Tennessee's state department of revenue has been ordered to repay millions in Internet access sales taxes, after a state appeals court upheld lower courts siding with Prodigy and America Online in lawsuits over the tax. The state supreme court refused to hear another appeal of those rulings. This means every Tennesseean who paid for either commercial or residential Net access since December 2000 is entitled to a refund said to range from $60 to $135 on average. The state legislature passed a law last month to put in the procedures for the state to return the money to the taxpayers.
Microsoft released the first test run of its new Windows Media Player June 2, due for general release in final form later in the year. It's said to have substantial changes in the way music, video, and other media is organized and retrieved, with the biggest change being kept invisible in the beta version until the new portable music and video players hit the shelves in summer and fall 2004. "Our real rallying cry here for the player," said Windows Media Division director Jonathan Usher, "is letting you discover media, play it and take it with you."
Macromedia has updated Flash Player for Linux, releasing Flash Player 7 last week, nine months after it brought out its newest Flash for Windows and Mac OS X. The Linux version adds support for simple object access protocol Web services and cascading style sheets, not to mention performance and security enhancements, according to Macromedia Flash Player product manager Waleed Anbar. "Our fundamental driving force was to bring the Flash Player to as many desktops as we can," he told eWeek. Macromedia says Flash is now said to be installed on 98 percent of Internet-access desktops.
The recording industry is reported testing technology to keep you from making copies of compact disc burns. The major labels are said to be reviewing tools to limit how many backups you can make from ordinary CDs and stop copied versions from being used to make more copies, say Macrovision and SunnComm International, both of whom are developing competing digital rights management software for the purpose. "If implemented widely," said CNET News, "the new technology would mark a substantial change in the way ordinary people can use purchased music, possibly alienating some customers, analysts said. Given the costs of piracy, however, the labels are moving ahead cautiously in the hope of striking on a formula that works."
Speaking of crackdowns, Zimbabwe's moves to crack down on the Internet have provoked a number of Internet service providers from pulling out of the Mugabe government's attempt to use the Net to spy on Zimbabwe's citizens. They're refusing to sign a new contract with the government containing a requirement to share information on people sending what the regime deems politically sensitive messages. One executive told a reporter the contract itself is illegal because the country's Supreme Court held last year that the government reading people's e-mails is illegal. The government isn't monitoring itself, the executive said, so it now wants the ISPs "to do their dirty work for them."
China is another country trying to crack down on the Internet's freedom of expression. That country's crackdown on cybercafe's continues apace, with authorities reported to have shut down 16,000 Internet cafes in the past three months. The government continues to insist that closing the cafes is meant to protect millions of youths from "illicit and inappropriate online materials."
India, on the other hand, is prodding toward more broadband and Internet connectivity at affordable prices. The country's Communications and Information Technology Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, has asked his people to move toward that increase, after meeting with senior Department of Telecommunications Officials and Minister of State Shakeel Ahmad. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India believes the country can get 20 million broadband and 40 million Netizens by 2010.
Meanwhile, back in the States, a Boise, Idaho jury now has the case of a Saudi graduate student who is accused of using his Internet savvy to help garner support for terrorism. They were due to begin deliberating June 2 in the case of Sami Omar al-Hussayen, accused of turning the Islamic Assembly of North America's Websites into a network passing information to foster Middle Eastern and Chechnyan terrorism. The trial featured seven weeks of testimony on both sides.
A Weblog acting as a watchdog for child protection online says it's possible that as many as one out of five children using the Internet receive unwanted sexual solicitations. "This might not seem like much," says Watch Right, "but it's more than five million children. While it is easy to dismiss this as a simple reality of the Internet it fails to knock home the more important reality that if a child is exposed to behavior they are not ready to handle it could have an overall negative impact on their entire life. This is the real issue." The site quoted retired New York police officer James Doyle: "The Internet is just like the real world. There are bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods. Parents need to know what can happen and that bad people are coming into their homes."
Not to mention child pornography, which has attracted the attention of Canada's Conservative Party. They would like to toughen the country's child porn laws to unload the "public good" defense that says "some" porn material otherwise bannable should be permitted due to artistic merit. The party entered the call into their platform, with Conservative leader Stephen Harper saying the party also wants to end statutory release for child porn criminals who served two-thirds of their sentence. "If you do the crime," Harper said, "you do the time." The planks are said to be part of an overall law-and-order dominated Conservative platform.
