March 16th 2008
Large scale spammer Robert Soloway, age 28, whose criminal trial was scheduled to start in a week, is facing a possible 26-year jail sentence after pleading guilty in Seattle on Friday to charges of fraud and tax evasion. Soloway is set to be sentenced on June 20, 2008. The indictment included an array of charges:
March 13th 2008
Maine Senator Olympia Snowe (R) introduced a bill (S. 2661) on February 25, 2008, known as the “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008” (APCPA). The proposed legislation seeks to fight trademark infringement and phishing schemes. However, some believe the proposal goes too far. Complaints include: Creating unnecessary bureaucracy Presuming guilt and therefore denying the fundamental […]
March 12th 2008
Microsoft’s next-generation web browser, Internet Explorer 8, is now available. Perhaps its most notable feature is IE8’s new standards compliance. Microsoft announced that the browser will ship with default settings configured to pass the Acid2 face test. While this may sound abstract to many, this announcement thrilled the basement of web designers I was with […]
March 10th 2008
As public entities, government agencies can not claim copyright on their works. But don’t tell that to Meredith Pikser, an attorney with international law firm Reed Smith LLP. Last week she filed a DMCA Take Down Notice against YouTube, asserting that she represented the Air Force, which owned copyright on its latest recruiting video. Turns out this […]
March 8th 2008
The ill-conceived and draconian PRO-IP Act got some of its feathers clipped by the elimination of a requirement known as Section 104 of the proposed bill to treat compilations of music as a separate violations. Had this been allowed to stand, the fines would have been multiplied many times, because they’d be determined based upon […]
March 5th 2008
Updated: May 4, 2008 While Federal CAN-SPAM is perhaps the most well-known online marketing law, individual states also regulate online business practices. The Federal law is written with provisions which preempt state action, so the federal act is the main law, while states extend its reach, or add to it provisions as side orders extend an […]
March 4th 2008
Is the RIAA only about the money, and not the ethical defense of intellectual property rights of artists? It seems the artists the RIAA supposedly represents have seen little or no money as a result of copyright infringement settlements over the years from major entities like Napster and Kazaa. Those settlements are in the neighborhood […]
March 3rd 2008
What is CAN-SPAM? The name CAN-SPAM is an acronym from the original bill’s full name: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003. Its purpose was to set the first national standards for sending commercial e-mail, and to limit the bulk sending of unsolicited email. The law requires the Federal Trade Commission […]
March 1st 2008
It was fantastic being with over 800 email marketers in Miami last week. They’ve posted some kind words on my talk about B2B email (see point #9 of their event wrap-up). We endured several hours of Florida’s massive power blackout, which resulted in intimate presentations in dim rooms, and the occasional impulse to gather around battery […]
February 29th 2008
The FCC’s recent hearing in Cambridge on broadband network management practices had a group of unusual participants. Comcast admitted to paying people from the street who did not know about the hearing to fill the auditorium’s seats. They arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon […]