NebuAd Bites the Dust Gigaom
NebuAd, the company that planned to enable Internet Service Providers to offer behavioral advertising based on a person’s web surfing history, has shut its doors, according to MediaPost (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106277), which cites court documents. The controversial service, which is akin to Phorm in the UK, had conducted advertising trials with several U.S. ISP including Cable One and CenturyTel. When it signed up Charter as a customer last summer, a backlash ensued that led to a congressional investigation into such targeted advertising and the refocusing of the company. [Will Phorm be next?]

Google Street View, Immersive Media Corp. and the Canadian Privacy Commission, internal documents, 2006-2007 Wikileaks
The documents presented here contain confidential agreements and letters between Google, Immersive Media Corp, and the Candian Privacy Commission Immersive, a publicly traded company headquarted in Calgary, initially provided Street View panoramic technology to Google.Apart from the business dispute surrounding Google Street View, there is a notable a “revolving door” solicitation by senior Commission lawyer, Kris Klien, to Immersive.

Hearing loss is preventable, students told London Free Press
That was the message a group of Grade 9 students heard here today in a lights-and-music show presented by the Hearing Foundation of Canada. The pilot project — Strathroy is one of just three communities in the country to receive the presentation — was all about preventing hearing loss. That iPod turned up loud? It’s about 91 decibels, or about as loud as standing next to a gas lawnmower. And anything more than two hours of it a day could cause hearing loss, said presenter Ana Miura, a musician.

IP Enforcement As US Foreign Policy ip-watch
The United States Chamber of Commerce, the largest US business group, on Monday issued a release applauding a new bill introduced into the US House of Representatives by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (Democrat, California) that would “enhance State Department resources and training for intellectual property enforcement efforts in countries not meeting their international obligations,” the Chamber said. “To protect and enforce IP rights abroad, the bill authorises 10 IP attachés to serve in US embassies and diplomatic missions, coordinating with foreign governments, rights holders, the secretary of State, and the White House IP enforcement coordinator.”

CCTV schemes in city and town centres have little effect on crime, says report The Guardian
The use of closed-circuit television in city and town centres and public housing estates does not have a significant effect on crime, according to Home Office-funded research to be distributed to all police forces in England and Wales this summer. The review of 44 research studies on CCTV schemes by the Campbell Collaboration found that they do have a modest impact on crime overall but are at their most effective in cutting vehicle crime in car parks, especially when used alongside improved lighting and the introduction of security guards. The authors, who include Cambridge University criminologist, David Farrington, say while their results lend support for the continued use of CCTV, schemes should be far more narrowly targeted at reducing vehicle crime in car parks.

Facebook Partygoers trash townhouse and attack tenants CBC
Party was advertised on Facebook. The event started out as a birthday party for Jillian Warner, one of the six tenants living in the townhouse. Warner said she invited a friend who is also disc jockey. “Once he heard about the party, he said, ‘I can deejay for you and I’ll do it for free,’ ” Warner told CBC News on Monday. “I was like, ‘Oh, cool, a deejay’ — because it was my birthday party.” The deejay then spread word about the party using Facebook, the tenants said. Approximately 1,000 people with accounts on the social networking website were invited. A link to Google Maps was provided giving directions to the townhouse. “My father got a message saying to come to my party,” said Andrew Zwicker, one of the tenants. “And so did the paramedics. They heard about it, too.” The group of roommates said between 200 and 400 people they didn’t know crammed into their place on Saturday night. When the party got out of hand, the crowd turned on the tenants when they asked the revellers to leave.

Google eases trademark restrictions on some U.S. ads Reuters
Google Inc is lifting restrictions on the use of trademarked terms in its U.S. online advertising system, a move that could increase friction between the Internet giant and brand owners. The new policy will allow businesses to place trademarked terms directly in the copy of text advertisements that run in the U.S. starting next month, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday. The move, which Google said will improve the quality of its advertisements, comes as advertisers have begun bidding less money for the individual search terms that their ads appear alongside and as Google’s revenue growth slows in the dismal economic climate.

Audit suggests pirated software at [Canadian] federal department CBC
An electronic sweep of a major federal department has found hundreds of copies of what appears to be pirated software. And that lack of control at Natural Resources Canada has placed the department “at risk of legal liability with associated financial damages,” says a new audit. Investigators used a powerful program that electronically probed thousands of computers on the department’s networks to determine whether they contained popular software products. The totals were then compared with the number of software licences registered centrally. [Comment: Hype.]

New Privacy website – PrivacyAdvocates.ca Michael Geist
Michael Geist reports on the creation of a new website (http://PrivacyAdvocates.ca) launched as an effort to link privacy advocates worldwide.

Lawsuit Says Google’s Sale of Keywords Is Illegal Slashdot
“Google encourages advertisers to purchase other companies’ trademarks as targeted search terms, and they’re expanding the practice into 190 countries. When Audrey Spangenberg typed the name of her small software company into Google and saw the ads of competitors that had paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark, she was furious. This week, her company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court, saying that Google had infringed on her company’s trademark, and challenged Google’s policies on behalf of all trademark owners in the state.

Disputing An Erroneous $450 Porn Charge Is A “Serious Violation Of Our Terms Of Use” Consumerist
Someone hacked reader E’s account on the adult site ImLive.com and bought up $450 worth of credits. By the time E. caught the charge, half of the credits had already been used. When E. informed the site that he was planning to file a chargeback with his credit card company, he was warned that doing so would be “considered a serious violation of our terms of use.” The site’s suggested alternative was simple: they would restore the used credits, and E. could watch lots and lots of porn.

Bad Idea: UK Launches Database Of Info On Every Child TechDirt
… the UK has put together a giant database including info on every child in the UK. The goal is for it to be used by childcare professionals, but you can bet it will be misused quite soon. As internet law expert Michael Scott notes: “Who thought this was a good idea? And why?”

Canadian Insurance Company Snooped On Jurors Insurance Claims During Trial TechDirt
We’ve seen it over and over again — when people have access to large databases of information, it’s almost impossible for them to resist the temptation to abuse the info. The latest example comes via Michael Scott, who points us to the news that the Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) was caught checking its own database to examine the claim histories of potential jurors in a trial in which the company was involved. Not surprisingly, this is a massive breach of Canadian privacy laws and also raises questions about the jury itself.

Movie Studios Continue To Demand Australian ISP Admit To Supporting Piracy TechDirt
You may recall last November that a bunch of movie studios got together and sued Australian ISP iiNet, for not being able to wave a magic wand and make all unauthorized file sharing among its users disappear. The ISP, who has taken a very pro-consumer stance, responded by noting that if there’s any “theft” involved, it should be a matter for the police to investigate, not an ISP to take action based on allegations alone:…

US Illegal Broadcasts to Cuba: The U.S. Propaganda TV/radio station beamed to cuba drops their budget to $32M Cuba News
The Mexican news agency Notimex reported that the US plans a slight reduction in funding for Radio and TV Marti that broadcast illegal transmissions to Cuba and are hardly watched or heard by anyone in Cuba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Marti). It seems like the crisis is even affecting these two ill-named broadcasters, whose budgets will be reduced from US$ 34.8 million a year to 32.4 million. According to the Miami Herald, the cut comes as part of large reductions to the federal budget. [Comment: Maybe Cuba should host a Pirates Bay to beam right back at the States?]

(Thanks, Marc)

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May, 2009