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»
Nominet, the registry that handles .uk domains, is moving ahead with proposed rules (PDF) that could allow law enforcement agencies to request a domain be shut down without a court order. The registry launched the process in response to a request from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). more»
Corynne McSherry from EFF reports: "In a cursory opinion issued today that left us scratching our heads, a federal judge has ruled that the government does not have to return a domain name seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), because its seizure did not create a substantial hardship. ... Puerto 80, the Spanish company behind popular sports streaming sites Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org, which were both seized by U.S. ICE earlier this year -- even though a Spanish court found they did not violate copyright law -- had filed a petition to have the sites released pending a trial on the merits of the case." more»
High Court judge has ruled BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies. The landmark case is the first time that an ISP has been ordered to block access to such a site paving the way for other sites to be blocked as part of a major crackdown on piracy, BBC reports. more»
After years of negotiations with Hollywood and the music industry, the nation’s top Internet providers have agreed to a systematic approach to identifying customers suspected of digital copyright infringement and then alerting them via e-mail or other means. Under the new process, which was announced Thursday, several warnings would be issued, with progressively harsher consequences if the initial cautions were ignored. more»
Neil Schwartzman writes to report: "CAUCE reports that the CRTC published long-awaited regulations (a big step towards Canada's Anti-spam Law (AKA C28) coming into force), late June 30, the day before Canada Day. The regulations are, as anticipated, very terse and do little to water down the strong nature of the law; they move to clarify certain aspects of express vs. implied consent, among other things." more»
The Netherlands on Wednesday became the first EU member state to enshrine in law the concept of net neutrality, the idea that there should be no hierarchy of information or services in the internet. The measure, passed by a large majority in the lower house and expected to pass without hitch through the senate, will prevent Dutch mobile telephone operators from blocking or charging consumers more for using internet-based communications services. more»
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has urged a federal court to return two domain names seized in what the organization calls U.S. government's fundamentally flawed anti-infringement campaign. "This misguided intellectual property enforcement effort is causing serious collateral damage to free speech rights," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "These domain seizures should cease unless and until the government can fix the First Amendment flaws inherent in the program." more»
Mike Masnick reporting in Techdirt: "This morning, we wrote about the list of sites that ICE knew was challenging its domain seizures, and some people complained that there still were no details. There's been a lot happening behind the scenes, but the first bit of public information is now available, as the company behind Rojadirecta, Puerto80 has officially filed suit against the US government, demanding the return of its domains." more»
Michael Geist reporting in his blog: "The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression has released an important new report that examines freedom of expression on the Internet. The report is very critical of rules such as graduated response/three strikes, arguing that such laws may violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Moreover, the report expresses concerns with notice-and-takedown systems, noting that it is subject to abuse by both governments and private actors." more»
A group of leading DNS experts have released a paper detailing serious concerns over the proposed DNS filtering requirements included as part of the bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate named Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 ("PROTECT IP Act"). The group who is urging lawmakers to reconsider enacting such a mandate into law, includes leading DNS designers, operators, and researchers, responsible for numerous RFCs for DNS, publication of many peer-reviewed academic studies related to architecture and security of the DNS, and responsible for the operation of important DNS infrastructure on the Internet. more»
