Category Archives: Law: Internet Law

Here’s another Google subpoena case. It looks like I was wrong in my radio sound bite: we didn’t have months before this case came up — we didn’t even have days,

Police blotter: Judge orders Gmail disclosure: The subpoena asks for not only current e-mail but also deleted e-mail: “All documents concerning all Gmail accounts of Baker…for the period from Jan. 1, 2003, to present, including but not limited to all e-mails and messages stored in all mailboxes, folders, in-boxes, sent items and deleted items, and all links to related Web pages contained in such e-mail messages.”

Google’s privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages “may remain in our offline backup systems” in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. Baker estimated he may have tens of thousands of e-mail messages in his Gmail account.

Remember: Google never forgets. And it can all be traced back to you.

[yes, yes, I’m not speaking to the .00001% of you who know how to route things through anonymizing proxies and actually do so on a routine basis, ok?]

A friend writes suggesting I publicize this posting for a law teaching job specializing in information security:

The Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and the School of Informatics seek to appoint an outstanding scholar and teacher to fill a new tenured/tenure-track position in the area of information security law. The position will be affiliated with Indiana University’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research and the School of Informatics which provide a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on the use of technologies, systems, policies, laws, personnel, and education to protect information networks and systems and information content from unauthorized access, use, destruction or alteration.

While appointment at any rank is possible, preference will be given to candidates with information security law and policy experience appropriate for associate or full professor rank. Salary will be commensurate with educational background and experience. J.D. or Ph.D. required; J.D. strongly preferred. Anticipated start date by August 2006.

Applicants are invited to apply online.

Reuters reports that,

U.N. agency says it’s ready to govern the Net:The United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union is ready to take over the governance of the Internet from the United States, ITU head Yoshio Utsumi said on Friday.

The United States has clashed with the European Union and much of the rest of the world over the future of the Internet. It currently manages the global information system through a partnership with California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, better known as ICANN.

“We could do it if we were asked to,” Utsumi told a news conference. The U.N. agency’s experience in communications, its structure and its cooperation with private and public bodies made it best-placed to take on the role, he said.

While the ITU’s desire to replace ICANN has been an open secret for years, this is the clearest declaration yet from the ITU’s rather outspoken leader. The official line until now has been much softer.

As far as I can tell, the US government mistrusts the ITU for various complicated telecoms-related related reasons I’ve never fully grasped. That’s just as well, as the ITU is no friend to impecunious NGOs, who are at best third-class participants in its deliberations, and certainly never participants as of right, only suffrage.

“Washington has made clear that it would oppose any such move, despite widespread demands for changes in the current system.

We will not agree to the United Nations taking over management of the Internet,” said David Gross, a U.S. Department of State official attending a two-week conference preparing for a U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia in November.

Reading all this, one canny observer on a list I follow remarked, “The secret to good comedy is timing.”

The US position on WSIS is stated, quite forcefullly, in EU and U.S. clash over control of Net.

Key quotes:

The European decision to back the rest of the world in demanding the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet clearly caught the Americans off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century.

“It’s a very shocking and profound change of the EU’s position,” said David Gross, the State Department official in charge of America’s international communications policy. “The EU’s proposal seems to represent an historic shift in the regulatory approach to the Internet from one that is based on private sector leadership to a government, top-down control of the Internet.”

…

Political unease with the U.S. approach, symbolized by opposition to the war in Iraq, has spilled over into these technical discussions, delegates said.

…

The United States has sharply criticized demands, like one made last week by Iran, for a UN body to govern the Internet, Gross said. “No intergovernmental body should control the Internet,” he said, “whether it’s the UN or any other.” U.S. officials argue that a system like the one proposed by the EU would lead to unwanted bureaucratization of the Internet.

“I think the U.S. is overreacting,” said David Hendon, a spokesman for the EU delegation.

Something truly odd and potentially important is happening at WSIS.

The Register says, EU deal threatens end to US dominance of internet, while The Inquirer says, America needs to give up Internet control, but neither one really explains what is going on.

I guess we’ll know by tomorrow.