COPYCENSE

“Furor and confusion over allegations that major phone companies have surrendered customer calling records to the National Security Agency continue to roil Washington. But if AT&T Inc. and possibly others have turned over records to the NSA, the phone giants represent only one of many commercial sources of personal data that the government seeks to “mine” for evidence of terrorist plots and other threats.

“The Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans’ finances, phone numbers, and biographical information, according to a report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Often, the agencies and their contractors don’t ensure the data’s accuracy, the GAO found.”

BusinessWeek Online. The Snooping Goes Beyond Phone Calls. May 29, 2006.

Related Stories:

Robert O’Harrow Jr. Agencies Not Protecting Privacy Rights, GAO Says. WashingtonPost.com. April 5, 2006.

General Accounting Office. Personal Information: Agencies and Resellers Vary In Providing Privacy Protection (GAO-06-609T). (.pdf) April 4, 2006. (Abstract: “In fiscal year 2005, the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and State and the Social Security Administration reported that they used personal information obtained from resellers for a variety of purposes, including performing criminal investigations, locating witnesses and fugitives, researching assets held by individuals of interest, and detecting prescription drug fraud. The agencies spent approximately $30 million on contractual arrangements with resellers that enabled the acquisition and use of such information. About 91 percent of the planned fiscal year 2005 spending was for law enforcement (69 percent) or counterterrorism (22 percent).”)

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, has called for clear separation between Internet access and Internet content. Speaking at the World Wide Web conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning, Berners-Lee gave his views on the growing battle over Net neutrality.

“Net neutrality is the concept that all Internet content should be treated equally by broadband providers without any kind of discrimination. It has become a hot political topic this year, especially in the U.S., amid fears that telephone companies may start blocking some Web sites or charge users extra to access them.

“Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been lobbying U.S. politicians to introduce laws that would make Net neutrality mandatory. These moves have been opposed by broadband providers and some hardware manufacturers.”

Jonathan Bennett. Berners-Lee Calls for Net Neutrality. News.com. May 23, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Given the worldwide success that Apple has had selling iPods, one would think that music stores would do whatever it takes to make their offerings iPod-compatible. Attempts at bypassing or emulating Apple’s FairPlay have not been successful, however, and FairPlay is (famously) unavailable for licensing.

“So what’s a music store to do? To eMusic, the answer was simple: you offer songs as high quality, variable bit rate MP3 files instead. DRM is removed, consumers are happy, and the vast white fields of the iPod are ready for harvest.

“It sounds like such a simple idea, but in the context of the music business, this is radical, French Revolution-type stuff. What’s perhaps even more interesting is the fact that eMusic’s decision to offer unprotected MP3 files was not an ideological one; the idea made great business sense, and has established eMusic as the #2 retailer of downloadable music behind the iTunes Music Store.”

Ars Technica. Making Money Selling Music Without DRM: The Rise of eMusic. May 22, 2006.

CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.