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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN), the group in charge of setting Internet addressing guidelines, shot down a proposal to give adult websites their own “.xxx” domain. Apparently, certain groups from both the adult-entertainment industry and various religions (first time working together?) weren’t in favor.

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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that it has reached 116 settlements after going after 400 students / computer users at 13 universities just a few weeks ago. More settlements are expected, as the RIAA sent out another batch of letters last week.

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Last week, 40,000+ students at Purdue (including myself) received a warning email. In short, stop illegal downloads, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is coming. Purdue is advising all computer users to remove or at least partially disable any peer-to-peer file sharing software on their computers.

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A top engineering school in India, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, has pulled the plug on Internet usage between 11 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. at its 13 hostels, claiming that "addiction to surfing, gaming and blogging was affecting students’ performance, making them reclusive and even suicidal."

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In a rather bold move, Thomas Rubin, associate general counsel at
Microsoft, released a copy of the speech he is giving to the
Association of American Publishers (AAP) before actually giving it. Is
releasing your speech early in fashion? Apparently so, if you’re
representing Microsoft and have a few choice thoughts to say about your
main competitor: Google.

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) wants to give
hundreds of college students an alternative to being sued for copyright infringement. A new site has been setup, P2PLawsuits.com, as a way for the RIAA to interface with these suspected students. The idea is that settlements out of court will be more of a convenience / cheaper for those who might otherwise find themselves in the middle of a lawsuit.

The RIAA is sending letters offering discounted settlements to 400 students at 13 universities. And that’s just the first round: the intention is for hundreds of these pre-litigation letters to go out to university computer users every month.

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So our friends at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) are running multiple stories on Google today with reference to online video. At the heart of the story is the classic clash between Google’s mantra “Do No Evil” and, well, the evil Google is apparently doing.

Perhaps as a result of this alleged evil, talks are back on among media companies to create a YouTube rival, according to unnamed executives involved in the situation. Another form of pseudo-pressure is coming from MySpace, which is likely to announce today a video-filtering system so as to be on the good side of those copyright protectors.

But back to the Google scandal…

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I came across two pieces of information today, and the juxtaposition was too much to not share. First piece: a new study out by AXA has found that retired people in 11 countries
are now spending more time using the Internet over traditional pastimes
of gardening, hiking, traveling, etc. Apparently, the term for this new
demographic is "silver surfers."

Second piece: Near North Korea’s northern border, Chinese cell phones and prepaid phone cards are a hot black-market item, regardless of the government trying to ban them. The reason: the new phones have free access to the Chinese Internet, which, even if censored, is a portal to the outside world not available to North Koreans through their regular Intranet.

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