FTC tightens rules protecting children's online privacy

The government announced tighter rules on Wednesday to protect children's online privacy by restricting the collection of data, like the child's location, unless parents consent. The actions by the Federal Trade Commission mark an update to rules that were based on the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, developed when most computers were big beige boxes sitting under office desks instead of smartphones in backpacks, and online social media was unheard of. "The Commission takes seriously its mandate to protect children's online privacy in this ever-changing technological landscape," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. Under the updated rule, IP addresses, which are unique to each computer, will be added to the list of personal information that cannot be collected from children without parental consent if the data will be used for behavioral advertising or tracking. Location, photos, videos and audio files were also added to the definition. Leibowitz said the commission struck "the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children's online activities." But Senator John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee, which oversees the FTC, said he had wanted legislation that went further. "There are groups that will complain about it (COPPA being too weak), and so will I, but we can't do anything more about it right now," he said. "Children's privacy as far as I am concerned is an absolutely top line issue." Privacy advocates and advertising companies had been watching closely to see if the agency would go through with a pledge made in August to add IP addresses to the restrictions. Advertisers had argued against the move since several people in a family - adults and children - could use the same computer. Privacy advocates said it was needed to protect children. Also under the updated rule, plug-ins and other third parties connected to children's websites and apps cannot allow third parties to collect information on children without parental consent. Big companies would be able to deal with the changes but the tighter regulators could be onerous for smaller firms, said John Feldman of the law firm Reed Smith LLP. "I represent companies who are trying to sell products and services," he said. "The bigger companies feel like they can deal with it. There are significant costs that will be associated with this." Privacy advocate Kathryn Montgomery, who teaches at American University, said the update was needed, given the growth of social networks and mobile computing. She urged the FTC to be tough about enforcing the rules. "The new rules should help ensure that companies targeting children throughout the rapidly expanding digital media landscape will be required to engage in fair marketing and data collection practices," she said. The proposal also specifies that family websites, which are websites aimed at children and adults, would be allowed to screen users to determine their ages and only provide protection to children under age 13. Currently, all visitors to the websites must be treated as if they are under age 13. The FTC's rule implementing COPPA became effective in 2000. The updated rule takes effect on July 1. It was approved by a vote of three to one with one commissioner abstaining.

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Vatican takes first spot in Internet domain name draw

The Vatican has come out in first place in a long-awaited draw to expand the Internet address system with new domain names that go beyond the usual .com, .org or .net endings. ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address system, announced this week the domain name .catholic written in Chinese characters will be the first bid it considers in a drive to expand and reorganize sites on the World Wide Web. The same extension in Arabic letters ranked 25th in the random draw and the Vatican's application for a version in Cyrillic for Russian and other Slavic languages came in 96th. Ranking high means the applicant could get approval early next year to operate the new domain and approve addresses using it. In the Vatican's case, Rome could then ensure only genuine Roman Catholic institutions get to use that domain name. "This is a way to give a coherence and authentication to our presence in the digital arena," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. "Anyone looking online will recognize the site belongs to an institution that belongs to the Catholic Church," he said, adding the new, so-called top level domain names (|TLDs) could also help speed online searches. .BIBLE AND .ISLAM For online retailers such as Amazon, whose application for .store in Japanese came in second, early approval could mean a competitive advantage and prompt a quick introduction of the new name. But the Vatican did not enter the draw for commercial reasons and would not rush to launch its TLDs, Tighe said. In addition, the main TLD it seeks - .catholic in Latin letters - ended up in 1,366th place and may take months before it is approved. Website owners are now restricted to a few dozen TLDs such as .com and country code domains such as .co.uk or .fr. Many of the 1,930 applications for new TLDs came from companies, including Internet giants such as Amazon and Google. Several other faith-based groups applied for other TLDs such as .bible or .islam. The extension .mormon was the next-highest religious application drawn, coming in at 118th place. ICANN (www.icann.org), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has stressed that assigning a certain TLD does not imply any endorsement of the religious group seeking it, just recognition it is the best suited to use the name. Tighe said the ICANN draw handled applications for TLDs in non-Latin alphabets first, which explained why the Vatican's Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic extensions came out far ahead of its main TLD in Latin letters. INTERNET IMPRIMATUR ICANN invited comments on applications earlier this year. The Vatican's application for exclusive use of .catholic drew criticism from members of several Protestant churches that also use the term, which comes from the Greek for "universal". "This request is a move by a powerful group to squelch the voices and rights of other Christians," Dave Daubert, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Elgin, Illinois, wrote on the ICANN webpage for comments on the applications. Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, apparently saw no hope of a consensus on religious TLDs and opposed them all. Some religions seem to have kept out of the fray entirely. There were no applications for .buddhist, .hindu or .jewish.

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Vatican says pope beats Justin Bieber on re-tweets

Pope Benedict, white-haired, 85, and a neophyte to social media site Twitter, has beaten out 18-year old heartthrob Justin Bieber to set a percentage record for re-tweeting by his followers, the Vatican said on Thursday. The Vatican newspaper said that as of noon Italian time on Thursday the pope had 2.1 million followers on Twitter, eight days after his first tweet was sent. While Canadian singer-songwriter Bieber has roughly 15 times as many followers - 31.7 million - the Vatican newspaper said Benedict had beaten Bieber on re-tweets. It said about 50 percent of the pope's followers had re-tweeted his first tweet on December 12 while only 0.7 percent of Bieber's followers had re-tweeted one of the singer's most popular tweets on September 26, when he commented on the death by cancer of a six-year-old fan. The Vatican said this was part of a wider trend in which people were looking for more spiritual content. The pope already tweets in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic. The newspaper said he will start tweeting in Latin and Chinese soon.

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Saudi website editor could face death for apostasy-rights group

The editor of a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human Rights Watch said on Saturday. Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said. Badawi had initially been charged with the less serious offence of insulting Islam through electronic channels, but at a December 17 hearing a judge referred him to a more senior court and recommended he be tried for apostasy, the monitoring group said. Apostasy, the act of changing religious affiliation, carries an automatic death sentence in Saudi Arabia, along with crimes including blasphemy. Badawi's website included articles that were critical of senior religious figures, the monitoring group said. A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry was not available to comment. The world's top oil exporter follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam and applies Islamic law, or sharia. Judges base their decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written legal code or on precedent. King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's ruler, has pushed for reforms to the legal system, including improved training for judges and the introduction of precedent to standardize verdicts and make courts more transparent. However, Saudi lawyers say that conservatives in the Justice Ministry and the judiciary have resisted implementing many of the changes that he announced in 2007.

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Sri Lanka arrests 100 Chinese for cyber fraud, police say

Sri Lanka on Saturday arrested at least 100 Chinese nationals accused of an internet fraud scheme targeting people in their home country, a police spokesman said. The accused, all in Sri Lanka on tourist visas, are suspected of hacking into computers in China and then demanding their owners transfer them money, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakodi told Reuters. Chinese police requested help from Sri Lanka, he said. Officials at the Chinese embassy in Colombo were not available for comment. China has been the top lender to Sri Lanka since the end of a 25-year war in May 2009 and thousands of Chinese are working in the country on Chinese-funded infrastructure projects.

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NRA returns to public debate, to meet with media

One week after the mass shootings that killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school — 20 of them children — the nation's largest gun-rights lobby is returning to the spotlight as Congress prepares to consider tighter restrictions on firearms in the new year.
The 4.3 million-member National Rifle Association largely disappeared from public debate after the shootings in Newtown, Conn., choosing atypical silence as a strategy as the nation sought answers after the rampage. The NRA took down its Facebook page and kept silent on Twitter.
Unlike its actions in the wake of other mass shootings, the group did not put out a statement of condolence for the victims while simultaneously defending the rights of gun owners.
That strategy, however, is set to change, starting with a news conference Friday.
In the lead-up, the group re-activated its Facebook account — it has 1.7 million members — and its Twitter feed now warns supporters that "President Obama supports gun control measures, including reinstating an assault weapons ban." The group also announced that its top lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre, planned to appear Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
It's an about-face from the group that ignored requests for comment and shunned media attention for four days following last week's shootings.
"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of 4 million moms and dads, sons and daughters and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the group said in its first public statement since the shootings, released Tuesday. "Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting."
The group also promised "meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again" and announced plans for Friday's news conference on what is, in reality, the last real work day before Washington scatters for the long Christmas holiday.
Since the slayings, President Barack Obama has demanded "real action, right now" against U.S. gun violence and called on the NRA to join the effort. Moving quickly after several congressional gun-rights supporters said they would consider new legislation to control firearms, the president said this week he wants proposals on reducing gun violence that he can take to Congress by January.
Obama has already asked Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and pass legislation that would end a provision that allows people to purchase firearms from private parties without a background check. Obama also has indicated that he wants Congress to pursue the possibility of limiting high-capacity magazines.

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NRA calls for armed police officer in every school

Guns and police officers in all American schools are what's needed to stop the next killer "waiting in the wings," the National Rifle Association declared Friday, taking a no-retreat stance in the face of growing calls for gun control after the Connecticut shootings that claimed the lives of 26 children and school staff.
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, the group's chief executive officer.
Some members of Congress who had long scoffed at gun-control proposals have begun to suggest some concessions could be made, and a fierce debate over legislation seems likely next month. President Barack Obama has demanded "real action, right now."
The nation's largest gun-rights lobby broke its weeklong silence on the shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School with a defiant presentation. The event was billed as a news conference, but NRA leaders took no questions. Twice, they were interrupted by banner-waving protesters, who were removed by security.
Some had predicted that after the slaughter of a score of elementary-school children by a man using a semi-automatic rifle, the group might soften its stance, at least slightly. Instead, LaPierre delivered a 25-minute tirade against the notion that another gun law would stop killings in a culture where children are exposed daily to violence in video games, movies and music videos. He argued that guns are the solution, not the problem.
"Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over legislation, regulation or anything else; as soon as our kids return to school after the holiday break, we need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work," LaPierre said. "And by that I mean armed security."
He said Congress should immediately appropriate funds to post an armed police officer in every school. Meanwhile, he said the NRA would develop a school emergency response program that would include volunteers from the group's 4.3 million members to help guard children.
His armed-officers idea was immediately lambasted by gun control advocates, and not even the NRA's point man on the effort seemed willing to go so far. Former Republican Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, whom LaPierre named national director of the program, said in an interview that decisions about armed guards in schools should be made by local districts.
"I think everyone recognizes that an armed presence in schools is sometimes appropriate," Hutchinson said. "That is one option. I would never want to have a mandatory requirement for every school district to have that."
He also noted that some states would have to change their laws to allow armed guards at schools.
Hutchinson said he'll offer a plan in January that will consider other measures such as biometric entry points, patrols and consideration of school layouts to protect security.
LaPierre argued that guards need to be in place quickly because "the next Adam Lanza," the suspected shooter in Newtown, Conn., is already planning an attack on another school.
"How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with wall-to-wall attention and a sense of identity that they crave, while provoking others to try to make their mark?" LaPierre asked. "A dozen more killers, a hundred more? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?"
While there is a federally maintained database of the mentally ill — people so declared by their states — a 1997 Supreme Court ruling that states can't be required to contribute information has left significant gaps. In any case, creation of a mandatory national database probably would have had little impact on the ability of suspected shooters in four mass shootings since 2011 to get and use powerful weapons. The other people accused either stole the weapons used in the attacks or had not been ruled by courts to be "mentally defective" before the shootings.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the NRA is blaming everyone but itself for a national gun crisis and is offering "a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe."
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., called the NRA's response "both ludicrous and insulting" and pointed out that armed personnel at Columbine High School and Fort Hood could not stop mass shootings. The liberal group CREDO, which organized an anti-NRA protest on Capitol Hill, called LaPierre's speech "bizarre and quite frankly paranoid."
"This must be a wake-up call even to the NRA's own members that the NRA's Washington lobbyists need to stand down and let Congress pass sensible gun control laws now," CREDO political director Becky Bond said in a statement.
The NRA's proposal would be unworkable given the huge numbers of officers needed, said the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Craig Steckler.
He pointed to budget cuts and hiring freezes and noted that in his hometown of Fremont, Calif., it would take half the city's police force to post one officer at each of the city's 43 schools.
The Department of Education has counted 98,817 public schools in the United States and an additional 33,366 private schools.
There already are an estimated 10,000 school resource officers, most of them armed and employed by local police departments, in the nation's schools, according to Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.
Gun rights advocates on Capitol Hill had no immediate comment. They will have to walk a tough road between pressure from the powerful NRA, backed by an army of passionate supporters, and outrage over the Sandy Hook deaths that has already swayed some in Congress to adjust their public views.
A CNN/ORC poll taken this week found 52 percent of Americans favor major restrictions on guns or making all guns illegal. Forty-six percent of people questioned said government and society can take action to prevent future gun violence, up 13 percentage points from two years ago in the wake of the shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six and wounded then Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Since the Connecticut slayings, President Obama has demanded action against U.S. gun violence and has called on the NRA to join the effort. Moving quickly after several congressional gun-rights supporters said they would consider new legislation to control firearms, the president said this week he wants proposals that he can take to Congress next month.
Obama has already asked Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 and to pass legislation that would stop people from purchasing firearms from private sellers without background checks. Obama also has indicated he wants Congress to pursue the possibility of limiting high-capacity firearms magazines.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said former President Bill Clinton called her with an offer to help get an assault weapons ban reinstated. Clinton signed such a ban into law in 1994, but it expired after 10 years.
Feinstein said she's not opposed to having armed guards at schools, but she called the NRA proposal a distraction from what she said was the real problem: "easy access to these killing machines" that are far "more powerful and lethal" than the guns that were banned under the old law

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Few report sex assaults at military academies

 New details in a Pentagon report show that military academy students report just a fraction of the sexual assaults they say occurred in the past school year, signaling a continued reluctance by victims to seek criminal investigations.
As reported earlier this week, the report shows that reported sexual assaults at the nation's three military academies jumped by 23 percent overall this year. But officials say that at least some of the increase is the result of ongoing efforts to encourage military members and students to report unwelcome sexual contact.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a memo released Friday that he's concerned there hasn't been greater progress in preventing sexual assault and harassment at the academies. He has asked officials to beef up prevention programs.
According to an anonymous survey of academy students, more than 50 percent of women and 10 percent of men said they experienced sexual harassment during the last school year. At the same time, a bit more than 12 percent of women and 2 percent of men enrolled in the three military academies said they experienced "unwanted sexual contact."
Those percentages are largely the same as previous years, but they indicate that far more students experience either sexual harassment or assault than the 80 who reported it in the past year. There were 65 reported sexual assaults in the 2010-2011 academic year, and 41 the previous year.
Of the 80 reported assaults, 42 victims provided information to law enforcement or their commands for an investigation, while 38 accessed medical care and other services but declined to seek an investigation.
According to Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, director of the sexual assault prevention and response office, sexual assault "continues to be a persistent problem" at the academies. But he noted that based on the survey, as much as 84 percent of the crimes go unreported.
That number is a concern, he said, and noted that sexual assaults are a problem in society more broadly. Still, he said, the military must be held to a higher standard.
Of the cases investigated this year, just eight people have been sent to court martial. Five cases have been completed and four were convicted of at least one charge. Three cases are continuing. In some cases the person being investigated was not a member of the military and thus did not fall under the jurisdiction of the department.
The documents also show that cadets and midshipmen are three times as likely to be victims of assault as active-duty troops.
Navy officials expressed concerns that the data suggests there is the perception among some Naval Academy students that a culture persists that discourages the reporting of these crimes.
"I am disappointed that we have apparently not instilled in each and every midshipman the sense that being loyal to one another means first being loyal to the service and to the uniform," said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
Mabus said he has asked Navy leaders to take steps to "deglamorize the use of alcohol" and foster a command climate that is more conducive to the reporting of sex crimes.
Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for military personnel who have been sexually assaulted, said the report shows a continuing need for changes in the command structure and the culture of the military.
"Victims are afraid to come forward because of the retaliation they face, including victim-blaming, isolation and bad performance reviews, to being kicked out with errant medical discharge like personality disorders," said the group's president, Nancy Parrish. "It's a shameful blight on our nation."
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, co-chairman of the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, said that while the statistics are troubling, "the increased rate of reporting is in response to efforts combating this issue, both by leadership at the Defense Department, and by Congress." Those efforts, he said, will continue.

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Iran claims it has circumvented sanctions

Iran's oil minister claims his country has successfully circumvented sanctions on the sale of its oil.
State TV on Sunday broadcast comments by Rostam Ghasemi that the industry was in "bad shape" about two months ago due to the oil embargo by the West, "but we left the bottleneck behind, almost."
Ghasemi also said that Iran has set up its own insurance for ships that carry its oil after Western companies refused to cover them.
Iran's oil exports have fallen by about half in recent months due to the punitive oil and banking measures enacted by the U.S. and Europe over concerns Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons. The currency has also plummeted.
Iran denies that it is developing weapons. It has taken a consistently defiant tone toward the sanctions.

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Iran claims it has overcome sanctions

Iran's oil minister claimed Sunday his country has successfully overcome sanctions on the sale of its oil, state TV reported.
The U.N. and West have imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran to try to persuade it to stop its uranium enrichment project, including a ban by the EU on oil imports, but Iran remains defiant.
Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi that the industry was in "bad shape" about two months ago because of the oil embargo, "but resorting to planning in the oil industry, we left the bottleneck behind, almost." The EU imposed its embargo in July.
Ghasemi said Iran's oil sector would be able to export its oil to the "farthest spots" around the world. In contrast, China, India and Korea recently announced that they have cut back their oil imports from Iran to comply with international sanctions.
Ghasemi also said that Iran has set up its own insurance for oil tankers after Western companies refused to cover them.
"By revoking insurance, the West disrupted transportation of oil, the most important part" of trade, Ghasemi was quoted as saying.
He said since a large portion of Iran's revenue comes from oil exports, "the embargo is a very important issue."
Iran's oil exports have fallen by about half in recent months due to the punitive oil and banking measures enacted by the U.S. and Europe over concerns Tehran might pursue production of nuclear weapons. Iran denies that it is developing weapons, saying its nuclear activities are aimed at peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment.
Before the fall of exports, some 80 percent of Iran's foreign revenue had come from oil sales. The drop has contributed to a plummet in the country's currency has plummeted to less than half its former value.
Due to longstanding U.S. sanctions on Iran's oil industry, the country has been suffering from lack of technology and equipment in its oil sector, but a senior official said that problem, too, is being solved.
Ahmad Qalehbani, head of state-owned National Iranian Oil Company, told the semi-official ISNA news agency that the country is capable of producing its own equipment for 85 percent of its needs in the oil industry.

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