Ninth Circuit Reverses Its Decision in Konop v. Hawaiian Air
On August 23, 2002, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, issued a decision which was a rare reversal of its own previous decision of January 1, 2001.
Junk Fax Web Site
A group of California activists are hopping mad, to the tune of a $2 trillion lawsuit against a fax broadcasting company (fax.com, inc.) who they claim is invading their privacy. Cases were filed in both the Northern District of California and in the California Superior Court for Santa Clara County on August 22, 2002. These …
Librarians Responding to Patrons Via Online Reference Services
In the Circuits section of today’s New York Times, there is an article about adoption of 24/7 virual reference services by public libraries around the country. These services are provided both by contract employees from their homes during off-hours, and by librarians serving their patrons during scheduled hours when libraries are open. One of the …
Ziff Davis Reaches Agreement With NY AG ON E-COMMERCE SECURITY STANDARDS
On August 28, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced that a settlement had been reached with publisher Ziff Davis (whose holdings include PC Magazine, Extreme Tech, eWeek and CIO Insight) to resolve a security breach that compromised the personal data of some 12,000 subscribers to its Electronic Gaming Monthly. The agreement stipulates that …
Companies to Develop Digital Signature Guidelines"
The Electronic Financial Services Council is spearheading an initiative called SPeRS (Standards and Procedure for Electronic Records and Signatures) to create acceptable non-partisan guidelines for digital signatures in e-commerce transactions.
Group Tries to Block USPTO Destruction of Paper Collection
On July 24, 2002, the USPTO submitted a Report to Congress on the Removal of Classified Paper from the USPTO’s Public Search Facilities. In response, the National Intellectual Property Association is seeking to stop the USPTO’s systematic destruction of the world’s largest paper collection of patent and trademark documents, which number in the tens of …
Ford Threatens Action Against Dot-Com Demise Site
F***edcompany.com, the notorious, and apparently lucrative site that foretells the demise of dot-coms, succumbed to Ford’s threats concerning copyright infringement (after being shut down by their ISP for two days), and removed postings which were send-ups of several of the auto manufacturer’s popular advertising slogans.
ICANN Approves Lapsed Domain Names List
ICANN adopted a resolution on August 22 creating a waiting list service (WLS) for those who are interested in acquiring dot-com and dot-net domain names that have lapsed.
CRS Reports
Gallerywatch.com has announced that this September they will offer subscribers access to summaries of all, yes, all, published CRS Reports. The thousands of reports issued annually are not made available online, but there are resources that selectively provide the full-text of some reports. An excellent guide on this topic was written by Stephen Young.
Canada to Expand Internet Surveillance
The Canadian Department of Justice has released a consultation document to amend their Criminal Code, and grant law enforcement agencies broader access to data collected on Web subscribers by their respective ISPs (Patriot Act redux?).
National Archives Wants to Archive E-Records
NARA is facing the daunting task of archiving millions of electronic records for public access, many of which were created using formats that are now obsolete.
Research Study on Uncloaking Terrorist Networks
Uncloaking Terrorist Networks by Valdis E. Krebs, First Monday, volume 7, number 4 (April 2002). “This paper looks at mapping covert networks using data available from news sources on the World Wide Web. Specifically, we examine the network surrounding the tragic events of September 11th 2001. Through public data we are able to map a …