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The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Internet providers are not broadcasters for the purposes of the Broadcasting Act when they simply transmit content to subscribers, reports Michael Geist. The court noted... more»
In a blog post today, Michael Geist writes: "The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia). This has generated a flurry of furious protest..." more»
"While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries," says Michael Geist in a blog post today. Geist writes: "With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11 ..." more»
A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday. It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it. The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive. more»
Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world's largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, charging its founder and others with violating piracy laws, the Associated Press reports today. "The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals [SOPA & PIPA] intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs." more»
Internet protests on Wednesday quickly cut into Congressional support for anti-Web piracy measures as lawmakers abandoned and rethought their backing for legislation that pitted new media interests against some of the most powerful old-line commercial interests in Washington. Freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising Republican star, was first out of the starting gate Wednesday morning with his announcement that he would no longer back anti-Internet piracy legislation... more»
The White House today released a response to SOPA and PIPA petitions and the legislative approaches to combat online piracy. The response is prepared by Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff. more»
The controversial copyright enforcement bill the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, may be amended on the Senate floor later this month in response to ongoing concerns about its provisions affecting ISPs and the domain-name system, the bill's chief sponsor said. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chief sponsor of the Protect IP Act said Thursday he plans to offer an amendment that would require a study of the impact of the ISP provisions in the bill before they are implemented. more»
In a letter released on Monday, the Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders. "Policies mandating DNS filtering undermine the open architecture of the Internet and raise human rights and freedom of expression concerns," says Internet Society (ISOC). more»
Luxury brand Chanel has engaged in a fierce campaign against counterfeit websites in federal court in Nevada. It has seized approximately six hundred domain names in the last few months, reports Venkat Balasubramani. "I'm sympathetic to the "whack-a-mole" problem rights owners face, but this relief is just extraordinarily broad and is on shaky procedural grounds." more»
During an 18-month trial, rights holders would send copyright infringement notices, including evidence of copyright infringement and the IP address involved, to ISPs who would then send "educational notices" to the internet users concerned. Users who are suspected of further copyright breaches would then receive up to three warning notices before rights holders are able to pursue court action. more»
The European Court of Justice has ruled that content owners cannot ask ISPs to filter out illegal content. The ruling could have implications for the creative industries as they attempt to crack down on piracy. The court said that while content providers can ask ISPs to block specific sites, wider filtering was in breach of the E-Commerce Directive. more»
On September 25th, 2011, Nik Cubrilovic, a hacker and writer, published a blog post that showed that a particular Facebook session cookie wasn't being deleted after a user logged out. He noted that the session cookie included your Facebook user id number, which would presumably facilitate Facebook associating any data they collected about your browsing the web with your Facebook account. Cubrilovic's review showed that, based on what the cookies were transmitting, Facebook could easily connect some of your browsing habits to your unique Facebook account. more»
Verisign, the manager of top-level domains .com and .net, is seeking authority to shut down "non-legitimate" domain names when asked to by law enforcement. The company said today it wants to be able to enforce the "denial, cancellation or transfer of any registration" in any of a laundry list of scenarios where a domain is deemed to be "abusive". more»
Wout de Natris: "In this decision OPTA revokes the registration of Diginotar as a so called Trusted Third Party. Diginotar issued certified certificates for digital signatures. The security breach by Iranian hackers over the summer, which Diginotar did not report to the authorities, lead to severe credibility issues for all Diginotar certificates issued before. This included Dutch government websites, but also led to severe breaches of privacy for Iranian end users, in multiple countries. As a result of OPTA's decision all certificates issued by Diginotar have to be revoked, while at the same she is forbidden to issue new ones. more»
