AFP reveals that “Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing ‘blasphemous’ content and material considered offensive to Islam.
The Sidney Morning Herald reports that, according to a group of Queensland law researchers, “[t]he release of Apple’s iPhone in Australia could be illegal under current trade practices laws. The legal hiccup could delay the arrival of the must-have gadget phone, which is expected in Asia and Australia some time this year. However, some are concerned that the phone’s exclusivity deals with mobile carriers is anti-competitive. ‘The iPhone is breaking new ground in using technology to restrict customer’s choice in technology markets,’ Queensland University of Technology (QUT) law researcher Dale Clapperton said. The finding comes from an analysis of the Apple iPhone under Australia’s competition laws by Mr Clapperton and fellow QUT law expert Professor Stephen Corones, which was published in the QUT Law and Justice Journal.”
In more Apple news, the Apple Insider writes that “[a] Utah couple acting as its own attorneys has filed a lawsuit against Apple and Starbucks over the retailers’ recent ‘Song of the Day’ promotion, which offers Starbucks customers a iTunes gift card for a complimentary, pre-selected song download. In a seven-page formal complaint, James and Marguerite Driessen of Lindon, Utah say they developed in 2000 (and successfully patented in February 2006) a utility dubbed RPOS, or retail point of sale, for Internet merchandising. The concept, which forms the heart of the infringement lawsuit, would allow gift cards for pre-defined items that can be sold at a brick-and-mortar store but used online; customers could redeem a card for a dining room set or a DVD, for example. But while the patent was under review, Apple had developed its own similar concept for iTunes Custom Cards. Unlike its past general-purpose gift cards for the iTunes Store, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s then-new cards allowed shoppers to buy a card for a specific artist’s album or song, complete with custom artwork. This apparently direct comparison led to legal pressure from the Driessens, who asked Apple to license the patent once it had been granted — only to learn after discussions that Apple had simply pulled the iTunes cards from stores in the US, leaving the products on UK shelves alone and the Driessens without the possibility of a licensing deal.”
According to The Register, [m]ore than ten million customers of the UK’s three largest ISPs will have their browsing habits sold to a company with roots in the murky world of spyware. The deal has sparked fears over privacy, but today Phorm, the firm behind the new advertising system, strongly rejected such concerns. […] Phorm is run by Kent Ertegrul, a serial entrepreneur whose past ventures include selling joyrides on Russian fighter jets. Previously, his most notable foray online was as the founder of PeopleOnPage, an ad network that operated earlier in the decade and which was blacklisted as spyware by the likes of Symantec and F-Secure. Security firm F-Secure describes PeopleOnPage’s software here.”
In the New York Times, Saul Hansell reports that his “post about whether Google’s records of the Internet Protocol address should be considered personal information under privacy law, brought two comments from Googlers: Matt Cutts, an engineer, and from Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel. Both go over the many technical and legal reasons that the I.P. addresses in Google’s records can’t, in isolation, be tracked back to an individual. Very true. But the converse is also true: The I.P. addresses Google collects, when combined with other information, can sometimes identify an individual, or a household. This raises all sorts of implications that need to be considered as we move into a world where so many more actions we take will be logged digitally in some way.”