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Read the EU Microsoft report.

The saddest part of the spam problem is this: The "technical solutions" you name above already cause entire nations to be blackholed in thousands of servers around the world. Many postmasters have received only spam from .cn and .kr, so they dump all mail from those TLDs in the trash.

Article 13
Unsolicited communications
1. The use of [...] electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing may only be allowed in respect of subscribers who have given their prior consent.

Blacklists are a bad idea in the first place, but if legitimate eMail gets blocked because a provider fails to fight spam, it is that ISP (rather than the blacklist operators) who deserves all the wrath of its customers.

Sad as the current situation is, combined with the onslaught of Trojan eMail it will hopefully make Spanish businesses and citizens pressure their authorities to enforce a draconian crackdown on the perpetrators - finally treating spammers as the cyber-terrorists they are.

What? Norway isn't in the EU, and has no plans to join. That's a nice little anti-american tirade, but what exactly are you talking about?

Fire the entire commission and create a new one with the CEOs of the biggest corporations, thus eliminating the intermediaries. This would show reality as it is.

Well, this in a way already exists: The European Round Table of Industrials (ERT) is a very powerfull lobby group in Europe, the big corporations are in here. They do a lot of policy making. I got to know them when they published their report on higher education in the EU (one of their reports which are not on their site!) in the early 90's, which contained very scary stuff (a sell out of higher education to industry, even brain control: teachers who did not support the "European idea" should not get promoted), this report was rewritten by an official EU institution (IRDAC) in a less offending (obfuscated) way as a "green paper". This green paper became a "white paper" and a "memorandum" of the European Commission. A lot of European students and teachers protested against this plan. In the end, it was the Counsil of European ministers of education which killed the education plans of ERT, but since then a lot of ideas in the ERT plan were executed little by little as "technical" decisions.
So, European Parliament indeed has little power and can almost be neglected, the non-elected Commission has a lot of power, industry has a lot of influence, but decissions in the end are often made by the ministers of the distinct countries - Europe is still more of a confederation than a federation. The EGCS, later EEC, then EC, now EU was a means to prevent war in (Western) Europe, which is a fair objective, but somewhere along the road it became a new kind of Leviathan.

Freighter damager 1200ftX200ft swath of Florida reef

60% of great barrier reef hit by bleaching

Great barrier reef 50 years from death

Sewage killing Tobaggo's reef

Bottom trawling fishing destroys large portions of deep water coral reefs never explored

That would be Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data

Good point Sir. But hasn't the US imposed its values on other countries?

Iraq will soon be a democracy because you didn't like dictatorships. Chile became a dictatorship because you didn't like a left-wing president.

It's not only that, Sir. You have even violated the Intellectual Property Act. You tried to extradite an Australian under the similar regulations. And let's not forget the Byrd Ammendment

Sir, your government has shown over and over again that it is nothing but nasty playground bully, and shown great contempt and disregard towards the wishes of other sovereign nations.

But fear not, sir. Empires rise. Empires fall. The taller they stand, the harder they fall.

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There is absolutely nothing to stop a third party coming in and making a cheese like Parmesan, which tastes like Parmesan, and for them to build up that brand independently. They just can't use the name 'Parmesan'. And indeed, this happens - for example in Ireland there is a local cheese called 'Regato' which is a Parmesan clone - pre-1992 it used to be marketed as 'the Irish Parmesan'. And it's nice, but it is different, and not Parmesan. In a fit of irony, it is now itself apparently Ireland's only PDO cheese and is apparently doing well in Greece.

"To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area, Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration."

In other words, from an optimistic point of view, I would interpret that as saying that the EC are compulsorarily public-domaining (like copmulsory purchasing) MS's exclusive intellectual exploitation rights (what sort of rights are we talking -- patents mainly I assume?).

Specificaly the ruling says:

"To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area, Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products."

The press release explicitly states that MS must release the APIs but does not need to release the source code because it is not required for interoperability.

The press release

Not as the EU, no, the Maastricht treaty in 1997 saw the European Community become the European Union; but the Treaty of Rome establishing the EC was signed in 1957 - a long time before Micro-Soft started selling BASIC compilers.

Not as the EU, no, the Maastricht treaty in 1997 saw the European Community become the European Union; but the Treaty of Rome establishing the EC was signed in 1957 - a long time before Micro-Soft started selling BASIC compilers.

No, MS is not required to release any code, just the API, and from the sound of it, they are expected to make it freely available.
Here is the EU press release, that should be more accurate than that various news agencies make up.

Read the EU press release from their own site (in your own language): http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p _action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=EN&disp lay=

The EU Population in 2003 is 378,988,100 (estimate).

So it is about 1.311 EUR per EU inhabitant.

Not even a single trip bus fare.

It looks like import duty is currently 0% on laptops in the EU:
Portable digital automatic data-processing machines

On the downside you *still* have to pay VAT @ 17.5% and that is added to the cost of the item + duty, not the base cost of the item alone.

Normally delivery would be considered for the sum as well, but since you're not charging yourself to delivery it.

Quarters, nickels and dimes are pure copper inside, clad with a mixture of copper and nickel. Pennies are zinc plated with copper.

What he's referring to looks rather different: twoonie image (1 picture == 1kw). Basically, it's like there's an annular coin and a central coin inside it. Dunno if there's any way to separate them, short of dissolving one.

The first coin of this type that I saw was the late lamented 500-lira piece. Apparently the 1-euro and 2-euro coins are also like this, but I haven't handled either of them yet.

I think it looks kind of neat, but I don't mind the US not having one. We are very conservative with our currency design, and I like it that way.

I think that there is enough space between the particles in the metals at the newtonian scale that there should be no significant size difference between two different metals being shrunk by this method. At the atomic or subatomic scale, there might be a measurable difference difference, but i doubt it would be enough to affect the bond between the outer ring and the center.

You misunderstand what this process does. It squeezes the coin radially inward. It does not affect the density of the metal. (It is still an amazing thing of course.)

... There seems to be a good amount of "they-are-all-out-to-get-us" sentiment in the parent's remark. Let's put some things in perspective here:

You see, courts in Europe have this strange idea that they are there to enforce the law and protect consumers. To make matters more absurd, they choose to stick to their principles even if large companies are involved. Strange, huh? ;)

And now the facts: the EU will, and has done so numerous times in the past, also punish European companies if they break antitrust laws. A complete list of antitrust cases from 1964 is here. And to give a nice example: in the cases so far in 2004, all of the listed companies are European.

That goes to show you.

... There seems to be a good amount of "they-are-all-out-to-get-us" sentiment in the parent's remark. Let's put some things in perspective here:

You see, courts in Europe have this strange idea that they are there to enforce the law and protect consumers. To make matters more absurd, they choose to stick to their principles even if large companies are involved. Strange, huh? ;)

And now the facts: the EU will, and has done so numerous times in the past, also punish European companies if they break antitrust laws. A complete list of antitrust cases from 1964 is here. And to give a nice example: in the cases so far in 2004, all of the listed companies are European.

That goes to show you.

It should be noted however that Sony have released a Linux based distro specifically for Playstation 2 for exactly this purpose.

I wonder if local authorities will allow non-official parties to enter your house without official government permission. The EU can decide this, but local authorities can still overrule it, AFAIK. But, IANAL.

Probably. I don't know that for a fact, but I do wonder how this would be playing out if Microsoft were an EU operation. Oh well.

The commission never had problems to fine european companies for anticompetitive behaviour. For example, in one decision VW has to pay 100M Euro for obstructing dealers to reimport cars from one country to another. I don't know how this worked out though, as the Cort of Justice had overthrown this very first decision on this subject.

You can look here for other cases.

I expect this to become law here in Norway very soon too.

I would think that Norway already has implemented the EU database directive (IIRC It's very rare that Norway rejects directives, and this one is oooold)

There is precedent for this in the EU television Directive of 1989.

That Directive requires that European broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works.

If China is attacked under WTO rules, they can point to this unfortunate precedent for cultural protectionism.

and the U.S. was trying to place restrictions on the European version of GPS that is being launched that would force the europeans to disable high-accuracy readings if the U.S. wanted them to.

The european system is called Galileo. pdf link to http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/gal ileo/doc/gal_european_dependence_on_gps_rev22.pdf

Thunderbolt and lightning-very very frightening me
Galileo, Galileo
Galileo figaro magnifico.

But I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me.

One of the options the article discusses is to pay insurance premiums to prepare for the coming great onslaught of software patent litigation against open software projects.

The European Union has published a study on patent litigation insurance in March 2003. You can find it on their page on the Community Patent.

That study says that all experiments with this kind of insurance have not been particularly successful and have failed to provide adequate cover at affordable premiums.

I don't know if insurance or indemnification schemes will solve the problems ahead. However, both seem to be aimed at sharing the burden of dealing with litigation risks. That should be the basic idea. Just as people work together to develop great open source software, people should work together to defend it against litigation risks.

See also this post on my blog.

The mobile phone is following the GSM specification, and that states that networks should allow emergency calls from any phone. The phone manufacturers never imagined that the networks would make such a braindead decision as to bar them. The phone can only see a network that it can't sign on to, and it wrongly assumes that it could make a 999/112 call if it wanted to.

You can see a report from the EU about it at the EU website (See page 7, "when the caller does not have any PIN or SIM card")

There is a business only network around the 400 - 450MHz range which is run by Dolphin Telecom. It's not a GSM network, so you won't be making emergency calls on that from your GSM phone. There is a brand new emergency services network, but that is definately not GSM either. It is a TETRA network run by O2 and you can read about it at their website. It replaces the old system of CB-style radios that communicate with one central mast and can't roam to a different one.

here in Germany we have very tough laws with regard to your personal information and how it must be handled by businesses and the government

This is actually a EU directive. Or actually, two different ones. One dealing with regular privacy (enforced since 1998), and one with online privacy (enforced since last year). Seemingly when you read the text of the directive, it has a lot of teeth, but in practice they make exceptions every time someone asks. Like when the US insisted on having every bit of available information on EU citizens flying into the US (including the kind of meal they took, and how they paid for their ticket). The EU after some haggling made an exception that allows some, but not all, of the passenger information to pass to the US.

At least, a privacy law, even if it's not being enforced, is still better than no privacy law.

False, Hungary isn't part of the EU and won't be this year.

Wrong, from the EU website:

The entry of eight central and eastern European countries together with Cyprus and Malta into the European Union on 1 May 2004 is a historic achievement, ending centuries of division. Europe reunited means a stronger, democratic and more stable continent, with a single market providing economic benefits for all its 450 million citizens.
--
The ten newcomers, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, join formally on 1 May 2004.

Well, perhaps maybe it is a cancer and maybe it does threaten most way's of life. But that it is illegal there is no doubt:

MS products can't meet the specifications in eEuropa 2005, so expect this trend of decreasing profits to continue.

To add insult to injury, Novarg/Mydoom would not have been an issue if European Parliament Resolution 2001/2098(INI) had been followed, as for security reasons it forbids closed source mail clients and servers.

I've been trying to find info on the case on the EU w3site which is terribly disorganised -- worst site(s) I've ever seen. When I search for M$ on the EU site using Google all I seem to get is references to M$ Word or Powerpoint documents or things saying that you must be using MSIE, MS Word &c to use the EU site.

The main EU sites' search function is totally broken and the site of the Consumer Protection Directorate and Unfair Contract Terms law site pester you to register & seem to require MSIE.

However, I did find something about the case, which does not say much, or give any details of what law they are been prsecuted under.

2003, while we're at it

Heck. 2004 as well. It's a short list right now but stay tuned

2003, while we're at it

Heck. 2004 as well. It's a short list right now but stay tuned

Yeah, its one big anti-American conspirecy

Gee, don't see many EU companies in that list do we? Oh wait yes we do!

I do. Along with the rest of Europe, we are driving many fish to extinction out of sheer greed. To quote from a recent report by the EU on the new fisheries policy (which is a half-baked measure and will do little to solve the problem):

The reason [for the introduction of a new fisheries policy was] that far too many fish had been taken from the sea by fishing, leaving too few adult fish to reproduce and rebuild the stocks. Today, several important fish stocks, such as cod, are on the verge of collapse

On the contrary, whale populations have been decimated in the last 150 years. That's why the IWC moratorium on whaling came into force in the 1980s.

Oh really?

Notethe part: It will also be necessary to take account of the effective economic capacity of offenders to cause significant damage to other operators - in particular consumers - and to set the fine at a level which ensures that it has a sufficiently deterrent effect.

This year's United Nations' Human Development Report has ranked six European countries - several of which are EU Member States - as being in the top ten countries with the highest 'quality of life' - a broad measure that aims to go beyond per capita income to include such factors as health care, education and life expectancy in measuring a nation's well-being.

The top ten places in the index, measuring relative living standards in 175 countries, went to Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USA, Canada, Japan and Switzerland.

EUROPA - Research - Headlines - Europe is the place to live, report shows

Not only that, they can afford to buy themselves the legislation they like, see the latest EU laws regarding copyrights.
Write the EU Ombudsman, supposedly the one to talk to if the EU abuses its power.

I happen to live 30 km from Paris, a few hundred meters away from a TGV line and I've never been annoyed by the noise. This is due to the fact that the tracks have been built about 15 meters below the ground surface and the noise is much reduced. Maybe sometimes they care about people in this country, after all. But you can keep your bad opinion if you like...

Anyway. from : European Research Center the latest TGVs are no noisier than a conventional train travelling at 160km/hr. At a distance of 25 metres, the noise from a TGV line does not exceed 65 decibels (dB), or the equivalent of the raise level from a road with light traffic.

regards

Why? Norway is NOT a member of the European Union.

Click to see which countries are European Union Member States. Norway in the list?

For Americans that's Informative! :-)

It seems that European commission is really thinking about switching to free softwares http://europa.eu.int/(...)

Galileo Leaflet

Unfortunately I think tunnel vision (just like a horse !) defence issues will prevail over the potential money to be made from extremely accurate geolocation technology. And boy there is a lot of money to be made here - 200 Billion according to EU estimates.

And before I get modeed as a Troll - Terrorists don't need accurate telemetry. When a bomb goes off at 30,000 feet who give a sh*t where its located - it probably used some crappy pressure sensor. The suicide car/truck bomber doesn't check their GPS to verify the exact position and the twin towers were fairly f*cking obvious targets using domestic technology. Accurate GPS actually STOPS collateral damage by providing accurate geolocation for ordanance. The more accurate a missile is the less chance of collateral damage. If a foreign power e.g. North Korea decided to launch missiles at a US base then if you were living near a military base would you prefer an ACCURATE missile or something thats got a good chance of hitting you ! Of course defence advisers will say ACCURATE GPS is a BAD thing without qualifying - its BAD for the military NOT The taxpayer.

Remember one of the most power full firm in the "luxe" world, that try to sell a parfum withe the name "champagne" ... If i do remember well the name of the firm was starting with C ;-)
(two is somehow better, and they are known to like the number 5 ... everybody got it now ?)

The Champagne AOC group courted the firm, and they were enforced to rename the parfum from "Champagne" to "C." ;-) But of course, the new name was not so famous agains the world.

By the way i am quite surprised to see that Champagne is not yet a PGI/IGP ! Maybe they do not need this as the champagne syndicate is quite powerfull (money in mind) and can enforce anybody worldwide not to use their name to seel goodies ;-)

Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal Procedure Code] section 307 provides that

Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to in the indictment.

Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been decided against him.

I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil cases as well.

This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145 only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison sentence would be six months.

One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law, and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust implications of the DVD region system. In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the system's compatibility with the Community competition rules." See Official Journal of the European Union C 137 E of 12 June 2003 (page 34[pdf file]).

The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF file. The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF file.

Or alternatively, could his supporters?

His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you must have "legal standing".

Lov om rettergangsmaten i straffesaker (Straffeprosessloven) [The Criminal Procedure Code] section 307 provides that

Any person who has been acquitted may not appeal unless the court has found it proved that he committed the unlawful act referred to in the indictment.

Any person acquitted by a judgement of the Court of Appeal in a case that is tried with a jury may not appeal unless the issue of guilt has been decided against him.

I.e. you may not appeal because you are not happy with the reasonings of the court, ot because you'd like to have a higher court take a look at the case (such as to render a more authoritative ruling), as long as you were acquitted. This goes for civil cases as well.

This case was not tried before a jury, but with a combined court of three judges and four lay judges (in this case: two exptert lay judges and two regular lay judges), since the maximum sentence that could applied was less than 6 years, see the Norwegian Criminal Code section 352. The Norwegian Penal Code section 145 only provides for a maximum jail term of two years if damage is caused or the felony took place for an ulawful gain. Otherwise the maximum prison sentence would be six months.

One of the judges (Stavang) holds a Norwegian (research) doctorate in law, and a minor degree in economics, and was quite interested in the antitrust implications of the DVD region system. In an answer to a question by Glyn Ford, Mario Monti answered that "... the Commission has obtained significant amounts of information relating to the establishment and ongoing operation of the regional coding system from a broad range of film studios, DVD equipment manufacturers, and commercial retailers. The Commission is now completing its analysis of the file with a view to ascertaining the system's compatibility with the Community competition rules." See Official Journal of the European Union C 137 E of 12 June 2003 (page 34[pdf file]).

The whole criminal procedure act is available translated into Engilsh as a large PDF file. The General civil penal code is also available translated into English as a PDF file.

Or alternatively, could his supporters?

His supporters? Who are they? No, only parties to the case may appeal; you must have "legal standing".