clarinette's blog

NEW BLOG HOST FOR CLARINETTE

2010-08-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BLOG,
come and join me at the new address, where the content of this blog has been transferred :

http://clarinettesblog.wordpress.com/
This is mostly for my legal thoughts

For Online safety tips, join the techmums blog:
http://techmums.wordpress.com/

For more fun and sharing my other hubby, cooking, come and share your recipies at:
http://clarinettecook.wordpress.com/

Hope you'll enjoy.
Would appreciate if you'd share your views and ideas.

SEE YOU SOON

@Clarinette02

A debill was passed last night

2010-04-08T04:59:00.001-07:00

The Bill was passed, washed up, rushed through, last night. So many wrote to their MPs; so many protested; so many of us lawyers tried to attract public attention to the danger of such regulation for our democracy. We tried to show how 'impractical' this law could be. What dangers it could present for our privacy. How it was against the European Convention of Human Rights. How it was stupid to spend money to encourage internet access to reduce the digital divide while now the money will be spent on disconnecting access, discouraging public Wifi and public internet access.
Nothing worked, unfortunately.
Were we wrong maybe?
We shall ask each of our MPs who disregarded our warnings to explain to us what they know that we don't.
Dear Members of Parliament, do let us know what you know that we don't.
Do let us know what we can do to comply with the regulation.
Do let us know what we can do and what we can't. Can we listen to Spotify ? Can we look at YouTube? What can we 'upload' onto YouTube? Can I post my children's musical play on Facebook? Can I offer you an iPod with music downloaded from iTunes?
How can we secure our home networks? Will the government provide us with secure wireless devices? How can we lock our IP addresses to be sure no one would download infringing material using them on our behalf?
What should we reply when we receive a solicitor's letter threatening us of legal action? Should we pay the £500 or
Do we have any means of proving we did not download any infringing material? We first need the answers to the previous questions for that.
Do we know who will intercept our private communications and how personal data will be stored?
How the Deep Packet Inspection or filtering will operate to catch potential infringers? In other words, how the internet censorship will be organised?
And last but not least, you passed a law, we need to know if this law will ever reach its goal, will the heavy downloader using VPN and encryption be caught on the net?
With my best regards.
http://ow.ly/1vVII -- http://www.theyworkforthebpi.com/ --- http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmdebate/32.htm#hddr_2
http://www.technollama.co.uk/digital-economy-bill-passes
http://torrentfreak.com/digital-economy-bill-passes-file-sharing-end-soon-100608/?utm_source=direct-awe.sm&utm_medium=awe.sm-twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=twitterfeed&awesm=53MTD

What a week! A weak copyright!

2010-03-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

Unported License

The Counter 2010 Conference in Manchester where there was talk about Privacy issues around copyright regulations

;

The IpKat Google Adwards Trademarks Seminar in London

;

The Child Protection event at the House of Lords with Mark William Thomas

These three followed last week's Privacy International's 20th birthday celebration in London.

Together they resume my main areas of interest as a lawyer specialized in Internet and New Technologies from intellectual property and privacy angles.

Another angle was not highlighted as such, but was present all over the debates: that of consumer rights.

And yes I also have a personal connection with all of this, being a French citizen, living in England and married to an Australian - this puts me at the cross-roads of the debates:

France invented the graduated response;

Australia filtering and internet censorship;

United Kingdom the Three Strikes law.

I might add that I have many acquaintances in the US who follow the ACTA negotiations.

I have been involved in the past with child safety on the internet, working with European Research into Consumer Affairs (ERICA).

I was at some point in contact with Parry Aftab from WIred Safety to represent the organisation in UK. Child safety has long been, and remains, a major concern for me.

On the other hand I am convinced that the internet is one of the greatest media of communication, knowledge share and democracy and there are many other ands...

At the Counter 2010 Conference we listened to industry, EU representative and academic points of view on copyright protection with The UK Three Strikes law, the French HADOPI and ACTA. How can all these rights be reconciled and balance copyright holders' interests with the general public's privacy rights in the digital world? The fundamental right of internet access need not be discussed any more. Neither does the private individual's expectation of retaining control of personal information.

At the House of Lords we listened to the research results on internet child grooming and child pornography from academic and sanctioning points of view. The latter were presented by Julia Davidson, Professor of Criminology at Kingston University and Antonia Bifulco, Professor of Health and Social Care at Royal Holloway University. Elena Martellozzo from Middlesex University and criminologist Mark Taylor-Williams presented the research results of 18 months of police operations relating to internet abuse. Mark Taylor-Williams considered a number of child pornographic materials being transmitted through peer to peer networks such as LimeWire.

That brings the discussion to network surveillance and conflicts with envisaged copyright regulations.

The key point that I spot here is : when should we, or should we not, monitor net communications?

Do we consider the situation of representatives of copyright holders in the music, film and software industries to be sufficiently in danger to justify a level of surveillance that will lead to a modification of peer to peer network communication as we know it today?

The French edition of the "ReadWriteWeb" online magazine has published its own theory that you might consider.

Many technical experts that I have personally met - from Ralf Bendrath

whom I met at the Privacy conference in Brussels to Chris Parsons

who did a presentation at Counter Conference or the inventor of the World Wide Web itself, Tim Berners Lee

) consider that there is a high likelihood that illegal file sharers (and it's important at this point to mention that file sharing is NOT necessarily an illegal activity) will modify their behavior by using encryption technologies and Virtual Private Networks to escape the censorship of copyright protection.

What does that mean exactly?

Putting it In other words, the speed of technological evolution will not make it easy for regulation to keep pace. The heavy, tech savvy illegal downloaders will use the appropriate technology to escape the censors.

Why child protectors should be concerned?

Simply because this repression will not only generalise, but also encourage, the advance of encryption technologies which will not allow the monitoring of internet communication for the sake of child protection.

If copyright law enforcement advances then this involves further Deep Packet Inspection and this is where privacy advocates should be alarmed.

Why Privacy should be concerned?

Simply because Deep Packet Inspection or filtering of online communication will allow a 'deeper' look at packet transfer although we are re-assured that no one is actually looking at the content of the packets but instead simply scrutinizing the 'headings'.

I can't see what would stop the process once it has been legalized (engaged or generalised). There is a lack of transparency at the moment on the use of Deep Packet Inspection by ISPs and this can only get worse if the Three Strikes law and like measues are passed.

In our judicial systems, a balance of rights is essential. Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights, as 'guarantor' of Fundamental rights, has strict rules on the limitation of individual's privacy

. The storing and processing of personal data for the purpose of copyright protection constitutes an interference with the right to private life. The test of proportionality has to be applied in order to justify invasion of privacy and collection of data.

From that point of view, there are three major obstacles for the adoption of the measures:

1- there is no evidence that the action can achieve its purpose;

2- the action is not necessary to accomplish the purpose;

3- there are alternatives available for accomplishing the same purpose with a lesser cost in terms of individual privacy.

In parallel, the ISPs have expressed their limitations

1 - It would be technically impossible or unreasonably expensive to block peer to peer downloads even with the filtering technique.

2- There would be no totally secure network as anyone could hack the network or snoop an IP Address.

The ISPs are asked to be judge and jury.

How could we handle the balance of rights in a context in which it is unclear what should be considered a valid notice of take down. I refer here to two research results, one run by the Oxford University - the Liberty experience - and the "Multatuli Project" experience by "Bits of Freedom" on a larger scale

. In both cases material that was obviously out of copyright was posted by the researchers. However, in most cases the ISP followed the injunction to take down without any sort of verification. This bogus take down is against individual rights and freedom of speech.

I could also mention the controversial French HADOPI law

. The font characters used for the HADOPI logo have been registered and belong to Orange of France Telecom. Also, the brand 'HADOPI' itself is copyright protected

. An irony that merits reflection.

Giving more voice to consumers

At the European meeting of the Family Online Safety Institute Conference in Paris where I was invited to speak on Privacy, we discussed net-citizenship. FOSI and other family organizations promote awareness of internet users from kids to parents and carers to the education system.

The EU Consumer group recently organised a meeting in Brussels which unfortunately I could not attend on ‘web 3.0:what's in it for consumers? Challenges and Opportunities for Consumers in the Future Internet.

I strongly believe internet is still at its early stages and users have not yet learned how to master it.

By analogy, the situation can be compared to that of drivers of automobiles. When first invented, few owners were on the road and they were able to deal with the relatively minor issue of cross-roads. Once the automobile became a democratic means of transport the need of regulation arose. This regulation came in parallel with education.

I am not saying we necessarily need an internet driving license. The internet needs to find its own way of reaching a balance of rights that needs to be discussed democratically and not behind closed doors as was the case for the secret ACTA negotiations.

Today, it is unclear even for many academics what is copyright infringement and what is fair use.

This is an area of cross-roads of law and technology where many lawmakers and political representatives have no actual knowledge of the technical impact of the regulations. Prior to the vote of the HADOPI law in France, the members of parliament interviewed actually had very little knowledge and many false conceptions of peer to peer file sharing. They can't be blamed as many people are still not using all of the potential of the net. However this, plus the limited number of representatives engaging in the parliamentary debates, show the lack of real debate.

The lobby of the film and music industries is exercising a strong influence. It is regrettable that the consumer point of view, as well as the individual artists’ rights themselves, are under-represented.

In my view, the threat to privacy and the principle of Net neutrality do not justify the rush to protection of the lobbyist.

The lawmakers need expert advice on the actual functioning of the internet and the legal consequences of the new regulations. Legal experts need to work in parallel with technical experts to measure the consequences of the measures of censorship and Deep Packet inspection or any other measures of traffic monitoring.

While these measures can be justified on the basis of protection against personal harm, this has to be exceptional and under judicial scrutiny. However at this point I do not feel the economic interest of fairly wealthy organizations could justify such a restriction of fundamental rights of internet access and privacy.

All the more as there is no evidence that the goal could not be achieved by other means. Even more as there is evidence that the measures are unable to achieve their aim as the file sharing will bypass the measures by the use of encryption technologies and Virtual Private Networks harmful for crime investigation.

It could be added that the ISPs have expressed deep concern, technical as well as financial, about the implications of the Three Strikes Law.

Ultimately, if the graduated response was applied, it would impose a collective level of responsibility of the account holder, held liable for the use and abuse of its network by others.

The view of the French Association, 'La Quadrature du Net' has been the limit of security of private individuals to secure their networks

There are multitude hacking technologies to access networks for the sake of illegal downloads from accessing the network or using IP addresses. As mentioned by Orange Senior Legal Counsel the actual design of dynamic attribution of IP addresses is in total contradiction with the new measures.

While the policy has been reducing the digital divide and encouraging a more democratic access to the internet, copyright repression will take a reverse path creating a general fear among many parents to even allow access to the internet for fear of being cut off. What we need is better education, encouraging safer access to the net, adopting net-citizenship attitudes.

I remain confident that education and awareness are the key to many of these issues.

The American Law scholar, Lawrence Lessig, initiator of the Creative Commons whose videos have been silenced twice for including a few seconds of protected music, has used this to demonstrate the re-mix concept

. I agree with him that it cannot be expected from your users to respect copyright law while it remains unclear for the specialist what is actually being protected.

Are we certain that the ipod offered by the President of the United States to the British Queen with itunes downloaded files was or was not copyright infringement?

Coming back to the Google Adwords seminar, I share the view of my colleagues expressing concerns about the effect of the quasi-monopoly of one institution in the digital world. The Search Engine is the central key of internet knowledge. Being at the two first pages of the search result is determinant for many users.

Taking a more general view, it is unhealthy to have one organisation becoming dominant to this extent and aggregating so many private data.

My very last argument is the climate of repression that such a measure could create: the escalation of attacks and ripostes. Many security experts believe the file sharer would simply resort to more sophisticated, less discernible means of file sharing.

The deterrent will only discourage small individual file sharer that hardly caused any harm to the industry.

They might face many unscrupulous law firms that will threaten them with legal action to push users to settle to avoid court action. Already concern has been expressed about ACS:Law and now Tilly, Bailey & Irvine schemes to chase alleged file-sharers.

The professional downloader will only modify its behavior.

Some believe that this could actually create an organized 'mafia' of professional file sharing in parallel with child abuse related activities. Our society should remember the presumption of innocence principles where the rights of individuals are protected unless and until infringement has ben proven. Reversing the burden of proof is a dangerous path against democracy.

We risk to create a climate of war and anti-trust resulting by escalation of measures of surveillance always by-passed.

Instead we should promote, education, awareness and citizenship to find the right balance of netiquette and financial protection for copyright holders but not surveillance or internet cut off.

The hierarchy of rights should place privacy and child protection above copyright considerations

The Privacy Implications of Deep Packet Inspection Danielle Keats Citron

http://dpi.priv.gc.ca/index.php/essays/the-privacy-implications-of-deep-packet-inspection/

How Deep Packet Inspection Changed the Privacy Debate - Ronald W. Del Sestro Jr. and Jon Franket

http://www.bingham.com/Media.aspx?MediaId=7514

See Liliane Edwards on her blog PanGloss 'Filtering round up: French filtering, Ireland backs off, UK slide steps?'

http://blogscript.blogspot.com/2010/02/filtering-round-up-french-filtering.html

Telegraph UK 'Terrorism and Child Pornography used to justify surveillance society says academic'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7054432/Terrorism-and-child-pornography-used-to-justify-surveillance-society-says-academic.html

28th March 2010

Creative Common CC

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http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title" rel="dc:type">A week of balance or a weak balance? by http://creativecommons.org/ns#" property="cc:attributionName">Tara Taubman - clarinette02 is licensed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/uk/

jeff Jarvis tought me iomega sucks

2010-02-19T05:23:00.000-08:00

Not neglecting any advice, after having spend some time on the iomega Prestige this morning I think I've spoted the issue: the plugging into the Computer is look on the iomega hard drive and this might be the reason why it's 'drawning too much power' and why it gets disconnected. I had a similar issue whith a loose wire on my laptop.

If only iomega cared a little bit about their customers, they could have a look at it and save my data.

Thanks to Jeff Jarvis , after watching this video : http://www.icvclients.com/gazelles/network/

It sounds like the magical word would be iomega sucks, and yes it sucks. Though sucks it hasn't been my favorite vocabulary but what not to do to wake up iomega customer service that sucks!!!

Tip for a data recovery from Iomega Prestige Hard Drive

2010-02-18T02:40:00.000-08:00

Here is copy of the chat I had yesterday with iomega customer service. I thought it would be interesting for everyone to get a test of how safe data can be.

Before, I wanted to give you few more detail:

1 - The Iomega Prestige 1Tb was purchased on August 2009 and has not been responding I guess since October-November 2009I

2- The vendor has recognised the disk failure and is happy to replace it but no recovery for to the saved data;

3 - I do understand HD can fail and you should have more than 2 backups, in my case, unfortunately, the two backups failed.

4 - What I do not understand is : why iomega didn't answered earlier, why they never even tried to have a look at the HD and try to repair it AND why can't I at least have a discounted price for recovery as a gesture.

5 - With so many digital documents to backup, just think of all these precious pictures collected for many years - we do need to trust as much as possible backup storages. How did I choose this model, simply from a friend's recommendation. You only know the value of a product and the customer support when something goes wrong. Thanks god, not every iomega products fail. Actually, talking with IT expert friends, It was pointed to me the case of iomega Zip drives:

Looking at the Wikipedia: 'In 2006, PC World rated the Zip drive as the 15th worst technology product of all time'

Further, "Iomega also produced a line of internal and external recordable CD drives under the Zip brand in the late 1990s, called the ZipCD 650... Early models of ZipCD drives were rebadged Philips drives, which were also so unreliable that a class action lawsuit succeeded." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega_Zip_drive

You can read more about the class action and its settlement here on iomega website:

http://www.iomega.com/rinaldi/

You will notice - see here: http://personal.riverusers.com/~s/action.htm - that the class action started in 1997 regarding purchases between January 1, 1995 and March 19, 2001 - The original settlement dates March 2001 and the revised version May 2002!!!

That means that between 1995 and 2001, customers suffered from a faulty product while iomega refused to take its responsibilities for a class action to be initiated.

Now, I hope sensitive materials such these hard drives could be appropriately tested before commercializing and receive a ranking of quality from an independent body in order to allow the customer to make a wise decision of purchase.

UPDATE: after opening the Hard Drive a small loose piece was find, Could it be repaired?

I let you read the copy of my chat with iomega.

Claudio: Hi, my name is Claudio. How can I help you?

clarinette: Hi, I have already emailed you - I believe last week - also been contacted by your colleagues on Twitter without success.

clarinette: The external hard drive is dead - after only few months - the vendor is happy to replace it.

clarinette: Of course, as you can imagine this only very partly resolve my issue:

clarinette: 1- I have all my data and backups to recover - HOW?

Claudio: unfortunately we do not provide data recovery directly. You can contact our data recovery partner at http://www.iomegadatarecovery.com or alternatively you could go through a local company who provides this service.

clarinette: 2- how to trust a second Iomega product if it's to loose precious files I've been happy to spend money to protect

Claudio: every electronic device can fail, that does not depend on the brand or the specific model actually

clarinette: ok, I have to move to them now. Shame you didn't answered my previous email.

clarinette: you think then that backing up on iomega devices are by definition 'hasardous' and no recovery to envisage?

Claudio: every hard drive of whatever brand or model can fail suddenly with apparently no reason, that's why we always recommend to have a backup of the data and the reason why we sell backup solutions

clarinette: If I go 'through a local company who provides this service. ' would that be charged on me or iomega?

Claudio: I am sorry; warranty does not cover data loss.

clarinette: ' every hard drive of whatever brand or model can fail suddenly with apparently no reason, that's why we always recommend to have a backup of the data and the reason why we sell backup solutions' and the customer should be the only one to suffer from the failure.

Claudio: I am very sorry to hear of the problems you have experienced with your Iomega product and empathize with your data loss. I recognize that your data is priceless to you which is why Iomega, along with the computer industry stresses the importance of having a backup location for your critical data. If the unfortunate situation arises where data was stored only in one location, we do offer a data recovery service for a fee. You are also welcome to check with other data recovery services of your choice if you wish to have this service performed.

Claudio: At Iomega we pride ourselves in providing outstanding customer service to our customers. With millions of drives sold, we believe we have an outstanding track record in providing a very high quality product and excellent customer service and support. Iomega cannot, however, guarantee that no one will ever lose a file. Iomega makes plain in every statement of our warranties for all Iomega product sales that data loss is explicitly NOT covered by our warranty.

Claudio: Data recovery services are very expensive to provide, and are not built into the cost structure for each Iomega product, and indeed, the computer industry in general does not make any guarantee that you will never lose a file or lose any data once you buy a computer. For example, if your computer crashes and you lose a file from your Dell or Gateway computer, you cannot recover for data loss. Data recovery is an extra service performed by trained specialists, after studying the specific details in a particular data loss situation.

clarinette: Would you have any idea of how much it would cost me for the recovery by your colleagues you mentioned?

Claudio: sorry, I cannot tell, that depends on the damage, the machineries they have to use and the time they have to spend, you can ask a free evaluation though

Claudio: you can find all the contacts at http://europe.iomegadatarecovery.com/datarecoveryfaq-contactus.html

clarinette: This is a different link, does it replace the previous one? I have already sent a request to the first.

Claudio: that's the same company, it's just the direct link to the contact page

clarinette: Last question: Would they charge me as a iomega client victim under warranty or careless of the rapid failure of iomega product?

Claudio: I'm sorry, they are our partner but I don't know exactly which is their policy, I still confirm that the price will basically depend on the damage

clarinette: Ok, I'm going to talk to them.

clarinette: I guess I should thank you for your assistance.

Claudio: thanks for your understanding

Claudio: do you have any other question at the moment?

clarinette: oh, last point, yes, Do I have to give pack the faulty HD to get a new one? or can't I keep it for eventual recovery as I have been deprived of HD the last few months and now urgently need a new HD?

Claudio: yes, sorry, the unit must be returned for the replacement, there's the possibility to have an advance shipment but this service costs 23.80 euros

clarinette: Therefore, you are not offering your customers any hope of help on data recovery. Thanks

Claudio: the replacement can be still provided after you have recovered your data

clarinette: on their page, your colleagues mention: if need to open, no warranty, if no warranty no replacement isn't it?

Claudio: if you contact our data recovery partner the warranty will not be voided, even if you contact a local company and the you provide a data recovery documentation we can still replace the unit

clarinette: If I wanted to use the replaced iomega HD, how many mirrored hard drive should I need to secure the backups?

Claudio: a backup is "two or more up-to-date copies of your important data located on different disks."

Claudio: this is by definition, so at least two copies of the data, but in different disks

clarinette: I had two copies: for most data: one on my Vista desktop and the other on the iomega. I could not believe both would fail and the iomega failed after only a short time - I guess 3 months!!!

Claudio: sorry, this is a very unfortunate situation, actually that doesn't happen so often

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The privacy of Mobile online networking

2010-02-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

'Online as soon as it happens' is a relatively exhaustive paper on mobile social networking and its privacy implications with regard to the European data protection regulations. As a co-contributor, I suggest you have a look at it and encourage you to share its content:

"The report describes the social networking world and the mobile phone services allowing the users to experience the social networking sites (SNSs) on their handset, also illustrating the major risks and threats connected to their use. While many of the privacy issues originating from the web-based access to SNSs also apply to mobile social networks, there are also a number of unique risks and threats against mobile social networks. The report aims to provide a set of recommendations for raising the awareness of social networks users and in particular of social mobile users of the risks and the possible consequences related to their improper use.

Ref. code: ISBN-13 978-92-9204-036-9

Publication date: Feb 08, 2010"

http://bit.ly/9tjDxj social networking world and the mobile phone

Des yeux dans le bac a sable, paranoia ou realite. A la recherche d'un consentement avise

2010-01-19T14:10:00.000-08:00

La lecture de l'article de Yann Leroux sur l'effet Bac a Sable de Facebook, m'inspire les commentaires suivants:

..Facebook est juste un bac à sable et les châteaux de sable que nous y construisons ne nous appartiennent pas”.
Internet une zone de non-droit?
Je rebondis. On aurait pu l’envisager mais nos dirigeants politiques ne l’entendent de cette oreille. Le droit transperce et tente d’organiser cette nouvelle frontiere.
L’humain a exploite la terre, la loi l’a organisee, L’humain a exploite la mer, la loi l’a organisee, puis le ciel puis l’espace puis l’irrel. Le monde digital n’a pas su d’avantage resister a la dictature du droit.
Rien de nouveau sous le soleil, une nouvelle frontiere percee, de nouvelles regles a trouver, comme dans les autres spheres, la loi ne sera jamais par faite mais elle instituera un certain ordre dans la balance.
L’image que je propose est celle de nos routes avant la democratisation de l’automobile. Tant qu’il n’y a eu que des conducteurs privilegies, tout allait bien. C’est lorsqu’elle l’industrie a permis la democratisation de l’automobile que les routes ont connu le cahos jusqu’a ce qu’un code de la route soit etabli.

Cela dit, cette analogie du bac a sable me plait bien.
1– l’enfant y joue, apprend a manier les outils, y socialise,
2– il est sous la sur veillance des adultes, ses propres gardiens, mais aussi sous l’oeil d’autres adultes qui pouront le secourir en cas de besoin, jusqu’a ce que progressivement il puisse s’en affranchir.

Dans les reseaux sociaux, en revanche, on a encore besoin de trouver les regles qui s’adaptent. Quand je dis regles, je ne me refere pas necessairement a des lois etatiques car ca peut-etre aussi des accords concertes entre les parties avec plus de sou plesse, pouvant mieux s'adapter a l’evolution rapide des nouvelles technologies.
1– l’enfant ou le neo phite a acces a internet sans accompagnement ni preparation;
2– sur internet chacun peut pretendre etre qui il veut. Amis ou ennemis se confondent;
3– il n’y a pas que des chateaux de sable sur internet les aires de jeux sont confondus;
3– le bac a sable est un immense domaine qui rejoint les quatre coins du glob;
Le droit est immense, ses potentiels le sont aussi, tant en bien qu’en mal.
4– la portee de diffusion du message est incomparable a aucun autre media pre-existant,
5– la vitesse de propagation est quasi-instantanee;
6– le temps de reflexion n’est plus imposee;
7– le droit de l’oubli ou le droit de retractation est quasi-inexistant.
8 — le dommage cause peut-etre bien plus profond.

Je pense la au domage cause a la reputation, la pedophilie, le ‘cyber bullying’ qui a un effet devastateur et aggrave sur le net ou sur un plan plus materiel, le vol d'identite.

Pour revenir au point particulier du droit a l’intimite, je considere que le respect de l’individu et de la dignite humaine justifient que du moins, les plus vulnerables, les jeunes et les moins experimentes meme moins jeunes, beneficient d’une plus grande protection.
Je ne considere pas le ‘filtering’ ou la censure comme moyens efficaces de protection.
Le meilleur filtre est celui qui se trouve entre les deux oreilles, c’est le discernement et le jugement.
Pour cela, il faut pas ser par l’education.
Les internautes doivent savoir ce qui est fait de leurs informations collectees. Les directives europeennes sont tres claires sur ce point:(Eight Data Protection Principles). Selon qu’il sagit ou non d’une donnee privee sensible, il faut obtenir le consentement tacite ou expresse de l’usager pour collecter ses informations.
Le droit existe, nous ne perdons pas notre droit au respect de la vie privee simplement parce que nous sommes sur internet. Nous conservons notre droit de control sur la diffusion de notre information. Ce qui a evolue, c’est la dichotomie traditionnelle qui existait entre la sphere publique et la sphere privee. Il demeure le desir de maintenir privees des informations divulguees dans la sphere de l’internet.

Ce qui est poste sur internet y est pour la posterite, ce qui appartient a son auteur ce n’est pas simplement son copyright mais aussi son droit de controle sur sa diffusion.

Mieux que toute explication theorique, voici des cas concrets trouves parmis les tweets postes aujourdhui sur l'exploitation des informations revelees sur les SNSs -preuve que pendant qu'on joue dans le bac a sable les cameras surveillent : 1 - Privacy Violations by Facebook Employees http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/privacy_violati.html 2 - Mom Questioned for Posting Photo of Baby Smoking on Facebook - http://bit.ly/71pV6u 3- Do Facebook Application Settings Put Users At Risk? http://bit.ly/6lXO8u 4- Social Networking: Your Key to Easy Credit? http://www.cnbc.com/id/34843251/ 5- Man arrested under Terrorism Act for Doncaster airport Twitter joke http://tinyurl.com/y8t227t Des cas plus anciens et donc plus longuement debattus: 6 - Students' trial by Facebook http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jul/17/digitalmedia.highereducation Des etudiants sanctionnes pour des faits postes sur des photos publies dans Facebook. 7- Facebook Pics May Not Go Down Well With Your Insurance Provider! "The woman's insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in bikini at the beach. " http://www.medindia.net/news/Facebook-Pics-May-Not-Go-Down-Well-With-Your-Insurance-Provider-61302-1.htm CNBC: some organizations analyse consumer chatter over Twitter, FB and LinkedIn as part of their credit evaluation process. 5PC Advisor: 3% of UK employers review the public profiles of job candidates before making a hire, 20% of UK employers say they have rejected candidates based on what they have found, Pour ajouter au debat:Do You Have Any Legal Right To Privacy For Information Stored Online? http://bit.ly/6VKN8g Social Networks Keep Privacy in the Closet http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22781/?a=f The FBI collected more than 2,000 phone records in violation of ECPA. http://tinyurl.com/yes37z7 An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg -http://bit.ly/4T8qoj- Alexander van Elsas FBI Violated Electronic Communications Privacy Act http://bit.ly/8s8YeI A Hacker's Guide to Privacy on Social Networks http://bit.ly/7USdp9 Are we really a "nation of exhibitionists demanding privacy? " WPost article also asks question: who owns the data? http://bit.ly/4PFbx1

Why should we all pay for the Music Industry?

2010-01-18T03:57:00.000-08:00

In the middle of all Tweets on DigitalBritain, HADOPI, Loppsi and other tentative of control and internet censorship from Spain (1) to France (2) or UK passing by the worst dictatorship scheme envisaged in Italy (3), 'une lueur d'espoir', a gleam of hope.

In Monday View: The copyright crackdownCharles Dunstone, CEO TalkTalk Group

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/opinion/article.html?in_article_id=497707

From the mouth of, or actually the pen of, Charles Dunstone, CEO TalkTalk Group, la parole Sage - the wise word, to make me so proud of being a TalkTalk customer:

Commenting the Digital Economy Bill supported by the UK Government, Charles Dunstone reinforce his opposition to the Bill by stating:

"The Digital Economy Bill is one of the few pieces of legislation the government is actively pushing through parliament before an election is called."

He won't tergiversate, for him, the bill is one of

"...the most dangerous and misguided legislation to have come before parliament in recent years.

...sets out to tackle online copyright infringement - frequently referred to as 'illegal peer-to-peer file- sharing' - in order to support Britain's creative industries.

There is no doubt that some people do use the internet to watch films and listen to music without paying. TalkTalk does not condone or encourage copyright infringement, but I believe that the government's proposals are disproportionate, impractical and deeply unprincipled".

Though not encouraging copyright infringement, he states:

"I believe that the government's proposals are disproportionate, impractical and deeply unprincipled".

He crticizes the abusive presumption of fraud that weight on users.

"...the Bill effectively gives music labels and film studios the right to instruct internet service providers, such as TalkTalk, to cut off the internet connection of anyone that the labels and studios suspect of copyright infringement.

Consider this: if the police want to disconnect someone they suspect of viewing child pornography they have to apply to a court first and prove guilt. The Digital Economy Bill, in effect, casts people who download music without paying for it as a more urgent menace to society than people who view images of child abuse.

He then challenges the methods of censorship:

"We know many broadband customers caught up in this Orwellian nightmare will be innocent since the detection method cannot establish the individual who is file-sharing. It can only identify the connection, which many - including the unauthorised - can use."

Reminds the case of innocent customers abused by lawyers victim of hijacking of their broadband connection rescued by the consumer group Which?

I share his views on that and have been blogged earlier on the technical limits of such regulation. The remarks equally apply to the French HADOPI law.

Yes, file-sharers can easily avoid detection using Wi-Fi hijacking and a growing array of other tools and applications, it will be innocent broadband customers who suffer the consequences of this nightmare.

Yes, it is the music and film industry the real beneficiaries of these measures.

Yes, the cost of tackling the problem will be massive - maybe hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Yes: who foots this bill? The music and film companies? Not a chance. You will pay for it - an extra £2 per month on your broadband bill, according toBT.

...the cost of copyright protection plus the socalled 'phone tax' will jointly add about £30 per year to broadband bills.

Demand modelling shows this could make internet access unaffordable for 600,000 hard-pressed families. So much for the government's claimed commitment to 'digital inclusion'.

And yes,

"The creative industries' arguments are phoney and the government's response will turn our digital economy into a disaster zone.

More than 31,000 people have registered their opposition to these absurd proposals by signing our petition on the Number 10 website. You can also sign at www.dontdisconnect.us."

P.S. : Dear FCC or kind members, I am not sponsored by TalkTalk.

(1) Spain passes anti-piracy law

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3if944e88734e00aa3358cfd1b6d614e92

http://red-sostenible.net/index.php/Página_Principal

(2) Helicopters at the ready

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15276706

(3) "Censure : les webTV en Italie, c’est fini"

http://bit.ly/8w8dIB

HADOPI manque de chance d'atteindre son but

2010-01-12T06:20:00.001-08:00

En complement a l'article de Fabrice Epelboin qui a parfaitement anaylse et resume les informations que je lui avais fournies sur le conflits du droit d'auteur et la protection des donnees personnelles - DPI

Le Deep Packet Inspection : pour mieux vous (a)servir ?

http://fr.readwriteweb.com/2010/01/12/analyse/deep-packet-inspection-censure-filtrage/#comment-9515

Je reviens sur la position Europeenne sur les moyens d'investigation des telechargement illegaux. Le Working Party Article 29 (ou Groupe de travail Article 29 sur la protection des données WPA29) est une autorite consultative independante pour la protection donnees privees Instituee par la Directive 95/46/EC. Sa mission est definie par l'Article 30 de la Directive 95/46/EC et Article 15 of Directive 2002/58/EC. WPA29 rassemble les représentants de chaque autorité de protection des données des pays membre de l'Union européenne. (Meme si les avis du WPA29 sont consultatifs et ne s'imposent pas, les etats Europeens generalement les traitent comme tel).
http://www.cnpd.lu/fr/commission/cooperation_internationale/coop_art29/index.html
WPA29 a rendu un avis WP104 dans lequel il :
"...a constaté que certaines mesures destinées à assurer la protection efficace de matériel soumis à droit d’auteur contre un échange illicite présumé, prises à différents niveaux par les détenteurs de droits d’auteur, impliquaient le traitement de données à caractère personnel...."
Il conclut:
"Le groupe de travail considère donc nécessaire, dans ce contexte en pleine mutation, de rappeler les grands principes de la protection des données et leur champ d'application dans le cadre de la gestion des droits numériques et du respect du droit d’auteur."

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2005/wp104_fr.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2005/wp104_en.pdf

Ce n'est malheureusement pas une nouveaute que de tenter de bafouer les droits fondamentaux en conlit avec le droit de la propriete intellectuelle.
A l'issue d'un proces qui aura duree 10 ans opposant l'Eglise de la Scientologie a des FAI Hollandais (XS4ALL et Karin Spaink), la suprematie des droits fondamntaux sur les droits d'auteurs a ete reconnue.
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/scientologycase

Par ailluers, conformement au principe de la proportionalite (Convention Europeenne sur protection individuelle pour le traitement automatiques des donnees personnelles et la Directive 95/46), les gouvernements qui souhaitent imposer des limitations a la protection des donnees personnelles doivent demontrer au prealable que l'atteinte au respect de la protection des donnees personnelles est proportionnee au but recherche tout le long du processus de collect des donnees.

Instituer le DPI dont on ne sait quel organisme en prendra la charge ni sous quelle precaution, ne parait nullement proportionne a la defense des interets prives des maisons de disque.
Il est donc avere que le DPI ou autre methode de flicage n'est en rien un remede au probleme de telechargements illegaux.
Que les telechargements illegaux se feront par la voie du VPN et de l'encryptage. Par consequent, l'attention a la protection des donnees privees ne pourra se justifier, le but n'etant pas 'ATTEIGNABLE'.
Les trois elements indispensables du test de proportionalite font defauts: action indispensable, absence de moyens alternatifs, represente une contrainte injustifiee.

HADOPI encore: le Logo signe d'une rupture?

2010-01-12T02:37:00.000-08:00

1/ Je voudrais bien qu'on eclaircisse le probleme de la licence d'exploitation des fonts deposee pour le compte de France Telecom si j'ai bien suivi le debat. Il y a de fortes raisons de penser qu'il s'agirait d'une oeuvre de commande, dans quel cas, les droits d'exploitation appartiendraient a France Telecom, l'auteur conservant son droit moral.
Les droits representants un asset financier de France Telecom, entreprise privatisee, l'en depouiller causerait un dommage aux actionnaires(voire detournement de bien sociaux...)et necessiterait une decision des instances representatives de France Telecom.

2/ au vu de toute cette multitude de logos, je ne peux qu'avoir une reflection: TANT DE TALENTS GACHES!!
Au-lieu d'entreprendre une attitude de sanction et de guerre aux internautes, qu'on eduque ces Ministres et Deputes qui decidemment ont bien du mal a saisir les specificites de l'internet - on ne peut leur en vouloir, il ne sont pas nes avec. Ils comprendront peut-etre qu'aucune censure, surtout nationale, ne fait effet dans le monde digital ou la technologie evolue bien plus rapidement que la reglementation. Eh oui, Monsieur Herve Morin, croyez bien Fabrice Epelboin a chaque fois qu'il vous dira 'ca peut etre hacke'.
Ne cherchons pas a faire de la France le 'Village idiot de l'internet'. Associons les internautes a leur devenir au lieu de les sanctionner. S'ils avaient au moins organise un concours de logo pour HADOPI, n'auaient-ils pas ete mieux soutenus?

3/ L'internet est encore un outil tres neuf, laissons-le faire son machin, organisons des reflections, des recherches entre juristes, techniciens, internautes et politiciens pour trouver une mediation pour preserver les droits respectifs de chacun.

4/ l'EDUCATION est la premiere des demarches a entreprendre, la seule regulation qui tienne aujourd'hui est celle qui permettrait l'equilibre et la balance du respect de vie des internautes et de leur vie privee. Au-lieu de cela HADOPI donne le mauvais exemple en instituant non seulement la censure mais pis encore: LA SURVEILLANCE et le FLICAGE.

Nous attendons, la prise de position de la Secretaire d'Etat au numerique qui a pris son temps de reflection. Commencons au plus vite le dialogue, cessons la censure et le flicage. Le Deep Packet Inspection ne restera pas une exclusivite de l'autorite publique une fois que le principe aura ete admis, la technologie se developpera pour etre exploiter pour des causes moins nobles que la defens4e des intetrets de l'industrie de la musique. Vigilence!

2010-01-09T03:12:00.000-08:00

Mon commentaire suite au poste de Ravana sur HADOPI

http://www.ravana.fr/vraiment-pro-hadopi-117/

Interessant point de vue que je partage en partie. Juriste en droit de l'internet et propriete litteraire et artistiques, je ne peux que vous appuyer dans le respect des doits d'auteurs. Ceci etant, la justice exige la juste balance, une balance entre les droits d'auteurs, les droits des internautes et le respect de leur vie privee. Au passage, la jurisprudence (notamment eglise de Scientologie) a pose le principe de la supematie du droit au respect de la vie privee sur le droit d'auteurs. Ce qui est a combattre avec HADOPI, c'est la demarche. Elle ne tient nullement compte des exigences techniques (impossibilite de securisation des reseaux, l'encryptage, la pratique des avertissements, le snooping des IP addresses et j'en passe des meilleurs). J'ai brievement developpe ces points sur mon blog: http://clarinettesblog.blogspot.com/ Il est navrant de voir la coupure et l'incomprehension des politicens qui legiferent avec la realite des Nouvelles Technologies. La video entretien des deputes qui ont vote HADOPI sur la definition du P2P est en sens tres eloquent sur l'etat des connaissances de nos deputes. On n'a pas commence a reflechir sur les difficultes de legiferer internet pour que soudain la France se reveille et nous sorte des formules magiques telles que :- 'nationaliser le reseau internet pourri comme les chinois l'ont fait' ; - censurer internet ; - ou creer une taxe Google..... Hillarant, mais la France se ridiculise aux yeux du monde, lorsqu'elle se met a faire tache d'huile car oui, malheureusement, la betise n'est pas une exception francaise. Les moyens techniques de recherche des 'criminels' representent un risque serieux pour le respect de la vie privee des internautes (Deep Packet Inspection etc... voir sur ce point: 'When Rights Clash Online: The Tracking of P2p Copyright Infringement vs. EC Personal Data Directive' http://works.bepress.com/okechukwu_vincents/4/ Nous vivons aujourd'hui dans un monde ou l'acces a internet n'est plus un luxe pour quelques privilegies. Bien au contraire, l'acces libre doit etre, comme l'a entrepris Viviane Reding, Commissionaire Europeen, un drot fondamental pour reduire l'inegalite digitale. Couper l'acces a internet tel que le suggere HADOPI revient, qui plus est, a sanctionner tout un foyer pour le comportement d'un indivudu - membre ou nom du foyer dans la mesure ou il est extremement aise de snooper un ID ou hacker un reseau. On cree la une responsabilite 'collective', du jamais vu! Lorsque l'internet est suspendu, le titulaire du compte perd non seulement sa connexion mais eventuellement aussi son telephone, sa tele etc... pour une duree d'un an.Doit-il continuer a honorer son abonement? question laisse en suspend. Il y aurait encore beaucoup a dire sur les injustices crees par cette loi mais je m'arreterai la et vous encourage a lire mon blog ainsi que d'autres commentaires et articles qui y sont cites.

L'HADOPI se compose

2009-12-26T03:40:00.000-08:00

La nouvelle est tombee par Decret du 23 Decembre 2009 (voir commentaire sous HADOPI 1+2 = 3). Les Membres sont nommés pour six ans selon la loi du 12 juin 2009'

Ils éliront leur président, également pour six ans, parmi les trois membres désignés par le vice-président du Conseil d’Etat, le premier président de la Cour de cassation et le premier président de la Cour des comptes. Il s’agira soit de Jean Mustelli, Marie-Françoise Marais, ou Patrick Bouquet.

1 - membre titulaire désignés par le vice-président du Conseil d'Etat

M. Jean MUSITELLI, 62 ans, Conseiller d’Etat depuis 2001, a été professeur d’italien avant d’intégrer le Ministère des Affaires étrangères en 1979. Il a au cours de sa carrière diplomatique, jusqu’en 2002, occupé plusieurs postes, auprès de l’Ambassade de France en Italie, de la Présidence de la République (notamment comme porte-parole) et de l’UNESCO où il a représenté la France de 1997 à 2002, alors même que les Etats-parties à l’UNESCO convenaient des termes du mandat confié au Secrétariat général pour la négociation d’une Convention internationale sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des contenus culturels. Il a également été président de l’Institut national du Patrimoine (jusqu’en 2008) et est, depuis 2007, Président de l’Autorité de régulation des mesures techniques (chargée de la bonne mise en œuvre de la législation européenne relative aux droits d’auteurs et aux droits voisins).

Son expérience en fait un des meilleurs spécialistes en Europe de la régulation de l’économie de la culture et de l’audiovisuel et un des plus brillants avocats du combat européen en faveur de la promotion de la diversité des contenus culturels.

2 - membre désignés par le premier président de la Cour de cassation

En tant que membre titulaire : Mme Marie-Françoise Marais.

Conseiller à la Cour de cassation, 1° chambre, en charge des affaires de propriété littéraire et artistique, Marie-Françoise MARAIS a antérieurement été Présidente de la 4° chambre de la Cour d’appel de Paris spécialisée en matière de propriété intellectuelle.

Mme MARAIS est également Vice- Présidente du CSPLA (Conseil Supérieur de la Propriété Littéraire et Artistique), Présidente de la CNIS (Commission Nationale des Inventions de Salariés) et membre de la CEPC (Commission d’Examen des Pratiques Commerciales).

En tant que membre suppléant :
M. Dominique Garban. Conseiller a la Cour de Cassation. Admis a la retraite maintenu en activite par Decret du 6 Novembre 2009

Parmi les personnaites 'qualifiées désignées', le député UMP Franck Riester (ancien rapporteur de la loi “Création et internet” à l’Assemblée), le sénateur UMP Michel Thiollière (ancien rapporteur de la loi “Création et internet” au Sénat), l’ancien ministre de la Culture Jacques Toubon, Philippe Bélaval (récemment nommé président du Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique), Chantal Jannet (Présidente de l’UFCS). Ainsi qu’une partie des responsables de l’Autorité de Régulation des Mesures Techniques(ARMT) qui doit disparaître pour laisser place à l’Hadopi : Jean Berbineau (actuel secrétaire général), Jean Musitelli (actuel président), Marie-Françoise Marais (conseillère à la cour de Cassation et membre de l’ARMT), et Patrick Bouquet (conseiller-maître à la Cour des comptes et et membre de l’ARMT).

Trois magistrats sont a la tete de la Commission de protection des droits (CPD) chargée de la mise en œuvre effective de la riposte graduée: Mireille Imbert-Quaretta (Conseiller d’Etat), Jean-Yves Monfort (Président du TGI de. Versailles) et Jacques Bille.

On attend toujours - une surprise? - le décret portant sur la création de l’Hadopi qui n’a pas encore été publié.

Loi Hadopi 1 + 2 = 3 ?

2009-12-17T03:48:00.000-08:00

Un excellent developpement sur les suites de la loi et HADOPI :

Droit et Technologies:

"Avec l'adoption d'Hadopi 2, le système initial prévu pour la protection des droits d'auteur sur Internet est désormais entré en vigueur. Une Hadopi 3 sera-t-elle nécessaire pour parfaire ce dispositif ? En effet, la loi ne donne pas de définition précise de la contrefaçon en ligne. Il faudra aussi, entre autres choses, préciser les modalités dans lesquelles les victimes de contrefaçon pourront demander réparation de leur préjudice."

http://www.droit-technologie.org/actuality-1282/loi-hadopi-1-2-3.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+droit-technologie%2FRnCH+%28Les+actus+du+Droit+des+Nouvelles+Technologies%29&utm_content=Google+International

Voir egalement sur Copyright et le Gouvernement Sarkozi:

UMP = Un Mouvement Pirate http://is.gd/5qSS7

Sarkozy -UMP a nouveau pris la main dans le sac, apres trois avertisements, on leur coupe la connection?http://bit.ly/6Ur9Rs

En anglais:

Three strikes Sarkozy's Party Found Violating Copyright Again http://bit.ly/6Ur9Rs

Doctorlaura: Third strike strike? Techdirt covers French UMP party violation of music copyright in political videohttp://bit.ly/6crr0S

Pour plus d'info sur le context, en anglais:

A piece of fun music copyright education by L Lessighttp://bit.ly/4WP8cy

Sur la 'tache d'huile' d'HADOPI dans le monde:

UK House of Lords Follow China and Australia, Propose Internet Censorship Bill http://bit.ly/68gDgO

UK House of Lords Follow China and ... http://bit.ly/8Wpi0E

New Zealand Reintroduces 3 Strikes Lawhttp://bit.ly/5GQM5R

ACTA : ce qu'on ne vous dit pas...http://bit.ly/5J6vjx

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says privacy isn't important

2009-12-15T13:32:00.000-08:00

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says privacy isn't important, and if you want to keep something private, "maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" (in other words, "innocent people have nothing to hide.")

Dr Eric Schmidt is very clever and wise. However, this hasn't always been Google's position. Has he changed his mind?

Google CEO On Privacy (VIDEO): 'If You Have Something You Don't Want Anyone To Know, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing It'

In July 2009, few months ago, he was wise enough to declare:

Eric Shmidt Interview July 2009: "I don't think anyone wants everything revealed. That's why we have doors and shades and so forth."

"..behavior of PPL online when they are teenagers. This isn't the sort of thing that they want to know when they are mature adults in leadership positions"

"...I have a specific suggestion that it should be common and legal to change your name at the age of twenty-one and say, "That wasn't me. It was a different person"'....

"I'm very strongly in favour of an individual's right of privacy but I'm very suspicious about Governments ..."

"...our Company makes a commitment to people to respect people's privacy and their personal information because it's central to the trust ..."

Read the entire interview transcript of Eric Schmidt for Marketplace in July 2009 http://bit.ly/EN1PB

Before that, in 2005, 'Google blackballed CNet's reporters after CNet published personal information about Schmidt's private life: ""Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking to CNET News reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story..."

A considerable amount of information is available through Google's applications and someone with access to Google's databases could find out about personal emails, locations, shopping, reading, preferences, travelling, etc...

The risk is that hackers, zealous government investigators, or even someone accessing this information using Google abuse that information. As Google, offering its services free of charge, processes a mountain of collected information, it has no liability to users.

It is a fact that if we directly paid Google we would be less vulnerable. At the moment, we pay a dangerous price with our privacy that is tremendously valuable.
Entering directly in contract with Google would make the company accountable.
As a free provider of services, Google inevitably lacks concern for our data: there have been incidents of data loss, human error (data sent out by mistake). We have no idea of how data are secured, what is done with our data and how it is processed. We need more transparency and maybe external audit of the mega giant activities.
Google is benefiting from a quasi monopolistic situation. Google just aggregates so much that it IS a serious threat to our privacy, reputation, identity, finances, career, health, etc…
We cannot trust Google any more. Don’t be evil when openly Google is under-estimating the value of our privacy.

Of course, Google is not immune from human mistakes, see:

The Rocky Mountain Bank’s customers private data revealed for random users because of humane mistake - Bank sues Google

http://blog.gwebs.com/index.php/2009/10/12/the-rocky-mountain-banks-customers-private-data-revealed-for-random-users-because-of-humane-mistake-bank-sues-google/

When Google Runs Your Life

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1228/technology-google-apps-gmail-bing.html

Google CEO Eric Schmidt Dismisses the Importance of Privacy

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy

Dan Solove: "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy" http://bit.ly/NtYuE answers E Schmidt

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/google-ceo-on-privacy-if_n_383105.html

Google CEO says privacy doesn't matter. Google blacklists CNet for violating CEO's privacy.'

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/09/google-ceo-says-priv.htm

Tag: Google Privacy data Eric Schmidt user database

Letter to my MP

2009-12-02T02:54:00.000-08:00

........

The reason of this email is to point out to you the importance of the impact of the Digital Economy Bill.

Today, you will be at the Parliament for the Oral Questions at 3pm, followed by the second reading of the this bill.

I would like you to consider the importance of this legislation in the light of my remarks and articles I am sending you to preserve the right balance between Copyright and free speech and the right to access to internet.

The 'Three Strikes' proposal cannot be operative as it is unpractical:

- Different users accessing from the same computer or same network in the community are exposed to punishement for an act allegedly committed by one individual. This creates a collective liability.

- IP snooping: someone could easily hack the IP address of an internet access user to download infringing materials,

- Computers can be infected by malicious software, spyware or become a member of a bootnet attack.

- it is not realistic to expect every user to be able to adequately secure its network access while this is not offered as a default setting. Therefore, it becomes easy for anyone to hack into private networks for illegal downloads.

This goes against the UK and EU E-commerce Regulations. See Professor Liliane Edwards reaction after a pub was fined £8K for an infringing download from the open Wifi hotspot.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39909136,00.htm

- The notice letters have a good chance of ending up in the spam box and legitimately being ignored by account holders who won't be able to verify the authenticity of the warning. Remember many networks are accessed by several users (children, adults, friends, au-pairs, etc...) and many account holders are not tech-savvy.

- In our lives today, internet access is not a luxury anymore. Children need access for their study and this is the way it should go. Digital technologies are a great booster of knowledge and education. Workers need internet access. Consumers need internet access. Citizens need digital access and personal democracy. Promoting transparency and participation need to be the priority.

Instead, the new digital Economy Bill is opening the door to Deep Packet Inspection (as opposed to Net Neutrality) in the interest of the music industry. This represents a serious threat to our privacy. See: 'When Rights Clash Online: The Tracking of P2P copyright Infringement vs Ec Personal Data Directive.' by Okechukwu Benjamin Vincents, National University of Singapore http://works.bepress.com/okechukwu_vincents/4/

When Rights Clash Online: The Tracking of P2p Copyright Infringement vs. EC Personal Data Directive http://works.bepress.com/okechukwu_vincents/4/

- Often the internet service provider is also a provider of other primordial services such as telephone line or TV. What happens to the household when it is cut from the services? Should they maintain the monthly payments for an interrupted service?

I would also like to point out here the benefit of digital environment for the Music industry: No cost of premises, no shop, no print, no CD box, no staff, no shop cost etc... Instead fast music download with DRM (Digital Right Management protecting the re-production of the music in several support).

You can have a look at this graph : 'Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing?'

http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/11/12/do-music-artists-do-better-in-a-world-with-illegal-file-sharing/

Ultimately, I invite you to consider reading :

- From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

A Pirate-Finder General for the UK?

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/pirate-finder-general-uk

'My Digital Economy Bill letter to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee'

http://www.richardskingdom.net/my-digital-economy-bill-letter-to-the-the-house-of-lords-science-and-technology-committee?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RichardsKingdom+%28Richard%27s+Kingdom%29

'Mandelson's Madness'

http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2646

Cameras de surveillance

2009-11-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

L’etat en charge des came ras de sur veillance ne fera jamais rien de mal, soyons confiants.

Vous revez de don ner VitamineD a Google StreetView? La nou velle gene ra tion de Google Street View came ras “immer sive 360 video’ (sphe ri cal video) est capable d’enregistrer des images videos et non plus sim ple ment des shots fixes, inter ac tives et navi gables a dis tance pour vision ner sous angles mutiples.
Cessons d’etre para noia, ‘omni veillance’ n’est qu’un mythe qui occupe quelques aca demiques en mal de ‘Human Rights’ (Voir Josh Blackman du George Mason University School of Law ‘Omniveillance, Google, Privacy in Public and the Right to Your Digital Identity: A Tort for Recording and Disseminating and Individual’s Image Over the Internet’).
Les came ras de sur veillance et des pro cedes comme celui de EarthCam avec INTERNET video sur veillance 24/24 existent deja. StreetView n’en est qu’une exten sion a plus grande echelle.
Grace aux pro grammes de recon nais sance faciale (facial soft ware recog ni tion) et l’aide de com pa nies comme Everyscape (qui cherche a etendre la video-surveillance dans des zones rurales) et Earthmine (qui deve loppe des tech no lo gies per met tant d’enregistrer les maga sins, res tau rants et autres lieux publics) nous serons bien tot en pleine ‘secu rite’. Ces nou velles techn lo gies vont per mettre une dif fu sion elec tro nique la plus large jamais vu. Nous allons droit vers ce que Berners-Lee, l’inventeur du Web, avait pre dit comme etant l’avenir du net: le ‘web seman tic’ ou les don nees indi vi duelles seront expo sees sous toutes les cou tures en ligne.
Avec les pro cedes de ‘tag ging’ et les pro cedes de ‘recon nais sance faciale’ comme Google Picasa, les sujets peuvent etre auto ma tique ment indexes et tages sur l’image. Le pro cede Polar Rose est capable de scan ner le web regrou pant ainsi toutes les pho tos dis po nibles et iden ti fiees sur le web. Toujours selon Berners-Lee le tag ging serait une des clefs du ‘web seman tic’ vers lequel nous nous diri geons.
Grace au moteur de recherche Google, il devient aise de retrou ver l’identite de la per sonne pho to gra phiee, d’y asso cier ses don nees per son nelles, ses pre fe rences, amis et autres donnees dis po nibles et eparses dans le web. Google s’est dit deve lo per un pro gramme de ‘visual craw ling’ pour les ana lyses faciales et ana lyses sceniques.

Quelle avan cee!!
Oui mais tout ceci se passe de l’autre cote de l’Atlantique?

Detrompez-vous, la France n’a rien a envier aux ame ri cains. C’est une com pa nie fran caise, Quividi, qui a ins talle a New York des pan neaux publi ci taires equipes de came ras et d’ordinateurs puis sants capables d’analyser les visages de pas sants devant les came ras pour leur ser vir une publi cite sur-mesure adap tee a leur age et sexe detre mi nee par le logiciel. Le pro cede qui devait etre uti lise a la sta tion Charles de Gaulle Etoile a Paris.
Dan Solove, un autre aca de mique ame ri cain qui a beau coup tra vaille sur le sujet, met l’accent sur le dan ger de rendre public les moments intimes d’autant que sorti hors contexte, les sujets n’ont pas la pos si bi lite de rec ti fier leur image sur inter net. Ces enre gis tre ments, dif fusions et archi vages des don nees enlevent aux indi vi dus le droit de reha bi li ta tion. Comme un ele phant, l’internet n’oublie jamais dit Blackman (voir ega le ment Bernhard Warner: ‘How To Be UnGoogleable’ Times Online 28 Mai 2008). Ce que d’autres ont appele la theo rie de la conser va tion de la matiere, ce qui est dif fuse sur inter net, meme repris, ne s’efface jamais et ne laisse aucune chance au repenti. C’est dif fuse a grand echelle, a grande vitesse et souvent sans seconde lec ture et ne laisse aucune seconde chance. La ‘dog poop girl’ et le ‘star wars boy’ n’en sont que les vic times les plus celebres.

Mais, pas de para noia, ne crai gnons rien, tout va bien Madame la Marquise, dans le meilleur des mondes sur veilles a la moelle!!

VOIR: La vidéo surveillance de demain s’invente aujourd’hui

http://fr.readwriteweb.com/2009/11/18/a-la-une/la-video-surveillance-demain/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb-france+%28ReadWriteWeb+France%29

Le respect de la Loi pour tous et par tous

2009-10-02T02:52:00.000-07:00

This time, I am writing in French, not only because it's easier for me but because it's in reaction to articles published in French about the HADOPI law combined with what is now called 'l'affaire Polanski'. I hope to bring an English version later, please be patient or try to translate.

Un parallele trop facile a ne pas manquer avec l'HADOPI, me ramene a une mathematique tres simple:

On s'emeut du dommage cause a l'industrie de la musique, on invente une belle loi - a l'ere du numerique ou l'Europe s'acharne a reduire la division digitale pour donner un acces plus large a l'internet et au savoir libre. Cette belle loi passe d'abord inappercue par les deputes absents de l'hemicycle pour raisons estivales. Finalement, apres un petit passage au Conseil Constitutionel, on decide qu'apres deux alertes au titulaire d'une connection internet - alerte par email qui risquera de s'egarer dans la boite spam, puis par courrier, s'il n'est pas optempere, la connection sera interrompue POUR UNE ANNEE ENTIERE et le titulaire du compte N'AURA PAS D'AVANTAGE LE DROIT DE MIGRER VERS UN AUTRE SERVICE, pour le service internet pas plus que les services annexes tel que telephone ou television pendant toute cette periode!!!! LA LOI EST L'ORDRE et on exige un stricte respect des droits des artistes maisons de disques.

L'enjeu est trop important pour s'egarer avec des considerations de respect de la vie privee - surveillance et lynchage - ou les difficultes techniques qui se presentent:

- de plus en plus l'acces a internet est devenu un passage oblige pour des inscriptions, pour des enregistrements, pour des devoirs a la maison etc....

- la possibilite de se faire exturper son numero d'adresse IP est loin d'etre negligeable. Ce qui veut dire que pour commettre la haute infraction de telechargement illegal, des tiers utiliseront l'adresse IP d'un innocent utilisateur pour qui la charge de la preuve est renversee et devra, avec beaucoup de peine se battre pour essayer de prouver son innocence!!!

- comment veut-on contraindre tous les internautes connectes, y compris les non- professionels avec des connaissances techniques limites, d'etre responsables de la surveillance de leur connection, gardien de toute intrusion exterieure sur le reseau? ET je pense ici a beaucoup de pere ou mere de famille mais aussi a beaucoup de cafes ou restaurants en France qui ont bien voulu mettre gratuitement a disposition de leur clientele des acces hot spot ou wifi. Que va-t-il se passer lorsque des criminels malfaisants se seront empares de ces connections pour commettre le crime que je ne rappelerai pas??

ON COUPE!!!

Solution pour le moins radicale.

Maintenant, revenons a notre grand realisateur, couvert d'honneur avec un talent immense qui a souffert l'holocaust et a vu sa femme enceinte sauvagement assasinee.

J'ai une grande sympathie pour cet homme dont ma jeunesse a ete remplie par ces realisations. Je me souviens m'etre precipitee lorsque j'etais etudiante a Paris a aller le voir au theatre sur scene, quel acteur et quelle sensibilite!! Qui n'a pas vu Tess et n'a pas admire cette vague de photographies et de cartes postables de jeune filles embrumees qui l'ont suivie!!!

Aujourd'hui, je decouvre que ce grand talent a une tache dans sa vie!

J'entends Mr Bernard Kouchner me dire que tout ceci est 'un peu sinistre' alors qu'un mendat d'arret international est lance contre le genie et qu'il est arrete en Suisse. Je fais ma recherche - grace a ma connection haut debit internet - et decouvre que l'histoire n'est pas si claire que nos ministres francais veulent nous le presenter.

En quelques coups de clicks, j'apprends:

1- Monsieur Roman Polanski, citoyen francais, a eu des rapports sexuels avec une jeune fille de 13 ans en 1977 dans la maison de Jack Nicholson - un autre de mes idoles du cinema - durant son absence.

2-quatre chefs d'inculpation avaient ete retenus contre lui a l'origine pour avoir penetre oralement et par sodomie, sans consentement, la jeune fille qu'il avait au prealable fait denuder pour une petite trempette dans un jacuzzi, a qui il a fait boire du champagne et du Quaadrule, que je comprends etre un barbiturique. De plus, on a trouve en sa possession des photos 'topless' de la jolie jeune fille - dont il n'a pas nie savoir qu'elle n'avait que 13 ans - eh oui Monsieur Scorcez, il en savait plus que vous!!

S'il avait du jouer le role pour un film au cinema, il lui aurait fallu jouer le cliche type du pervers qui promet monts et merveilles a une jeune fille en mal de celebrite dont la mere n'avait pas trop le temps de penser a quoi sa petite fille de 13 ans allait bien pouvoir jouer dans cette belle maison hollywoodienne avec un homme de 42 ans lorsqu'elle l'a laissee seule avec (Ok d'accord, la compagne de Jack Nickolson etait au depart presente, mais je voulais eviter toute speculation mal venue sur ce que le TRIO aurait pu avoir gigote).

3- Face aux degats, Monsieur Polanski, probablement sur les conseils de ses avocats, decide de plaider coupable pour rapports sexuels avec mineur de 13 ans mais, nous dit-on, apres 42 jours d'expertise psychiatrique, il decide que l'incarceration n'est pas pour lui et s'envole pour son pays natal, qui l'acceuil a bras ouverts. Il y mene une vie pleine de succes, decide de limiter ses voyages dans les pays limitophes sachants respectes les droits des artistes de talents - evite bien sur la Grande Bretagne et s'achete un beau Chalet a Gstaadt en Suisse ou il a sejourne plusieurs mois cette annee.

4 - en bon gentelman il verse une compensation financiere a sa victime qui lui est reconnaissante et a meme ete jusqu'a demander a la justice de cesser les poursuites a son encontre.

5 - en 2008, un documentaire cinematographique Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, vient a sa rescousse argumentant entre autres que les regles de procedures n'avaient pas ete respectees. Que le juge avait discute de l'affaire avec un procureur qui l'aurait influence. On apprend aujourd'hui qu'un temoignage important du documentaire etait en realite mensonger, son auteur s'etant repenti. On sent la les efforts pour essayer de sauver le grand genie qui echouent.

6- depuis plus de trente ans, Monsieur Polanski est en vadrouille et la justice americaine tente de le repecher pour le faire juger car s'il a avoue et les faits ont ete reconnus par lui-meme, il doit etre juge pour decider de son emprisonnement et faire son temps en prison.

Et voila que mon heros realisateur/acteur genie du cinema se revele etre un evade de la justice pour des faits aussi graves commis non pas il y a trente ans et donc oublie comme veulent nous faire croire Messieurs Mitterand et Kouchner mais des FAITS RESTES IMPUINIS DEPUIS plus de trente ans, la nuance n'est pas faible!

Le Monde d'hier a publie une lettre ouverte d'un ancien confrere de Monsieur Polanski - non pas un cinesate mais un confrere en matiere de relations sexuelles avec mineure, bien que ce dernier avait lui beneficie du consentement de la jeune fille. Dans sa lettre, l'homme temoigne de son repenti apres avoir ete ecroue pour deux annees de prisons fermes (ou du moins avoir ete incarcere pour deux ans car il doit y avoir du preventif). Il a compris et paye pour le mal qu'il a cause a sa victime et 20 ans apres il est rehabilite. A lui, car rappelez-vous, il n'est pas un homme de talent avere, on lui demande deux fois par an de faire une retrospective 20 ans en arriere pour se rendre a un bureau ou il devra declamer son identite d'ancien pervers et justifier de sa residence!!!

C'est la, que je sorts de mon gong, IL Y A DEUX POIDS DEUX MESURES ET CE N'EST PAS JUSTICE.

Nous vivons dans un etat de droit ou le respect de la justice est POUR TOUS sans consideration de talent ou de fortune.

Je trouve aussi mal place - ou 'sinistre' comme aime le dire Monsieur Kouchner - d'envoyer Monsieur Polanski derriere les barreaux que tout autre pervers sexuels qui sont des hommes ou des femmes - car il y en a aussi.

Mais alors que faire? suivre la logique HADOPI?

C'etait la solution que ma grand mere pronait: 'les violeurs, on leur coupera le sexe. ca les fera reflechir' disait-elle.

La simple mathematique empreinte a HADOPI devient: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = ON COUPE

Mon dieu que d'hommes sans queue!!!

J'ai lu un jour, lorsque j'etais etudiante en droit, vers cette meme periode ou 'Tess' etait sur les ecrans, un livre intitule 'cris moins fort, les voisins vont t'entendre', dans ce livre on parlait de l'importance des violences sexuelles et familiales et l'auteur suggerait de faire le test de demander autour de soi combien de personnes avaient ete victimes de violences ou d'atouchements sexuels dans leur enfance. Depuis toutes ces annees, le nombre de reponses que j'ai entendu est effarant. J'en arrive a la conclusion que c'en est presqu'une pulsion naturelle. Heresie! Non, desolee, elle n'est pas naturelle cette pulsion, elle est perverse et doit etre controlee. C'est a la societe d'en trouver la solution pour aider ces individus a controler leurs faits et gestes pour proteger d'innocents enfants. Demandez aux psychologues ou aux psychanalistes les effets ravageux que de telles relations peuvent avoir sur des jeunes enfants. Souvenez-vous, beaucoup de ces enfants abuses, pouront a leur tour devenir des adultes abusifs a l'egard d'autres enfants. Ce qu'il nous faut s'est trouver le moyen d'interompre cette chaine de perversion et la prison et l'humiliation ne fera rien pour les guerir de ce mal si rependu.

Parents, apprenez a surveiller vos enfants, je me bats pour le faire dans le monde reel mais aussi, pour faire rappeler que le danger existe aussi dans le monde digital. Il faut apprendre a surfer en securite et rester vigilent.

J'ai dit.

Merci de me signaler les erreurs eventuelles.

NOTE: informations regroupees a partir d'articles parus sur:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski:_Wanted_and_Desired

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Polanski_arrest_cues_mixed_emotions.html?siteSect=108&sid=11279980&ty=st

http://prempanicker.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/wtf-is-rape-rape/

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez30-2009sep30,0,1671827,full.column

Amazon Burns Orwell's E-Books

2009-07-29T16:45:00.000-07:00

In reply to by Ryan Calo, post on July 17, 2009 - 2:04pm following Amazon' move in Kindle books:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6226#comments

I think I start to understand what ebooks can be :
They are like borrowing but with the price of a purchase. They are not a purchase, as neither can't they be resold nor given away, but they can easily be retracted by Amazon. With the advantage of 'traceability' as purchases via Amazon can be tracked down.

Now with regard to these two titles sudden 'overnight' evaporation :
1- I'm wondering how many people are possessing a kindle;
2- How many of these people have actually purchased the '1984' book of George Orwell. I have actually recently read that very few people had read this book!
3 - Knowing the high professionalism of the work of Amazone's lawyers, I'm very surprised that the contract binding publishers to Amazon would have allow them to retroactively 'decide to pull their content from the Kindle store'

Finally, I can only honor the way consumers and the press have reacted to make their voice heard and contest against an abusive decision.
One more positive of internet voice!!

Still need to understand how the story builds up at first. Reacting shortly after that happened, I was wondering how many people had been affected and how the information could have been circulated. I am amazed how quick the reaction started and the internet community could express its opposition,

Is TechCrunch going too far?

2009-07-17T03:27:00.000-07:00

Trying to answer the questions I have received about the issue of TechCrunch publishing information about Twitter, I will make few remarks:

1- First, not being a techy expert, I cannot see how anyone needed to hack the Twitter website, hacking users' accounts in order to get into Twitter's employees account - by the way, who's names an accounts are openly published by Twitter - to guess the email account passwords to steal informations to send to the inbox of TechCrunch.

See : 'The guy (”Hacker Croll”) who claims to have accessed hundreds of confidential corporate and personal documents of Twitter and Twitter employees, is releasing those documents publicly and sent them to us earlier today.'

2- Eventually, after few hours of announcements, TechCrunch, having consulted their Lawyers, decided to publish SOME of these information. They expressly mention:

'the vast majority of these documents aren’t going to be published, at least by us.'

My question here is : what have they done with the rest of the documents, monetized?

3- Their final decision to publish the document is :

'a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them.'

Which is a legal justification to limit the right to privacy and confidentiality that benefits to Journalists and news reporters, the public interest to disclosure of news and comments.

4- Ultimately, TechCrunch publishes the information backing itself by a 'twitter' agreement, that is immediately questioned:

RT @ev @TechCrunch... "we have been given the green light by Twitter to post this information" What?! By whom? That's not our understanding

5- The jurisdiction applicable being the US, I would recommend this excellent legal analyze by Sam Bayard

Harvard's Citizen Media Law Project examines Twitter leaked doc case ...http://bit.ly/197Lwm

I fully agree with Sam that this is a question of ethic, judging if the publication of these 'stolen' documents - although there is no robbery as the information is not a property - is newsworthy enough to encourage hackers to pursue these sort of 'intrusions' in the future.

2009-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

IP Addresses and User Privacy

In Europe, experience with totalitarian governments has justified the search for stronger laws and policies for the protection of personal information. On the other hand, Google grew up in the US which has a rather liberal approach, emphasizing the First Amendment, and Freedom of Speech and information. There is no data protection commission or commissioners in the US equivalent to those in Europe. These two divergent approaches create uncertainty regarding what can be expected from a company like Google operating from the US but reaching EU users.

There has been ongoing discussion between EU authorities and Google since 2007 over the issue of collecting private information, which relates in particular to the issue of IP addresses and cookies.

Eventually Google consented to limiting the retention of personal data communicated by its users to nine months. However, there is still wide controversy as to whether Internet Protocol (“IP”) Addresses are, or are not, personal data that is subject to protection by the EU regulations. There is a significant divergence of privacy laws across the 27-member European Union complicating the regulation of an internet that has no frontiers.

Recently a Swedish Court has ruled that IP addresses are personal data.

On the other hand, a German Court has ruled that IP addresses are not personal data.

Under the latter interpretation storing IP addresses without additional information doesn't violate data protection legislation because they are not personal data - when stored by publishers they cannot be easily used to determine a person's identity and this lacks the 'necessary quality of determinability’ to be personal data. The identity cannot be determined without disproportionate burden using normally available knowledge and tools. They could be personal data in some cases but they are not generally.

However, Germany's Data Protection Commissioner, Peter Scharr has been leading research assessing the privacy policies of internet search engines operated by Google, Yahoo Microsoft and others and their compliance with the EU privacy law. Scharr told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP 'then it has to be regarded as personal data'.

The UK Information Commissioner Office (ICO) Guidance of 2007 stipulates that IP Addresses, in isolation, will not be considered Personal Data unless and when used to build a profile on an individual or in the hands of an ISP. According to the guidance this is not technically an easy task. It adds that many IP addresses, particularly those allocated to individuals, are ‘dynamic’. Therefore, the allocated IP address is not permanent, although with the spread of the broadband, more and more connections are constantly maintained and the IP address is not often renewed. As for static IP Addresses, these can in the same way as some cookies be linked to a particular PC which may then be traced to an individual user. So, where a link is established to a static IP Address, the addresses and the profiles could be personal information.

Spain’s Data Protection Regulator, Artemi Rallo Lombarte, has criticized search engine operators for not trying to make their privacy policies accessible to normal people.

He said their policies "could very well be considered virtual or fictional... because search engines do not sufficiently emphasize their own policies on their home pages, nor are they accessible to users". He described the policies as "complex and unintelligible to users". Accessibility of terms of use and services is a common issue on the internet. An effort is certainly needed for the use of more plain language and better visibility. However, with limited choice and user knowledge accepting the standard terms is likely to be something of a formality.

The approach of the French Courts is indicated by the following. On 27 April 2007 the Paris Court of Appeal considered a case involving person to person computer networks and ruled that “the IP address does not allow the identification of the persons who used this computer since only the legitimate authority for investigation may obtain the user identity from the ISP. It should also be remembered that each computer connected to the Internet is identified by a unique number called an ‘Internet address’ or IP address that allows it to be found among connected computers or to find the sender of the message”. In a similar ruling on 15 May 2007, the Court argued that “this series of numbers indeed constitutes by no means indirect nominative data of the person in that it only relates to a machine, and not to the individual who is using the computer in order to commit a counterfeit.” The Court concluded that the collection of IP addresses does not constitute processing of personal data, and therefore there was no need for NIL prior authorization, as required by the French Data Protection Act.

These rulings do not seem to be fully consistent with the applicable European legal framework. The concept of “personal data” in Directive 95/46/EC does not require that an IP address allow identification of the user, but only that it relates to an identifiable natural person. The argument that an IP address only relates to a machine and not to the individual who is using it, is not convincing either.

On 6 September 2007, the Court of First Instance of Saint-Brieuc, came to the opposite conclusion.

According to the court, “The IP Address, is, strictly speaking, an identifier of a machine when the latter is connected to the internet, and not that of a person. However in the same way as a telephone number it is, strictly speaking, none other than a line for which a subscription has been made by a given person. An IP number associated with an internet access provider necessarily corresponds to the connection of a computer for which a given person has entered into a subscription with an access provider.”

On 12 December 2007 the Paris Court of Appeal issued a decision on the legal obligation of Google Inc., as a blog hosting provider, to retain data identifying a blog user. The court stated, inter alia, that “the user profile” that Google Inc. holds does not meet its obligation of user identification. The court was using this opportunity to require that the IP address be held by the hosting provider, even if it constitutes personal data that makes it possible to identify a computer.

However, in a similar case on 23 June 2008, the court of first instance of Paris ruled that the retention of IP addresses fulfills the above mentioned legal obligation of the host provider, because an IP address allows the identification of a blog user: “But given that, following the obligation in question, a web host has the duty to hold and retain data enabling the identification in question: that which the company JFG Networks sent in its mail of 23 April 2008 and that the technical intermediary” was able to provide the relevant services, it cannot be accused therefore of failing to fulfill its obligations in respect of the electronic address provided during its registration by the blog administrator.

The view of the US Courts is also uncertain. The Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey stated in its unanimous decision "We now hold that citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy ... in the subscriber information they provide to internet service providers--just as New Jersey citizens have a privacy interest in their bank records stored by banks and telephone billing records kept by phone companies"

Admitting that IP addresses are private, the Supreme Court ruled that for the police to access an ISP’s log of surfing users a municipal court subpoena was not enough. They need a grand jury subpoena from higher court than usual. This case was an important step towards the recognition of IP addresses and the need to protect privacy in the digital world where so much can be easily collected. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACLU, EPIC Center and others, had filed a friend of the court brief in the case.

It’s important to note that in addition to the information collected via IP addresses there are expectations of privacy regarding clickstream data associated with it. "With a complete listing of IP addresses, one can track a person's Internet usage", the opinion reads. The court referred to a law review article by privacy expert Daniel Solove for the proposition that clickstream data can allow the government to learn "the names of stores at which a person shops, the political organizations a person finds interesting, a person's ... fantasies, her health concerns, and so on." The court went on to hold that users only disclose information to internet service providers for the limited purpose of being able to access the Web "and not to promote the release of personal information to others." "Under our precedents, users are entitled to expect confidentiality under these circumstances," the court wrote.

Surprisingly, more recently a Federal Judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personally identifiable information.

According to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones: “In order for ‘personally identifiable information to be personally identifiable it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer.” In this case, Microsoft was accused of violating user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates. It is not technically impossible for Microsoft as well as Google to track the IP address to the user’s identity if the user is at the same time a client of their other services such as MSN mail services or Googlemail for Google. This is the reason why the EFF advises users at least not to search Google while connected to their Googlemail account.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, criticized the Microsoft ruling as “a silly decision.” “The judge didn’t understand the significance of the IP address or the reason that it was collected,” he says.

He had also said that it was "absurd" for Google to claim that stripping out the last two figures from the stored IP address made the address impossible to identify by making it one of 256 possible configurations.

"It's one of the things that make computer people giggle. The more the companies know about you, the more commercial value is obtained." Privacy activists argue that IP addresses should count as a Personal data under the Data protection legislation.

The Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner has held a more conservative view, stating that An IP Ad per se does not meet the requirement of Personal Data.

For the record Microsoft has declared that it does not record IP Addresses that identify an individual PC.

The European Regulatory Perspective

The Committee of Europe's Privacy watchdog has said that an IP Address should be treated as Personal Data by ISPs and search engines even if they are not always Personal Data. 'Unless the ISP is in a position to distinguish with absolute certainty that the data correspond to users that cannot be identified it will have to treat all IP information as Personal Data to be on the safe side. These considerations apply equally to search engine operators'.

Ultimately, the EU regulator considers that 'IP addresses, strings of numbers that identify computers on the internet, should generally be regarded as Personal Information.' Most E.U. and national law that describes how personal data is handled was developed in the 1970s and a comprehensive overhaul is needed to meet the challenges of the Internet age. The new regulations need to take account of the development of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

A European Commission advisory panel, called the Article 29 Working Group, has worked to better understand the issue. The Panel found it useful to understand how the IP address operates. The latter are ‘series of digits (four digits comprised between 0 and 255). Every time that an individual goes onto the Internet using an Internet access device, for example to surf the Web, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) attributes an IP address to the device that he is using. But access providers know who is behind an IP address, and it is possible for a third party to correlate the information and determine to whom a profile corresponds.

This is how the search engine identifies a user and continually records the clicked links, the sites visited, ads viewed, as well as the key word searches made, frequency of use or visits to a given site. It correlates all of this information to the user IP’s address thanks to cookies placed on that person’s computer whenever he or she logs on to the Internet. Cookies are connection logs; they enable the websites to identify the users and record their “itinerary”.’ This is why the Electronic Privacy Information Center: finds it 'it is "absurd" for Google to claim that stripping out the last two figures from the stored IP Ad made the address impossible to identify by making it one of the 256 possible configurations'. ‘For a better traceability, many commercial websites make use of "ID cookies" which are stored on the visitor's computer in order to enable a unique recognition on the next visit. ‘In the case of search engines, the searching behavior is often recorded and retained for a certain period’ .

What is a Personal Data under the EU regulations:

95/46/EC, also known as the "Data Protection Directive", offers protection against the processing of private data. Article 2 sub (a) of the Directive reads as follows: "Personal data shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ("data subject"); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity".

The Article 29 Working Party issued its Opinion 1/2008 on data protection issues related to search Engines in April 2008.

The opinion concluded that the Data Protection Directive generally applies to the processing of personal data by search engines, even when their headquarters are outside the European Economic Area:

“Search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymize personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected for and be capable of justifying retention and the longevity of cookies deployed at all times…. The Working Party recalls the obligation of search engines to clearly inform the users upfront of all intended uses of their data and to respect their right to readily access, inspect or correct their personal data in accordance with Article 12 of the Data Protection Directive” (Executive Summary, Para. 5).

C.f. further the Opinion, par. III.3, especially, p. 12:

"In general, a natural person can be considered as "identified" when, within a group of persons, he or she is "distinguished" from all other members of the group".

See also Recital 26 of Directive 95/46/EC:

".... whereas, to determine whether a person is identifiable, account should be taken of all the means likely reasonably to be used either by the controller or by any other person to identify the said person; ..."

The next International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners will be hosted by the Spanish Data Protection Authority in November this year in Madrid.

The Spanish Data Protection Director, Artemi Rallo Lombarte stated:

"the challenge we face as the organizers of the 31st International Conference is that of achieving the approval of a joint proposal on "International Standards for the Protection of Privacy and Personal Data," allowing the development of a universal, binding legal document."

Protection of Personal Data On-Line: IP Addresses - personal identifier or personal data?

A name is undoubtedly a personal identifier. However a person can still change his or her name by marriage, by special request or by fraud. More frequently, an IP address is changed or renewed, specifically when dynamic, mostly automatically and without human interference. In both cases the identifier does NOT define the person but is a link that POINTS TO that person. Nothing identifies a person with certainty. Maybe his or her teeth unless they have been extracted or never recorded.

What is important is the link created between the person and the identifier. The key that creates the link is available to ISPs and some site owners and search engines such as Google. A postal address in itself is not an identifier. However it becomes so when associated to a particular individual or family domiciled at the address. Even a diary is not a personal identifier but becomes personal data when a link can lead to its author.

According to Opinion 1/2008 of the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party on data protection issues related to search engines, ‘when a cookie contains a unique user ID, this ID is clearly personal data.’ Also, ‘cookies deployed by search engines typically contain information about the user’s operating system and browser, and a unique identification number for each user account: “When a computer has a dynamic and variable IP address, and cookies are not erased at the end of a session, such a cookie makes it possible to trace the user from one IP address to the next.” Cookies that collect information about how people use the internet can automatically expire after 2 years or continue for 30 years.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) In its online document ‘Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy’ shows how search engines can connect different user collected information to identify them.

It is stipulated:

1. Don't put personally identifying information in your search terms (easy)

2. Don't use your ISP's search engine (easy)

3. Don't login to your search engine or related tools (intermediate). In particular it recommends: f you have accounts with services like Google GMail or Hotmail, do not search through the corresponding search engine (Google or MSN Search, respectively), especially not while logged in.

4. Block "cookies" from your search engine (intermediate)

Vary your IP address (intermediate)

Use web proxies and anonymizing software like Tor (advanced) ‘to hide your IP address from the web sites you visit or the other computers you communicate with on the Internet, ...’

Additionally, the document mentions :

“Mail.google.com and google.com leave some additional cookies that will identify you while searching, but which Customize Google (and GoogleAnon) will not anonymize. Unless you remember to quit your browser, some of those cookies persist even if you logout of Gmail. Future versions of these privacy-protection tools may help fix this problem.’

Privacy Implications for Google : Should users yield control over their personal information to Google?

This issue has various facets, some of which are discussed below :

A. Retaining IP Addresses

Google insists that an IP Address merely identifies the location of a computer, not who the individual user is. The law firm Pinsent Masons LLP in its website “Out-Law” responds: “that is true but does not take into consideration that many people regularly use the same computer and IP Addresses.” 'Whois' internet sites allow users to link an IP address to the user's name or company linked to it.

According to Google's Global Privacy Counsel, Peter Fleischer:

'Google collects IP Adresses to give customers a more accurate service because it knows what part of the world a search result comes from and what language is used -- and that was not enough to identify an individual user....'

An issue here is that users are not aware of which information is collected from them. The opt out option will give them a choice.

B. Addressing ‘Click Fraud’

There are legitimate reasons why Google should wish to track IP Addresses. For example, Google claims that internet "click fraud" can be tracked by showing that the same IP Address is jumping repeatedly to the same address. Advertisers pay each time a different person views the Ad, so dozens of views by the same person can rack up costs without giving the company the publicity it wanted.

C. Surveillance and Targeted Advertising

As indicated above a key competitive advantage for Google, with the world’s largest search engine and suite of complementary applications, is information about the search preferences of its users, enabling it to sell more targeted advertising services to its clients.

The new Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, appointed in February this year, has made behavioral targeting his first priority.

Behavioral targeting delivers ads to individuals based on the Web pages they visit and searches they carry out. In the EU, Meglena Kuneva, the European consumer affairs commissioner, has argued that basic consumer rights are being violated by companies that profile and target consumers.

According to the EU Eight Data Protection Principles, data should not be collected without data subjects’ consent and only for a specific use.

The Code of Fair Information Practices developed in the US in 1973 for the US Department of Health, Education & Welfare presents five principles: openness, disclosure, secondary use, correction, and security. They are similar to the EU requirement but expressed differently and not as extensive as the EU principles. The latter include minimization (only information relevant to the task at hand is gathered), restoration (those altering the privacy status quo should bear the cost of restoring it), safety net or the equity principle (minimum privacy available to all), timelines (data are expected to be current and old data destroyed), the principle of joint ownership of transactional data and the obligation of common share of any gains, the principle of consistency and ultimately, the principle of accountability for any breach including mechanisms for victims to discover and be compensted for breaches.

‘Why should privacy matter?’ users might ask, not grasping why they should fear the collection of their data for targeted advertising. Two main reason are suggested by Hal Roberts: firstly, Google could lose our data. If that has happened to credit card companies, government bureaus and other organizations why not Google? Recently Google was victim of human mistake releasing data. Secondly, data stored by Google could be accessed by governments as was the case in the law suit opposing Viacom to Google’s subsidiary, YouTube.

The privacy scholar, Daniel Solove has done extensive research on privacy. Facing the ‘I’ve got nothing to hide argument’, he asked the reader of his blog, Concurring Opinions, to bring good responses to the argument.

People give out bits of information in different settings, only revealing a small part of themselves in each context. The pieces of data spread around throughout daily activities give the expectation individually that relatively little is revealed. However, when these pieces are consolidated together like a piece of puzzle the aggregator acquires much greater knowledge about the person’s life. Financial institutions have a major interest in collecting data such as credit reports to evaluate lending risks. In the same way future employers or education admissions tend to refer to digital footprints left behind by candidates to help their decision makings. This is not without the risk of false ‘extrapolation’ from information taken out of its context and losing its significance.

By indexing web content Google is continually compiling user information. It also actively pulls out users’ information from other Social Networking Sites like Facebook or Twitter without users’ acknowledgment or consent. Taken out of context this information can cause prejudice. It can be wrongfully interpreted or harmful for users’ reputations. Hal Roberts from the Berkman Center of Internet and Society researched surveillance of the internet as reported by Ethan Zuckerman.

The statistics he reveals, dating from the end of 2008, show that each of Google’s advertising entities - Adwords and Double Click - own 35% of the online market.

In an interview with KAI RYSSDAL in July 7, 2009, Google’s Chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt admitted that 97% of Google’s revenues come from advertising. Randal Stross

recalls in his book how two Google employees found the process for targeted advertising by simply “downloading semantic analysis software from the internet that could analyze any block of text, identifying the grammatical function of every word in every sentence, and then figuring out the sentence meaning into a few keywords.” They initially feared a negative reaction from the co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, regarding the privacy impact of the new tool. Stross also reported in 2000 that when Sergey Brin, still student at the Stanford University, was interviewed, he had declared ‘deliberately following a different path from Yahoo, which offered a complete set of information services that were intended to keep users from having any reason to go to another web site’ claiming “all we do is search”. The original intention was to stick to search delivery, not wanting to enter into competition with companies to whom they would deliver search services.

Less than a decade later the company has dramatically expanded. Google launched gmail with a powerful search engine. And if this is not enough, Google desktop helps users search their own desktops. Eric Schmidt said in his recent interview talking about advertising that “we think that we can build much more sophisticated advertising products. Ones which are even more personal, more mobile, more interactive, tell the story better.”

These types of information flows are not without the risk of leakage or human errors.

Organizations such as Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have expressed concerns about the scale of information manipulated by Google.

Google’s technology becomes more penetrating and intrusive while our society becomes more transparent and porous. Modern types of surveillance, says Hal Roberts, have become more sophisticated than the Orwellian Big Brother model where the Ministry of Love watched you while you watched it. They are closer in character to the Jeremy Bentham Panoptican model also referred to by Benett & Raab in ‘Governance of Privacy’. There is an assumption that individuals placed in a position where they are constantly watched will enforce their own behavior.

This is in the case of conscious surveillance but Google’s surveillance is surreptitious. In the internet age the information is broadly delivered by data subjects themselves. As noted by Benett & Raab ‘information collection often occurs invisibly, automatically and remote - being built into routine activities.’ Importantly, ‘awareness and genuine consent of the part of the subject may be lacking.’

In summary, uncertainty remains about the effect of surveillance, supposedly made for targeted advertsing services, on individuals’ behavior and the effect of surveillance on free speech.

Technical explanations on HADOPI or a law in agony.

2009-07-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

In the context of French bicameralism : ‘Assemblee Nationale’ (members of parliament directly elected by universal poll) + Senate election by representatives (assemblee des sages)

They are two ways to introduce bills of law:

Bill issued by government initiative = ‘projet de loi’
bill issued by members of parliament or senate = ‘proposition de loi’

In case of rejection of a ‘projet de loi’ or ‘proposition de loi’ initiated by the senate, the text is re-examined by the parliament until the two chambers find an agreement. This is called the ‘navette parlementaire’. If no agreement is found, a mixed commission of 7 MP and 7 senators is created to find a solution. A new bill is then presented to each chamber. Ultimately the ‘Assemblee Nationale’ will have the last word.

In some exceptional cases, the government can use the parliament prerogative to create a bill. This is called ‘une ordonnance’. The government will need to seek a special authorization from the parliament ‘une loi d’habilitaion’. This mode has rarely been used and reveal unpopular.

The ‘Conseil Constitutionel’ is the organ of protection of the constitution. Once a bill is voted, the President of each chamber or a groupe of 60 members of either chamber as well as the ‘President de la Republique’ can submit the text for control of constitutionality to the ‘Conseil Constitutionel’.

In the case of the HADOPI, the Conseil Constutitutionel mainly criticized three aspects of the project :

- on the grounds of a conflict with fundamental human rights –Article 9 Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen of 1789. (presumption of innocence) was the basis for objecting to the idea that it should be up to those accused of illegal file-sharing to prove the infringement was the fraud of a third-party.

- Article 11 declares that the ‘free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man’. It was the justification for saying that internet access should not be cut off except by a court – attacks on the right to communicate must be ‘necessary, appropriate and proportionate’.

- privacy and data protection was the ultimate concern of the 'Conseil Constitutionel'.

HADOPI 2, has modified the criticized points, passed the Senate vote and will need to be adopted by the ‘Assemblee Nationale’ to pass.

With reference to the excellent article of Me Eolas in 'Journal d'un Avocat' -

www.maitre-eolas.fr/post/2009/06/11/1447-in-memoriam-hadopi

-Liberation.fr : Pierre-Yves Gaultier 'La propriété intellectuelle, un sous-droit'

http://www.ecrans.fr/La-propriete-intellectuelle-un,7614.html

- [At last ... the 1709 Copyright Blog] Internet rights go on trial

http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/internet-rights-go-on-trial.html

- In Liberation.fr 'Hadopi, c’est reparti'

http://www.ecrans.fr/Hadopi-c-est-reparti,7675.html

- Le corsaire Sarkozy et les trous dans la coque de l’« HADOPI 2 »

http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/le-corsaire-sarkozy-et-les-trous-dans-la-coque-de-l-hadopi-2

An abuse of power

2009-06-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

A fellow Twitterer JANE LAMBERT.
barrister specializing in intellectual property, technology, media and entertainment and competition law. has brought to my attention a scandalous action against a member of the circuit at Strangeways, Here can be found her blog of the arrest and detention of a senior legal practitioner at http://tinyurl.com/mnqrmq

This case merit complaint of general protest from the Legal profession.

Finger print for 'Catering improvement'

2009-06-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

• As part of an ongoing Catering improvement programme for the 2009 academic year we are planning a few changes. This communication is designed to explain these changes.

• We currently use swipe cards as the middle and high school lunch payment method, and although this system does have is benefits; it also has its limitations. Students often forget and/or lose these cards. This can sometimes result in long queues and bottlenecks.

• To improve efficiency and speed at the tills we are planning to introduce a biometric thumb print recognition for all students in Grade 5 and above.

➢ This means that we will register the students by taking a simple scan of their thumbprint; this will allow them to pass through the pay points quickly, securely and without having to remember cash or a swipe card.
➢ This lunch payment technology is already used successfully in schools across the UK.
➢ We will retain our existing food court tills, the students will simply need to have their thumbs quickly ‘scanned’ to providepayment.

How is this being introduced?

• We have just completed a successful three - week trail of the system with our dormitory students. The next step will be to register the remaining students. This will be performed by Catering staff at a designated registration help desk in the cafetorium during the week commencing April 27th 2009.

• Lower School students will not be included in this scheme at this juncture.

• All NEW 2009/10 Middle & High School students will be registered on the system during the Orientation day in August.

• A very small percentage of students will have thumbs that are not possible to scan or they may prefer not to have their thumb’s digital signature recorded. These students can be issued swipe cards which also work on the tills as an alternative to the biometric system.

• ALL EXISTING card users are requested to PLEASE RETAIN YOUR LUNCH CARDS as a back up or alternative.

• Please read on to view some of the most frequently asked questions regarding thumb print recognition.

Should you have any further questions or require more information please contact .....Head of Catering using the following email address:

Frequently Asked Questions.

Are you actually taking a finger print of our child?

We will take a digital signature of your child’s thumb, which our software breaks down into data points, similar to reference points on a map. The software then turns these into an alpha-numerical string, which is then stored on a dedicated SQL server. We are NOT taking a picture image as would be used for example in a police station.

So, what prevents this data from being read by someone else to identify our children?

The data is encrypted using 128-bit encryption and represented as an alpha-numerical string and most importantly the data cannot be reverse engineered, or put another way the string of data can never be used as anything other than a string of data.

Is this the same as the police get when they take a fingerprint?

The police keep a picture of a finger print. It is not possible to take our digital capture and turn it into such a picture. It cannot be matched with a fingerprint or used by the police.

Is the database of thumb scans secure?

The digital captures are stored on a dedicated server. No access would be permitted other than as required by the requirements of the Data Protection Act.

How does the software work?

During the thumb print initiation process a digital signature is captured. The data is stored on the site server. The digital image is matched against a thumb on the digital personal scanner with software matching against the users unique issued ID. This process takes less than 0.6 of a second.

Can a swipe card be used as well?

As the software is matching against a card number if the user also has a card, which can used in lieu of a thumbprint.

Twitter email to clarinette01

2009-06-05T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hi clarinette01,

Thanks for your email. Some accounts were recently suspended for phishing investigation; these accounts should now be back to normal. If your account was suspended but is now back to normal, please do not reply to this email.

If you're writing to report spam, just visit our spam profile and send us a direct message with the spammer's user name, here:
http://twitter.com/spam

If you're writing because your account was suspended, please visit your profile and make sure that your account is actually suspended. If your account is suspended, you'll see a red box when you log in letting you know. If you don't see a notice from Twitter, and you don't see an owl when you visit your profile page, your account is not suspended.

We are currently working on fixing a bug that causes suspended accounts to appear in your followers list. No need for a ticket, we're aware of and working on the problem.

If your account is suspended, please review the Twitter Rules:
http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/26257/entries/18311

to find out why accounts are often suspended, and visit this page to find out what to do to contest suspension:
http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/26257/entries/15790

Please do not reply to this email unless you need to contest a current suspension. Double check your profile to ensure that you're actually suspended; if you need to contest suspension, please reply to this email and let us know. If you're having a problem unrelated to suspension, please file a new request, not under Spam.

Thanks!
Twitter Support

Twitter suspended my account!!!

2009-05-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I am publishing here a comment I have posted on a friends and colleague's blog where he had related an incident with a deleted Facebook account :

The problem you pointed to here is a very real one that is worthy of a serious debate. Did FB change my life? Yes. Having had an international life, I was finally able to find many of my old classmates and friends that I had lost through my expatriations over the years. For the rest, I am more active on Twitter where the issues are very similar to FB. Both are the most popular examples of free networking services that allow great networking opportunities with the past and the present and also for making new contacts for the future. I can tell you with great joy that my 'replies' on Twitter and discussions on Linkedin have led to a few contacts with Headhunters. In this difficult economic climate, I should be pleased with this. Nevertheless, I have recently encountered a similar issue with Twitter in which Twitter's liability is more evident. Last weekend again, Twitter was subject to several spam/fishing attacks (see Phish Twice a Day - The Twitter Diet - http://bit.ly/zsp2n) Maybe this could be related to something that happened to me: on Saturday night my Twitter account was 'suspended' with no prior notice or explanation whatsoever!!! I started using my private/back up account and with the help and support of other Twitterers contesting Twitter's action and asking to

"#putitback", the account was 'liberated' yesterday in the same way as it was suspended, without any explanation from Twitter. What is very regrettable here, and I hope SNSs would admit liability for it, is the damage caused not only because you are cut off from your contacts but also the serious damage to your reputation. The message posted by Twitter when trying to access the account stipulated "Sorry, the account you were headed to has been suspended due to strange activity. Mosey along now, nothing to see here." Is this not enough shame to constitute defamation when untrue, and where the service provider has not notified the account holder in order to allow a defense, nor demonstrated any attempt to verify the allegations? Remember that most SNSs are now indexed and put-up by the Google search engine, which means that any search for the user's name would come out with the above message. This is represents a serious threat to users' integrity, reputation and rights. SNSs give themselves the discretion to act arbitriarily on the basis that the service is offered free of charge!! Users pay the price for access by allowing SNSs to share their private information for the sake of targeted advertisement although in the particular case of Twitter, the business model is kept secret.

Another case mentioned to me by Anne Collier, Director of Kids Safety and Net Family, is evoked in Anne's blog http://tinyurl.com/ppbjlf. These cases are not rare and there is serious need of reflexion on how to deal with the ISP's liability issues. As you mentioned, under the section 230 US DMCA , the service provider is exempt of immunity for third party content. The ISP immunity under the EU regulations is not so impermeable and if there is an immunity for ISP acting as mere conduit, passively caching or hosting third party content, the shield of protection of the E-commerce immunity for ISP's turns into a stick with which they can be beaten (to use Gavin Sutter's expression). As soon as the ISP has been notified, it has a duty to react 'expeditiously' to remove or block access to the infringing content. If the ISP does not comply, it becomes liable for content under the knowledge based liability of publisher or editor; see 'Mumsnet settles with Gina Ford but queries libel law' http://www.out-law.com/page... ISP's are also subject to a certain number of good practices, such as including clear, direct and immediate means of contact on their webpage in order to allow users to contact them for any complaints or assistance. see 'ECJ says websites need phone numbers or web forms' http://www.out-law.com/page-9545 and ECJ position http://www.mofo.com/news/updates/files/15088.html Now, all this development is based on the EU regulations and most SNSs are US based, are they subject to the EU regulations when targeting EU users? This is a question of jurisdiction to clarify.