"Think Your Social Security Number Is Secure? Think Again"

By Damon Darlin
February 24th, 2007
www.nytimes.com

After reading this article I was very concerned. I didn't know how much of someones identity was available over the internet. In this article, a woman named, Betty Ostergren, has been doing research on the internet, finding people's information and reporting it. She said most people are surprised how much information is posted online.

Betty Ostergren has found many famous peoples information online, along with 1,000's of other peoples. She reports this information back to the people so that they are concerned about what information is being posted online and seen by criminals.


A company, TrustedID, has come up with a system that you can go and check to see if your information has been stolen or not. TrustedID said in the article "about 220,000 people had tested their numbers in the three weeks the site has been open to the public." I believe this website will be good for people because they can make sure their identity hasn't been stolen.

"Google Said to Violate Copyright Laws"

By Thomas Crampton

February 14, 2007

Yesterday, courts in Brussels ruled that Google violated copyright laws by publishing articles from a Belgian newspaper without permission. Copyright law is very strict in Europe, therefore, Google will be closely watched over so this will not happen again.

Google was ordered to pay $32,600 for each day it had copyrighted material shown on it's search engine site.

However, Google and some newspapers have a very close relationship. The articles and pictures from the newspapers are good for Google and also for the newspapers because it attracts readers to that particular newspaper.

Google also tried to make a deal with the Belgian paper who took them to court, but the paper didn't think the offer was good enough. Also, Google believes what they did was legal under copyright law.

"China shuts 205 Web sites in piracy crackdown"

www.news.com
By Reuters

February 7, 2007

Recently, in China, 205 websites were shutdown to stop the copying of music, software, tv shows, movies, and textbooks. Over the last five months 436 cases were examined and 361 of those were demanded to stop their copyright infringements. A total of $91,000 in fines were taken from these websites.

Taking from the article, "Chinese people habitually download pirated music and movies due to the high price of authorized copies and government restrictions on cultural imports; many Western movies are not even officially available." However, China is very strict on piracy, therefore, they will continue to crackdown on the websites that allow for illegal downloading.

In the end, it is very hard to keep track of the many illegal things that take place over the internet. Officials say it will take a lot of time to manage them effectively.

"EBay bans auctions of virtual treasures"

http://www.latimes.com

By: Alex Pham
February 3, 2007

Recently, EBay banned the selling and buying of 'unreal goods' that are used for gamers to increase the quality of the game. It's questionable if this ban is legal or illegal, but EBay says in cases like this they usually don't allow the auction to take place. However, for years auctions like these have been taking place.

Taking from the article, Researcher Edward Castronova of Indiana University estimated in his book, "Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games," that more than $100 million is exchanged for these 'unreal goods' and a good part of it was on EBay.

The main issue here is that no one knows who the 'unreal goods' rightfully belong too. The gaming companies believe that they have rightful ownership so they won't allow these auctions to take place either. They shut down the accounts that buy and sell the 'unreal goods.'