Organization

A court in the Hague has ordered the Netherlands' Pirate Party to stop helping people overcome blocks to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Anti-piracy group Brien complained the political party was helping users find ways to access the site, despite an earlier ruling ordering two of the country's largest ISPs to block it. The court also upheld an order banning the party from offering a proxy to enable people find links to The Pirate Bay without visiting the site itself. The Pirate Party describes the ruling as a win for Brien and a loss for democracy and a free Internet.

Abine, Inc., a Boston-based online privacy startup, provided NTIA with a tutorial on: online data collection; the data broker industry; and, "restrictions on developer innovation in the mobile privacy realm".

Topics to discuss

"Due to a lack of consumer awareness of the existence of data brokers, complex opt-outs, severe risks of harm, and an industry history of deceptive behavior, the current state of the data broker industry is unacceptable to consumers," argued Abine in recommending five areas for "clarification and investigation" through the multistakeholder process:

1. data accuracy;
2. opt-out definition and process;
3. transparency of data sources;
4. compliance and compliance assurance; and,
5. special care for high-risk groups, such as law enforcement professionals and individuals who have been stalked, abused or had their identities stolen.

It's time for Internet organizations to ditch the palace politics and grow up

Starting next week, the United Nations in Geneva will host a series of back-to-back meetings with a broad focus: deciding the ways in which the future of the Internet will be decided.

Most meetings are open and attendance is free. And yet, despite the low barriers to entry, one key demographic is largely missing: business.

For example, of the 300 people registered with an online website covering the first of four conferences (the WSIS Forum), only 26 identify themselves as coming from the private sector, and of them, only 11 are not from specialist Internet infrastructure companies.

The same pattern is repeated at the conference that follows: consultations over the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). And business numbers will fall even further for the last two: "enhanced co-operation" and the annual meeting of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD).

The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was forced to take its website offline following a cyberattack. At the same time, outgoing head of the military's head of cyber-security admitted that top-secret systems had been hacked. Major General Jonathan Shaw wants to see more innovative approaches, including hiring 'white hat' hackers. Meanwhile, an official US government report revealed that the country remained vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Following the high-profile failure of the SOPA legislation, and scrutiny of far softer CISPA proposed laws, US authorities are reportedly looking at expanding existing legislation - the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) - to allow surveillance of new online services. It may be an easier route than introducing new legislation but industry groups are already vying to fight any unnecessary changes.

Controversial efforts to clampdown on piracy by seizing domain names have been dealt a blow after one owner succeeded in forcing the US government to admit it has no evidence of infringement, despite having suspended his name - Dajaz1.com - for over a year. Previously sealed court papers revealed that music industry body RIAA had been providing authorities with list of domains that held copyrighted material. However, it turned out that the material on Dajaz1.com had been provided by the music industry itself as part of a broader promotional effort.

ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure gave a speech where he warned that the world needed to "move beyond the rhetoric and the fear of the unknown" over revision of the international telecommunication regulations (ITRs). The ITU is reaching out the business around the world and a proper review of the ITRs would mean greater broadband access worldwide, he argued. The speech comes in response to a US-led campaign which claims the United Nations is trying to take control of the Internet.

The US government held a series of meetings in Washington aimed at getting the technical community and business behind its pressure campaign over International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), due to be revised in December. A memo from the meeting noted that "politics may take precedence over technical decisions" and "some national governments seek to balkanize the Internet". However, the push was sidetracked a little by ICANN's continuing problems over the new gTLD process.