81511697
submission
daria42 writes:
If you're counting on Apple to keep your digital information safe, you may want to think again ... at least if you live in Australia. Yesterday the country's two major political parties — Labor and the Coalition — voted down a motion in Federal Parliament calling for strong encryption to be supported in the wake of the FBI's demands that Apple unlock iOS. It appears that implementing comprehensive telephone and email retention in Australia may not have been the end of demands by law enforcement in the country.
40274415
submission
daria42 writes:
Looks like Google's habit of funnelling billions of dollars in revenue through its Irish and Bermuda subsidiaries, in a tactic known as the "double Dutch sandwich", continues to attract unfavourable government attention globally. France has already announced plans to take on the search giant's tax evasion habits, and the Australian Government, to which Google paid just $74,000 in tax last year despite having Australian revenues close to $1 billion, has now confirmed plans to do the same. How does tax evasion relate to Google's 'don't be evil' motto? Perhaps Google should re-consider its stance in this area.
35407729
submission
daria42 writes:
Live outside the US? Then you're probably used to being blocked from watching Hulu, frustrated by not being able to buy the eBooks you want from Amazon and most of all, annoyed about paying significantly higher prices than Americans for exactly the same software, games and content online, all based on your IP address. This week Australian consumer group Choice called for an Australian ban on geo-IP-blocking, saying it created significant barriers to the free flow of goods and services. Maybe other countries' consumer groups should follow suit, in the quest for a fair go?
32577137
submission
daria42 writes:
Looks like Apple isn't the only company with interesting offshore taxation practices. The financial statements for Google's Australian subsidiary show the company told the Australian Government it made just $200 million in revenue in 2011 in Australia, despite local industry estimating it actually brought in closer to $1 billion. The rest was funnelled through Google's Irish subsidiary and not disclosed in Australia. Consequently the company only disclosed taxation costs in Australia of $74,000. Not bad work if you can get it — which Google apparently can. About that 'don't be evil' motto? Yeah. Not so much.
29807995
submission
daria42 writes:
Steve Jobs might not be around any more to enforce some of Apple's stricter policies, but that doesn't mean the company is letting it all hang loose. Overnight the UK company which produces a speech recognition app called Evi, which mimics many of the functions of Apple's Siri, confirmed Apple had approached his company letting it know that Evi was being reviewed for possible breaches of Apple's App Store policies. The reason? A clause in the policy which bans apps too similar to Apple's existing software. It does appear to matter to Apple that Siri doesn't function that well in the UK, because of a lack of good localisation.
29752925
submission
daria42 writes:
Progress is happening rapidly in Australia, with the country's government continuing to roll out a nation-wide fibre network. However, the country's major telco Telstra doesn't appear to have quite gotten the message. Releasing its first National Broadband Network fibre broadband plans today, the telco stipulated that fibre customers will still be forced to make phone calls over the telco's existing copper network. Yup, that's right — fibre to people's houses, but phone calls over the copper network. Progress.
29201095
submission
daria42 writes:
Looks like Australia's Government is continuing to prefer to keep its ongoing anti-piracy discussions behind closed doors. It held an initial meeting held in September last year to try and get the content and ISP industries to thrash out an agreement on how to handle Internet piracy. Consumer representative groups were explicitly blocked from attending the meeting, and attendees are now allowed to reveal what was discussed behind closed doors. Now a second meeting has been held, and again, no information has been revealed about what's being discussed. Quelle conspiracy?
24648718
submission
daria42 writes:
Remember how the mass piracy lawsuits common in the US are now coming to Australia? Of course you do. Well, now Australia's Government has come out backing the legal process which makes them possible — and is even promising to streamline it. Anti-piracy organisations will be jumping for joy — but I'm not sure how popular the move will be with the rest of the population.
24343026
submission
daria42 writes:
Remember when the RIAA started sending tens of thousands of letters to Americans who it had alleged had infringed copyright online, trying to get them all to settle out of court? Yeah, good times. Well that style of mass-lawsuit has now arrived in Australia courtesy of a new company which dubs itself the 'Movie Rights Group'. The company is currently seeking to obtain details of at least 9,000 Australians it alleges has infringed copyright on one film, and it has a number of other films in the pipeline. Sounds like a good time to know an IP lawyer.
24207172
submission
daria42 writes:
Thought your Mac was secure running Apple's latest operating system? Think again. Turns out that in some respects Lion is actually less secure than previous version of Mac OS X, due to some permission-tweaking by Apple that has opened up a way for an attacker to crack your password on your Lion box. The flaw was discovered by an Australian researcher who has previously published a guide to cracking Mac OS X passwords. Sounds like Apple had better get a patch out for this pronto.
24120740
submission
daria42 writes:
A long-running Australian court case debating whether Google has done enough to differentiate paid advertisements from normal organic search results has come to an end, with the search giant the victor over the country's competition regulator. The landmark case influenced how Google discloses which search results were advertisements — with the result that it now labels ads as "Ads" rather than as "Sponsored links". In addition, Google now prohibits companies from advertising products or serices with which they are not associated — making it much hard for competitors to artifically take valued positions in Google's rankings.
23475888
submission
daria42 writes:
A US diplomatic cable published by Wikileaks has revealed much of the previously hidden background behind the BitTorrent court case currently playing out in Australia's High Court, including the Motion Picture Association of America’s prime mover role and US Embassy fears the trial could become portrayed as “giant American bullies versus little Aussie battlers”. Oops ... looks like there's a little bit of egg on the movie studios' faces!
23212648
submission
daria42 writes:
Does Apple's arrogance know no bounds? This week it was revealed that the company has still not responded to Australia's Federal Parliament on the issue of why the prices of its products are significantly higher in Australia than they are in the US, five months after the query was first raised by a member of parliament from Australia's governing Labor party. Apple has refused to issue a statement on the matter or even acknowledge the issue. What will it take to get Apple to open up — a national enquiry?
23059622
submission
daria42 writes:
In a move which will escalate the debate over BitTorrent to the highest court in Australia, the country's High Court has agreed to hear the long-running case between one of the country's largest ISPs, iiNet, and a group of film and TV studios represented by a copyright organisation known as AFACT. The case has the potential to determine once and for all whether Australians who download content via BitTorrent can have their Internet connections disconnected upon the request of the studios. It's lawyers at ten paces!
22724310
submission
daria42 writes:
The lawsuit filed by movie and TV studios against Australian Internet service provider iiNet appears to have taken a new twist, with the studios using early judgements in the case to attempt to push other ISPs towards what it has described as a "standardised automated processing system" for BitTorrent copyright infringement notices that would integrate with the ISPs' networks and automatically forward messages to customers when they were sent by the studios. Sound a bit Orwellian?
