p2pnet Last of the day, April 14, 2008
p2pnet headline roundups | Last of the day
China unblocks CBC website – CBC
China has unblocked the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s websites, a week after the broadcaster’s president formally complained to Chinese officials. “We have today heard that access to CBC/Radio-Canada’s English and French websites in China is no longer blocked,” said Hubert T. Lacroix in a letter to China’s ambassador to Canada, Lu Shumin. “I am writing to thank you personally for what I assume was your expeditious assistance in this matter.” French-language website Radio-Canada.ca had been blocked for six months while English site CBC.ca had been cut off since January.
>>>
FCC to look into firms’ use of customer data – Reuters
Staff at the Federal Communications Commission are expected to recommend that it review rules on how phone and cable companies can use customer information as they try to take business from each other, an FCC official said on Friday. The FCC enforcement bureau will recommend that the commission reject a complaint by cable operators charging that Verizon Communications Inc violated the agency’s customer privacy rules by using customer information to prevent them from switching their phone service to cable, an agency official said, on condition of anonymity.
>>>
Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft – New York Times
Google and Salesforce.com, two of Microsoft’s most conspicuous rivals, are expanding a 10-month-old collaboration in an effort to accelerate their sales of customer management and office software to businesses. On Monday, the two companies will announce that they have integrated Salesforce’s customer relationship management software and Google’s suite of office productivity applications, which includes e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets programs, into a single software package.
>>>
Georgia Patients’ Records Exposed on Web for Weeks – New York Times
A company hired by the State of Georgia to administer health benefits for low-income patients is sending letters to notify tens of thousands of residents that their private records were exposed on the Internet for nearly seven weeks before the error was caught and corrected, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. The records of as many as 71,000 adults and children enrolled in the Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids programs were inadvertently posted on Feb. 12, said Amy Knapp, a spokeswoman for the company, WellCare Health Plans Inc., whose headquarters are in Tampa, Fla. The company learned on March 28 that the information was publicly accessible, Ms. Knapp said, and it took five more days to remove all the data, which included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids numbers, and dates of eligibility for insurance programs.
>>>
Yahoo Signs Ad, Video Deal With Major League Baseball – InformationWeek
Yahoo on Thursday said it has signed a 3-year contract to carry out-of-market Major League Baseball games and to share ad revenue. Under the agreement, Yahoo Sports will show more than 2,400 out-of-market MLB games each year through the 2010 season. In addition, Yahoo will exclusively manage advertising sales for the league’s online games in the 2009 and 2010 seasons. MLB.TV is a paid subscription service in which customers can watch on their computers up to six live games simultaneously. Todd Teresi, senior VP of Yahoo Publisher Channel, said in a statement that the portal is providing MLB.com “an opportunity to extend its reach to the largest possible audience, while at the same time maximizing monetization of its video subscription product.”
>>>
iPod tax: UK music biz open to format shifting … for a fee – Ars Technica
A recent study from the University of Hertfordshire found that 88 percent of UK residents think that ripping a CD onto an iPod is legal. Sadly, they’re wrong; ripping remains illegal. But the music industry has at last embraced the radical idea that format shifting ought to be legal… with (of course) a terrific catch: the music biz wants to get paid. Under a new plan submitted last week by major UK musician groups like BPI, the Music Publishers Association, and the Music Producers Guild, format shifting would be legalized, but only onto devices that are “licensed.” In other words, get ready for a new iPod tax. The UK’s Intellectual Property Office has been spearheading the effort to reform the copyright laws in the country on the lines laid down by the 2006 Gowers report, and one of the suggestions was that format shifting (which everyone already does) be made legal. The UK music business went along with this; in fact, we noted in early 2006 that the UK equivalent of the RIAA, the BPI, actually suggested to the Gowers commission that this be done.
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
