news 'highlights'

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

Hi all

Stories on state government censorship in Australia, French ISPs
being sued for failure to block hate sites, children being solicited
online and domain name stories.

Cheers
David

Oz Takes Censor Laws to People
Proposed state laws expanding police powers to prosecute Internet
content providers for obscenity will be subject to wider public
consultation, the result of public opposition to the regulations.
 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44568,00.html

French Human Rights Group Sues ISPs Over Failure to Censor U.S.-Based
Hate Site 
A French anti-racism group filed suit June 15 against 13 Internet
service providers that have refused to block access to a U.S.-based
portal site which acts as an online host to more than 400 hate groups
(Action Internationale pour la Justice v. Societe GENERAL
COMMUNICATIONS INC (GCI) and 14 others,T.G.I. Paris, docket number
unavailable, 6/14/01).

The case will pit the anti-racism group International Action for
Justice (AIPJ) against some of the leading lights of French industry,
including France Telecom, Bouygues Telecom, and AOL France, all of
which have refused demands that their ISPs block access or filter
content from the U.S.-based hate portal www.front14.org. 
 http://pubs.bna.com/ip/BNA/ecd.nsf/id/A0A4H7A2X7_

And also see http://www.chez.com/aipj/assignation1.htm for the
original French…

The complaint filed June 15 by International Action for Justice is
available, in French, at http://www.jaccuse-aipj.org. 
A response from the French Association of Internet Access Providers
is available, in French, at
http://www.afa-france.com/html/action/010612.html. 

Studies Show That Children Are Solicited Online
One in five children who regularly go online is approached by
strangers for sex, according to a new study. Yet most of the young
people say they are not bothered by the messages and tend to ignore
or block them, another study says.

Until now, no one has presented scientific data to show how often
adults seek out minors online to pressure them for sex talk and
possible liaisons. One report was produced by the Crimes Against
Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and will
appear on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical
Association. The other report, also to be released on Wednesday, is
by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/20/technology/19CND-ONLINE.html

Cybersquatter lowers bar on good taste
A planned visit to the Hong Kong Bar Association's Web site may lead
to an unexpected detour to hardcore pornography sites Orgy Machine,
Upskirt Teenies or Fatty Fatty.
 http://technology.scmp.com/ZZZE1YNL5OC.html

Getting Out of Dot-Nowhere 
Just as Hollywood has its A-list for the ranking stars in its glitzy
universe, the Internet has its own geek equivalent: the A root
server, master server for the three most popular Internet domains.
Kept under tight security in Northern Virginia, it performs what has
been the largely uncontroversial job of tracking the locations of
websites in the dot-com, dot-org and dot-net domains. 
Lately, however, the overseers of the A root have been facing
increasing pressure from proprietors of upstart, for-profit domains
who want their sites added to the Internet's main thoroughfares.
 http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,44625,00.html

Dot-Info to Go Live First
Managers of the dot-info top-level domain said they intend to be the
first of seven new regulator-approved Web suffixes to go live on the
Net later this year. 

On Wednesday, officials at Afilias, the registry charged with
overseeing the rollout of dot-info, said they intend to take the
domain live on Sept. 19. Although the tentative launch date is later
than originally anticipated, it is earlier than the debut of the
second new top-level domain, dot-biz, which is slated for October.
 http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44679,00.html


=====
David Goldstein
2/3 Belmont Ave, Glen Iris 3146, Australia
email: Goldstein_David@yahoo.com.au
phone: +61 3 9885 0601 (home)
       +61 418 228 605 (mobile)

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