UK ISPs to spy on all web traffic to your home (if you let them get away with it)
If you’re a BT Broadband customer, watch out! The company intends to track the websites visited by 10,000 customers (eventually all of them) and hit them with targeted ads. This is to secure extra revenue, of course. Virgin Media and the (always dubious) Carphone Warehouse will be getting their act together later in the year to pull the same trick, which may be illegal under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). One expert believes it will only be legal is if ISPs obtain prior consent from the users they want to spy on.
tags: advertisements, BT, Carphone Warehouse, criminality, human rights, Internet, spying, Virgin MediaUnjust verdict serves no-one, especially the music companies
A court in the US has ordered a woman to pay $222,000 (£109,000) in damages for illegally file-sharing music. The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 32, from Minnesota, to pay for offering to share 24 specific songs online–a cost of $9,250 per song.
Her lawyer, Brian Toder, said Ms Thomas was reduced to tears by the verdict. “This is a girl that lives from paycheque to paycheque, and now all of a sudden she could get a quarter of her paycheque garnished for the rest of her life,” he said.
The US music industry said people would understand the verdict.
Er. No. At least I certainly don’t see how huge corporations financially crucifying people for their entire lives can ever be understood by all but the hardest and coldest of hearts.
tags: choons, criminality, file-sharing, justice
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