Hi, here is your weekly round-up of highlights from OUT-LAW News. As always, there are plenty of other stories from this week. You can also access our archive of weekly emails. EDITORIAL: The European Court of Human Rights missed an opportunity to kill an absurd libel law this week. That law exposes online news archives around the world to indefinite liability in British courts. A BBC programme has broken the Computer Misuse Act by acquiring and using software to control 22,000 computers, creating a botnet capable of bringing down websites. A technology law specialist has said that the activity is illegal. Google has launched a behavioural advertising system which will track users' online activity to display to them adverts it thinks will be more relevant to them. The company said users will be alerted to the activity through labels on ads. The European Union's Database Directive is infringed when data is taken out of someone else's database regardless of what they intend using the information for, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has said. A plan to create a limitless supply of new internet domains has been postponed so that the concerns of major brand holders can be taken into account. Brand holders have objected to the costs they will incur in defending their names. The Government has shelved plans to allow Government departments to share citizens' personal information with each other and with the private sector. A Ministry of Justice spokesman said that the u-turn was a response to criticism of the plan. OUT-LAW Radio: Whatever happened to digital signatures? 12/03/2009: We wonder why the most complex and secure kinds of electronic signatures never really took off
This week's news on OUT-LAW.COM
Indefinite liability for online libel must end
12/03/2009BBC programme broke law with botnets, says lawyer
12/03/2009Google launches behaviour-tracking ad system
11/03/2009Database infringements depend on taking, not usage, of data
11/03/2009ICANN postpones limitless domain plan
10/03/2009Data sharing u-turn is response to public outcry, says Government
09/03/2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
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