Col. Charles W. Williamson III is proposing that the Air Force build its own zombie network, so it can launch distributed denial of service attacks on foreign enemies.
The board of ICANN will vote in Paris next month on a proposal to severely limit the number of domain names that can be returned without a fee.
Amazon says it is advertising when it compensates New York-based websites for posting links that refer customers to Amazon.com. New York says it's soliciting business. The distinction means all the difference in the world for sales taxes, for Amazon, and possibly even print media, television and radio.
Amazon.com sued New York State earlier this month, challenging a newly enacted law that has serious implications for online advertisements. In April, the New York legislature passed a law designed to increase sales tax revenue from Internet sales. The law is known as the "Amazon tax" because of the way it broadens the sales tax law to apply to Amazon's Associates Program, thereby achieving the necessary legal nexus for New York to force Amazon (and other Internet retailers) to collect and remit taxes on all sales to NY residents.
A little bit of history helps put this law into context. The Supreme Court has held that a state can only impose sales or use tax-collection obligations on an out-of-state retailer if the retailers has a "substantial nexus" with the state (the Quill decision). Nexus occurs from a sufficient physical presence, which can be an office or warehouse, but physical presence can also derive from soliciting a state's consumers via sales representatives located in the state. However, it can't be just any sales rep, according to another Supreme Court case -- in-state representatives must be "significantly associated with the taxpayer's ability to establish and maintain a market in the state" (Tyler Pipe).
Amazon doesn't have an office, warehouse or other physical presence in New York, but it has thousands of New York-based members of its Advertising Associates program. Per the Quill decision, advertising alone is insufficient to establish a substantial nexus. So New York has changed the definition of what it means to be a sales representative to capture these in-state associates that Amazon says merely hosts its ads. Under the new law, New York has changed the presumption of what it means to be "soliciting business" in the state. A seller
shall be presumed to be soliciting business through an independent contractor or other representative if the seller enters into an agreement with a resident of this state under which the resident refers potential customers, whether by a link on an Internet website or otherwise, to the seller, if the cumulative gross receipts from sales by the seller to customers in this state who are referred to the seller...is in excess of $10,000 [per year].
In its complaint, Amazon says that NY's law is unconstitutional because it violates:
1. the Commerce Clause. The law's presumption is unconstitutional on its face because it forces collection on out-of-state retailers that lack in-state entities that are significantly associated with Amazon's ability to operate in New York.
2. Due Process. It's vague and overbroad--what's an "indirect" referral? Would this capture NY print media, TV stations, and radio outlets? And what does it mean to refer potential customers "whether by a link on an Internet website or otherwise."? New York newspapers and TV networks, by referring potential customers, could be creating a physical presence for their advertisers just by running their ads. The law is also effectively an irrebuttable presumption, because Amazon is forced to disprove a negative -- that each and every one of its Associates aren't "soliciting business" directly or indirectly -- particularly because Amazon doesn't control the timing, format and placement of Amazon's ads on its Associates websites.
3. Equal Protection. Amazon feels unfairly singled-out by this tax.
Under New York's plan, it's important to note that there isn't any new money flowing into New York. Legislators like to speak as if this is newfound money, and that web retailers are shirking their duties by not collecting. But the ultimate burden isn't on the companies, it's on the taxpayers--the reality is that money will be collected from New York residents.
The gist is this: New York's law is a clever broadening of the definition of what it means to do business in a state. Madison Avenue, watch out! You may unwittingly be creating a physical presence for your out-of-state advertisers. And if other states adopt New York's approach, Michigan Avenue and other traditional media outlets could be in the same position.
-Braden
Big businesses need to start planning now to handle changes that will take place when a new version of the Internet's fundamental routing protocol becomes ubiquitous, or risk losing online customers, according to ICANN.
A hacker broke into Chile's government sites mining personal data from six million people which they then posted on two popular servers on the Internet.
Amazon.com has been operating a distribution center in Irving, TX since 2006, giving it a "physical presence" in Texas. The Texas Comptroller's Office is investigating whether the Internet retail behemoth, owes Texas possibly millions of dollars in uncollected internet sales taxes on purchases made by its customers in the state.
Florida Attorney General announced a nationwide partnership requires Facebook to digitally screen profiles, eliminating convicted sex offenders. It also checks that subscriber profiles match personal information, as well as an automatic "pop-up" warning will appear when youngsters try to contact adults.
ICANN chief says business leaders are grossly underestimating their firms' reliance on the internet and the risks of web-based threats.
Wholesale fees for Internet addresses ending in ".org" will increase 10 percent Nov. 9.
Two senior House Judiciary Committee members introduced a bill Thursday that could subject cable and telephone companies to antitrust enforcement if they unfairly handle Internet traffic.
Madonna has become the first artist to officially endorse the secondary ticket market.
Incidents of cyber crime can be expected to climb in 2008, the Internet provides criminals a chance to collect substantial financial rewards with a relatively low risk of getting caught and punished.
Bill Gates said there will be a vast shift in Internet technology over the next decade.
The Recording Industry Association of America voiced skepticism on the hill about the need for Net neutrality rules, but warned that the government may need to step in if Internet service providers don't become more proactive in fighting digital piracy.
New York State recently passed an interstate sales tax law that threatens to impose tax collection burdens on catalog and online retailers in every state of the country. It requires out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases made by New York residents. The retailers must register as vendors with New York by June 1 – less than one month away.
Today, current law mandates that a business must have physical presence or nexus in a state in order to be required to charge sales tax in that state. This “nexus” may be the one point of contention that businesses have against this law.
To that end, we’d like to encourage states to take a close look at model legislation developed by The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Three states – VA, Iowa and Texas – have already passed it. While it won’t change this existing NY law, it will help to guarantee that home state businesses have a home state forum to settle questions of nexus and tax responsibility.
This legislation simply gives a special declaratory judgment action, which a business can seek in their home state courts to determine if that business has the requisite nexus, or physical presence in another state which would justify the requirement to collect and remit sales and use taxes.
It gives in-state retailers important protection from unfair and costly litigation in foreign-state courts, by foreign-state tax administrators.
We encourage states to protect their state’s businesses from New York’s tax collection burdens, by introducing this ALEC model legislation.
There have been a number of suggested changes to ICANN's whois framework, but Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is making changes to its .ca country code on its own.
A House subcommittee will examine proposed legislation that would make the principle of treating all Internet traffic equally into law.
Amazon has filed a lawsuit asking a New York court to declare the state's new internet tax unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that states cannot require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax unless they have a physical presence, like a brick-and-mortar store, in those states.
A group of professional ticket brokers enlisted the help of Richard Vitale, who is not a registered lobbyist, to help pass the amended ticket resale bill. This action by the brokers may have violated Massachusetts law.
Virginia public schools will soon launch Internet safety lessons across all grade levels and are going to integrate safety skills into the curriculum, not simply teach them in one lesson.
A Washington Post article from over the weekend discusses Virginia's pioneering effort to integrate online safety education into all grade levels. It's a result of legislation passed last year that requires the Virginia Department of Education to develop curriculum for teaching safety for kids while their communicating on the Internet.
Internet safety education is a pillar of the online industry's model legislation that NetChoice has proposed in a few states as an alternative to age & parental verification mandates. Virginia rightly integrates parents into the training:
The state initiative calls for including parents. One chapter in a state resource book covers "What Parents, Grandparents, and Caregivers Need to Know." In Arlington, some Parent-Teacher Association chapters have heard public service announcements on the subject. And on Thursday, parents met at an Alexandria elementary school to talk about Internet safety.
"I tell parents this all the time, and they are horrified, but e-mail is for old people," said Elizabeth Hoover, Alexandria's instructional technology coordinator. "We have to raise our level of awareness for our teachers and community members. We can't move forward without doing that."
Unfortunately, the article recites the same misleading statistic that is always mentioned in online safety contexts: "One in Seven Children ages 10 to 17 has been sexually solicited while online." A leading online safety expert, Nancy Willard, has refuted this statistic by saying:
One in 7 young people are not being sexually solicited by adult sexual predators. The term sexual solicitation in the study included what was essentially sexual harassment and the majority of the sexual harassment came from other teens. But hidden within the data was the fact that 64% of the aggressive solicitations (where the solicitor wanted to meet) were from those under the age of 18 and 16% came from females
And empowered with education, kids and parents can help reduce the risk of real sexual solicitations even more.
-Braden
Security Fix is launching a new feature today called Cyber Justice Chronicles, which will periodically provide short snippets of news about individuals who have been arrested or convicted of computer crime offenses.
The New York Times is reporting on Amazon's lawsuit contesting the recently enacted New York state law which requires online retail outlets to collect sales tax on items sold to the state's residents without a physical presence in the state.
