State of the Union Speech Available on Web in Five Languages
World interest may be at an all-time high this year with the State of the Union address and President Bush is well aware of it. To help spread his message, the Tuesday night speech will be webcast and available in five languages. Online translation of the speech will be made available, via the State Department's Web site, in Arabic, French, Spanish, Mandarin and Portuguese. Behind-the-scenes photos of Bush working on the speech, a live webcast of the address, and separate State of the Union trivia quizzes--for children and adults--were also posted on the White House Web site to celebrate Bush's first official State of the Union address.
Wall Street Journal Site Experiences Glitches after Relaunch
The Wall Street Journal unveiled a new look for its Web site Monday, but the rollout was plagued by a technical glitch that hampered access for some users in the morning. The site suspended a feature that allowed users to customize their front page to limit stress on the system while technicians worked on the problem. By late afternoon the problem was traced to a hardware glitch and
fixed. Neil Budde, publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online, said it was unclear at first where the
problem was originating since so many new elements to the site were coming online all at once, including several new servers, new software as well as the new design. He said the site's managers noticed the problem in the morning as users of the site complained of not being able to log in or that pages weren't loading normally.
Bytemobile Partners with Vodafone
U.S. startup Bytemobile Inc. said Monday it has reached a deal with Britain's biggest mobile phone operator that will greatly enhance the speed at which handset users can surf the Web or send e-mail. Vodafone Ltd. began incorporating Bytemobile's technology on its mobile networks in December, and the improved service is now available to Vodafone customers countrywide. By compressing the amount of data transmitted from a mobile phone, Bytemobile's technology promises to let Vodafone customers browse the Web at two or three times the typical speed on conventional wireless systems. Similarly, Vodafone users can send up to 10 times the e-mail volume in a given time, Bytemobile
said. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's data compression technology offers better performance
on digital wireless networks ahead of the introduction of so-called third generation, or 3G, technologies.
KLM Wins Battle with Cybersquatter
Dutch airline KLM has won the domain name "klm.info" from a Hungarian cybersquatter. To date, there have been fewer than 10 decisions regarding the new domain, although several hundred are pending. The domain name "klm.info" was registered under the name Excelsa Coop of Hungary. A representative of the registrant sent an e-mail to KLM offering it for sale at $140,000. An argument that the name was intended for use on a portal for businesses sharing the initials KLM was rejected by a panelist of the World Intellectual Property Organization, as was the assertion that it was not registered "with intent of commercial gain."
Netscape Sues Microsoft
Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner, Monday announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft seeking redress for Microsoft's anti-competitive conduct against Netscape. Netscape is seeking to exploit the findings of the federal and appeal courts in the high profile Justice Department case which found that Microsoft's behavior violated antitrust laws and had harmed Netscape. The lawsuit alleges that, beginning in 1995, Microsoft harmed Netscape in a series of illegal acts aimed at promoting Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser at the expense of Netscape Navigator, marketing battles that became known as the "browser wars." The suit seeks injunctive relief sufficient to prevent further antitrust injury to Netscape and an award of treble damages to be determined at trial. America Online acquired Netscape Communications for $4.2 billion in 1999.
Eli Lilly Settles Privacy Case
Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges regarding its unauthorized disclosure of sensitive personal information collected from consumers through its Prozac.com Web site. An employee had sent an e-mail to subscribers that revealed the e-mail addresses of all subscribers. Eli Lilly promotes its site at Prozac.com as "Your Guide to Evaluating and Recovering from Depression." From March 15, 2000 until June 22, 2001, Lilly offered to consumers the "Medi-messenger" e-mail reminder service. Consumers who used Medi-messenger could design and receive personal e-mail messages to remind them to take or refill their medication. Once a consumer registered for Medi-messenger, the reminder messages were automatically e-mailed from Eli Lilly to the subscriber at the e-mail address he or she had provided, and according to the subscriber's requested
schedule.
In June 2001, an Eli Lilly employee created a new computer program to access Medi-messenger subscribers' e-mail addresses and sent them an e-mail message announcing the termination of the Medi-messenger service. The e-mail message included all of the recipients' e-mail addresses within the "To:" line of the message, thereby unintentionally disclosing to each individual subscriber the e-mail addresses of all 669 Medi-messenger subscribers. Had he used the "Bcc:" field, the problem would not have arisen.
EBay Aggress to Halt the Sale of Nazi Items
Newsbytes reports that auction site eBay has said it will comply with a request from the German government to block Nazi memorabilia from its U.S.-based Web site. However, the ban does not appear to be entirely effective. Newsbytes searched for Nazi-related items and found that the eBay search engine produced results including German army uniforms from World War II. However, the news service noted that clicking on the items produced a message to the user explaining that access to the item was being blocked on legal grounds. According to Newsbytes, the German Ministry of Justice recently asked eBay to cease offering items related to the Nazi era because displaying such items for sale is contrary to German law. It is the second request of its kind following the apparent failure by eBay to meet an undertaking given last year that it would not host the sale of such items.
EC Adopts Standards for the Transfer of Personal Data
The European Commission has adopted a decision creating standard contractual clauses for the transfer of personal data to businesses using the data that are established in countries outside the EEA--with the exception of countries that are recognized as offering an adequate level of data protection. The decision simplifies the process for companies and organizations wishing or needing to transfer personal data for "processing" in a third country, a term which covers any use of the data. In particular, the decision offers companies a straightforward means of complying with their legal obligation to ensure "adequate protection" for personal data transferred to countries outside the European Union. Use of these standard contractual clauses will be voluntary. Under the standard contractual clauses, an E.U. company exporting data should instruct its subcontractor to treat the data with full respect to the E.U. data protection requirements and should guarantee that appropriate technical and security measures are in place in the destination country.