Google has been fined $US8500 (AU$9100) in Brazil after an anonymous internet user posted defamatory messages on one of its sites against a priest, calling him a paedophile
, media reported on Sunday. A court in the state of Minas Gerais ruled in favour of the 54-year-old priest, identified by his initials JR, after rejecting Google’s argument that the US web giant was not responsible for what users posted on its Orkut social networking site
You should never feel like your hard drive is holding out on you. Anyone should be able to back up, recover files, boot multiple systems, upgrade, or otherwise improve their storage space. These tips explain the possibilities and procedures — via lifehacker
Sharing your credit card and online purchases with friends on the web sounds risky and it is. We’ve just discovered that several credit card transactions shared on social networking site Blippy have been exposed — with full credit card numbers included — in Google search results
Pierre Omidyar, the chairman of eBay, is entering the news business with an online service in Hawaii. By charging $19.99 (£13) a month for membership, Omidyar hopes to accomplish what newspapers and other media organisations have long struggled with — having readers pay for content and making local news profitable
Google is looking to boost headcount in Sydney by around 15 per cent which would tip its local workforce to just over 400 people. The internet giant employs approximately 350 people in Australia and has 51 job openings for positions. A surging demand for its enterprise solutions, namely Google Apps and Geo — comprising Google Maps and Google Earth — has been the driving force behind the job spike, says Google Asia-Pacific enterprise managing director Doug Farber
A drunken street golf game with foam balls has led to a serious civil rights issue, pitting computer geeks against police practices. Eric Rachner, a Seattle cyber security expert and one of the golf players, wasn’t satisfied when the city dismissed charges against him after a possibly illegal arrest for refusing to provide identification. Rachner discovered through sleuthing that police had withheld video-recorded evidence in his case
If Australia signs the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), internet service providers (ISPs) may be obliged to hand over the identity of its users to those defending copyright. The European Commission of Trade has released a draft of the agreement, which aims to establish international standards on how to enforce intellectual property rights, and has involved countries around the world including Australia. Signatories to the ACTA will be required to ensure that copyright holders can sue intermediaries
whose services are used to infringe intellectual property
A flawed McAfee antivirus update sent enterprise administrators scrambling today as the new signatures quarantined a crucial Windows system file, crippling an unknown number of Windows XP computers
Telstra has patched a data breach on its business web site that had the potential to reveal personal information, such as date of birth, of 700 customers. Telstra confirmed that the only details that could be sighted without the need to log-in were the name, address and account number of a customer. But afterwards, it was confirmed that a customer account holder’s date of birth (DOB) could also be seen
Silk has made its way from the soft curves of the body to the spongy folds of the brain. Engineers have now designed silk-based electronics that stick to the surface of the brain, similar to the way a silk dress clings to the hips. The stretchable, ultrathin design would make for better brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which record brain activity in paralyzed patients and translate thoughts into movements of computer cursors or robotic arms. Because it’s so thin and flexible, a silk-based device could reach regions of the brain that were previously inaccessible
Google is investigating a growing number of reports that hackers are breaking into legitimate Gmail accounts and then using them to send spam messages. The problem started about a week ago but seems to have escalated over the past few days
A seller on eBay who drove up prices for goods by secretly bidding for them faces fines of up to £50,000. Paul Barrett used a second account on the internet auction site to also post positive feedback. The company said the case, the first prosecution of its kind in the UK, was a clear warning against the practice of shill bidding to bump up prices
A New Aussie-developed browser plug-in promises to protect webmail content from computer hackers and block keyword-related advertising. It works by encrypting email messages at the user’s computer via a browser toolbar. Recipients need to download a free version of the software — called Armacrypt — to decrypt messages. Emails remain encrypted while in transit and in storage on mail servers. It also prevents Google Adwords from filtering email text and serving related keyword advertisements on the webmail page. Instead, Adwords serves generic ads and encryption links
Google’s services are blocked or censored to some degree in one-fourth of the countries where it operates. China is the most polarising example, but it is not the only one. Google products — from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs — have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services,
wrote Rachel Whetstone, Google’s vice president of global communications and public affairs, on the company’s European public policy blog. In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties,
she wrote, adding that Google has argued to narrow the scope of such requests when it believes the request is overly broad
The far-reaching demands of an anti-piracy group working on behalf of the movie industry have been rejected by a judge. Federazione Anti-Pirateria Audiovisiva wanted ISP Telecom Italia to take unprecedented action against file-sharing subscribers, but the court decided that the ISP couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its customers
eBay subsidiary PayPal has vowed to improve customer service in Australia by doubling the number of personnel to manage customer queries and complaints. By next month, PayPal would have made 40 new hires, taking the total tally to 127 customer service agents. PayPal has been progressively boosting customer service levels over the past few months, according to managing director Frerk-Malte Feller. Customer service is very important to us. Apart from adding more people we will also be enhancing our interactive voice response systems,
he said
Today the costs of running a blacklist were made clear, showing that the filter could be a very expensive operation. When a URL is submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) it will cost between $173 and $685 per item to investigate, regardless of whether it is refused classification
or not. The dollar value was revealed in answer to Greens communications spokesperson Scott Ludlam who had asked ACMA how much it cost to action URLs submitted for the Classification Board to classify
Negotiators on Wednesday will publish the first officially released draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a new treaty designed to harmonise copyright enforcement around the world
The Irish government has had extensive private discussions on introducing internet blocking — barring access to websites or domains — according to material obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The approach is used by some internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile network operators to block access to child pornography. But increasingly, governments and law enforcement agencies are pushing for much broader use, ranging from blocking filesharing sites to trying to tackle cybercrime and terrorism
The US government is actively trying to figure out how best to handle intellectual property rights, so it has asked the concerned parties to submit all sorts of information in order to better understand what’s going on. The person in charge of this is the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, and what the RIAA and MPAA have submitted borders on the insane. Well, it would border on the insane if it weren’t totally their modus operandi. The most glaring suggestion
? That computer users install software that would scan the contents of their hard drives, looking for examples of infringement
. If the software discovers what it thinks it infringement, bam! Deleted! I’d be surprised if this were the year 2001, but after so many years of insane RIAA/MPAA stories it’s hard to be shocked any more
RSS – Posts