Australia will lift a 13-year ban on using foreign aid funds to support family planning and safe abortions in poor nations. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith announced his decision to scrap the ban at a meeting of Labor MPs and Senators this morning, after months of internal party consultation about a policy shift. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the meeting he did not personally support the change and had had longstanding conservative views on abortion — but said there had been a clear majority view in the Labor caucus for change
The UK government wants to cut out users rights to access Internet content, applications and services. Some of the information used to justify the change has been cut and pasted from the Wikipedia. Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a principle
that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services. The UK government texts have been heavily criticised by the French campaigning group La Quadrature du Net. It is believed that they could have been drawn up by the UK regulator, Ofcom
A company that allegedly sold workers’ personal details, including union activities, to building firms is to be prosecuted by the information watchdog. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the Consulting Association, in Droitwich, had committed a serious breach
of the Data Protection Act. The ICO said a secret system had been run for over 15 years to enable firms to unlawfully vet job applicants. Unions have called on the government to outlaw blacklisting
practices
New South Wales Police are being given sweeping new powers to search people’s homes and hack into their computers for up to three years without their knowledge. The State Government admits police have already used the measures, even though the Supreme Court ruled the practices unlawful in 2006. The Government says new legislation, to be introduced into Parliament today, will ensure police evidence collected using the practices will hold up in court. Police Minister Tony Kelly says the reforms will allow police to collect enough evidence for a prosecution without tipping off criminals
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched its Surveillance Self-Defence project today — an online how-to guide for protecting your private data against government spying
Li Hua makes a living playing computer games. Working from a cramped office in the heart of Changsha, China, he slays dragons and loots virtual gold in 10-hour shifts. Next to him, rows of other young workers do the same. It is just like working in a factory, the only difference is that this is the virtual world,
says Li. The working conditions are hard. We don’t get weekends off and I only have one day free a month. But compared to other jobs it is good. I have no other skills and I enjoy playing sometimes.
Li is just one of more than 100 workers employed by Wow7gold, an internet-based company that makes more than £1m a year selling in-game advantages to World of Warcraft (WoW) players. Customers may ask for their avatar’s skill level to be increased (power levelling
), or for a virtual magic sword or precious ore to be obtained. As one player put it: Where there’s a demand, China will supply it
Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill, currently being debated by the UK Parliament, would allow any Minister by order to take from anywhere any information gathered for one purpose, and use it for any other purpose. Personal information arbitrarily used without consent or even knowledge: the very opposite of Data Protection
. An Information Sharing Order
, as defined in Clause 152, would permit personal information to be trafficked and abused, not only all across government and the public sector — it would also reach into the private sector. And it would even allow transfer of information across international borders. NO2ID has launched a Facebook group to challenge this threat to data protection — via Slashdot
Two weeks ago the music industry, headed by the IFPI, gave Norway’s largest Internet provider Telenor an ultimatum; block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or we will take you to court. The ISP has now announced that it wont give in to IFPI’s demands, lawsuit or not
The Government’s plan to introduce mandatory internet censorship has effectively been scuttled, following an independent senator’s decision to join the Greens and Opposition in blocking any legislation required to get the scheme started. The Opposition’s communications spokesman Nick Minchin has this week obtained independent legal advice saying that if the Government is to pursue a mandatory filtering regime legislation of some sort will almost certainly be required
. Senator Nick Xenophon previously indicated he may support a filter that blocks online gambling websites but in a phone interview today he withdrew all support, saying the more evidence that’s come out, the more questions there are on this
It’s been a rough week for the RIAA as massive layoffs are about to cost many employees their job. On top of that, the anti-piracy outfit is being sued for abusing the legal system for its war on piracy, civil conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, trespassing and computer fraud
Ireland’s largest ISP won’t block The Pirate Bay — the embattled BitTorrent search engine and tracker — absent a court order. Eircom is aware of copyright infringement issues but will not block The Pirate Bay unless major record labels can obtain a court order requiring it and other ISPs (Internet service providers) to do so
The Met Police got a short sharp rap over the knuckles yesterday, as the Office of the Information Commissioner questioned what looks very much like a blanket policy to force CCTV onto public houses in certain parts of London
Some 120 protesters descended upon the parliament in the capital, Wellington, and handed over an e-petition against the amendments with over 12,000 signatories, and a traditional one with 148 names, to the United Future party leader Peter Dunne. Section 92A which will force ISPs to disconnect customers who have allegedly infringed copyright. The demonstrators were waving black placards reading ISPs are not a court
and Fair go, not Fear go
In an about-face following a torrent of online protests, Facebook is backing off a change in its user policies while it figures how best to resolve questions like who controls the information shared on the social networking site
The prosecution has dropped the most serious charges against the irreverent Swedish filesharing service The Pirate Bay on only the second day of its trial for assisting widespread copyright infringement. After being unable to prove in court that illegally distributed files had used The Pirate Bay site — despite clear markers in the files, which are labelled with the Pirate Bay name — the prosecution, representing a swathe of high-profile music and film companies including Warner Bros, MGM, Universal and EMI — had to abandon almost half the charges. Co-defendant Fredrik Neij said that prosecutor Håkan Roswall had misunderstood the technology and that his evidence did not implicate The Pirate Bay
Windows 7 allows application developers to write DRM that bypasses your firewall, refuses to let you modify or disable DLLs, and to block you from mixing your audio inputs (to prevent you from recapturing DRM’ed music, presumably) — via Boing Boing
Federal regulators tweaked recommendations for how web sites should collect, save and share information about users, extending them to internet service providers and mobile users. The US Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance for the self-regulated industry that urges web sites to tell consumers that data is being collected during their searches and to allow them to opt out. This guidance recommends that mobile companies and internet service providers also inform customers about data collection and allow users to decline
Jailbreaking an iPhone constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, says Apple in comments filed with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking. This marks the first formal public statement by Apple about its legal stance on iPhone jailbreaking
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this afternoon announced the names of six ISPs that will participate in the Federal Government’s internet filter trial — but the nation’s largest ISPs are not on the list. Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1 are set to take part in the six week live
ISP filtering tests
The first phase of the federal government’s ISP filtering trial has been confirmed with an initial rollout to six participating ISPs
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