Today California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the state won a judgment of $2 million against a spammer (The People of the State of California v. PW Marketing, Santa Clara County Superior Court) in what will be a model for future cases involving unsolicited email. As I posted previously, the state’s new anti-spam law… Continue Reading
Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002
Monthly Archives: October 2003
Ban on Media Coverage of Homecomings for U.S. Casualties in Iraq
This article from the October 21 Washington Post answers the question of why there is no longer any media coverage on the return of our military personnel who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently this past March, the Pentagon issued a directive stating: “There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of,… Continue Reading
E-Government Funding Lacks Congressional Support
Federal Computer Week reports on the continued lack of support for funding e-government initiatives, as the Senate approved a paltry $5 million of the $45 million requested by the President for Fiscal 2004. According to the OMB’s Statement of Administration Policy: “As has been demonstrated by successes from the modest $5 million invested in each… Continue Reading
More On the New Amazon Inside the Book Service
From the December 2003 issue of Wired Magazine, this article provides background and details about the development and implementation of Amazon’s new Search Inside the Book service comprised of more than 120,000 books that have been scanned into an electronic archive. “The archive is intentionally crippled. A search brings back not text, but pictures —… Continue Reading
Google IPO in 2004?
Google considers online auction of IPO shares: “Google is considering holding a massive online auction of shares early next year in an initial public offering that investment bankers predict could value the internet search-engine company at more than $15bn. An electronic auction would be designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial scandals… Continue Reading
GPO Responds to Speculation of Fee-Based Future for Gov’t Docs
As I posted yesterday, Roll Call published an article that seemed to indicate the GPO was evaluating whether it would continue providing free public access to a range of government documents. The library community apparently reacted swiftly and strongly to this information, and late this afternoon, the Superintendent of Documents, Judith C. Russell, posted the… Continue Reading
House Bill to Amend Patriot Act Joins Companion Senate Bill
The House version of the Security and Freedom Ensured Act of 2003 (SAFE) Act, introduced October 21, H.R. 3352, mirrors the companion Senate version (S. 1709, introduced October 2), but it modifies the definition of domestic terrorism to “involve acts dangerous to human life,” thereby excluding political protests. Continue Reading
New Aussie Search Engine Takes Aim At Google
A new Australian search engine (it is in beta) was launched on October 22 by a company called Mooter Search. The CEO, Liesl Capper, stated that Mooter is unique in that it “look(s) at the long lists of results from other search engines and then…group(s) them using artificial intelligence algorithms. But also we look at… Continue Reading
Second Anniversary of Patriot Act on October 26
Press release from the website of Sen. Russ Feingold: “October 26 marks the second anniversary of the enactment of the USA-PATRIOT Act. I was the only Senator to vote against the Act at the time because I believe that it goes too far in allowing the government to obtain personal information about law-abiding Americans who… Continue Reading
Predicting the Outcome of Supreme Court Cases
The Supreme Court Forecasting Project, from Washington University in St. Louis, consists of a computer model that was used to predict the votes of the judges for each pending case of the 2001-2002 term. These forecasts were juxtaposed with those made by an expert panel of “law professors or appellate practitioners who specialize in one… Continue Reading
New Pew Internet Study Details Negative Impact of Spam
From the Pew Internet Project, a new report released October 22, Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet: “Spam is beginning to undermine the integrity of email and degrade life online. The huge increase in email spam in recent years is beginning to take its toll on the online world.… Continue Reading
Senate Passes Bill to Regulate Unsolicited Email
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, S. 877, which was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote on June 19, yesterday passed the full Senate by a vote of 97-0. An amendment to authorize the Federal Trade Commission to implement a nationwide “Do Not E-mail” registry was proposed and agreed to. Senate Anti-Spam Bill… Continue Reading
