Net name .cymru leaps ahead of .scot

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:42 ET

Proposed net address endings .tattoo, .transformers and .menu are among the first that could go live next year.

A raffle by regulator Icann has placed them near the top of the list of applications it will review.

Of the proposed new geographic suffixes, Wales's .cymru will be one of the first to be evaluated. However, .scot and .irish are likely to have to wait until 2014.

The first domains to go live could enjoy an early-mover advantage.

The list of 1,917 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) applications was determined by the order tickets were randomly pulled out of drums at a hotel in Los Angeles on Monday.

Companies were charged a $100 (£62) fee for each application they they wanted in the draw.

In some cases they decided not to take part. As a result several of Google's submissions will be among those last to be judged.

Same names

An early evaluation is not an absolute guarantee a suffix will go live early.

Governments have lodged "early objections" to more than 250 of them - meaning the proposed address may be rejected.

In addition, several companies are competing for identical gTLDs.

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199 .tokyo

200 .paris

220 .swiss

244 .cymru

258 .thai

288 .budapest

194 .okinawa

635 .london

786 .roma

807 .wales

866 .istanbul

881 .moscow

1,005 .africa

1,069 .persiangulf

1,165 .amsterdam

1,345 .madrid

1,491 .irish

1,453 .scot

1,531 .yokohama

1,653 .zuerich

1,738 .barcelona

1,872 .patagonia

So, for example. Amazon's application for .play is near the top of the list. But it faces having to wait for a submission for the same name from Star Registry - which is 1,792nd in order - to be reviewed and a potential auction held if both are approved before the suffix can be activated.

Icann's raffle did not go without glitch. At one point a live feed of the event failed causing the organisers to temporarily halt the process to ensure it remained transparent.

The event ended up lasting more than nine hours - significantly longer than planned.

Tickets for about 100 non-Latin applications were picked from the drums first, placing a submission for the equivalent of .church in Chinese from the Vatican at the top of the list. It was followed by the Japanese for .store by Amazon.

Of the English-language proposals, unique applications set for an early review include .delmonte from the American food company; .mormon from a firm called IRI Domain Management; .fiat from the car company; and .joy from Amazon.

First movers

Businesses and other users will be able to apply to run websites using the new address suffixes in cases where the new owner decides it does not want to restrict its use.

They will be able to do so so by applying to domain name registration services which will act as middle-men, charging a fee which will be shared with the owner.

One UK-based registrar said that the initial new gTLDs to go live would benefit from their early start.

"Those that go first will get a lot more marketing opportunities," Kelly Salter from names.co.uk told the BBC.

"At the moment there are relatively few extensions to choose from that give you global coverage - so there is the opportunity to get great exposure.

"But if you're number 500 to be approved, our customers will have become desensitised by that point. So the impact to domains launching towards the end of the process will be that they have to work harder to make people want to use them."

Icann has said it plans to let the first batch of new gTLDs in May 2013.

Ms Salter said after the launch date she expected about 20 would be released each week with the final ones going live before the end of 2014.

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SpongeBob in hot water over privacy

18 December 2012 Last updated at 08:41 ET

A SpongeBob app became the latest game to be pulled following a complaint it had violated children's privacy rights.

Nickelodeon removed SpongeBob Diner Dash from Apple's iTunes app store after a US advocacy group contacted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The Center for Digital Democracy said children's email addresses had been collected without parental consent.

Last week another children's app, Mobbles, was temporarily pulled after the CDD filed a similar complaint.

The Washington DC-based group urged the FTC to investigate Nickelodeon and mobile game-maker PlayFirst's privacy practices.

It said their "deceptive" mobile marketing technologies had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

"The SpongeBob Diner Dash game asks children to provide a wide range of personal information, including full name, email address, and other online contact information, without providing notice to parents or obtaining prior parental consent, as required by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act," a statement said.

"Nor does the app provide an adequate description of the personal information it collects or how it is used".

The advocacy group said the app's use of technologies such as unique device identifiers (UDIDs) allowed companies to send customised messages to individual children in the form of "push notifications" that required online contact information - considered personal information under the COPPA rules.

Nickelodeon was unable to be reached for comment.

The app is free to download, but is designed to encourage users to buy virtual "coins" that can be spent on items for SpongeBob like shoes or a frying pan, or to buy upgraded versions of the game.

Need for informed choices

Laura Moy, a lawyer at Georgetown Law's Institute for Public Representation, which prepared the complaint on behalf of the Center for Digitial Democracy (CDD), said: "It is disturbing to learn that a well known children's brand such as Nickelodeon is flouting basic privacy protections for children. Even more troubling, Nickelodeon tells parents that it complies with the law protecting children's privacy when it does not."

Last week the game Mobbles, in which children collect and care for virtual pets, was temporarily pulled from the Apple App store and Google Android Play store.

The FTC last week published a report on mobile apps for children that showed parents were not being provided with information about what data an app collected, who would have access to that data, and how it would be used.

The report said that nearly 60% of the apps examined by the FTC were transmitting information about a user to an advertiser or other third party.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said: "While we think most companies have the best intentions when it comes to protecting kids' privacy, we haven't seen any progress when it comes to making sure parents have the information they need to make informed choices about apps for their kids."

"In fact, our study shows that kids' apps siphon an alarming amount of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to parents," he added.

"All of the companies in the mobile app space, especially the gatekeepers of the app stores, need to do a better job. We'll do another survey in the future and we will expect to see improvement."

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Spam virus hits Android video games

18 December 2012 Last updated at 10:15 ET

Cyber-thieves are using games including Angry Birds to turn Android phones into spam-sending drones.

Phones have been infected with spam-forwarding software that hid inside free versions of popular Android games.

Once installed, the booby-trapped app contacts a web server for a list of phone numbers then starts sending junk text messages to them.

Angry Birds Space, Need for Speed Most Wanted and many other games have been used in the attack.

The first stage of the campaign to recruit phones to act as spam relays. It involved sending out thousands of messages supposedly offering people free versions of popular Android games, said network security firm Cloudmark in an analysis of the SpamSoldier attack.

The copies of the games were held on a server in China rather than on the main Google Play store, it said. After the app is downloaded users must disable some safeguards, grant the app permission to install and give it the ability to browse the web or send texts messages before it will run.

Attack spreading

Once installed the app removes its icon from a phone's main screen and then contacts a central server for a list of target phone numbers. It then starts sending out spam messages in a bid to trick more people into downloading and installing the rogue app. Other spam messages sent via infected phones falsely told people they had won a gift card.

In a separate analysis mobile security firm Lookout said SpamSoldier worked hard to hide its activity by editing outgoing message logs to hide the junk texts being sent. In addition, it also looks for responses from the numbers it spammed to prevent victims finding out about its presence.

So far, said security firms, the number of phones infected remained low but junk texts sent by infected phones were starting to pop up on all US carriers. Cloudmark said whoever was behind the attack had recently ramped up their use of it. Now, it said, it was seeing more than 500,000 junk texts per day being sent through infected Android phones.

"This sort of attack changes the economics of SMS spam, as the spammer no longer has to pay for the messages that are sent," said analyst Andrew Conway at Cloudmark. " Now that we know it can be done, we can expect to see more more complex attacks that are harder to take down."

Ciaran Bradley, head of handset security at Adaptive Mobile, said growing numbers of spammers were adopting this tactic.

"We've also seen the spammers try to spread the infection by advertising free adult videos featuring a well-known reality TV star," he said. ". It illustrates the lengths spammers will go to to ensure their messages are delivered and to avoid detection."

To help protect themselves, Android owners were urged to be wary of unexpected messages that offer free versions of apps which are usually sold.

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Psy and Nick Clegg trend on YouTube

18 December 2012 Last updated at 12:19 ET

Gangnam Style singer Psy, the X Factor's Lucy Spraggan and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have all made it onto YouTube's top 10 UK "trending videos" of 2012.

The list is based on clips that saw the biggest leaps in traffic over the year.

The Liberal Democrat leader appears in a video which took his apology for a u-turn on tuition fees and turned it into an auto-tuned song with the chorus "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

Six of the 10 clips were music-based.

Other examples included a post by Walk of the Earth which featured a group of five musicians playing a cover of Goyte's Walk Off the Earth while sharing a single guitar, and market trader Muhammad Shahid Nazir singing about seafood sold from his East End London stall.

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YouTube UK Trending Videos 2012

1. Gangnam Style

2. Kony 2012

3. Walk Off the Earth

4. Lucy Spraggan's audition

5. Asdfmovie5

6. £1 Fish

7. Freefall from the Edge of Space

8. Charlotte & Jonathan

9. The Nick Clegg Apology Song

10. James Bond escorts the Queen

The £1 Fish clip made Mr Nazir and his "song" famous. Pop star Alesha Dixon and US record producer Timbaland subsequently created their own cover versions - both of which have also been uploaded to the Google-owned sited.

Other clip creators took advantage of YouTube to help their videos go viral for more serious purposes.

US activist group Invisible Children attracted more than 100 million global views in six days for Kony 2012 - a video about the use of child soldiers in Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army movement.

The top 10 also features footage of skydiver Felix Baumgartner travelling faster than the speed of sound during his descent from a balloon 128,100ft (24 miles; 39km) above New Mexico.

In addition, the BBC squeezed into the list with close to 1.7 million views for director Danny Boyle's Olympics film showing James Bond escorting the Queen to the opening ceremony.

Romney rap

Only four of the UK's top 10 trending clips made the global list.

South Korean pop start Psy managed to headline both.

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YouTube Global Trending Videos 2012

1. Gangnam Style

2. Walk Off the Earth

3. Kony 2012

4. Call Me Maybe

5. Obama v Romney epic rap battle

6. A dramatic surprise on a quiet square

7. Why you asking all them questions?

8. Dubstep Violin

9. Facebook parenting

10. Freefall from the Edge of Space

But the international list was also enlivened by a satirical face-off between two rappers impersonating US President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney; and Facebook Parenting - a father's take on his relationship with his 15-year-old daughter in the age of social media.

Most of the clips feature advertising either as pre-roll video or overlaid ads - and one industry watcher noted that the mix of high-end and cheaply made clips will have helped boost the firm's bottom line.

"User generated content continues to be at the heart of YouTube's success -and professionally made videos still only account for a fraction of the material on the site," Ian Maude from Enders Analysis told the BBC.

"It's all very fragmented and this material is fairly hard to monetise - but we are seeing more companies and organisations using it as a distribution channel.

"Google is trying to encourage that with its 'professional content' and a more TV-like structure to attract more advertising, and it's working. We think YouTube will have generated about $3bn (£1.8bn; 2.2bn euros) in gross revenue this year and will make more than $4bn in 2013."

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Instagram denies photo selling

18 December 2012 Last updated at 19:20 ET

Facebook's photo-sharing service Instagram has moved to deny that it has changed its privacy policy to give it the right to sell users' photos to advertisers without notification.

It said instead that users had incorrectly interpreted its revised terms of service, which it blamed on its "confusing" choice of language.

Instagram's clarification follows much user opposition to the believed change.

"To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos," it said.

Instagram chief executive Kevin Systrom said in a blog posting: "It is our mistake that this language is confusing.

"We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."

Compulsory changes to Instagram's terms of service are due to come into effect on 16 January,

The originally proposed new wording that caused the controversy included: "You hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the content that you post on or through the service."

The terms also stated that "a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you."

Following Instagram's denial, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a US pressure group that campaigns for consumer rights on websites and in social media, told the BBC that "there appeared to be a little bit of a word game at play here".

"It clearly looked like Instagram was indeed grabbing the extra rights," added spokesman Parker Higgins.

"It is hard to evaluate the damage this may cause to the company at this early stage, but any social network risks losing the trust of its users. And social networks depend on users being willing to share information, on users seeing them in good terms."

Facebook bought Instagram for $1bn (£616m; 758m euros) in April of this year.

Instagram now has 100 million users.

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Fewer Twitter prosecutions likely

19 December 2012 Last updated at 04:01 ET By Dominic Casciani Home affairs correspondent

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Keir Starmer: "We've got to have a way of balancing the right of the individual not to be subjected to threats and harassment"

New guidelines could see fewer people being charged in England and Wales for offensive messages on social networks.

The Director of Public Prosecutions said people should face a trial only if their comments on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere go beyond being offensive.

He said the guidance combats threats and internet trolls without having a "chilling effect" on free speech.

The guidance means some people could avoid trial if they are sorry for criminal comments posted while drunk.

The guidance comes after a string of controversial cases, including the prosecution of a man who tweeted a joke threatening to blow up an airport.

Case law

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had now dealt with more than 50 cases relating to potentially criminal comments posted online - but there was so far very little case law set by senior judges to guide which trials should go ahead.

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"Start Quote

These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law"

End Quote Keir Starmer Director of Public Prosecutions

He said the interim guidelines, which come into force immediately, clarified which kinds of cases should be prosecuted and which would go ahead only after a rigorous assessment whether it was in the public interest to prosecute.

"The scale of the problem that we are trying to confront should not be underestimated. There are millions of messages sent by social media every day and if only a small percentage of those millions are deemed to be offensive then there is the potential for very many cases coming before our courts," Mr Starmer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The guidance says that if someone posts a message online that clearly amounts to a credible threat of violence, specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone, then the person behind the message should face prosecution.

People who receive malicious messages and pass them on, such as by retweeting, could also fall foul of the law.

However, online posts that are merely "grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false" would face a much tougher test before the individual could be charged under laws designed to prevent malicious communications.

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Mr Starmer said that many suspects in this last category would be unlikely to be prosecuted because it would not be in the public interest to take them to court.

This could include posts made by drunk people who, on sobering up, take swift action to delete the communication because they are genuinely sorry for the offence or harm they caused.

Individuals who post messages as part of a separate crime, such as a plan to import drugs, would face prosecution for that offence, as is currently the case.

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A CASE TO PROSECUTE:

• Communications that are credible threats of violence
• Harassment or stalking, such as aggressive internet trolling
• Posts that breach court orders, such as those protecting the identity of a victim of a sexual offence

Mr Starmer said: "These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law.

"The interim guidelines thus protect the individual from threats or targeted harassment while protecting the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it."

Javed Khan, head of Victim Support, welcomed the new rules. He said: "Victims tell us that sustained and vindictive targeting on social media can leave long lasting emotional and psychological scars, so we warmly welcome clarification on how prosecutors will deal with online threats or harassment. The distinction between communications which constitute a credible threat and those which may merely cause offence is sorely needed."

Earlier this year, senior judges overturned the conviction of Paul Chambers who tweeted in 2010 that he would blow up Doncaster Airport because he was frustrated that it had been closed by snow.

'Judgement wrong'

Mr Chambers, and his many high-profile supporters, always said the tweet was meant as a joke and should not have been taken seriously.

Quashing the conviction, the Lord Chief Justice said Mr Chambers should not have been convicted of sending a menacing communication because it did not amount to a serious threat that created fear or apprehension.

Asked if he now regretted the prosecution of Mr Chambers, the DPP said: "A judgement call had to be made about that case. The Divisional Court ruled that our judgement call was wrong and I accept that."

Although the interim guidance is now in force, its final form is subject to a consultation that runs until 13 March 2013.

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McDonald's rapped over spam messages

19 December 2012 Last updated at 05:49 ET

McDonald's Australia has been warned by media regulators over sending out spam marketing messages from their website.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said emails had been sent to friends of users of the Happy Meal website without the friends' consent.

The "send to friends" facility did not allow recipients to unsubscribe, in breach of Australia's Spam Act, it said.

McDonald's has since removed the facility from its website.

Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) chairman Chris Chapman said: "This case should alert businesses that they must think carefully before using 'friend-get-friend' marketing.

"When sending your marketing messages, you must make sure that there is consent from the actual person who is going to receive your message. You can't just assume consent has been given," he added.

The ACMA said marketing technique was "one of the most common types of complaint" it dealt with. Consumers often wondered how a particular business obtained their personal email address, it added.

The ACMA in a blog has warned that sending unwanted messages to customers could damage a business's reputation.

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Google given EU anti-trust deadline

19 December 2012 Last updated at 07:09 ET

Google has been given a month to address complaints its search results favour its own services over those of its rivals.

EU regulators said they would end their investigation into the allegations if Google came "forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013".

If found guilty of breaching anti-trust rules, Google could face a fine of up to $4bn (£2.5bn).

Goole said it continued to co-operate with the EU competition commission.

EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said he had "decided to continue with the process towards reaching an agreement" to settle the investigation.

"Since our preliminary talks with Google started in July, we have substantially reduced our differences," he wrote in an emailed statement.

"On the basis of the progress made, I now expect Google to come forward with a detailed commitment text in January 2013."

The commission had been investigating Google since November 2010, following complaints from several rivals.

In May this year, Mr Almunia said Google had the chance to outline steps to address the claims, rather than face formal action.

The investigation centres on four areas:

• the manner in which Google displays "its own vertical search services differently" from other, competing products
• how Google "copies content" from other websites - such as restaurant reviews - to include within its own services
• the "exclusivity" Google has to sell advertising around search terms people use
• restrictions on advertisers from moving their online ad campaigns to rival search engines

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Pirate Bay proxy gets shut down

19 December 2012 Last updated at 09:20 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A proxy service allowing access to banned piracy website The Pirate Bay has been shut down after legal threats from the music industry.

Minor political group the Pirate Party UK launched the proxy earlier this year ahead of a High Court order blocking The Pirate Bay site.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) threatened legal action if the proxy was not removed.

The group has now said such proceedings should no longer be necessary.

The High Court's ruling in April this year meant The Pirate Bay - which was formerly one of the UK's most visited websites - had to be blocked by all the country's major internet service providers.

However, the Pirate Party UK - which is not affiliated with the Pirate Bay - launched a special section of its website which allowed UK users to circumvent the ban and still get onto the site and download movies, music and other pirated material.

'Undermining growth'

After launching the proxy, the Pirate Party website's popularity skyrocketed. According to monitoring service Alexa, prior to the proxy's launch the site was ranked 1,943 in the UK.

It then jumped to 147 - higher than the likes of Netflix, the Huffington Post and the NHS.

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No political action is wasted"

End Quote Loz Kaye Pirate Party UK

At the beginning of December, the BPI wrote to Pirate Party UK leader Loz Kaye to request the proxy be shut down.

Mr Kaye refused, prompting the music industry body to instruct its solicitors to contact the party's executive members individually to warn of possible legal action.

"We asked Pirate Party UK to remove the proxy because The Pirate Bay is an illegal site that is undermining the growth of legal digital music services," said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor in a statement on Wednesday.

"We believe its executives should respect the law, and the basic right of creative people to be paid for their work.

"There are many fantastic digital music services that make it simple to get music legally online. This outcome will help ensure that this new digital sector in the UK can grow, continue to innovate for music fans, and create more UK jobs."

'Fantastic year'

On Friday, the Pirate Party said it would comply with the BPI's request.

"Despite attempts by elected members to resolve this situation, the law at present is clear and makes any decision to continue hosting the proxy untenable," said the party's lawyer, Frances Nash.

"This is not the outcome the party wanted; however, any challenge to this proposed action would make it financially impossible for the party to deal with other issues for which they actively campaign on a daily basis.

"The Pirate Party strongly believe that site blocking is both disproportionate and ineffective and will continue to lobby for digital rights and their wider manifesto."

Speaking to the BBC, Pirate Party UK leader Mr Kaye said taking on the BPI in court would have been "financially impossible", but said he was happy with his party's stance up to this point.

"No political action is wasted," he told the BBC.

"I look forward to carrying on the political work in 2013. This year has been a fantastic year for our brand of politics. It's clear that it's becoming politically poisonous to be anti-internet."

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Bankrupt Kodak gets $525m lifeline

19 December 2012 Last updated at 10:16 ET

Struggling Eastman Kodak has sold its digital imaging patents to a consortium of investors for $525m (£322m).

Intellectual Ventures (IV) will snap up part of the patents while 12 intellectual property licensees led by IV and RPX Corp will pay for another portion.

The photography pioneer is selling patents to pay off creditors after filing for bankruptcy in January.

Kodak has said its 1,100 patents up of sale were worth as much as $2.6bn.

IV and RPX are so-called "patent aggregators" which dedicate themselves to buying and then licensing out patent rights.

The agreements are subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

"This monetisation of patents is another major milestone toward successful emergence," said Kodak's chairman and chief executive officer Antonio Perez.

"This proposed transaction enables Kodak to repay a substantial amount of our initial DIP loan [loans used to turn around a business], satisfy a key condition for our new financing facility, and position our commercial imaging business for further growth and success."

The patent portfolios on sale include ways to let devices capture, process, edit and transmit images.

Kodak filed for Chapter 11 protection in January. Chapter 11 refers to a section of the US Bankruptcy Code. It protects a company from its creditors, giving it time to reorganise its debts or sell parts of the business.

Kodak filed a motion to sell several of its patents in June after pulling out of the digital camera business to focus on making printing equipment. It plans to exit bankruptcy in the first half of 2013.

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