Around the World: December 2010

This update provides an overview of the latest issues of interest to ICT professionals both in Australia and Internationally. We hope that you will find this information useful.

Please feel free to forward this update to any of your colleagues or friends who may be interested.

To contact a member of our Information Communications & Technology team, please click here

Kind regards

Brendan Coady | Partner

Direct 61 2 9225 6258

brendan.coady@maddocks.com.au

Robert Gregory | Partner

Direct 61 3 9240 0770

robert.gregory@maddocks.com.au

Domain names in conjunction with www.auda.com.au

Domain names

Registration Policies for .AU Domains Open for Public Consultation

Registration policies for .AU domain names are currently being reviewed by the 2010 Names Policy Panel as part of the regular consultation process that takes place with the Australian community. Full Story

Your opportunity to help shape the future of .au

The .au Domain Administration (auDA) is currently seeking public comment on a range of policies relating to the management and operation of the Internet in Australia. Full Story

auDA reviews Community Geographic Domain Names policy

auDA is reviewing the Policy Rules and Guidelines for Community Geographic Domain Names (CGDNs) (2008-04). Full Story

Domain Drops and the Process

Some questions we are often asked at auDA include, “My domain name has expired what do I do?” or, “A domain name is due to expire soon and I want to register it, how can I do this?” As part of our new ‘FAQ’ series on the auDA blog, the following piece aims to answer these questions. Full Story

auDA CEO elected to ICANN Board

.au Domain Administration (auDA) is proud to announce the election of its CEO, Chris Disspain, to the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Full Story

2010 Australia and New Zealand Internet Best Practice Awards Winners Announced

The winners of the 2010 Australia and New Zealand Internet Best Practice Awards were announced last night at a gala dinner at Crown Towers, Melbourne. Full Story

Important changes in the Proposed Final New gTLD Applicant Guidebook by Tony Kirsch

The new guidebook represents an enormous step forward for the new Top-Level Domain program for a number of key reasons. As we have commented previously, the naming convention as the ‘Final’ guidebook is of significant importance and reinforces the ICANN Board’s intention to get to the finish line with the program. Full Story

When? by Geoff Huston

At the October 2010 ARIN meeting the inevitable question came up once more in one of the open microphone sessions: "Exactly when are we going to run out of IPv4 addresses? Could you please provide the date when the first request for an allocation of IPv4 address space will be refused?" Full Story

.CO Passes 600,000 Registrations With Big Goals

As the .CO ccTLD continues its impressive growth in registrations, the registrar .CO Internet has breathlessly claimed .CO is challenging .COM. Full Story

Internet Use

CSIRO experiments with 'no email' day to explore new forms of collaboration and communication

The CSIRO is undertaking an experiment few commercial organisations would dare to consider — switching off email for an entire day. Full Story

Internet picked over buses in ideal Australian suburb [AAP]

Australians value access to the internet over public transport links and schools in their ideal suburb, new research shows. Full Story

Kids logging off to get into sport

New data shows more kids are playing organised sport than at any time in the past decade. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released yesterday reveal consistent growth in the proportion of children engaged in organised sport or dance, up from 64 per cent in 2000 to 69 per cent last year. Full Story

Internet and mobile web use on the increase

Three in four Australians have the internet at home, with two-thirds connected to broadband, new figures from the media regulator reveal. Full Story

Paid-for content requires a focused approach from newspapers

Conventional wisdom has it that the internet is killing newspapers. Paid-for circulations are relentlessly down across most of the market while, according to last week's ABCes, free internet access is just as relentlessly up. Full Story

Video, newspapers aim to avoid music fate

Media executives, under siege from Web-based distribution that promises television shows, news and movies for little to nothing, are striving to protect lucrative business models while avoiding the bleak fate of the music and newspaper industries. Full Story

UK's internet industry worth £100bn - report

The internet is worth £100bn to the UK economy, more than 7% of national income, according to a report out today. Full Story

Wi-Fi Makes Trees Sick, Study Says [IDG]

Radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harmful to trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark, according to a recent study in the Netherlands. Full Story

New Technology

Gartner Says Cloud Computing Heralds An Evolution of Business, No Less Influential than the Era of E-Business [news release]

After many years of germination, the core ideas at the heart of cloud computing — pay for use, mulitenancy, external services — appear to be resonating more strongly for more people, according to Gartner, Inc. Full Story

Intellectual Property

A Primer On Spotting IP Issues Associated with Social Media Websites and Content

Most businesspeople and generalists understand that social media can be an important but risky part of doing business. This article seeks to identify how to spot potential intellectual property law issues associated with social media websites and content that can arise for a company. Full Story

UK Government announces new IP law review

The Government will review the UK's intellectual property laws in a bid to encourage internet-related business. It said it would examine the costs of IP licences and of rights enforcement; and the interaction between IP and competition law. Full Story

Poland: no trademark protection over single colour

In a judgment handed down on 21 October 2010, the Polish Supreme Court ruled that trademark protection cannot be used to monopolise individual colours; the spectrum is limited and it would not be in line with public interest or expectation to grant exclusivity over a particular colour. Full Story

IP Groups Defend Bill Targeting Online Piracy

Groups representing actors, authors, composers, directors, musicians, photographers and other artists wrote Senate Judiciary leaders Tuesday to refute claims by critics of legislation that would crack down on online piracy that it would hamper Internet freedom. Full Story

Train Makers Rail Against China's High-Speed Designs

When the Japanese and European companies that pioneered high-speed rail agreed to build trains for China, they thought they'd be getting access to a booming new market, billions of dollars' worth of contracts and the cachet of creating the most ambitious rapid rail system in history. ... But Kawasaki, in a statement, says it and other high-speed train producers disagree with China's claim that it has created its own technology.  Full Story

Online TV & Music

U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown

In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, the Web addresses of a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing were seized this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security. Full Story

Pirate Bay founders lose appeal

Three founders of The Pirate Bay have lost an appeal against a conviction for illegally sharing copyrighted content. Full Story

Bandwidth threat puts online pay-TV providers on war footing

Australia's emerging internet pay-TV providers appear set for a new bandwidth battle in the race to win online audiences. Full Story

Mobile/Wireless

Young adults leading trend away from fixed-line phones [news release]

Research released today by the Australian Communications and Media Authority shows that the overwhelming majority of Australian consumers are now using multiple communications technologies—including a fixed-line telephone, a mobile phone, the internet and VoIP—which they use according to their lifestyle needs.Full Story

Is your smartphone making you sick?

Keep your flash new mobile phone in your pocket and you risk "serious harm", according to the maker of the BlackBerry, while Apple admits its iPhone can exceed exposure guidelines.Full Story

Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Grew 35 Percent in Third Quarter 2010; Smartphone Sales Increased 96 Percent [news release]

Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 417 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 35 percent increase from the third quarter of 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales grew 96 percent from the third quarter last year, and smartphones accounted for 19.3 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2010. Full Story

Spam

McAfee: Spam down, but malware up

Spam hit a two-year low this past quarter, but malware is at an all-time high, according to McAfee's latest Threats Report. Full Story

Online Crime, Security & Legal

Government responds to cyber crime

Attorney-General, Robert McClelland and the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, today tabled the Australian Government’s response to the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications, Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime. Full Story

Strengthening Australia’s cyber security capability [news release]

Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, today opened the new office of the national computer emergency response team, CERT Australia, in Brisbane. Full Story

CERT Aus opens, has beers with AusCERT

The government's official Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Australia has opened today a stone's throw from the veteran industry AusCERT offices, and staff say there is no bad blood between the two. Full Story

ISPs essential to controlling spam botnets: OECD

Internet service providers (ISPs) are important control points in the ongoing effort to control spam and botnets, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Full Story

Privacy

It's Not Your Data Now

Since the beginning of the internet era it has been pretty widely accepted that when you join an online service, whatever data you put into it belongs to you. Full Story

Censorship

Asia-Pacific governments chip away at Internet freedom [AFP]

The tentacles of government censors are creeping ever further across the web in the Asia-Pacific region as officials from Thailand to Australia try to control what people say and do online. Full Story

Government & Public Policy

Privacy Commissioner calls for accountability, consistency on data retention talks

The Australian Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has told a Senate inquiry that any talks about a data retention regime from organisations or government needed to be consistent and accountable to stakeholders. Full Story

The Case Against COICA: Legislative Analysis by Peter Eckersley

EFF is deeply disappointed to report that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the COICA Internet censorship bill this morning, despite bipartisan opposition, and countless experts pointing out how it would be ineffective, unconstitutional, bad for innovation and the tech economy, and would break the Internet. Full Story

Peter Gabriel joins voices backing net neutrality in UK

The UK government's plans to abandon net neutrality threaten British business startups and if taken up elsewhere could undermine democracy, says Peter Gabriel, the influential musician and technology entrepreneur who has backed a number of successful internet companies. Full Story

Telecommunications

Broadband in Europe speeding up

Broadband speeds in Europe have risen sharply in only a year, suggest official EC figures. In July 2010, 29% of broadband lines in Europe ran at speeds of at least 10 Mbps, revealed Commission research. Full Story

Crucial Telstra bill paving way for NBN is passed by the Senate

Legislation to split Telstra has passed the Senate after days of intense negotiation and heated debate on a bill that paves the way for the National Broadband Network. Full Story