InternetPolicy.net

China bans e-publishing of "unapproved" news

Malaysia's Straits Times reports today that in China "new rules ban independent reporting that has not been approved by the government, discussing sensitive issues such as economic failures, and running any posting [on the Internet] that challenges the Communist Party. 'The reason why they did this is very obvious,' said Mr Li Fang, chief editor of Netease Review. 'The Communist Party thinks the Internet news comments are putting them under too much pressure from public opinion.' While the government has gone after individual columns and news discussion sites in the past, insiders say this is the first time it has adopted such a systematic approach to the genre. Internet employees believe senior party officials have been rattled by the medium's ability to shape public opinion and air citizen outrage, citing the furore sparked by the light sentence given to a well-connected woman who ploughed into a crowd and killed a peasant woman. [See our item about that incident] Online news editors were reportedly told they could run only news vetted in major state-controlled newspapers above the provincial level. Postings by ordinary Internet users are not permitted without prior approval. There was ample evidence of the change on major news discussion group sites on Wednesday, when attempts to enter a news discussion group on Sina.com were blocked by a message saying the page was unavailable."

Verisign sues ICANN

"This is war," said Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who specializes in Internet policy, quoted by Anick Jesdanun in a widely published Associated Press article. Weinberg was speaking about Verisign's just-announced lawsuit against ICANN, triggered by the blocking of Verisign's SiteFinder service. The suit revolves around specific details of contract interpretation as well as broader issues of ICANN's authority to act as a regulator.

On LawMeme, James Grimmelmann notes that the really interesting question "is how ICANN will respond... ICANN could try to say that it's immune from antitrust suits in general. Given the huge range of things that ICANN does more or less by fiat, if ICANN isn't immune from antitrust liability, we're talking Twilight of the Internet Gods..."

Online audiovisual sales patent upheld

Last week's $3.3 million settlement of a patent dispute appears to strengthen claims by SightSound Technologies that some of its US patents cover the basics of purchasing music and videos online. This will surely add to the controversy surrounding patents of "business methods" and may have important implications for the entertainment industry, which is already embroiled in a fierce battle with file-sharers.

Mike Crissey of the Associated Press said that the settlement ends "a six-year court battle between suburban Pittsburgh-based SightSound Technologies and CDNow over three patents that SightSound claimed were the business model for selling music and video online. The patents, which were issued between 1993 and 1999, describe what seems to be commonplace today on pay music sites like Apple's iTunes and Napster.... Under the settlement, CDNow - a company formerly based in Fort Washington, Pa., and now owned by a German media giant Bertelsmann AG - agreed that the patents were valid but did not concede it violated them with its own music downloading business. SightSound also sued N2K, which was bought by CDNow in 2000..."

The US patents in question are numbers 5,191,573, 5,675,734 and 5,966,440. SightSounds' website says, "'When we made the world's first electronic sale of music downloads in 1995 and the first electronic sale of feature film downloads in 1999, we changed the way consumers access entertainment, and our patents gave us the power to change the business practices of an entire industry,' said Scott Sander, SightSound Technologies President and CEO. 'Our success today indicates that the industry has entered a new era of respect for intellectual property...'" (!)

Click here to read the court's Final Order in the CDNow case.

Microsoft's "Global Infrastructure Alliance for Internet Safety"

Yesterday at the RSA computer security conference, Bill Gates announced the formation of the Global Infrastructure Alliance for Internet Safety. Working with a group of large ISPs (T-Online, Wanadoo, Earthlink, Cox Communications, etc.) GIAIS is "a collaborative effort to proactively help reduce the impact of viruses and worms." According to a press release, "The alliance is already active, and Microsoft is soliciting members for feedback on technology and program enhancements to jointly enable a more secure Internet environment."

Online advertising lags in Arab World

From the The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Report: "Less than a quarter of the viewers of general portal sites in the Arab World are females. The dearth of female viewers might be one reason why online advertising revenues remain dismal [in the region], according to the Arab Advisors Group. Virtually all regional portals have been facing severe financial difficulties and quite a few have closed their doors, like Planetarabia... The total online ads spending in the region ranges between eight and $10 million..."

"ICANN and the Data Quality Act"

The (US) Center for Regulatory Effectiveness has posted a 3-part discussion on its website about "ICANN and the Data Quality Act." This Act sets standards and other requirements for "sponsored information," which, CRE argues, includes much of what ICANN does. And since ICANN is "sponsored" by the US Government, CRE says, ICANN is subject to the requirements of the Data Quality Act. We didn't mention this series of articles earlier because it seemed like an obscure bureaucratic topic. But now that the final part of the series has been posted, it is clear that CRE's observations are significant, if their claim is right that "ICANN implementation of the Data Quality Act would effectively address many of the internet governance concerns raised by Congress: Transparency, Redress; and Data Quality." To read all three parts (they aren't long), click here.

VoiceXML 2.0: standard vs. patent

Paul Festa reports on CNET that "a recommendation for VoiceXML 2.0, which the World Wide Web Consortium advanced (W3C) this month, could fall afoul of a Rutgers University patent that was disclosed to the group more than two years ago... In a worst-case scenario, a patent impasse with Rutgers over VoiceXML could lead to expensive and unexpected licensing fees for emerging technology that promises to provide a powerful alternative to traditional Web surfing. VoiceXML enables data stored on Web servers to be retrieved, using voice commands and touch tones. It also enables text-to-speech translation, giving Web surfers access to information such as stock quotes or e-mail over the phone. One W3C critic likened the potential fallout to the SCO Group's use of its Unix copyrights to seek licensing fees from Linux vendors..."

P2P threatens flat-rate broadband

On VNUnet, Dinah Greek summarizes an important discussion at last night's ISP Forum in London: "The growing popularity of P2P sites is driving ISP costs to unacceptable levels. Since much P2P traffic does not originate from ISPs' networks it costs them more to deliver it, leading to their consideration of unpopular measures such as port throttling P2P sites, data download limits or pay-as-you-go pricing. But ISPs are still deeply reluctant to change to alternative pricing models because of the unpopularity of such schemes with consumers. 'None is going public with this yet because there is a real risk they could lose customers, but 10 are thinking about introducing application intelligent services rather than using the speed-equals-price business model,' said Chris Colman, Sandvine's EMEA managing director. Currently, only around five per cent of broadband subscribers are deemed heavy users, but they account for 55 per cent of broadband traffic..."

Internet getting less US-centered

Internet traffic continues to shift away from a US-centric pattern and toward intra-regional flows, according to the Probe Group's End of Year Wrap-Up and Traffic Update. In Europe, more and more traffic is terminating in Europe, and "African and Middle Eastern transit connections [are gravitating] towards Europe, replacing direct connections to the US... 'By 2008, Europe will have the busiest routes for IP traffic,' [says Allan Tumolillo, Probe Group COO]. 'North America will drop to third, behind Asia.' As bandwidth providers emerge from the days of overbuilding, they would be wise to examine this regional shift as they hunt for network acquisitions," noted a Probe Group news release.

New VoIP lobby in Washington

CNET's Ben Charny reports that "Several technology giants have created a lobbying group to ensure a hands-off regulatory approach to the Internet phone market, a source familiar with the plans said Friday. The Voice Over Internet Coalition is among the first regulatory advocacy groups for the VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) industry... The coalition is expected to reveal on Monday its 'policy principles and advocacy plans for allowing VoIP innovation to flourish,' the source said. Members of the coalition are AT&T...ITXC...Level 3 Communications...MCI...Texas Instruments, and Microsoft..."