US government lists 12 countries for detailed scrutiny of intellectual property protection

The US government has placed 12 countries on its Priority Watch List of nations that it believes do not provide adequate protection of US companies' intellectual property. Those countries will now be subject to additional scrutiny with the possibility that they could face economic sanctions if the government decides to take action against them through the World Trade Organization. As expected, China and Russia are among the 12, alongside Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela. ...more

IE 6 improves privacy support

Internet Explorer 6 is not yet out, but Microsoft has outlined the privacy tools that will be incorporated in the next major release of its browser. Available as part of the Windows XP release later this year, the developments are intended to help users select their own level of privacy protection when surfing Web sites, particularly in relation to a site's use of cookies. The five possible settings will be available via a "Privacy" tab on the Internet Options dialog box (pictured). ...more

New variants of NetSky and Sober worm their way out of the weekend

The weekend virus haul has netted new NetSky and Sober worms. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, told us the company was currently seeing more reports of Sober-F rather than NetSky-S, but this could all change as the rest of the world comes online. 'It's not a massive outbreak,' he said. ...more

ISPs failing to deliver

A report on ISP performance by monitoring firm Iowatch shows 82 per cent of UK ISPs ran up enough downtime in January to breach yearly Service Level Agreements (SLA) of 99.99 per cent. Companies using the Iowatch service, have their connections monitored 24 hours, and are e-mailed e-mailed whenever Internet connection is lost. ...more

Piracy of audio CDs rises by 25 per cent

Forget the threat of Napster, it seems that the real threat to the music industry still comes from the professional pirates who duplicate CDs. According to the Music Piracy Report 2001 from the IFPI, the sale of pirate discs rose from 510 million units in 1999 to an estimated 640 million units in 2000. It's believed that the growing number of illegal CD-R copying plants has been behind the proliferation of cheap copies. ...more