A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
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Fake Consumer Reviews
On the consumer protection front, the FTC settled charges that a public relations agency engaged in deceptive advertising “by having employees pose as ordinary consumers posting game reviews at the online iTunes store, and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the developers. This activity was in violation of the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines which require disclosure. The PR firm, Reverb Communications, is required to take down the fraudulent postings and bars them from making similar postings in the future without appropriate disclosures.
Press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/reverb.shtm
Links to Complaint and Consent Order: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0923199/index.shtm
Information on the FTC's Revised Endorsement Guidelines (16 CFR Part 255): http://ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm
Google and Privacy
A video cartoon featuring Google's chief giving away ice-cream to snoop on children aired on a giant screen in Times Square today as a privacy group continued to hound the internet giant.
Consumer Watchdog took its gripes with Google to the centre of Manhattan, where it paid to have a "Don't be evil?" animated clip shown on a "Jumbotron" screen above the masses coursing through Times Square.
Changes to Laws In Australia involving licensing software to consumers
Who does this affect?
The new laws raise issues for all software licences with Australian end-customers where either:
- the software is "of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use or consumption"; or
- the amount paid or payable for the software is $A40,000 or less.
Those end-customers are taken to be "consumers" by the ACL, even if they are multinational corporations or government entities well-equipped to negotiate to protect their interests.
Software Licensing
U.S. Patent Office Guidelines for patentable subject matter
Manifesto on internet policy and regulation
The IIA recently launched its "manifesto on internet policy and regulation, with principles and recommendations to guide decision making".
A PDF copy of the guide is available at
http://iia.net.au/images/resources/pdf/manifesto-2010.pdf
"We'll be requesting political parties to respond to its recommendations over the coming weeks," IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos, said.
"It asks the question, under what circumstances can the Internet in Australia be advanced or hobbled by politicians today."
The report argues that the speed of technological change
outstrips the ability of legislation and legislators to keep up.
"Should or can they, regulate the internet to tackle social
policy challenges arising in the wake of rapid technological
change without damaging our capacity to innovate and compete?
If laws are passed, can they be enforced?
Is technology to blame or are we really dealing with age old
human problems that neither laws nor technology can regulate?
These are questions implicit in this document," Coroneos said.
The document offers a reality check to the internet policy debate by urging a return to first principles such as where Australia stands against our western counterparts. It argues we tend to over-regulated in content matters for often symbolic political reasons.
"We lack a local research base to support proposals notably in areas of cyber crime and cyber safety," he said.
Last Class
How should damages be assessed for privacy and cybersecurity breaches
Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...
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The United Nations intellectual property agency (WIPO) is the latest front in the US-China trade war. http://www.theage.com.au/world/sad-am...
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The issue of content regulation in China was mentioned in this blog last year . In the last few weeks, this issue has once again pushed into...
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Finally, what is called direct registration of domain names is coming to Australia. See https://www.auda.org.au/statement/australias-interne...