The Register - Internet
May 4, 2006
Apple Computer's legal policy of shoot first, and ask questions later, has got the company into trouble again.…
Webmasters have been seething at Google since it introduced its 'Big Daddy' update in January, the biggest revision to the way its search engine operates for years.…
May 3, 2006
Last week Microsoft alarmed investors by saying it would spend $2bn more than expected to take on web rivals including Google.…
Teenagers should beware of Murdoch-owned website MySpace.com snatching their digital identities, child campaigners have warned.…
Apple has apparently succeeded in persuading the world's major record labels to re-license their content for sale on its iTunes Music Store (ITMS) for a flat-rate 99 cents - 79 pence in the UK - per track. To date, label executives have been keen to stress their demand for variable pricing - higher prices for new songs, lower prices for older material - but they've clearly been willing to let it pass this time.…
May 2, 2006
Unable to make even the smallest dent in Apple's iTunes music store, Napster has turned to drastic tactics. Napster CEO Chris Gorog this week stunned the online music world by acquiring the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.…
April 28, 2006
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is conducting a major fact-finding study to discover whether consumers receive enough protection when shopping online. Although more and more people are shopping online, some consumers are still concerned about matters such as payment security, fraud, and delivery problems.…
Infosec Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who's due to hear whether he will be extradited to the US on 10 May, rates his chances of avoiding trial in the States as only "50/50".…
The final attempt this session to give the United States regulator more discretion over the deployment, and potential abuse of broadband, has failed.…
The UK's Information Commissioner has called for businesses to pull their socks up and protect their data.…
The Government announced last week that data from the National Identity Register (NIR) will also be used as an adult population register for a range of novel data sharing functions.…
April 27, 2006
Still plotting ways to root out Blue Peter benefits cheats, puritanical BBC producers are chewing over plans for an intelligence database that petty officials can use to keep an eye on pesky kids.…
MS v EC The Court of First Instance reconvened this morning to hear from the European Commission's interveners - witnesses and experts who support its case.…
A Chinese net writer faces a possible 15 years' jail after being charged with attempting to "subvert state power", Reuters reports.…
April 26, 2006
Arms manufacturers have been put in charge of forming civil European policies as agents of an unaccountable coterie of big business interests, civil liberties campaigners Statewatch claimed in a report yesterday.…
The UK is something of a DNA record kleptocracy, with a national DNA database now well in excess of three million records, and with new sampling opportunities available to the police on remarkably easy terms. These days it's ever so easy to get onto the UK database, but how do you get off?…
It looks like an ID Card. It smells like an ID Card. Heck, it even spooks you like an ID Card. But, as Australia's carbon copy Commonwealth Prime Minister says, "it ain't no ID card".…
Brent Hoberman - chief exec of Lastminute.com - is giving up the day to day running of the business he helped create eight years ago with dotcom pin-up Martha Lane Fox.…
A new law in Georgia on private investigators now extends to computer forensics and computer incident response, meaning that forensics experts who testify in court without a PI license may be committing a felony.…
The EU is planning a crackdown on counterfeiting and pirating of goods, with penalties including a minimum four year prison term.…