Thought this may be of interest to some of you. Not very new news but I hadnt seen it.
H. Et voila: >-----Original Message----- <snip> ITU To Propose Intl Cyberspace Treaty At Information Summit 279 words 14 November 2002 Nikkei Report English (c) 2002 Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. All Rights Reserved. TOKYO (Nikkei)--The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will propose at the World Summit on the Information Society in December 2003 the creation of an international cyberspace treaty to set forth basic rules on Internet taxation, copyright protection and crime prevention, according to Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi. In an interview with The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Utsumi said the ITU, a United Nations agency, believes that different rules among countries will hamper cross-border e-commerce and lead to more Internet crimes. The ITU announced a basic plan for the treaty at a preparatory meeting for the summit held in Europe in early November. It will seek cooperation from the Japanese government at a preparatory meeting in Asia in January. The union hopes to incorporate plans to sign the treaty in an actionprogram to be compiled at the world summit, which will be attended by heads of state. The treaty will cover taxation of international e-commerce; copyright protection for content; prevention of Internet crimes, such as cyberterrorism and release of offensive material; security measures such as prevention of illegal access and data tampering; and privacy protection. It will set forth uniform domestic and international guidelines to handle problems that occur. If countries have different rules, some countries will gain a commercial advantage over others, fair competition will be hindered due to the spread of illegal products, and countries without rules could become a hotbed of crime, according to Utsumi. The ITU believes the international rules will be helpful for developing countries in Africa and Asia when they draw up their information technology policies. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Thursday morning edition) 1/20/02 DIARY - POLITICAL AND GENERAL 398 words 21 November 2002 ----- End forwarded message ----- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
