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Interesting legal issues continue to bubble around the Internet.
Edupage , reports that the National Basketball Association has launched a suit against America Online. AOL has managed to attract a sizable audience of those interested in game scores and statistics on games in progress. It would seem that the NBA objects to someone else supplying real-time, play-by-play information without the league's permission.
Key issues at stake are, first, whether game information constitutes intellectual property, and then, whether that information is in fact owned by the sports league involved. After all, traditional broadcast rights to professional sports spectacles are sold for large sums of money.
ISPs maintain that such information constitutes news, which is free to disseminate. Moreover, they will argue that although the provision of this information on a server may be 'publication,' it is not 'broadcasting' as defined by telecommunications laws.
The NBA won't give up its right to make money too easily, so this promises to be an interesting battle.
Edupage also reports that the world's largest anonymous e-mail service has just shut down.
An anonymous e-mail service is, simply stated, a double-blind server, allowing users to send and receive mail while masking the identities of both parties.
The server maintains a database of names and aliases. The first time you mail something through the server, it assigns you a fake UserID such as anon198. The actual intended recipients are also assigned aliases, so unless the message was directed to only a single individual, the sender won't know who sent the reply.
Although the original intent of these servers was well-meaning, they quickly became a regular stomping group for people who want to avoid responsibility for what they post, especially those who produce hate mail, pornography, libel and other not-so-nice literature.
The largest such service was anon.penet.fi, located (and obviously registered) in Finland. It served approximately 500,000 users.
Its operator truly believed that there was a need for an anonymous service, and set out strict rules for those using it. He even had an address for people to report abuse of the system.
The key to the system, though, was the confidentiality of the alias database. Without that confidentiality, no one would be able to trust that their anonymity would be safe.
Recently, a local court ordered the operator to identify one of the system's users, presumably for the purpose of establishing the identity of the sender of some message. The court thereby defeated the purpose of the server, and the owner, in despair, shut it down.
As a user of the Internet, having seen the horrible abuse that people unleash on the Net while protected by the cover of these servers, I can't say that I'm disappointed to see one go.
On the other hand, the case should cause anyone concerned about privacy rights in this country to pause for thought. Information on a server can be compellable evidence in a court. This would include archived information, back-up tapes, and potentially even incompletely deleted information.
What's the surest thing to do to prevent soft copy evidence from being compelled? Wipe it completely clean with a data destroyer. Then no-one will be able to read it.
Of course, that's not a good way to build a library of data..
Network Solutions Inc. (the body charged by InterNIC with handing out domain names under the .com, .edu, .net, .org and .int domains) has revised its policy on the conflict of domain name registrations with trademark owners.
The new policy went into effect September 9, 1996.
A number of companies have instituted procedings against NSI after their domain names were put on 'hold,' part of NSI's approach to conflict resolution. Talk on the legal mailing lists by various intellectual property lawyers makes it clear that most of them are no more impressed by the new policy than they were with the old one.
Changes are for the most part strictly procedural. You'll find the policy at <ftp://rs.internic.net/policy/internic/internic.domain.policy>.
If you haven't already done so, you may want to bring Yahoo!'s entry in your bookmarks file a little closer to home, by setting the URL to take you to Yahoo! Canada <http://www.yahoo.ca/>.
The database is the same, but the weighting algorithm has been adjusted to list Canadian entries first. Makes for an easier search of the hometown.
© 1996 Lewis S. Eisen