Madonna wins domain name battle

 Pop superstar Madonna has won her case at an international panel to evict a New York cybersquatter from the Internet address madonna.com, which was initially a porn site, new Jersey businessman Dan Parisi owns the domain name and has offered it to Lincoln, Neb.'s Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, currently located at madonna.org. Hospital spokeswoman Carol Jess said the singer has threatened to sue Madonna Rehabilitation if it accepts the name from Paris i, who told the hospital it could have the site only if it agreed not to transfer the domain to the singer.

Kodak Wins Russian CyberSquatting Case

After more than a year and 20 lawsuits, U.S. camera giant Eastman Kodak finally won a case in a Moscow court against the man who operates the Internet site kodak.ru.
In a decision Kodak called historically important for the Russian Internet, the Moscow arbitration court ruled Wednesday that businessman Alexander Gundul has no right to use the Kodak domain to promote his retail electronics business.
"The ruling is a revolutionary thing," said Yury Vatskovsky, Kodaks lawyer. "Such cases in Russia usually end in defeat for the [plaintiff]."
Gunduls site displays only Kodak cameras and has two disclaimers posted on the bottom that say, "This site is not the site of the Eastman Kodak Company" and "The company Spectrum Service has the right of use to this site."
By clicking on any of the cameras posted on the site, the Web user is taken to another page that gives information about the product and displays a "where to buy" button, which links to photocd.ru the home page of an electronics store called Digital Photo Service that sells everything from videos to computers.
The court ruled that the use of the Kodak domain name to lure customers to Digital Photo Service was an infringement on Kodak and ordered Gundul to stop using the site and pay the U.S. firm 2,600 rubles (US $93) in compensation.
Gunduls lawyer, Sergo Selivanovsky, vowed to appeal. "I am sure that Gundul did not break the law," he said.
But Vatskovsky said he was confident Kodak would take control of the domain name by December, which would stretch the legal odyssey to 15 months.
In September 1999, the arbitration court rejected Kodaks case against the agency in charge of registering dot.ru domainnames the Russian Institute for the Development of Public Networks, or RosNIIROS.
At the same time, Kodak was also pleading its case against RosNIIROS with the Anti-Monopoly Ministry. That, too, proved unfruitful. So Kodak changed tactics it decided to go after Gundul himself.
Vatskovsky said inadequate laws and incompetent judges were the reasons the case dragged on for so long.
"In dealing with our case, they looked at a 1992 ruling by the Supreme Arbitration Court concerning the use of trade names, as opposed to domain names, and ruled that if kodak.ru does not indicate the legal status of the company, like Co., Ltd. or Public Company, then one cannot sue," Vatskovsky said.
That 1992 ruling, however, is precisely what Gunduls lawyer is pinning his hopes on. "We have no other laws," he said, "other than the 1992 circular letter of the Supreme Arbitration Court stating that the firms name should necessarily include its legal status.
"The fact that Kodak won just one case does not prove anything. Well see what happens with their other suits," he said.
RosNIIROS spokeswoman Kiran Litvinova called the courts decision a "triumph" for the domain name controlling body.
"The Kodak

Should You Have Keywords in Your Domain Name?

The answer of which depends not only on how different search engines treat keywords in your domain name, or URL, but also the size of your advertising budget, and other factors. The term keyword stuffing, referring to pages that are artificially inflated with keywords, applies also to domains that are stuffed with keywords, in the fashion keyword1keyword2keyword3.com. Instead of going into a lengthy analysis of keywords in the domain name, however, we'll point out two approaches to identifying your target audience that should help you decide how to shape your domain name. In the end you will see that the issue of whether or not to include keywords is not the most important one.

Domain Name Trademark Dilution by Tarnishment

Plaintiff claimed common-law rights in the mark PAPAL VISIT 1999 and variations of that mark in connection with the visit of Pope John Paul II to St. Louis, Missouri, which occurred on January 26, 1999.  Defendant operated websites located at the domain names “papalvisit.com” and “papalvisit1999.com,” which contained information on the Pope’s visit.  But virtually every page on defendant’s websites also contained banner advertisements that linked to its adult-entertainment sites.  The websites also featured pages devoted to off-color stories and jokes regarding the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.  Plaintiff sued, alleging that defendant’s websites infringed and diluted plaintiff’s marks.  Ruling only on the dilution claim, the court characterized defendant’s activities as a cyberspace “bait and switch” scheme and held as a matter of law that defendant was making commercial use of plaintiff’s marks in commerce by purposefully promoting its Internet services to users who expected to access a website sponsored by plaintiff.  The court further held that plaintiff’s “famous” marks and the spiritual image associated with them had been tarnished by use of the marks in connection with websites advertising and promoting sexually explicit materials and services.  The court did not specifically address, however, the issue of why PAPAL VISIT was a protectable mark, let alone a famous one sufficient to qualify for federal-dilution protection.  This decision was subsequently withdrawn at the request of the court.

Importance of Keywords in Domain Name

                                                                                           

Keywords in  domain name are very important! always we hear SEO people and Domainers always express that keywords in our domain name are important, 

Dell Sues Affiliates

Dell affiliates Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme and Kim Temme are in big ka-ka for profiting from the avails of typosquatting.

The typosquatters registered d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, de4ll.com, dedll.com, derll.com and dxell.com, all of which redirected visitors to Dell.com through their affiliate links.

Dell has taken legal action on the basis of trademark infringement and wants the the defendants to hand over the domain names, and to pay legal fees and damages.

I dunno, but the terms and conditions of Dell’s affiliate program at Linkshare are pretty darned clear and posted right there on the front page …

By partnering with Dell, you have agreed to refrain from the following activities, and any violation of this Section shall be deemed a material breach of this Agreement:

(a) Use or otherwise incorporate the word “Dell” or variations or misspellings in the domain name(s) of your Site(s), on any meta tags of Web pages comprising your Site, or in advertising or searchable keywords.

(b)You may not bid the following: all trademark and brand terms, including but not limited to “Dell” “Inspiron” and “Dimension”.

(Dell will probably drop me as an affiliate after their name shows up in the title bar of its post.)

CYBERSQUATTING

 There is no single definition of cybersquatting, generally, if someone who lacks a legitimate claim registers a a domain name with the intent to sell the name, prevent the trademark holder from gaining access to the name, or divert traffic, this activity will be considered cybersquatting. In the typical case of cybersquatting, the cybersquatter registers a domain name using a trademarked company name, and then offers to sell the rights to the domain name to the trademark owner for a large price.

Suit Levels Spyware, Typosquatting Allegations at Yahoo

A class-action lawsuit filed Monday against YAHOO.INC  an unnamed group access unauthorized to     accuses the company of engaging in "syndication fraud" against advertisers who pay Yahoo to display their adventurists on search results and on the Web pages of partner Web sites. The suit claims that Yahoo displayed these advertisers' online ads via spyware and ad ware products and on so-called "typo-squatter" Web sites that capitalize on misspellings of popular trademarks or company names
the plaintiff argue that  Yahoo regularly uses its relationship with ad ware and typosquatting sites to gain up more revenue around earnings time, alleging that the company is conspiring to boost revenue by partnering with some of the Internet's seamier characters.

Is Chris Bosh a “Cyber-hero” or “Cybersquatter”?

NBA,star Chris bosh a popular year power forward player recently won an intellectual property dispute over a website name,the court allowing him to own the site chrisbosh.com
the story started from when he wonder why someone else had a right to Chirsbosh.com.he went to the court to reclaim his online identity,and in the process liberated the internet domain names of 800 other athletes, celebrities.A federal judge in California has order a cyber squatter to surrender chisbosh.com to Bosh,and settled a lawsuit filed,Judge of District Court ordered Luis Zavala and his company to release some 800 illigally registered domain names to Bosh.“We are notifying the world that anyone whose name is on this list that has a legitimate right to the domain name, Chris will transfer it to them for free,” said Brian Heidelberg er, one of three lawyers who represented Bosh.“Everyone has to be protected against this stuff,” Bosh said before the Raptors’ preseason game against the Boston Celtics in Hartford, Conn.
According to the lawsuit, Zevala registered the Web addresses in order to sell them to those whose names he appropriated,in violation of federal law.
when Bosh's lawyers contacted  Zevala in July 2008,he sent back a terse email reply: “I have no intentions of handing over my domain. I am not in the business of giving domains away.”
Zavala did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment. The court ordered Zavala to pay $120,000 in damages earlier this year, but Bosh’s lawyers have been unable to locate him.

Domain name and it's Act

Domain name is an important part of a website,in another word it is a name that identifies an a websites.It is a part of URL that represents a specific website. the domain name is the apiece of a URL that is the property of the website owner.
In the united states,the Truth in Domain Names Act of 2003,in combination with the Protect Act Of 2003 banned the use of misleading domain name with the intention of attracting internet into visiting pornography sites.

The Truth in Domain Names Act follow the more general Anti cyber-squatting Consumer Protection Act passed in 1999 aimed at preventing Typo-squatting and deceptive use of names and trademarks in domain names.

New law to end illegal downloading of music and moves in Malaysia

This new law called the ISP Liability act, will be presented in Parliament next month in Malaysia, according to Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) chairman Norman Halim.the law will enable Internet Service Providers (ISP) to suspend or terminate the Internet accounts of  peer-to-peer users.The act makes the ISP s responsible for controlling  online piracy. The ISPs will be fined if they don’t take action against illegal down loaders. every  ISPs have well equipped with  the technology to track P2P users,.the procedure  of warning will be like this, at first time  ISP s will send two warning letters to illegal downloaders.if downloadres still persist the internet access will be suspended. However, the amount of fine has not been announced

Email spoofing

mail spoofing is one of the computer crimes.it  may occur in different forms,but all of them have a same result: a user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source. Email spoofing is often an attempt to trick the user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information (such as passwords).

 

Digital Identity in Cyberspace

 digital signature  is an electronic signature that can be used to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and possibly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged. Digital signatures can be automatically time-stamped. The ability to ensure that the original signed message arrived means that the sender cannot easily repudiate it later.
what's your idea  can digital signature  make crime  in cyber space?

copyright in cyberspace

Copyright infringement  happen  when someone other than the copyright holder copies the “expression” of a work. It means that the idea or information behind the work is not protected, but how the idea is expressed  can be  protected.

in the world of the internet copyright become one the biggest challenges in this area.any user can easily download.copy and sharing file. pictures film  and even  stolen other ideas .

Under section 102 of the Act, copyright protection extends to "original works of authorship fix in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 

HOW YOU CAN AVOID COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OF YOUR WORK

In this part the most important things is to register your work  with the US Copyright Office.but whenever you found that you are victim of copyright infringement you can not do anything until you have registered your work 

Computer Hacking

Computer hacking is when someone modifies computer hardware or software in a way that alters the creator's original intent. People who hack computers are known as hackers. Hackers are usually real technology buffs who enjoy learning all they can about computers and how they work. Hackers think that what they do is like an art form. They usually have expert-level skills in one specific program. For most hackers, hacking gives them the opportunity to use their problem-solving skills and a chance to show off their abilities.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/06/national/main20089042.shtml

Online Defamation Law

      What is defamation?

Generally,defamation refers to a wrong and unprivileged statement that would be harmful to someone reputation or good name.

Defamation consists of the following:

(1) A defamatory statement;
(2) published to third parties; and
(3) which the speaker or publisher knew or should have known was false.

Each of these elements has generated controversy.

What are the elements of a defamation claim?

The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are:

1. a publication to one other than the person defamed;
2. a false statement of fact;
3. that is understood as
• a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; an  
• b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff. 
• If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.  

  

Recently As we have read in media about Dominique Strauss Kahn,

 http://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-dominique-strauss-kahn-case-drops-charges/story?id=14363013    

spamming

What is spam?

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

Phishing scams

what is Phishing?


phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication 

Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures

 

                Now what's your idea?have you ever been victim of Phishing scams?  

Cyberterrorism

Cyber terrorism is the act of hacking into government computer systems, but under the Patriot Act also extends to hacking into and damaging any networked computer. It is punishable by up to twenty years in prison.
there are two strategies that can be used in order to prevent attacks.

1.  Build Strong Firewalls: A good firewall system can protect networks . These personal firewalls provide a great deal of protection for mobile users or users who do not operate their systems behind an adequate corporate firewall system.

2.  Enact and enforce strong policy: Staff members with access to or control over critical information should undergo rigorous background checks and should comply with strong security policy. 

Ramping up fight against child porn

Child porn

  

Child pornography is one the biggest criminal issue in the word which every day is growing faster.

By the developing and spreading of the Internet in the world enable people to accesses more to children in privet s,so providing increased opportunities for the solicitation of children and the committing of abusive acts by offenders outside the family.

Identity Theft

• • 
    

    ·         Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in Malaysia. Credit card numbers, NRIC numbers, date of birth, and other personal identification can net criminals thousands of Ringgit in a very short time. Most often, an identity thief can  get  your personal identification numbers from the trash and obtain credit in your name by having credit cards, goods or services delivered to their address or mail drop. Since the bills for the charges incurred with be sent to the thief's address, not yours, you will be unaware that debt is mounting up in your name until the collections department tracks you down. By then your credit report will already be riddled with late payment histories and show many accounts in collections. As you can imagine, the credit reporting bureaus will be reluctant to change negative credit without proof that you had not created the bad credit. 

    
    

    
    

    
    

    

            

    ·         by flowing below point you can prevent such a these crime:

    
    

    Run a credit report on yourself to see if there are any unknown credit inquiries or unauthorised accounts.

      Limit the number of credit cards you have to reduce exposure, and cancel any inactive accounts.

    • Destroy all cheques immediately when you close a current account. Destroy or keep in a secure place, any courtesy cheques that your bank or credit card company may mail to you.
    • Memorise your passwords and personal identification numbers (PIN).
    • Do not give out your PIN or write them on your credit cards or ATM cards.
    • Keep a list of, or photocopy all credit and identification cards you carry with you, including front and back, so that you can quickly call the issuers to inform them about missing or stolen cards.

The purposes of assignment

This weblog is created for the purposes of assignment for the subject BYL 7134, Cyberlaw by Faculty of Management, Multimedia University (MMU), Malaysia. The materials posted on this weblog are for the purposes of the assignment as well as study and non-profit research only. Appropriate acknowledgements to the materials that do not belong to the weblog owner have been publicly made. If you are the author or a copyright or a trademark owner of any of the articles or images or graphics or pictures or any material posted in this weblog herein and you object to such posting on any grounds, including copyright or trademark infringement, please contact me and I will take your material down. I state herein that I am relying on the doctrine of fair use. “