About a month after colleges and universities were warned about file sharing and associated piracy issues by the RIAA, and in turn sounded the alarm, EPIC has chimed in with another warning. The non-profit privacy rights organization informs educational institutions that aggressive monitoring of online activity impacts students privacy and their right to academic freedom. Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: November 2002
Microsoft and the Election Aftermath
On November 6, Microsoft released an essay, An Agenda for Innovation, that focuses on hot button issues such as cybercrime and protecting copyrights. Continue Reading
Microsoft Challenges PDF Domination
This is an excellent example of how the power of Microsoft’s marketing power can thrust a new application into the limelight way in advance of its actual final release, which may be some time to come. EPeriodicals technology will supposedly revolutionize the entire process of publishing and distributing digital documents, via handhelds and tablet devices. Continue Reading
Sarbanes-Oxley Act Provisions
Not exactly technology related, but certainly worth noting in light of important SEC related activity overshadowed by the press coverage of the election; SEC Proposes Rules to Implement Sarbanes-Oxley Act Provisions Concerning Standards of Professional Conduct for Attorneys. Continue Reading
IRS and Online Filing
The IRS is mobilizing to migrate 80% of tax filing from paper to online by 2007. To accomplish this goal, the agency is working with private enterprise to provide links to free e-filing services via a new IRS web site, by January 2003. For related information, see also this GAO Report, Tax Administration, Electronic Filing’s… Continue Reading
Global E-Gov't Study
Taylor Nelson Sofres, a UK-based global marketing company, has published a new report that benchmarks the impact and use of e-gov services worldwide. Their 55 page (in PDF) Government Online Study, uses data collected from 29,000 interviews conducted with individuals in 31 counties, including the UK, Canada, and the U.S. The study provides a important… Continue Reading
Election Will Change Tech Legislation
Declan McCullagh reports that the election will have a big impact on key tech legislation as committee chairs change and support for the tech industry is bolstered. See the Information Technology Council High Tech Voting Guide for the 107th Congress, referenced in the second article. Continue Reading
Singapore's E-Gov Portal
The BBC reports on Singapore’s eCitizen Portal, winner of the Stockholm Challenge 2002 Award for e-government. Continue Reading
Electronic Royalties for Pooh
Winnie the Pooh is at the heart of a 20 year legal battle with a potentially huge payout in terms of online royalties. Disney and Stephen Slesinger, Inc. both claim copyright control over the commercial rights to the characters that would generate $1 billion in online merchandizing revenues. Continue Reading
Is It Your PC or Their PC?
In a follow-up to my 10/22/02 posting on trusted computing, globetechnology.com addresses the issue of how PC users will increasingly be forced to comply with industry imposed digital rights management solutions if they want to use most of the applications on the PCs. Continue Reading
Online Voting Info for Races Nationwide
Project Vote Smart is a non-profit, non partisan campaign information resource on candidates and issues throughout the country, on the Congressional, state, local and city level. The site is very easy to use, and provides links to candidate bios, campaign finance data, party and issue related web sites, as well as legislative tracking data by… Continue Reading
MS Decision and the Rush to E-Mail
The Register published an interesting article on how the Supreme Court’s techies sent out e-mail messages with PDF attachments of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s rulings on Microsoft, two hours prior to the announcement of their availability. The Planet PDF weblog was actually a recipient of one of the e-mail messages, and posted a copy of the… Continue Reading
