Record numbers are hitting the Internet for news on the U.S.-Iraq war, and as - shall we say - collateral damage, Iraq photos have topped Paris Hilton on the Terra Lycos survey of the most frequent search requests. "We were taken aback this week by the number of searches for Iraq war and the photos of the prisoners at the prison," said Terra Lycos survey author Dean Tsouvalas. "The numbers were so substantial they actually moved straight to the top of list. The last time interest in Iraq was this high was when the war started last year -- and then it only hit No. 2. It has never reached No. 1, until this week." One cause of the surge, he said: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's electrifying testimony to Congress last week, confirming more photos and videos possibly showing even more prisoner abuse...
Turning to another kind of abuse, depending on how you look at it, Canada wants to can the spam, too - but they're not entirely convinced a new law would be effective in fighting it. That explains a new spam-fighting partnership, the Spam Task Force, between Canada's government, computer industry, and consumer groups, which says they'll develop a six-point plan to fight spam. "We are committed to working in partnership with industry and consumers to find innovative and appropriate solutions to address this problem," said Industry Minister Lucienne Robillard, but Canadian law wouldn't do much because, she said, most unwanted e-mail is born abroad. The Spam Task Force is expected to report back to the government with recommendations in a year...
From Canadian spam to Canadian Internet scam: a small crowd of Saskatchewan Netizens are getting a nasty little surprise in this month's phone bills: big long distance charges slapped on the bills from Netizens clicking on those naughty pop-up windows, charges they didn't even know they were racking up. Seven hundred SaskTel customers have been bilked, apparently, out of $40,000 and possibly more from the scam, including one whose most recent bill featured calls to a small island off the west African coast that racked up $700. SaskTel says it will follow the lead of other Canadian phone companies and pay half the bills for those who got bilked...
Spam and scam are not Canada's only Internet problems, according to researchers Ipsos-Reid. They say Canadian Netizens are downloading less music now than in June 2002 - not because they're wearying of it but because they're not too thrilled about prospects of American-based music business lawsuits hitting them. Ipsos-Reid said 41 percent of those they surveyed said they quit downloading music thanks to the lawsuits launched against peer-to-peer users on networks like KaZaA. "There are a lot of people who didn't know if they could be sued or not, even though it was made abundantly clear that it was just Americans who were being sued," said Ipsos-Reid vice president Chris Ferneybrough...
Apparently, the Japanese don't want to be left out of the P2P legal action, either. The developer of P2P network program Winny, Isamu Kameko, was arrested May 10, but Japanese media said "thousands" of Winny users were outraged at the bust, saying there was little evidence to support any charges and that the bust "compromises Internet freedom." The Japanese Society for the Rights of Authors, Composers, and Publishers, needless to say, sided with the arrest, saying Winny and similar programs have costs the Japanese music industry a few hundred billion yen in the past year or more...
Speaking of litigation, Gateway decided to fight fire with fire when it comes to Hewlett-Packard. Earlier this year, HP sued Gateway for patent infringement; now, Gateway is suing HP for likewise, saying HP infringed a number of Gateway patents tied to multimedia functions on desktops and laptops. They also rejected all HP infringement charges in the May 10 filing, and are asking for unspecified royalties and legal fees...
About 15 women at least would like to recover another kind of damage from a reputed Internet Casanova: what he stole from them after meeting them in person following online romance. Ivan Urquard portrayed himself online as, variously, a poet, a venture capitalist, and a golfer, but his portrait at this writing would include stripes behind bars: he's in Broward County Jail in Florida on $21,000 bail, with the charges including grand theft, attempting to use another person's identity without consent, and intimidating or threatening a witness or informant. Authorities believe he stole credit cards, contacted the companies to change personal information, and withdrew "a couple of thousand dollars."...
He even posed as a Jewish man which he isn't, as victim Shari Silkoff - who met him through a Jewish online dating service - learned the hard way, after she discovered he might have been using her cards. Urquard apparently told police he went after Jewish women in particular because he thought they had more money. (Speaking as one of the tribe, if we descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are supposed to be so automatically stinking rich, then why the hell am I still working here for the fortune they're not paying me to tell you these things?)
