2 10 October 2000

News:

The battle between anti-spamming organisation, the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) and organisations that they have listed took a further twist last week when the Santa Clara County Superior Court in California gave leave to New Hampshire based software company Black Ice to pursue its case for damages. The company claimed they had been placed wrongfully on MAPS Real Time Black Hole List. MAPS welcomed the opportunity to clarify their legal position.

The controversial assault of the music and film industry on file swapping sites such as Napster and Scour, claimed a significant victory with Scour.com, the film and video swapping site, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the beginning of October.

The European Parliament’s decision to back the restriction of consumers right to sue in their own jurisdiction and to strongly endorse the development of extra-judicial dispute resolutions has met with mixed reactions. Parliament’s amendment means that a website will have to be ‘targeted” at a county for the consumer to be able to sue in their own jurisdiction.

Features:

The most telling comment made so far during the dispute between the rights holders and the file swapping dot coms has been that of Recording Industry Association of America CEO Hilary Rosen. “What we ultimately wish to come out of this process is an increased cooperation between innovation and industry so legitimate business models can make more music available online,” she said.

It has often been said that there is no general right to privacy in English law. Indeed, the most recent wide-reaching plans to introduce legislation were abandoned in the mid-1990s under the previous Government. But the point is rapidly becoming academic. In mid-October, the Data Protection Commissioner published a draft code of practice on the use of employee data, and the law relating to intercepting emails and telephone calls changed on 24 October 2000. This is an opportune time to review developments in the field.

The idea of using middlemen in business is centuries old. In the New Economy disintermediation is the unofficial watchword of many industries as suppliers seek to eliminate the agent’s commission or the distributor’s profit and improve their own margins.

A recent High Court award of £26,000 in libel damages to Takenaka (UK) against a former employee who had sent a series of anonymous malicious emails underlines that email libels are just as potent as any other. What is not so clear is how employers or Internet Service Providers can make sure that they do not pick up liability for the actions of a rogue employee or user. This article examines the problems and possible solutions.

The UK Government sees the development of e-government as an essential element of its strategy for developing e-commerce throughout the economy. Attention has focussed on the challenges facing Central government but the pressure on local authorities to develop their e-government strategies is growing. This article looks at how that challenge is being met in Warwick District Council located in the Midlands in the UK

In the last ten months more than a thousand cases have been decided using the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure. This article considers the cases and their outcomes, drawing preliminary conclusions about how the system is working in practice and what kind of precedents are being set.