According to the Register, “

[t]he detente between Belgium's fractious regions is under strain again after the Flemish parliament demanded its own top-level domain.  Instead of .be it wants vla, .vln, .vlaanderen or .fla. Kris Peeters, the prime minister of Flanders, says he will look into the possibility of creating such a domain extension.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the internet’s addressing system. In the future, you can put almost anything at the end of a URL, eschewing existing top-level domains such as ‘.com’ or ‘.edu.’  Peeters believes a vla. or fla. domain will cost around €100,000.”

In a different article, the Register reports that “[s]ocial networking sites are not permitted to store information about people's use of the sites beyond the duration of a particular session, according to a panel of Germany's data protection officials.  Companies behind social networks such as MySpace and Facebook must also tell users what happens to any data that is collected and tell them how they can influence the use of that data.  The principles were laid down by the German Düsseldorfer Kreis (GDK), a panel of all the German data protection authorities. They laid down eight principles of operation for social networking sites to keep them in line with data protection law, according to the Data Protection Review operated by the data protection agency of Madrid.”

The Seattles Times reveals that “Aetna Inc. is becoming the first health insurer to team with Microsoft Corp. to give its customers an Internet-based vault for storing medical records they can access even if they change jobs or leave their health plan.  Starting next month, Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna will allow some customers to transfer electronic personal health records to Microsoft's HealthVault, a platform that lets care providers look at the information, if they have patient permission.  The vault will give the insurer's customers ‘continuous access’ to their claims information and anything the patient wants to add, like clinical data or past medical records, Aetna President Mark Bertolini said.”

Internetnews.com uses today’s launch of the Google Android handset as the hook for an interesting article discussing whether open platform can be secure without thwarting innovation.

The Guardian writes that, according to a new study by KPMG, “[t]he Chinese love affair with the internet will see digital ad spend increase 40% to $5.2bn (£3.07bn) next year, making the booming Asian online economy roughly the same size as the current UK market.  The study by KPMG, to be unveiled today at the MediaGuardian Create in China conference in central London, estimates that the total ad spend on all media in the Chinese market will grow by 22% this year and 19.5% next year.  By the end of next year, the Chinese ad market will be worth $37.85bn, a year-on-year increase of more than $6bn on 2007.”