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March 2003 Volume 4, Issue 3
Editors Cherie W. Blackburn Robert W. Pearce, Jr. John C. McElwaine
1-800-237-2000 Nelson Mullins has more
than 275 attorneys firm-wide, with over 25 attorneys having
significant representation of e-commerce clients in areas including
patent, copyright and trademark protection; business planning,
securities and venture capital; and licensing, distribution and
contract preparation. Atlanta Contacts Neil Grayson Cherie
Blackburn Robert
Pearce John
McElwaine Charlotte Contact Jason
Sprenkle Myrtle Beach Contact Franklin
Daniels Columbia Contact Mark Dukes Greenville Contact Marvin
Quattlebaum William
Herlong CyberWatch is an Internet Law Group news digest published as a service to Nelson Mullins’ clients and friends. The articles are summaries of particular developments in the law and are not intended to be a solicitation or to render legal advice. This publication can be considered advertising under applicable laws.
CyberWatch
is a trademark of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, L.L.P. |
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Al Jazeera Web Site Knocked Off Line The Arab cable news network, Al Jazeera, had its Web site knocked off line on March 24. Earlier that day, Al Jazeera broadcast controversial footage showing American POWs and dead soldiers. A spokeswoman for Al Jazeera said that hackers appeared to have attacked its Web site, which may have been prompted by the video footage broadcast by the station. Credit: NewScientist.com Web Sites Vandalized by Anti-War Hackers Unix Security Guards, a pro-Islamic hacking group, defaced nearly 400 Web sites on March 19. The electronic defacements consisted of anti-war messages written in Arabic and English. Text posted on the Web sites by the hacker group said that the attacks were the beginning of “the new era of cyber war we promised! More is coming, just like the U.S. do {sic} what it wants to the world, we will do what we want to the Internet. Stop the U.S. terrorists and we will stop! Viva Iraq!” Credit: Securityfocus.com; Washington Post Sports Team Name Remains With Owner of Fan Site A UDRP panelist has ruled that the name of a Turkish soccer club, which was registered as a domain name, can remain with the registrant who is unrelated to the soccer team. The domain name was registered by a fan of the Turkish soccer team. The fan registered the domain name in 1999 for use as a fan site of the team. The panelist ruled that such use did not rise to the level of “bad faith registration”, and therefore, denied the soccer team’s request to have the domain name transferred to it. Homeland Security Increases Cyber Monitoring The Department of Homeland Security is increasing its efforts to monitor the Internet for Cyber terrorists and hacking incidents related to the war in Iraq. The department’s announcement corresponded with its decision to raise the national terrorist threat level to “Code Orange.” Homeland Security’s Tom Ridge said, “We will continue to monitor the Internet for signs of potential terrorist attack and state-sponsored information warfare.” In recent weeks, the United States has seen at least two harmful worms or viruses spread that contained war-related messages in an effort to get unsuspecting individuals to unleash the viruses’ destructive programs. Earlier in the month, hackers exploited an unknown security flaw in the Microsoft Windows 2000 server to break into an undisclosed number of U.S. Army computers, according to TruSecure, a Herndon, Va. based security company. Source: Washingtonpost.com Former Sun Employee Files Employment Discrimination Lawsuit A former Sun Microsystems employee has sued the company, alleging that it violated age and race discrimination laws by keeping younger East Indian workers while firing him and other American workers. The suit alleges that Sun Microsystems refused to rehire any of the laid-off American workers under a program that favored the retention of visa holders in an effort to save money. The lawsuit, filed in a California state court, seeks class action status on behalf of all non-East Indian employees that were affected by the Sun Microsystems’ work force reduction policies that were age- and racially discriminatory. An attorney representing the former employee estimates that the class size could reach as many as 2,400 former employees. Sun responded that its visa and employment policies had been challenged before and were held to violate no labor laws. Credit: news.zdnet.co.uk RIAA Targets U.S. Companies This month, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent letters to 300 U.S. companies complaining about acts of piracy and copyright infringement perpetrated by these companies’ employees using corporate computer networks. The RIAA stated that it recently began to track down individual users it says are among the worst offenders, and last month distributed a guide to Fortune 1000 companies containing ways to prevent copyright abuse on their network systems. An RIAA representative declined to give names of the companies that have received the letters but indicated that about 35 percent of the letters went to technology companies, 20 percent to medical-related companies, 20 percent to manufacturer-related companies, and the rest to other industries. The letter contained specific instances where people were found using Internet connections on computer networks to access file-sharing services such as Kazaa and iMesh. The letter also contained a CD with logs of music files on the companies’ networks that were being offered on such p-to-p file-swapping services. The letter warned of potential penalties for copyright infringement, including fines and seizure of such equipment used in this process. Credit: zdnet.com Internet Patent News 1. The world’s largest search engine, Google, was granted a patent recently for a method of determining the relevance of Internet pages to questions posed by Web surfers. With many new companies furiously developing advanced techniques and algorithms to index the Web more effectively, the granting of this patent by the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office might be an obstacle to several competing ranking services. Google handles more than 150 million worldwide search requests every day and answers the requests with a ranking of the most relevant Web pages in less than half a second, according to Google. Credit: news.com
2. The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded a patent to Amazon.com for online retailing chat technology. The technology lets Amazon customers join discussions and share information regarding items that are available for purchase from the Amazon.com Web site. The technology underlying the patent allows customers to start discussion groups or join ongoing discussion groups and is an effort by Amazon to entice people to linger at its site. The belief is that the longer individuals remain at a company’s Web site, the greater the probability that an individual will spend money at that site. Credit: news.com U. S. Justice Department Indicts Internet Drug Site Operators Eleven Internet site operators have been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly selling illegal drug paraphernalia including bongs and holders for marijuana cigarettes. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that the Internet has allowed the drug paraphernalia business to access, and even invade, the homes of families throughout the country. The Justice Department’s indictments are part of what is being called “Operation Pipe Dreams” and seeks to stop the sale of any product that is primarily intended for use with illegal drugs. A spokesperson for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said it was ridiculous for the Justice Department to be indicting bong sellers when the United States was on high terror alert status. Credit: news.com Quick CyberWatch Notes 1. In a recent arbitration decision, Playboy was awarded dozens of Internet domain names that use the term “Playboy.” Several of these sites include the name of celebrities such as “britneyspearsplayboy.com” Credit: BNA Internet Law News
2. A California man’s sales efforts on eBay have been derailed. After selling dried opium pods to undercover federal drug agents through the “eBay.com” Web site, the man faces a possible maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of $1 million. Credit: BNA Internet Law News |
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