CyberLaw Blog

Archive for June 5th, 2008

EFF pushes court to block unmasking of anonymous MySpace user: “

Constitutional challenge mounted

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is waging a constitutional challenge against an Illinois politician seeking to unmask an anonymous MySpace user accused of creating impostor profiles and posting defamatory material on them.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

German government approves plod-spyware law: “

Uncharted territory

The German government yesterday passed a controversial anti-terror law that would grant police the power to monitor private residences, telephones and computers.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

ISPs sign up to Ofcom Code on broadband speeds: “A Code of Practice to ensure that internet service providers (ISPs) offer greater clarity over customers’ broadband line speeds was published by Ofcom today. The Code does not require the disclosure of average speeds, but Ofcom said that might change.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

BT internal report leak on illegal secret Phorm test: “

The forthcoming British Telecom annual general meeting of shareholders at the Barbican in London on July 16th, could be interesting, with a planned protest by furious BT broadband customers who were secretly snooped on for the controversial Phorm advertising interception secret technical trial – see the NoDPI.org campaign website (‘Watching them watching us’ – a familiar slogan !)

It seems that there has now been a leak of the internal British Telecom Retail report, dated January 2007, which highlights the technical issues and performance of the illegal 2 week secret technical trial which British Telecom inflicted on thousands of its unsuspecting broadband internet customers, for two weeks in September 2006.

The report confirms that that none of the BT customers were consulted beforehand, and they did not grant their permission for their port 80 web traffic to be intercepted and modified by British Telecom and 121Media (as Phorm were then known)

A copy of the BT report (17Mb .pdf) also now resides on the supposedly uncensorable Wikileaks.org website in Sweden.

(Via Spy Blog – SpyBlog.org.uk.)

Music Industry Groups Denounce ‘Incorrigible’ Baidu: The Chinese search engine was singled out for ‘blatant and massive piracy of music,’ namely for providing links to unauthorized digital copies of both Chinese and international music.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

ITU – New report on Lawful Interception: “(ITU)
The sixth in a series of ITU-T Technology Watch Briefing Reports covers the technology and standards behind lawful interception (LI), the lawfully authorized monitoring and interception of telecommunications. The report addresses the importance of developing international standards assuring a transparent process of interception, focusing on the sometimes conflicting goals of privacy and security. Download Technology Watch report on Lawful Interception.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Google needs link to privacy policy on homepage, say privacy groups: “Google has been urged to add a link from its search engine homepage to its privacy policy. An open letter sent today by US consumer and privacy groups echoes the call of an influential group of privacy law experts in Europe. Google has rejected the calls.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Survey: Facebook information should be regulated.

Finally!

Voluntary code for internet speed: “The way broadband speeds are advertised is to be regulated under a voluntary code published by Ofcom.”

(Via BBC News.)

World realizes Google home page is ‘illegal’: “

Beauty is advertising, advertising beauty

Five years later, an army of privacy-minded watchdogs has suddenly realized the Google home page is illegal.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)