Around the World: Update February 2011

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

Governance

US Republican Moves to Keep UN Away From Internet Governance
The Republicans in the US are working hard to keep the UN's mitts off internet governance, with Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., reintroducing "a nonbinding resolution calling on President Obama to oppose any efforts by the United Nations to take over governance of the Internet," reports Tech Daily Dose. Full Story

Vinton Cerf on the power of packets: Video - Tea with The Economist
One of the inventors of the internet protocol wants to bring broadcast back, and believes that open systems will win in the end.  Article 1 Article 2

Domain names

The Difference Engine: No more addresses
REMEMBER the panic over the “millennium bug”, when computers everywhere were expected to go haywire on January 1st 2000? Doomsters predicted all sorts of errors in calculations involving dates when the clocks rolled over from 99 to 00. In the event, the millennium dawned without incident. That may have been because of the draconian preparations undertaken beforehand. Or perhaps, as many suspected, the problem was grossly exaggerated in the first place. Certainly, the computer industry made a packet out of all the panic-buying of new hardware and software in the months leading up to the new millennium.Full Story

Internet gets ready for impending 'IPocalypse'
In the coming week, the global authority that allocates internet addresses is expected to run out of stock. Article 1 Article 2 Article 3

Brisbane Floods Domain Up For Sale, Then Taken Down Following Backlash
Out of every disaster there are people who want to make money from domain names, some of them by nefarious means. Although it seems there was no intent to defraud, brisbanefloods.com.au was put up for auction within three days of being registered in seemingly a clear breach of the COM.AU registration policy.Full Story

Queensland Flood Affected Communities Given a Voice Online
auDA released a series of free websites for communities affected by recent flooding throughout Queensland. auDA hopes that, during such difficult times, these sites will help communities recover, rebuild and heal, by providing fora for: communicating community events and news; the provision of links to important information (such as: council links, community recovery resources); sharing stories; thanking people.Full Story

Cybersquatting Groupon in Australia: International Trademarks are also important in Protecting Your Domain Name
The deal-of-the-day website known as Groupon files a trademark lawsuit against the two Australian brothers, Gabby and Hezi Leibovitch, who started the clone website called Scoopon in Australia.Full Story

US official defends domain seizures for copyright violations [IDG]
The November seizures of more than 80 domain names by two U.S. government agencies were justified and necessary to project U.S. copyright holders, said the director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).Full Story

Bill Clinton (Almost) Confirmed To Speak At ICANN San Francisco
ICANN has confirmed they are in negotiation with Bill Clinton, former president of the United States, to speak at what is now being called their Silicon Valley-San Francisco meeting in March.Full Story

Internet Use

2 billion people now surfing the net: UN [AFP]
The number of Internet users worldwide has mushroomed to reach the two billion mark, the head of the UN's telecommunications agency, Hamadoun Toure said.Full Story

Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi gets internet access
Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has obtained internet access, two months after she was freed from years of house arrest.Full Story

We shop online, then line up to complain
Our love affair with online shopping is coming at a price. Australians made the second-highest number of complaints about online purchases last year, more than Britons and Canadians, according to a website run by an international consumer protection network.Full Story

Aussies only use 15% of broadband quota
Australians use only 15 per cent of their monthly broadband quota on average, according to a report released this week by Sydney-based telecommunications analyst firm Market Clarity.Full Story

Pew Study Says Internet Users More Social, Civically Engaged
That old stereotype that Internet users are isolated and anti-social is getting harder and harder to justify. In fact, the latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, aptly titled "The Social Side of the Internet," challenges this notion even further, finding that Internet users are actually more active in voluntary groups and organizations than non-Internet users.Full Story

Internet use spreading around British homes [Press Association]
A love affair with gadgets including mobile phones and wireless internet is changing the way we live, a survey of 5,000 Britons has confirmed.Full Story

Over one-third of Chinese people using Internet
The number of people using the Internet in China rose to 457 million at the end of 2010, up 73.3 million from a year earlier, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced Wednesday.Full Story

Wikipedia - an unplanned miracle by Clay Shirky
Wikipedia is the most widely used reference work in the world. That statement is both ordinary and astonishing: it's a simple reflection of its enormous readership; and yet, by any traditional view about how the world works, Wikipedia shouldn't even exist, much less have succeeded so dramatically in the space of a single decade.Full Story

 New Technologies

Annual computer sales to pass 1 billion by 2014
The rise and rise of smartphones and tablets will help double the shipment of computers around the world in just five years, according to new research.Full Story

Greenpeace ranks 'greenest' electronics [AFP]
Environmental group Greenpeace handed out grades Thursday to what it said were the world's "greenest" consumer electronics makers, as the annual gadget industry trade show opened here on Thursday. Article 1 Article 2

Intellectual Property

Emu Australia amused by Deckers lawsuit over 'ugg', 'ugg boot' trademarks
Emu Australia today said 'ugg' and 'ugg boots' are generic terms, as it dismissed a lawsuit alleging it was misleading customers. Full Story

Telstra loses directory copyright appeal
Telstra has lost an appeal to keep telephone directories published by its subsidiary Sensis copyrighted. Article 1 Article 2

Australia Government Report Warns Against Including IP In Trade Agreements
The Australian Government's Productivity Commission, which is the government's independent research and advisory body on a range of economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of Australians, has released a new report on the impact of bilateral and regional trade agreements.  Full Story

European Commission may compel ISPs to combat users' IP infringement
Rates of intellectual property infringement in the EU are "alarming", according to the European Commission. It says that an EU law on IP rights has had some effect, but that the legal measure was not designed to deal with online piracy.Full Story

EU and US launch advice site to help small companies protect IP
The European Union and the US have published a web site that they hope will encourage companies to use their intellectual property rights (IPR) more fully. Full Story

Chocolate bunnies not distinctive enough for trade mark protection, rules EU court
The maker of chocolate bunnies that were previously at the centre of a trade mark spat has been refused permission to register the whole bunny shape as a trade mark. A rival chocolatier has also been refused similar permission.Full Story

Dutch brewery allowed to continue selling "Bavaria" beer
Bavaria is famous for its beer, but buy a "Bavaria" and it won't have come from the southern German state. After a lengthy legal battle, a Dutch brewery is getting to keep its name.Full Story

UK government asks businesses for views on IP
The Government has asked businesses how it can help them to make more use of intellectual property (IP) assets. It has published details of the review it will hold into IP growth.Full Story

Should London's Olympics be a trigger for trade marks on buildings?
OPINION: Next year's London Olympics will transform the London skyline with new landmark structures that will be a lasting reminder of the event. But should the buildings' owners and designers be making sure that others don't profit from their work?Full Story

IP & Traditional Cultural Expressions: An Unnatural Alliance?
Incorporating traditional cultural expressions into an intellectual property system will be an uphill battle, warned a panellist at a recent side event at the World Intellectual Property Organization. But, argued another, it could be one of the best ways for indigenous communities to benefit from their knowledge. Full Story

Online TV & Music

Piracy websites attract billions of visits
A study by anti-fraud firm MarkMonitor has offered a snapshot into the changing nature of online piracy. It monitored illegal traffic levels on 43 file-sharing sites and found that they generated more than 53 billion visits per year.Full Story

Telstra and Foxtel are close to a TV deal
Foxtel is close to finalising a deal to supply internet television channels to Telstra's T-Box digital recorder.Full Story

Watch the next series of the Ashes on the Times website
It's the future of media: live and exclusive daytime sports from the comfort of your office and your favorite Murdoch newspaper. Don't bother with the rest.Full Story

Mobile/Wireless

Mobile broadband users seen hitting 1 bln in 2011
Mobile broadband subscriptions are on track to surpass 1 billion in 2011 only months after reaching half a billion, Ericsson said on Tuesday, highlighting a key growth driver for the telecom sector.Full Story

Online Crime, Security & Legal

Conficker: Qualified Success Claimed Against Computer Worm
Cybersecurity experts combating the Conficker worm claimed qualified success but said millions of computers world-wide were still infected by the malicious software.Full Story

Court told of eBay fraud scheme
A court has heard a man defrauded 28 people through a complex scheme on the trading website, eBay.Full Story

UK, Australia enter 'cyber partnership'
Australia and the United Kingdom will establish a "cyber partnership" to combat online security threats, the Department of Defence announced yesterday. Full Story

National Broadband Network at risk from spies and hackers
The National Broadband Network could be vulnerable to attack unless it is backed by tougher counter-measures, says a cyber security report. Full Story

Privacy

Privacy Policies Are Dead, Privacy Watchdog Says
Privacy policies are dead, says Fran Maier, President of privacy auditing firm TrustE, and it's time for the web to move into an era of "just in time" notifications whenever new types of data are being collected or when our data is being used in new ways.Full Story

Vodafone denies client data on internet was open to all
THE Privacy Commissioner has vowed to probe allegations that personal details of Vodafone clients were readily available on the internet.Full Story

Uni failed to secure vulnerable web data
The detailed records of thousands of University of Sydney students past and present are being stored online where they can be easily downloaded and read via an internet connection.Full Story

Censorship

Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service
Autocratic governments often limit phone and Internet access in tense times. But the Internet has never faced anything like what happened in Egypt on Friday, when the government of a country with 80 million people and a modernizing economy cut off nearly all access to the network and shut down cellphone service.Full Story

Tunisia's taste of internet freedom
Like many of its neighbours in the region, Tunisia has long approached the internet as a force to be censored. Tunisians are barred from accessing a wide variety of sites, from the seemingly innocuous YouTube to sites providing information on human rights in their country.Full Story

Government & Public Policy

Vint Cerf's message to Australia: internet censorship isn't effective
Julia Gillard's bid to censor the internet is not an "effective move", says Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet and Google's chief web evangelist.Full Story

Mandatory ISP filter still on the agenda: Gillard
The Federal Government’s mandatory internet service provider (ISP) level filter is still on the agenda, according to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.Full Story

Opinion: Murdoch the monopolist? Not in a digital future
The debate over whether Rupert Murdoch should be allowed total control of Sky is far too simplistic in an age where Google, Apple – or some techies from California – can achieve greater dominance in a globalised media.Full Story

Miscellaneous

The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World by Evgeny Morozov – review
On 21 January 2010, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton made a speech at the delightfully named Newseum – America's leading "interactive museum of news" – announcing "internet freedom" as a core foreign policy concern. "Information freedom," she argued, "supports the peace and security that provide a foundation for global progress." Evgeny Morozov has a blunt riposte to such ambitions: they smack of "excessive optimism and empty McKinsey-speak," not to mention a "creative use of recent history".Full Story

Telecommunications

Founder of net says NBN is a stunning investment
A founder of the internet has heaped praise on the National Broadband Network but warned it will be difficult to predict its economic benefits.Full Story

Broadband billions to keep rolling
The federal government is standing firm on building the multibillion-dollar national broadband network, which is due in flood-ravaged Toowoomba and some Brisbane suburbs in the second quarter of this year.Full Story

Big telcos brace for $50m repair bill
The nation's major telecommunications companies are facing a bill in excess of $50 million and three months of build time.Full Story

Broadband cable on its way to unplugged Cuba
Cuba is set to join the high-speed broadband era with an undersea fibre-optic cable laid from Venezuela, bringing the promise of speedy internet to one of the world's least connected countries.Full Story