Next up for France: police keyloggers and Web censorship Ars technica
The French government, fresh from passing its controversial “three strikes” law to boot repeat file-sharers off the Internet, is now prepping its next assault on online malfeasance. A new bill would legalize government keyloggers, institute ISP censorship of child porn sites, and set up a massive citizen database called Pericles.ther died more than nine years ago and my widowed mother often complains that she continues to receive bills in his name and solicitations in his name.

France Continues Its Campaign To Pass The Worst Internet-Related Laws Around TechDirt
Perhaps it’s a race of some sort to see which country can pass the worst laws related to the internet possible, and France feels that it’s falling behind other countries? After approving a “three strikes” law that will kick those accused (not convicted) of file sharing off the internet, someone in our comments reminded us that France is also looking to implement a file sharing tax on ISPs (Google translation) — even though there’s already such a levy on storage media. So… your connection gets taxed in case you’re sharing music, your storage gets taxed again for that same shared music… and you can get kicked offline for it anyway. And then a bunch of folks have pointed out that French politicians are looking to implement new laws that give police the ability to use keylogging software, force ISPs to censor certain sites on a “banned” list, and create a massive database of information on citizens.

Craigslist Sues South Carolina Attorney General McMaster; Asks For Restraining Order TechCrunch
Craigslist is suing South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster in the state’s federal court, seeking declaratory relief as well as a restraining order with respect to criminal charges he has threatened against the company and its executives. The company is raising the gloves because it refuses to shut down its operations in South Carolina, claiming it’s in full compliance with all applicable laws and has already done enough by removing its ‘erotic services’ category.

China clears bloggers who criticized government IDG News Service
Two Chinese bloggers separately detained for writing online about government corruption have had their charges dropped by police in recent weeks. The cases reflect a possible move by Beijing to allow more free speech, though within clear limits. Corruption has long plagued China’s government, especially in rural areas, and allowing victims to express grievances online and elsewhere could help curb the problem.
F5 Whiteboard Conversation: Reducing Storage Costs through Automated Storage Tiering: Download now Police in northern Henan province have dropped defamation charges against a man they detained earlier this year for posting online about a corrupt village election, state media said Wednesday. The man claimed that the number of votes for his rival in the election exceeded the size of the village, the China Daily said.

Open Source Developer Intends To Block Belgian Government From Using His Technology Over Tax Dispute TechCrunch
Open source developer Bruno Lowagie is about to set a remarkable precedent in the F/OSS world by restricting any government body in his (and my) home country, Belgium, to use any product that makes use of technology originally developed by him. More specifically, this concerns iText, a free and open source library for creating and manipulating PDF, RTF, and HTML files in Java (also ported to the .NET Framework under the name iTextSharp). iText is embedded in many products and services, including Eclipse BIRT, Jasper Reports, Red Hat JBoss Seam, Windward Reports, etc. and used by major companies like IBM, Adobe and Google. The reason for all this ruckus? Apparently, Lowagie has been forced to cough up nearly 10,000 € over the past few years simply because he’s running been Google AdSense ads on his personal website, which the government erroneously classified as income from corporate activities.

White House Wins Court Fight on Email Disclosure Associated Press
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the office that has records about millions of possibly missing emails from the Bush White House doesn’t have to make them public. The appeals court in Washington ruled that the White House Office of Administration isn’t an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act, allowing the White House to keep secret documents about an email system that has been plagued with problems. During its first term, the Bush White House failed to install electronic record-keeping for email when it switched to a new system, resulting in millions of messages that couldn’t be found. The Bush White House discovered the problem in 2005 and rejected a proposed solution.

Perfect 10 Shot Down Again; Will It Finally Realize That Search Engines Aren’t Liable For Photos? TechDirt
Porn magazine publisher Perfect 10 has spent tons of money on a long series of fruitless lawsuits against the operators of search engines. The issue is that people with access to Perfect 10 photos had put them online, and (of course) search engines indexed these and included them in their image search features. Perfect 10 insisted that, since these search engines showed thumbnails of the images, the search engines were liable for the infringement. Except that courts keep throwing these cases out. But, that hasn’t stopped Perfect 10. [So the U.S. law protects copyright picture indexing on U.S. websites but goes after other countries and its own people?]

Anti-spam bill targeting phishers, spyware Michael Geist, Toronto Star
The recent introduction of the Electronic Consumer Protection Act, Canada’s long-awaited anti-spam bill, has been greeted with initial all-party support in the House of Commons. The bill just passed second reading, with committee hearings the next step in the legislative process. Looking ahead, the big fight seems destined to focus on the government’s desire to establish a comprehensive regime with tough penalties that apply to most commercial communications to consumers. Consumer groups will likely welcome the reforms, while some business and marketing organizations may paint a gloomy picture of the costs associated with the new regulations.

FTC Looks To Regulate [shill] Blogger Credibility TechDirt
The Federal Trade Commission is mulling over guidelines that would require bloggers to disclose when they’re writing about products they’ve been given, sponsor’s products, or are getting paid to write about a particular product. The FTC says the new rules are necessary because people are increasingly turning to blogs for product information, and their unregulated nature makes them ripe for abuse.

Google Threatened With Sanctions Over Photo Mapping Service in Germany New York Times
A German data protection official on Tuesday threatened Google, the world’s largest search company, with “unspecified sanctions” if the company did not change its Street View panoramic photo mapping service to conform to the country’s strict privacy laws. Johannes Caspar, the data protection regulator for the German city-state of Hamburg, where Google has its German headquarters, said officials would be forced to pursue unspecified sanctions if he did not receive written guarantees from Google agreeing to changes before 10 a.m. local time Wednesday.

Toronto Hydro Among First In World To Test Out Google’s PowerMeter Service CTV
Google is currently testing out a new service called PowerMeter that will allow consumers to use their home computer or mobile phone to retrieve detailed reports on their home’s electricity consumption, right from their own meters. Eight utility companies, including Toronto Hydro here in Canada, have signed on to test the service and if all goes well to roll it out as a free offering to their customers later on. According to Google, their motivation for the service is “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful;….

Another ‘Slumdog’ child star’s home torn down CTV
City authorities tearing down part of a Mumbai slum have demolished the shanty of another ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ child star. Munni Qureshi, the stepmother of 9-year-old Rubina Ali who played the film’s heroine Latika in the Oscar-winning film, says her husband was beaten by police who were supervising the demolition. The movie won eight Oscars and brought in more than US$326 million. But that has so far done little to improve the lives of the film’s two impoverished child stars, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Ali.

Apple earplugs shock users The Inquirer
Maker of expensive electronic toys, Apple has apparently designed them in such a way that they can deliver a bolt of static electricity to any fanboy dumb enough to buy them. Apple has admitted on a support page that it’s possible to receive a small, sharp electrical shock from its earbuds while listening to an Ipod or Ipharionone. However Apple claims that receiving a static shock from a pair of earbuds does not necessarily indicate any problem with the Ipod, Iphone or the earbuds. [Apple] Fanboys say it is the touch of god. [Also see p2pnet spoof for a variation on this theme. ]

School can expel lesbian students, court rules LA Times
An appeals panel finds California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business and therefore doesn’t have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. After a Lutheran school expelled two 16-year-old girls for having “a bond of intimacy” that was “characteristic of a lesbian relationship,” the girls sued, contending the school had violated a state anti-discrimination law. In response to that suit, an appeals court decided this week that the private religious school was not a business and therefore did not have to comply with a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating. A lawyer for the girls said Tuesday that he would ask the California Supreme Court to overturn the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Emotional issue settled Ma Bell [Canada] listed dead man’s number for nine years The Spec
It’s tough enough battling the big boys when you’re alive. Who’s going to protect you after you’re gone? “In a few days, it will be nine years since my father passed away,” Alan Lambshead told Action Line. “He actually moved out of his house about 14 months before that and disconnected his Bell Canada phone service. However, Bell continues to list his name and phone number in the telephone directory each year. Each year I call to complain, they do some checking and tell me the problem is resolved.” But, each year, his father’s name and listing appeared in the phone book. Now I know this is not an isolated incident …”

(Thanks, Marc)

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May, 2009