Politech mailing list archives
FC: USA Today on Mattel's subpoenas, by Janet Kornblum
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 09:54:24 -0600
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/jk032000.htm March 20, 2000 E-Briefing Judge helps Mattel zap effort to undermine filter By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY A federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order Friday that calls for the removal from the Net of a program that allows users of the Web filtering software Cyber Patrol to see which sites the software blocks. The program also lets kids and others circumvent the filtering, says Mattel, parent company of Cyber Patrol. The order sides with Cyber Patrol against two programmers and, says Mattel's attorney, extends to anyone who posted the program. It's tough to make something disappear once it hits the Net; several sites picked up the program and reposted it. Then again, a court order can be persuasive. For more information: On Saturday, Declan McCullagh, a journalist for Wired who runs a popular e-mail list and accompanying Web site on which this issue was discussed and links to sites were published, received a subpoena via e-mail from Mattel's attorney. It ordered him to reveal "each and every person who produced, received, viewed, downloaded or accessed" the program from his site. "If they do try to force me to turn over my readership list, I'll fight it as hard as I can," he says. "Can you imagine Mattel trying to subpoena Time magazine's subscriber list? A judge would laugh. Internet publishers shouldn't have fewer rights." ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: USA Today on Mattel's subpoenas, by Janet Kornblum Declan McCullagh (Mar 21)