Lex Ferenda

Well, not really. But I am joining the carnival. Blawg Review is a popular weekly round-up of what’s hot in the law blogosphere:

Each weekly issue of Blawg Review is made up of article submissions selected from the best recent law blog posts. The blogger that puts together the Blawg Review carnival each week is called the “host”. You can find the weblogs of our future hosts linked in the sidebar on the right, along with links to all the previous presentations.

From the far side of the world, Peter Black included Lex Ferenda when he took to the blawgstage back in November. Now I’m happy to say that Lex Ferenda will play host to the review. But hold the popcorn - not until October 1st. Thanks to the good people at Blawgreview.com for bringing me on board; apparently I’ll be the first Irish host. And for everyone else, keep reading the weekly reviews.

New and hyped business school rankings are out. My colleagues around the corner in the TCD School of Business are celebrating a comfortable mid-table placing, and an odd honour of being second in the world for “value for money” (”This is calculated using the salary earned by alumni today, course length, fees and other costs, including the opportunity cost of not working for the duration of the course.”) And by pleasant coincidence, today’s Irish Times included an advertisement for The MBA Tour, with such classic lines as:

A select group of the best-renowned Business Schools invite you to a unique MBA event

and

For a list of participating b-schools, event schedule and to register to attend, visit …

I have no idea what a “b-school” is, despite how best their renown is ; )

Have we learned all that much from these bizarre rankings? I doubt it, and virtually every law school dean in the US would tend to agree (Good or bad company? Hmmm)

Anyway. A related question, causing much stress in the UK these days, is whether the ‘massification’ of higher education is a problem, and indeed whether the idea that ‘everyone should go to university‘ (with the polytechnic sector having fairly well disappeared (in a formal sense) in that part of the world) is a good one. BBC Radio 4’s excellent Start The Week grappled with this topic this morning (the episode title in my podcast reader was, cheekily enough, “The decline of the Left and Universities”; the lead topic was Nick Cohen’s new book on, well, the decline of the left!). Download the MP3 (other options available via the programme website).

The guest, the ever-controversial Claire Fox, is speaking in a debate tomorrow (Tuesday). Should be a right battle alright. Unfortunately (for me) it’s in London. I do have some sympathy with her central thesis; expanding numbers and bringing historically non-university education under a big university umbrella does not necessarily lead to an improvement in either educational standards or equity of access. However, those that argue so are, in my experience of debating this at conferences etc, also of the view that if we just reduced the numbers, kicked out media studies and applied computing, and brought back gowns, all the ills of the modern world would be cured. That I doubt.

Finally. Forget yer business schools and yer massification debates; if you really want to understand what’s happening in higher education, take note of the fact that author David Lodge is 72 years young (yesterday). His wise observations of university life (bibliography) are probably more useful than the FT rankings, despite the age of some of his works. Happy birthday.

(This was going to be an edit to today’s post on wonderful spam, and a sibling to the coverage of Data Protection Day, but it turned into a longer piece, so I’m posting it as a standalone entry).

Not long after posting about spam, I picked up (via the Tech News Review feed) this story from Friday’s Times, a report of a case (Microsoft v McDonald, 12 December 2006, Levinson J in the High Court, Chancery) from the tail end of 2006…where Microsoft took on the spammers and…well, IPKat has a good summary, so over to them:

Microsoft normally protected Hotmail subscribers against spam by setting up its own ‘target accounts’, which it used as decoys to catch spammers. Throught this system, Microsoft discovered a business trading as BIZADS that operated a website offering to sell database lists containing a large number of email addresses. Information on the website indicated that the email account holders on the lists had either opted to receive marketing communications or had not indicated that they did not want to receive the communications. However, a high proportion of people who received emails from purchasers of BIZADS database lists complained that they were receiving unsolicited mail.

You can’t make this stuff up. Microsoft sues (making use of the (European) Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communication, 2002/58/EC), but apparently in its capacity as - well, we dunno. The Times indicates that the case means that ISPs (Microsoft or even MS Hotmail is hardly an ISP as the public understands the term, but that’s what the Times said..) can make use of the anti-spam provisions of 2002/58. The IPKat report is more detailed, but hints in a narrower direction. There’s no report out there, that I can find.

Matthew Arnold & Baldwin’s ‘Upload IT’ newsletter sez:

The High Court awarded summary judgment as the defendant had no real prospect of defending the claim. Interestingly, the Court clarified that Microsoft had a cause of action under the Regulations as it fell within a class of people intended to be covered by the 2003 Regulations. Microsoft was awarded damages and an injunction to stop further transmission of unsolicited emails to Hotmail accounts.

The regulations being the implementation of the Directive through the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. Could this all be true? Is this a good thing for overspammed customers or a worrying jump towards seeing spam as a purely economic problem rather than a privacy-related one? Did the European directive really intend to cover the hassle caused to Microsoft - and if it did, should we care?

I’ve been reading some odd books about blogging recently. I’m starting to turn my attention towards the question of organised media v ‘citizen journalism’ (incidentally, check out this great CBC (Canadian) Radio Editor’s Choice on citizen journalists, court reporting and more (MP3 download)). One of the ways I’m approaching this is to look at the ‘advice’ given in non-legal sources to wannabe bloggers, podcasters and such. So earlier this week, I found myself in the library with a stack of “Blogging For Dummies”-type books. (Don’t worry, I’m looking at online sources too!)

Anyway, one of the books - I can’t decipher which one - mentioned the Samuel Pepys diary, which I had forgotten about, having seen some publicity when it kicked off, and paid little attention since. (Webaddicts and blogging old-timers, though, will find this story very old news!)

As the ‘about’ page describes, it’s a project which sees a page of Pepys’ famous 17th-century diary of life and times in London published as a ‘blog entry’ each day. Each entry contains crosslinks and annotations. They are four years in at this stage, and still going strong. It’s an 1893 edition (therefore no violation of the Copyright Acts) and perfectly suited to the blog format. Quite subversive, too, when set against those who would see blogging as having magically appeared with no connections to prior media; yes it is different, but it builds upon something(s?), diary-keeping (and publication) included.

Here’s a recent entry, as a taster. Why not add the RSS feed to your bookmarks/reader?

He being gone my wife and I took coach and to Covent Garden, to buy a maske at the French House, Madame Charett’s, for my wife; in the way observing the streete full of coaches at the new play, “The Indian Queene;” which for show, they say, exceeds “Henry the Eighth.” Thence back to Mrs. Turner’s and sat a while with them talking of plays and I know not what, and so called to see Tom, but not at home, though they say he is in a deep consumption, and Mrs. Turner and Dike and they say he will not live two months to an end. So home and to the office, and then to supper and to bed.

Ah, spam. Where would we be without it? I’ve been thinking about it recently. My current email address is a university one; I used Gmail for a while while I was outside the bubble, but it’s easier (given network restrictions etc) to stick to the ‘official’ one while I’m back inside it. Recently, the on-site Spam Assassin software has been replaced by off-site Microsoft-owned FrontBridge, which doesn’t fill me with much glee.

Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to link to this tongue-in cheek article from the New York Times: “Raining E-Blows On Egos”. Reporter Lisa Foderano gives various examples of puzzled and amused responses to inappropriate (yet appropriate) spam.

And her heart aches for one of her young employees, the only one in the small firm not to have finished college, who seems to be a magnet for spam pushing Johnny-come-lately bachelor’s degree programs. “It’s rubbing him raw day in and day out,” she said. Worsening the psychic toll is the increasingly focused tailoring of spam of all stripes.

When I worked for a student representative organisation, I had the best ones of these up on my wall. It made me laugh for a whole five seconds, but it was something.

The brilliant Canadian independent musician Brad Sucks put together an album entitled Outside The Inbox (free download or $5 CD). It’s a series of songs inspired by subject lines in spam emails. It’s similar (but just as insane) as Spam Radio, which I discovered nearly five years ago, and still tune into from time to time. It takes spam emails and converts them (through text-to-speech) into audio, and sets the result to chillout electronic music. Simple and original.

On a more serious note, note last week’s news that a phishing spammer was convicted under the (US) CAN-SPAM Act; the first full jury trial leading to a conviction since the law came into force. His dirty deeds involved fake AOL emails requesting billing data. You all know the type.

Spam spam spam.

Edit: there’s more…over here!

Support Digital Rights Ireland by pledging just €5 or €10 a month

Today (Sunday) is European Data Protection Day.

Other posts: DRI 1 (how to protect your own data) | DRI 2 (press release) | Silicon Republic | Cearta | Cloudlands | TCAL | Eire.com (Antoin has a very persuasive post about the importance of data protection even for ‘minor’ details)
(I’ll add others here as I see them, leave a comment to speed things up…)

A 2003 Eurobarometer survey on the protection of privacy in the European Union showed that 70% of European citizens feel they know little about what is done in their country to protect their personal data.

However, data protection issues are central in citizens’ lives: at work, in their relations with public authorities, in the health field, when they travel or surf the internet. The right to data protection is also the prerequisite for the exercise of other fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of speech or conscience.

Therefore, in 2007, for the first time, the Council of Europe will be celebrating a Data Protection Day on 28 January. This will be the occasion for European citizens to become more aware of personal data protection and of what their rights and responsibilities are in that regard.

• Data Protection Commissioner (Ireland)
• Digital Rights Ireland (why not ‘celebrate’ the day with a contribution - DRI has a court battle over data retention coming up and could use your support)
• Open Rights Group (UK)
• EU page on Data Protection (Brilliant resource for legal research)

As this post is getting a lot of traffic, I should explain why I’m banging on about Digital Rights Ireland etc. The ‘official’ activities, mostly based around press releases from national data protection commissioners and agencies, are all well and good. In fact, coordinating them is to be welcomed. However, I believe that it’s important to take a more realistic and constructive approach (data rights being about action, not just consumption of political messages and all that), and thus there is a clear connection between vague calls by public authorities to ‘protect your data’ through existing statutory methods and concrete calls to change bad governmental practices and worse laws. Start with DRI’s five steps (which include personal, practical and political actions of various sorts), but please don’t stop there: get involved, get angry and get active!

Update: Antoin O Lachtnain has a perfect example - he says:

One area I am concerned about is the workings of supermarket loyalty cards, and the amount of information connected with them. It would be great if anyone would be interested in working with Digital Rights Ireland to help research this.

Continuing with the local news bulletin, my supervisor Dr. Eoin O’Dell has opened the gates to Cearta (the Irish word for ‘rights’, hence the subtitle to his blog and the title of this post). Note the traditional welcome here. He has been shadow-blogging for a bit and has built up quite some archives already (covering everything from reports on legal conferences to discussions on Irish television). I’ve played a small (techie) role in getting it up and running (or not, in some cases), and am now looking forward to having my thesis examined through a series of interlinked blog posts. Seriously, though, there’s some great reading in there already, and having supervisors and students sharing the blogspace has got to be a good idea - it’s a popular one in places like Stanford, where their aggregator happily throws all of it at you in one glorious and fascinating lump.

I wonder if other bloggers out there with current Trinity College affiliations would be interested in an aggregator/blogring/feed/something? Email me or leave a comment if this sounds like something you’d like to get involved in…

Dubliners with an interest in privacy and/or human rights law, or related topics, should take note of next Tuesday (January 30th) as an important date for your various diaries. The first evening-stream Dublin Legal Workshop of the academic year here in TCD brings the visit of Gavin Phillipson - originally of Durham, but recently the subject of a close-season transfer to King’s in London, and then a return to Durham just this month. He’s a former solicitor, lectures in human rights, torts and public law, and is a noted author (especially in the area of privacy law). His new book (co-authored with Helen Fenwick), Media Freedom Under The Human Rights Act, is one of the titles that I am looking forward to reading this year (when I get a few extra days in the week to catch up…). I should note, as an aside, that I have had the pleasure of proofreading a chapter that Phillipson and Fenwick have contributed to a forthcoming book on freedom of expression.

“The English Privacy Emperor is Not Wearing Strasbourg’s Clothes” is the title of the talk, which kicks off at 6pm in the Law School - that’s in House 39 in Trinity College.

Bí ann nó bí id’ chearnóg.

Download the PDF of a new book, Community Created Content: Law, Business and Policy (Creative Commons license, not surprising given the content and indeed the status of one of the co-authors as head of CC Finland!)

Amazon page | summary and blog entry

I’m looking forward to attending the annual Videoforum conference/exhibition in London next month. They’ve been making information available bit-by-bit; today’s inbox brings news of a handy list of seminars and presentations. While some are obviously more geared towards production executives with substantial cheques in their pockets, there is a very interesting stream of events on IPTV, practitioner presentations on religious broadcasting, and a few other interesting trends (like the continued worries about ‘tapeless TV’ - seems to be the new ‘paperless office!).

Due to my various and exciting commitments in Dublin, I’m only going to be there for a day, so I won’t get to all the sessions. Given that there’s also a huge exhibition area (not to mention free Wifi, it’s really a case of trying to get as many bright ideas and inspirations for future research, as well as the always-important task of talking with interesting people and asking them hard questions.