InternetPolicy.net

Online sales boom this Christmas

Gift purchases via Internet increased dramatically this Christmas. CNN quotes ComScore Networks, an e-commerce market research firm in Reston, Virginia, as saying that online sales were 43% higher for the week ending 26 December than during the same period last year. "ComScore expects total online retail spending for the key holiday period of November and December to be up" 25%-30% - "to between $12.1 billion and $12.6 billion." Not clear if that estimate is US only...

German company filters web for N Korea

From an Agence France Presse report in Channel News Asia: "A Berlin entrepreneur said that he had signed a deal with North Korean officials to bring Internet access to the country beginning in mid-February, a date chosen to coincide with leader Kim Jong-Il's birthday. Jan Holtermann, a former banker and one-time employee of the North Korean embassy in Berlin, told AFP that the project would involve the use of filtering software similar to that in place in Chinese and Cuban networks. 'We started from the assumption that the North Korean government would be very selective in granting access to the Internet,' he said. A select group of handpicked users will be allowed to send email, and only a few will be able to view information on the web. Holtermann said that the company he founded for the project, KCC Europe, had signed a contract on January 17, 2003 after negotiating with North Korean officials. He said he had invested one million euros in the network's infrastructure, although he initially expects slim profit margins due to the limited number of users. 'This type of business,' he said, 'requires an entirely Asian sense of patience...'"

Holtermann was much more enthused about the deal when he spoke with Germany's Tagesspiegel: there he was quoted as saying that North Korea was tomorrow's India.

Wi-Fi Tracker

According to TechWeb, the National Scientific Corp. is about to release "Wi-Fi Tracker" - a new system that "lets IT administrators pinpoint the position of wireless users and devices with accuracy within a few feet. " In essence, this technology uses wi-fi networks as the infrastructure for monitoring the location of special radio-emitting devices - either a palm-size transmitter or a badge/tag. It has nothing to do with intercepting the content of wi-fi computer links, although it could add location data to a "packet sniffer." NSC explains on their website that this is "one of the first commercially viable indoor/outdoor end-to-end tracking solutions."

Website: Human Rights in the Information Society

South Korea's JinboNet has put a website online to explain Human Rights in the Information Society in Korean and clear, simple English. The site debuted on 10 December, 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pages are devoted to Freedom of Expression, the Public Domain, the Right to Privacy and Access to Information. Established in 1998, JinboNet is an NGO that "aims to provide internet services for social movement groups, and to enhance the solidarity and communication among them..." It is a member of the Association for Progressive Communications. The Human Rights in the Information Society website is sponsored by the Daum Foundation, which is funded by employees of Korea's largest Internet portal.

Wi-fi for Developing Countries

Last June the Wireless Internet Institute (W2I) organized a conference in New York at UN headquarters to promote wi-fi as especially well-suited to the needs of developing countries. Even Kofi Annan attended, to show his support. Last month W2I published the papers prepared for that meeting. The 146-page collection, titled The Wireless Opportunity for Developing Countries, is very well done and can be downloaded as a 2.9MB pdf file by clicking here. Papers from other W2I meetings are separately available from http://www.w2i.org.

S Korea: online gamers turn pro

The BBC says that in South Korea, where broadband access is common, "Gaming over the internet has proved so popular that professional teams backed by corporate sponsors now play in the world's first pro league... Ten members of a professional gaming team sponsored by the mobile phone company KTF train all day long in a cramped three room apartment. In their late teens and early 20s... [some] of them make more than $100,000 a year... [They compete] at a downtown game centre with a live audience, big screens and two commentators... KTF manager, Chang Ki-uk, said sponsoring a professional team made good sense for his company. Fifteen million people, or 30% of the population, are registered for online gaming, and that means a big marketing opportunity. 'Online gaming started out as a hobby, of course, but it's amazing how it's taken off as a professional sport. There are three cable channels that broadcast games and 10 professional leagues...' South Korea proudly plays host to the annual World Cyber Games and the country is becoming a Mecca for online gamers around the world...."

Draft WWW internationalization requirements published

From XMLmania: "The Web Services Internationalization Task Force of the [Worldwide Web Consortium's] Internationalization Working Group has published the first public Working Draft of Requirements for the Internationalization of Web Services. The document lists requirements for achieving worldwide usability for Web services...."

US court nixes "special subpoenas" for file-sharers' names

"In a significant setback for the recording industry, a federal appeals court ruled today that Internet service providers cannot be forced to turn over the names of subscribers who are suspected of illegally sharing music on line. The ruling by a three-judge panel expressed sympathy for the recording industry, which has been hit hard by piracy and file-sharing among computer users. But it concluded that nothing in the law authorizes special subpoenas against Internet service providers compelling them to identify customers who might be engaging in copyright infringement..." [New York Times, 19 December] Click here to read the judgment in this case, RIAA v. Verizon Internet Services, Inc., and thanks to LawMeme for the pointer.

Limiting public access to WHOIS?

Wendy Seltzer posted a note on CircleID last Thursday to alert the Internet community that one of ICANN's task forces on revising the WHOIS service is considering new barriers to public access: "...Pushed by registrars who feel that WHOIS amounts to forced disclosure of their customer lists, the task force is seriously discussing closing off port 43's straightforward access to WHOIS information, replacing it with GIF-based barriers or similar access restrictions. Right now, anyone can either use registrars' web-based interfaces, fire up a command-line client, or programmatically access data over port 43. If some interests on the WHOIS task force get their way, the latter two options will disappear for the ordinary researcher. That won't necessarily increase privacy, however, because data resellers such as Thomson and Thomson, willing to pay $10,000 a year, will still be able to get it through contractually mandated 'bulk access'... I'm sensitive to privacy concerns, and indeed believe there should be far less (or no) mandatory collection of data upon domain name registration, but I also favor equal access to what data is collected..."

ICANN certifies 6 community groups

The Linux Journal is carrying this story by John Blau of the IDG News Service today: "In a first step toward giving individual users a voice in how the Internet is run, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved six community user groups in three regions. The 'At-Large' groups aim to engage individual Internet users in ICANN activities at the local or issue level... Certification of the At-Large organizations comes after ICANN's board approved a framework in June for establishing local, regional and global user groups... In Europe, ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee certified four groups: Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft eV, Internet Society Bulgaria, Internet Society Luxembourg A.S.B.L. and Societa' Internet. Elsewhere, the committee approved the Arab Knowledge Management Society in the Asian-Pacific and Australian region, and Alfa-Redi in the Latin America and Caribbean Island region. The committee has been encouraging interested, qualified groups in all geographic regions to become certified At-Large members. Information about At-Large applications is available on the Web at: www.alac.icann.org/applications/."