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Australia May Set Publishing Precedent
by Maureen Sirhal
A hearing this week in Victoria, Australia's Supreme Court will determine where a defamation case filed by an Australian entrepreneur against U.S.-based Dow Jones will be heard. The case could set a precedent for Internet publishing, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Tuesday.
Melbourne entrepreneur Joseph Gutnick sued Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for alleged defamation in an article in one of the company's publications and on the Internet. The alleged defamation is complicated by the fact that the article was published on the Web and thus accessible in Melbourne.
Gutnick asserts that the case should be heard in Melbourne because people there could access the article. Dow Jones disputes that notion, arguing that the article, "Unholy Gains," was written in the United States, by a U.S. citizen and for the U.S. market. Dow Jones lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said any trial should occur in the physical location of the computer server where the Internet version of article was published.
The court's decision could influence decisions in future cases under similar circumstances.
Inching Toward WTO Accession
A trade minister meeting at the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which opens in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, will address the major challenges in opening a new round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks and assess the future of free trade in Asia.
Earlier this week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said he believes China is committed to WTO membership. But after his meeting in Shanghai with Chinese Foreign Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng, Zoellick told reporters no timeline for entry has been determined. "As to the exact timing, I cannot say and do not know, but there is good commitment on all sides to push forward," he said, according to Agence France-Presse. But Zoellick also said China faces major challenges to remove market barriers to gain membership by year's end.
Xinhua News service reported that WTO President Mike Moore also met with Shi Guangsheng. Shi said China's view on its accession to the WTO is "consistent and active." He added that economic reforms necessary for WTO accession are "conducive to China's fundamental interests, to its reform and opening-up drive, to the construction of a socialist market economic system, to its sustained economic growth." Moore told Shi he hoped that China's WTO entry could be finalized before November, when the fourth WTO Ministerial Meeting is due to be held.
China: An IT Oasis
China's Information Technology agency, meanwhile, released statistics Wednesday revealing an expected annual growth rate of 20 percent in the country's information industries within the next five years, Xinhua News reported. The sector is expected to account for 7 percent of the nation's gross domestic product by 2005, according to government estimates.
China's official news agency also reported that the government "will make efforts to push forward and give priority to the application of information technology, to boost economic and social development." Lu Xinkui, the deputy minister of information industry, said the information industry has seen a strong growth rate of 32 percent since January, nearly 13 percent higher than in the same period last year.
A Free Trade Area of Asia?
APEC is only one outlet for talk of free trade in Asia this week. Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong told delegates at the opening dinner for the 2001 International Monetary Conference that a study has begun into the possibility of establishing a free-trade zone between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China that would cover 1.7 billion people.
"If East Asia gets its politics right, it will regain its former dynamism," Goh told delegates who included European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg. "A study is underway on the feasibility of an ASEAN-China free-trade area. Also under study is how East Asia could gradually evolve into an East Asia community."
Commission Proposes New Measures For Net Security
The European Commission on Wednesday recommended a series of actions to make the Internet safer for e-commerce.
Following a March request by the Stockholm European Council, the commission, which is the regulatory arm of the European Union, recommended that measures be explored to raise citizen awareness of the security threats that exist on the Internet. Additionally, the commission proposed pushing for the development of a warning system for information systems.
The commission's research and development framework program includes specific requests for necessary enhancements to Internet security. The commission also recommended the formation of clear standards for encryption solutions. In order to create necessary legal framework, the proposals call for amendments to Title VI of the Treaty on the European Union, which addresses threats to computer systems, including hacking and denial-of-service attacks.
Summit Serves As Back Drop for State of Play in Cyberspace
The Internet Society begins it annual meetings in conjunction with the Global Internet Summit this week on Stockholm, Sweden. Participants will address an array of technical and policy issues.
Policy experts and regulators from around the world -- including Peter Coroneos, executive director of the Internet Industry Association of Australia, Richard Swetenham, a member of the European Commission's Information Society Department, and University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist -- will kick off the regulatory panels Wednesday by addressing Internet content and the increasing patchwork of conflicting global laws intended to address it.
Later this week, privacy experts from the Electronic Privacy Information Center and academics will address issues of global privacy in cyberspace. Technical experts from companies such as Cisco Systems and Siemens, Ericsson, Lucent also will join Internet founder and WorldCom Vice President Vinton Cerf to address the technical challenges of Internet development.
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