InternetPolicy.net

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/."