E-TIPS

In contrast to the recent U.S. case that held that websites are not covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act, (see E-tips, October 24, 2002), the Australian Human Rights Commission has reaffirmed that equality of access is still a requirement under Australian law.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has released a report on developments in access to information and privacy legislation throughout Canada from September 2001 to August 2002.

The Daily Mirror won its appeal last week against supermodel Naomi Campbell. In February, the Daily Mirror published pictures of Ms. Campbell leaving a Narcotics Anonymous clinic and published articles detailing her alleged drinking and drug addictions and her subsequent treatment. Ms. Campbell has publicly denied taking drugs in the past. In March, the English High Court held that the newspaper was in breach of confidence and breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 and ordered the Daily Mirror to pay damages.

As an update to our September 26, 2002, E-tips article, Jason Heckel of Salem, Oregon, the first person to be found guilty under Washington state's 1998 Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act (UCEMA), was ordered to pay over $96,000 in costs in addition to a $2,000 fine for a violation of the UCEMA.

Electronic statutes and regulations may soon be coming to an Ontario courtroom near you. Bill 179 2002, an Act to promote government efficiency and to improve services to taxpayers by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting one new Act, was recently given first reading in the Ontario legislature.

The global Internet addressing authority, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), has voted to allow the Internet Society to manage the operation of the registry for the ".org" top-level domain. The Internet Society, a group of computer professionals based in Virginia, has established a new organization called the Public Interest Registry to be the registry operator.

In an attempt to modernize the criminal justice process, the UK Minister of State for Criminal Justice, Sentencing and Law Reform in UK has launched a pilot project at the Manchester Crown Court for virtual plea and directions hearings. Prosecution and defence barristers will now be able to submit information for pleas and directions hearings to the court over a secure Internet website.

A recent order from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals clarifies that court's earlier opinion in Promatek v. Equitrak (see E-tips article, August 15, 2002), by limiting, in two ways, the prohibition on one party's use of another's trademark in its HTML metatags.

The first dot-ca dispute decided under Canadian Internet Registration Authority's ("CIRA") new dispute resolution policy has been released. The domain name at issue was "redrobin.ca". The domain had been registered, but had not been used by the Registrant. The Registrant did, however, exchange letters with Red Robin International, Inc. ("Red Robin") offering to sell them the domain name.

In an October 18, 2002 order, the Federal Court in Florida has dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit brought against Southwest Airlines to force the airline to make its website compatible with accessibility software for the blind. As summarized in the October 10, 2002 E-tips issue, this proceeding involved the question of whether the definition of a "place of public accommodation" in the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) applied to a digital venue as well as a physical one.

On October 16, 2002, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner ("CPC") released a series of findings based on complaints that a number of companies had disclosed customer information without consent, for secondary marketing purposes. The complaints also alleged that the companies had failed to notify customers that personal data would be shared with affiliates and did not provide customers with an opportunity to opt-out of such disclosures. The complaints were brought by the consumer advocacy group, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre ("PIAC").

Where do you sue when the damages were incurred over the Internet? The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has recently put its mind to the thorny issue of forum in the unpublished case of Northwest Healthcare Alliance Inc. v. Healthgrades.com Inc.

The government of the United Kingdom has given Open Source Software (OSS) a boost with the release of a new policy endorsing its use alongside traditional proprietary software. Open Source software is not free. It makes source code publicly available under a licence defined by the Open Source Initiative. The license allows the software to be freely modified and improved, so long as it is redistributed under the same open source licence terms. The Linux operating system is perhaps the most successful and best-known OSS product.

On October 11, 2002, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that Intel's 64-bit Itanium and Itanium 2 processors infringed two of Intergraph's U.S. patents for Parallel Instruction Computing technology ("PIC"). In his decision, Judge T. John Ward found both of Intergraph's patents to be "valid and enforceable" and held that Intergraph was entitled to an injunction on the sale of Itanium processors.

On September 26, 2002, the Minister of Consumer and Business Services introduced Bill 180, to provide a more comprehensive legislative regime for consumer protection in Ontario. Bill 180 will consolidate and update six existing consumer protection laws to provide efficient consumer protection to meet the realities of the digital economy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Cir.) recently considered whether Netscape customers were bound by the arbitration clause in an end-user license agreement. In Specht v. Netscape, Netscape customers sued the company alleging that AOL's plug-in software, Smart Download, invaded their privacy by transmitting personal information back to the software provider when the plug-in was used to browse the Internet.

The World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") recently released the first decision pursuant to the new policy on .name generic top level domains ("TLDs"). The Eligibility Requirements Dispute Resolution Policy for .name ("ERDRP") was approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") on August 1, 2001 and governs the .name generic TLDs and related disputes.

Recently, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner released his findings on a complaint by two individuals that a courier company had improperly collected and posted their electronic signatures on the company's website without their consent. The Commissioner found that the courier company had breached the Personal Information and Electric Documents Act (PIPEDA) when it collected electronic signatures by requiring recipients to sign electronically as a condition for receiving their parcels.

A blind man, Robert Gumson, and a Florida based disability rights group, Access Now, have filed lawsuits against Southwest Airlines and American Airlines. Gumson and Access Now are claiming that the airline companies' websites do not comply with the Americans With Disability Act (ADA). The airlines' websites are incompatible with the screen reader software program that blind individuals use to convert website contents into speech.

The U.S. Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) recently vacated an injunction against Ruth Perryman, which prohibited her from using the term "BEANIE" or "BEANIES" or any colorable imitation. Ty Inc., the manufacturer of Beanie Babies brought the suit for trademark infringement against Perryman who sells second-hand beanbag stuffed animals - including Ty's Beanie Babies – on her Web site (http://www.bargainbeanies.com).