet Governance Forum nutzen (Heise)
Eine positive Bilanz zogen heute EU-Kommission und Europäisches Parlament mit Blick auf das zweite Internet Governance Forum (IGF) im vergangenen November in Rio de Janeiro. Das dort von der Parlamentsdelegation angekündigte "Europa IGF" ist laut einem Beschluss von sechs Fraktionen allerdings erst für die erste Hälfte 2009 vorgesehen. In ihrem Beschluss fordern die Fraktionen den Parlamentspräsidenten gleichzeitig auf, "die logistische Unterstützung der Vorbereitungskonferenz für das Internet Governance Forum in Delhi unter Beteiligung von Mitgliedern des Europäischen Parlaments anzubieten".
Indian government set to tighten cyber laws (Deepika Global)
The Indian government said it will accomodate as many recommendations given by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology as possible to to deal with data crime, transmission of pictures and other kinds of cyber crime.
Number of Chinese internet users now 210 million, could overtake US this year (The Age)
China's online population has soared to 210 million people and could surpass the United States this year to become the world's biggest, the government said Friday.
Google Spreads Its Wealth to World-Improving Projects (E-Commerce Times)
Putting its money where its mouth is -- and where its corporate parent's future may lie as well -- Google's charitable arm, Google.org, on Thursday announced $25 million worth of new grants across what it now says are the five core areas that it will focus on going forward. Google.org will concentrate its monetary giving and related work on the five areas, including three new focuses: the prediction and prevention of catastrophic events; using information to improve public services around the world; and fostering the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises. Includes a link to a Q&A with Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of online sales and operations, and a founding Google.org board member from Forbes among other coverage.
Americans spend more time online, have positive view of the Net (ComputerWorld)
Americans are spending more time online than ever before and many view the Internet as a more important source of information than TV, radio and newspapers, according to a new survey released today.
New York Times Bits Debate: Responding to Readers on Filtering (New York Times)
We've covered a lot of ground so far in our debate this week on copyright, piracy and digital filtering. Our debaters, Tim Wu, of Columbia Law School, and Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, have had a lot to say. What is amazing to me is how many very thoughtful comments we have gotten to the posts from all over the world.
Quien tiene una arroba tiene un tesoro (Hoy.es)
El registro de dominios en Internet es ya un gran negocio. Tarjetas de visita y símbolos de estatus, las direcciones se han convertido en objeto de comercio en una nueva Bolsa El Gobierno pretende fomentar la presencia de los jóvenes en la Red con esta medida Expertos dudan que sea el público adecuado
NITDA, NiRA Sign MoU on .ng ccTLD (This Day)
The Nigerian newspaper This Day reports the National Information Technology Development Agency and the Nigerian Internet Registration Association signed a memorandum of understanding for management of the .ng ccTLD in Abuja on Wednesday. The MoU gives NiRA the sole authority to administer .ng.
18 January 2008
UK government targets extremist websites (The Guardian)
The government will target extremist websites that "groom" terrorists, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said today, as part of the government's strategy of tackling radical groups. In her first major speech on terrorism, Smith said there was a consensus on the need to gather information about terrorist suspects; to protect Britain's borders and infrastructure; to prepare for terrorist incidents; and to prevent radicalisation.
Another Estonia Cyberattack (PC World)
With the trial starting for four ethnic Russians charged in connection with rioting last year, the Estonian news site Delfi.ee has weathered a two-week-long denial of service attack. The attack, which ended Tuesday, was minimally disruptive, according to Hillar Aarelaid, manager of Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).
Report reveals two thirds top online retailers cybersquatted
Top US retailers are leaving themselves at major risk of brand damage online because of poor domain registration practices, the American E-commerce Brands report from NetNames reveals. The report reveals more than two thirds of leading online retailers in the US currently have at least one domain suffix related to their brand name that is held by a cybersquatter.
Brazil's Orkut rule (Salon)
... As has been well-documented, Google's early entrant into the social networking wars fizzled in the United States but exploded in Brazil. As of late 2007, Brazil boasted 40 million registered Orkut accounts, offering equal room for skate-punks and samba lovers to construct their intentional online communities and chat away. Brazil, writes McCann, "has the largest and most sophisticated electronic communications and entertainment industry in Latin America," with "more Internet users than any other Latin American nation, more cable TV subscribers, more cellphones."
Paedophiles can find it all online - except help to stop (The Guardian)
... Langham's internet activity was investigated under Operation Ore, Britain's longest-running crackdown on web-sourced child pornography. But in many ways his case is atypical. The attendant publicity gave a human and, some would argue, sympathetic face to an impulse that the majority find incomprehensible. Langham did not fit the popular profile of a paedophile. And few have recourse to his defence - the confrontation of past trauma, the writer's responsibility to research. It does not, however, answer questions about this specific area of offending: the viewing of indecent images where there is no evidence of hands-on abuse. What is the correlation between looking and doing? What role should the state take in policing private fantasies? Where does complicity in actual abuse begin and end, particularly when the images viewed are pseudo or artificial?
US study finds increase in concerns about Internet privacy after years of decline (Sydney Morning Herald)
Privacy concerns stemming from online shopping rose in 2007, a new study finds, as the loss or theft of credit card information and other personal data soared to unprecedented levels. Sixty-one percent of adult Americans said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal information when buying online, an increase from 47 percent in 2006. Before last year, that figure had largely been dropping since 2001.
AT&T may filter illegal file-sharing (Out-Law)
One of the largest telecoms firms in the US is contemplating the introduction of a filter to block copyright-infringing traffic in its internet service. The company said that network-level filtering was the "optimal" way to deal with piracy.
Is Facebook's Scrabble game going to disappear? (The Guardian)
Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble. The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users.
Broadband uptake slows along with progress on speeds (The Guardian)
The global growth in broadband connections has begun to slow - indicating that richer countries have almost reached saturation point with the present generation of the technology, while China and India have yet to see a comparable explosion in always-on users.
regionale Top Level Domains - "Nicht den Anschluss verpassen" (ZDF Heute)
www.fundbuero.koeln? Die Bundesregierung soll sich für regionale Domainnamen nach diesem Muster engagieren, wollen CDU und SPD. Nägel mit Köpfen macht man in Berlin. Ein Unternehmen will ".berlin" als neue Länderkennung. Der Senat ist gegen die Idee.
Domain Name Law and Regulation: Seminar & Book Launch
There will be a seminar on domain name law and regulation, and launch of the book "International Domain Name Law: ICANN and the UDRP", in Melbourne on Wednesday 20 February for my Australian readers.
China: Information 'no through road' (Amnesty)
When the internet first arrived in China in the 1990s, it was hoped a free and uncontrolled world wide web would help transform the world's most populous country into a more open society. Today, China is widely recognised as having developed the most advanced system of internet repression in the world, and instead of the internet transforming China, many are now in fact wondering if it is not China that is going to transform the internet.
Cybercrime in Belarus in the beginning of 2008 (E-Belarus.org)
On Saturday, January 5, Belarusian internet portal TUT.BY and hosting provider HOSTER.BY (some Hoster.by servers are located in Moscow) underwent the most powerful hacker attack in the whole history of Belarusian internet. The attack led to download retardation of e-mail, of other TUT.BY services pages and of 3000 websites hosted at HOSTER.BY Moscow servers. While sites hosted by HOSTER.BY servers located at Beltelecom data center (Minsk) remained safe and intact.
17 January 2008
Do you believe in Transition? by Paul Levins (ICANN)
With the ICANN blog one year old, Paul Levins from ICANN writes: What better way to celebrate that fact than by telling you about ICANN's latest report card. Usually you get a report card when you transition from one grade or semester to another. This report card is all about transition too.
Possible 'Next Steps' in Dispute Resolution (ICANN)
Following the posting of the Frameworks and Principles for Accountability and Transparency, ICANN has published a document that countenances some possible additional improvements in dispute resolution mechanisms.
'Dashboard' Allows Window into ICANN Performance (ICANN)
ICANN released the first version of a new 'Dashboard' that will offer measurements of ICANN's performance in numerous areas across the organization. "At this stage the 'Dashboard' has reports from Finance, IANA, and IETF request queue. We are looking for community feedback on this tool and will expand the reports available over time," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO.
