EU software patent directive close to being sent home

The controversial computer patent directive has taken another step forward to being sent back to square one. The European Parliament has decided to adopt an earlier decision by the EU's legal affairs committee and recommend to the EU Commission that the process of forming the legislation be restarted. Opponents of the formative directive, which lays down pan-European patent provisions for computer related inventions, want the current draft to be thrown out and restarted to explicitly outlaw software patents. ...more

Danish court blocks access to Allofmp3.com

A Danish court has ordered telecoms company Tele 2 to block Internet access to the controversial Russian music downloads site Allofmp3.com. The court unconditionally backed a complaint by the local branch of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) Denmark, which represents the major record companies and has been campaigning vigorously for the site to be shut down. ...more

P2P activity continues to flourish

P2P activity continued to rise throughout 2005 hitting record levels in December, according to file sharing research firm BigChampagne. Worldwide there were an average 9.5 million simultaneous users, two million more than a year earlier. ...more

Virus plays fast and loose with online poker

A rootkit virus - one which is hidden from the very operating system of a computer - has been discovered in a program designed to help online poker players tot up monies owed them by casinos after games. Checkraised.com stopped distributing its Rakeback Calculator after it was discovered that versions of the software secretly installed components that gave the author remote access to login information for a variety of websites, including Partypoker, Empirepoker, Eurobetpoker and Pokernow. ...more

Online shopping threat exaggerated - report

Online shopping is not quite as fraught with risk as some would have us believe, according to online retailers in the UK. A recent APACS (Association for Payment Clearing Services) report showed card-not-present (CNP) fraud, which includes online shopping, added up to more than ?90m - an increase of 29 per cent - during the first six months of 2005. However, Internet fraud itself only rose five per cent, although it remained the largest part of CNP fraud. ...more