CyberLaw Blog

Archive for May, 2008

Bits: Is Google Violating a California Privacy Law?: “A 2003 California law says Web sites must put links to their privacy policies on their home pages. Google doesn’t do this, saying users can simply search to find out what information it collects about them.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

The New Order: When reading is a crime: “

Download a book, get arrested

Is this what it is going to be like? When simple possession of a proscribed document will be enough to see you clapped in irons and whisked down to the local police station?…

“

(Via The Register - Public Sector.)

Prosecutors investigate Deutsche Telekom over data misuse: “German prosecutors have begun an investigation into allegations of data misuse by telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom. Today’s announcement follows the company’s admission earlier in the week that phone call records had been misused.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Half of UK firms have sacked errant emailers: “Nearly half of UK companies have fired workers in the past year because of abuses of email. Over half of UK firms regularly audit employees’ email to make sure they are complying with company rules, a survey has found.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

British newspaper websites liable in France for privacy invasion: “Two British newspaper publishers have been fined in French courts because they violated French privacy laws. The publishers were liable because the articles were viewed in France on the internet.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Turkish Press Scanner - Turkish Daily News May 27, 2008: ” Turkey one of 13 to ban YouTube – Vatan

Google and Reporters Without Borders, or RWB, have responded to court decisions that ban access to YouTube in Turkey, daily Vatan reported yesterday.

YouTube has only been banned in 13 countries around the globe and they are Brazil, Indonesia, Armenia, Morocco, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran, United Arab Emirates, China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Turkish Internet users have been unable to access the world’s largest video sharing Web site YouTube in the past month, due to consecutive court orders. Access to YouTube was barred first on April 24, then on April 30, and lastly on May 5. In a statement last week, RWB declared this situation ‘unacceptable.’ The organization’s statement read that authorities would close down the whole site because of a few videos they find ‘shocking.’ It added, ‘Article 5651 that grants prosecutors the right to close any Web site that insults Atatürk or incites drug use, pedophilia, suicide, or prostitution in 24 hours, is being abused. We ask authorities to explain their reasons for the ban.’ During a speech on freedom of expression on the Internet, YouTube’s parent company Google’s Deputy Legal Counselor Nicole Wang said even though they have been in contact with Turkish authorities in the past couple of months, they have had a difficult time finding out even which videos were the cause of complaints. “

: “Testimony of Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google Inc., U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law Hearing on ‘Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law’

May 20, 2008 “

“YouTube has been blocked in Turkey repeatedly over the past year because of videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey, and other videos deemed by the Turkish government to be threatening to the state, such as videos promoting an independent Kurdistan. Under Article 301 of Turkish law, it is a crime to denigrate Turkishness, to threaten the unity of the Turkish state, or to defame Ataturk. As a result, Turkish courts have ordered the entire YouTube site blocked multiple times, and for several days, because of videos deemed illegal in Turkey. While we have been engaged with Turkish officials for many months, it has been very difficult to even know what videos have been the source of complaint.“

Interesting Read….

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “May 13, 2008

The US Senate Committee on the Judiciary had a hearing before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on ‘Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law’ on May 20, 2008.

Witness List

Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on ‘Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law’

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel, Google, Inc, Mountain View, CA

Michael Samway, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Yahoo! Inc, Miami, FL

Arvind Ganesan, Program Director, Business & Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Washington, DC

Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Cisco Systems, Inc, San Jose, CA

Shiyu Zhou, Deputy Director, Global Internet Freedom Consortium, Bethesda, MD

Committee Member statement: THE HONORABLE RICHARD J. DURBIN

Google Public Policy Blog: Promoting free expression on the internet: “Promoting free expression on the internet

Tuesday, May 20, 2008, Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel

Google’s commitment to freedom of expression is at the core of everything we do — whether it’s independent media organizations using YouTube to express themselves in Venezuela, or citizen journalists using Blogger to chronicle Myanmar’s crackdown last year on Buddhist monk protests. Unfortunately, many governments around the world impose limits on their citizens’ freedom of speech, and that often leads them to block or limit access to our tools and services.

This is one of the largest challenges we face as a company, and today our Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong will testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law about how Google promotes free expression and responds to these challenges.

In her testimony, Nicole will talk about our efforts to be transparent with users, such as our use of the Chilling Effects website to highlight legal requests to remove content and our clear notification to users whenever search results have been censored. For the last 18 months, we have joined together with other companies, human rights groups, and academics to develop a set of principles to guide how companies respond to to these challenges, and we are hopeful that we will reach an agreement. We have also collaborated with human rights organizations to give exposure to human rights issues — including by partnering with the U.S. Holocaust Museum to map genocides in Google Earth.

We believe that these efforts will help promote free expression on the internet. But we also believe that governments can take a stronger role in protecting human rights online, and today we will call on the U.S. government to do more. Specifically:

* Include censorship in trade negotiations. We believe that government-sponsored censorship is one of the largest barriers to making information more available online, and so it is vital for the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to make censorship a central element of our bilateral and multilateral trade talks.

* Strengthen the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. More can be done to ensure that the ICCR — developed more than 30 years ago — truly protects free expression online. The U.S. should renew diplomatic efforts to encourage more countries to ratify the agreement; countries that belong to the covenant should submit regular compliance reports; and aid should be provided to help individuals filing complaints under the Covenant.

* Enhance the State Department’s Global Internet Freedom Task Force and appoint an at-large ambassador. The task force has accomplished a lot so far, but should receive additional prominence, authority and funding. For example, the State Department could appoint an Ambassador-At-Large for Internet Freedom to serve as a diplomatic advocate for these issues.

* Promote free expression as part of foreign aid. Government can do more to tie U.S. aid programs to countries’ implementation of their ICCR obligations. We have already urged the Millennium Challenge Corporation to incorporate Internet censorship in measuring whether candidate countries have achieved criteria for democratic governance.

While Google and other companies have a big part to play in promoting free expression, much more can be done by the U.S. and at the international level to ensure that individuals have the freedom to express themselves online.”

FIPR slams central communications database: “

Suggested and rejected years ago

A proposal for a central database covering all electronic communications has been heavily criticised by members of the Foundation for Internet Policy Research.…

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(Via The Register - Public Sector.)