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CNET.com - News - The Net - House likely to OK digital signature bill.

The House today neared approval of controversial legislation allowing electronic approvals, or "digital signatures," to substitute for written signatures on contracts.

The White House is likely to veto the proposal, which it said would reduce consumer rights, but the legislation could be changed after the Senate passes its own version.

CNET.com - News - The Net - Hotmail uses controversial filter to fight spam.

A controversial antispam tool has acquired legitimacy with the addition of a new subscriber: Hotmail, the 800-pound gorilla of Web-based email.

Microsoft's free Hotmail service last week started filtering all email coming from servers listed on the Mail Abuse Prevention System's (MAPS) Realtime Blackhole List (RBL).

CNET.com - News - Enterprise Computing - Microsoft details Office rental plans.

Microsoft did not announce pricing for the hosted applications. The standard edition of Office costs $499 for new users and $249 for existing Office users upgrading to the product. Bob Muglia, senior vice president in charge of Microsoft's business-productivity group, told the Wall Street Journal that online services might charge anywhere from $50 to $500 per user, per month for Office.

Why would anyone do this?? After 10 months of leasing you could have bought the package outright. I also assume that you will have to have at least a DSL or cable connection to get any reasonable response time.

And for the privacy angle. Where is the user data going to be stored?? Is it transmitted over an SSL connection; or will anyone with a packet sniffer at your ISP be able to read your traffic?? If so its not going to be used for that many sensitive or confidential documents

ZDNet: News - Sony glitch reveals subscriber e-mail addresses.

Sony says it fixed a software flaw that opened e-mail addresses of subscribers to its Infobeat service. A software flaw allowed advertisers to view the e-mail addresses of subscribers to Sony Music Entertainment Corp.'s Infobeat service, the company said.

The company said it contacted its advertisers, who "confirmed that they did not collect or use any of this information."

Technology News from Wired News - TRUSTe Declines Real Probe.

Privacy watchdog group TRUSTe declined Monday to investigate RealNetworks, but the decision has prompted the organization to expand its charter.

It is the second time the group has determined that a significant privacy concern lies beyond the scope of its program. Although TRUSTe has investigated several major violations and hundreds of minor incidents, it has never revoked a Web site's right to display its privacy seal.

Maybe what we need s an organization that is responsible to the users of the net and not the companies that have an image to protect. A kind of "Consumer's Report" for the internet. Guess its time to setup some polling software since I'd love to know "Would you be willing to allocate say a quarter ($.25) on your ISP bill for a service to help protect your privacy by monitoring the companies that want to monitor you???" There are millions of us and that 25 cents would add up fast.

Slashdot - Your Rights Online. is now a seperate section at SlashDot. You can now go here directly to see whats up. Entries will also last longer in its main page since they are not mixed in with the other story flow.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online | FTC Petitioned on Data Profiling.

New York Times - free registration required RealNetworks Is Target of Suit in California Over Privacy Issue.

California lawyer has filed a $500 million class-action lawsuit against RealNetworks, a leading maker of Internet multimedia software, charging that the company violated that state's unfair business practices law by distributing software that secretly gathered data about users and transmitted it back to the company on the Internet.

New York Times - free registration required FTC Asked To Examine Data Profiling Practices.

"The result is a single terrifying fact: If you give your name to a single Web site then every other Web site on the Internet may know who you are the minute you walk in the door," said Jason Catlett, president of Junkbusters Corp., who along with groups like the Center for Media Education, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and privacy publications called for an immediate government investigation of the profiling businesses.

New York Times - free registration required Can Machines Think? Humans Match Wits. Group of human judges chosen to represent the Boston man-in-the-street engaged in a three-hour battle of wits with a handful of computer programs today. The idea was to answer what many scientists and philosophers believe will become the central question of the information age: Can machines think?

Slashdot | Articles | Distributed.net releases CSC and OGR clients.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - FTC Petitioned on Internet Privacy.

With Internet technology becoming increasingly invasive, privacy advocates asked the Federal Trade Commission on Monday to stop Web sites from tracking and compiling computer users' visits online.

They also demanded that the commission figure out how best to protect Web surfers from unwanted privacy intrusions.

CNET via New York Times - free registration required Outlook vulnerable to masquerade attack.

Epinions.com - Sneaky Program puts you at risk. MP3's are great, no one is debating that. And I personally like other Real Networks products, but this one hides a DIRTY LITTLE SECRET.

APOD: November 8, 1999 - Lunation. Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

USA TODAY - Online profiling firms to police themselves.

A group of the largest online profiling firms will announce Monday that they've established a self-regulatory group to stave off potential new privacy rules from Congress and the Federal Trade Commission.

Organizers say they'll establish an educational Web site (www.networkadvertising.org) explaining to users what the services do, and what Web surfers can do to avoid being tracked by these services. The individual companies -- including DoubleClick, Flycast, 24/7 Media, AdKnowledge, AdForce and Real Media -- will also place disclosure notices on their own Web sites.

USA TODAY - FTC studies Web site 'profiling'.

Most Net users know that the sites they visit can track their movements, watch what they do and use that data to more effectively market products and services.

But even the most savvy surfers don't realize they're also being tracked by companies they've never heard of as they go from site to site. Nor do they realize that these companies are compiling ever-expanding dossiers of them, some with the ultimate aim of matching names and addresses to online actions.

"Tech Web" (CMP) - Cookies Can Be Unhealthy For Net Users. Federal regulators warned the online advertising industry Monday to respect consumers' privacy or the government would set rules.

Slashdot | Ask Slashdot | Expanding Vulnerability of the Net.

CNET.com - News - Communications - SBC record dump draws Feds' probe. Congressional investigators are looking into evidence that SBC Communications destroyed documents relating to the deployment of its high-speed Internet service, saving the company from sharing that information with competitors.