CyberLaw Blog

Archive for October 26th, 2008

eBay buyer faces libel action after leaving negative feedback

From Times Online, October 24, 2008 (Kaya Burgess)

A man is facing legal action for libel after leaving negative feedback for an item he bought on auction website eBay.

The negative feedback at the centre of the dispute

When Chris Read received the £155 mobile phone he had purchased from Joel Jones on eBay, he found it was the wrong model and was not in good condition, as advertised.

The 42-year-old mechanic from Kent returned the phone, and, on October 3, used the feedback facility on the website, designed to warn other buyers of potentially untrustworthy sellers. He wrote: “Item was scratched, chipped and not the model advertised on Mr Jones’s eBay account.”
(more…)

EU – European alert platform for Internet offences: “(Consilium)
Council Conclusions on setting up national alert platforms and a European alert platform for reporting offences noted on the Internet. 2899th Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, Luxembourg, 24 October 2008.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Thanks to our friends at melonfarmers.co.uk where this item was spotted first!

The Guardian: Cyber-attack theory as al-Qaida websites close

Ian Black, Middle East editor, The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008

Websites being used to disseminate propaganda by al-Qaida appear to have come under systematic cyber-attack, forcing the closure of three for well over a month and fuelling speculation that governments are targeting them in a shadowy new front in the “war on terror”.

Al-Ekhlas, al-Buraq and al-Firdaws, all linked to al-Fajr – the media distribution arm of al-Qaida – have been down since just before September 11, when the broadcast of a video commemorating the 2001 attacks was inexplicably delayed.

All have suffered occasional disruption but this is the longest period they have been out of action. Al-Fajr blamed technical problems and denied that the sites had fallen “into the hands of the enemy”.
(more…)

BBC NEWS | England | Tees | Man had cartoon-style child porn: “Man had cartoon-style child porn

A Teesside man who downloaded cartoon-style pictures of computer-generated child pornography has been ordered to register as a sex offender. Robul Hoque, 32, from Middlesbrough, had thousands of images involving incest and child abuse on his computer. Many of the images were so realistic they were considered by a jury to be indistinguishable from photographs. He was found guilty last month at Teesside Crown Court of six charges of having indecent pseudo-photographs.

(more…)

I reported on Friday, 24 October, 2008 that access to Blogger.com and blogspot.com were blocked in Turkey. with a blocking order of the Diyarbakir First Criminal Court of Peace (dated 20.10.2008 and order no. 2008/2761).

It is now being reported by Turk.internet.com that the blocking order is related to an intellectual property infringement. Digitürk is a subscription based digital TV platform in Turkey which owns the right to transmit the live coverage of the Turkish football league games. Digitürk obtained the blocking order through the Diyarbakir court according to the Turk.internet.com news as there were blog entries providing information and links to known websites which transmit pirated transmission of the live football league games.

According to the news Digitürk contacted blogger.com and requested the blog entries to be taken down but nothing was done by blogger.com and Digitürk had no other option than requesting the Diyarbakir court to block access to the two domains and their IP addresses. Such a blocking is allowed under the Turkish intellectual property laws and Digitürk previously obtained a similar access blocking order for JustinTV and for MyP2P TV.

I will assess the wider implications for such a blocking order within the next few days.

As of 01 October, 2008, 1115 websites are blocked in Turkey under the provisions of Law No. 5651. It is however believed that the blocking order issued by the Diyarbakir court is outside the scope of Law No. 5651. The blocking orders issued under Law No. 5651 are executed by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB) and they provide an “execution notice” when that is the case. However, there is no information whatsoever provided on the http://www.blogger.com pages when accessed from Turkey.

[Blog entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz]

A detailed assessment of the Turkish approaches to Internet content regulation will be provided in an 80 page long report entitled Restricted Access: A Critical Assessment of Internet Content Regulation and Censorship in Turkey written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz and Dr. Kerem Altiparmak. This bi-lingual (English/Turkish) report will be published during November 2008 and will be made available as a PDF file through cyberlaw.org.uk and cyber-rights.org.tr pages.