Valentine's Day sparks
mad rush to gift sites
A great number of lovebirds
opted to shop for their sweetie or look for a new love from home this year
according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Web sites that boasted gifts and flowers
drew 2.5 million at-home visitors during the week ending Feb. 6, marking a
40 percent jump from the previous week. Proflowers.com was up 156 percent
as 387,000 users visited the site. Online florists offered shoppers
special discounts for early orders and same-day orders and deliveries.
Blue Mountain led the greeting card sites by climbing 32 percent and
drawing 380,000 visitors. For those longing to be love struck, 531,000
visitors checked out MSN Dating & Personals, increasing the site's
visits by 59 percent prior to Valentine's Day.
Poisoned passion: Beware heartfelt viruses
As romantics long for Cupid to
shoot an arrow through their heart, virus writers are shooting infected
emails at their computers. Two worms disguised as love notes are invading
email and peer-to-peer networks just in time for Valentine's Day. Kipis-H
and VBSWG-Dare attempt to destroy hard drives. VBSWG-Dare spreads under
the subject line "First Love Story...!!!,” and slams users with a
string of profanities before crashing their computers. The Kipis-H worm
tricks users into opening it by appearing under the heading "Happy
Valentine's Day." Once opened, it turns off anti-virus protection and
forwards emails to addresses on the user’s contact list.
MPAA files second batch of movie swap suits
Hollywood is going after more internet users who
share files of films and TV shows without permission. The Motion
Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's major
film studios, has filed a second round of lawsuits against operators
of several peer-to-peer networks. Computer networks that use
peer-to-peer software such as BitTorrent and eDonkey allow computer
users to swap digital files that, in some cases, have been copied
illegally. Along with the suits, the MPAA has issued takedown notices
for websites hosting the software. The first round of lawsuits was
launched in mid-December on four continents. The studios say
illegally copied video and DVD sales cost them revenues of $3.5
billion annually. The recording industry has filed similar suits.
China
admits to shutting down 12K e-cafes
When it comes to regulating the internet, the
Chinese government has more say so than most governing bodies and it
plans to keep it that way. From October to December of last year
Chinese authorities shut down 12,575 internet cafes that they say
were operating illegally. The main concern was that the cafes were
located near elementary and middle schools, which is prohibited.
China promotes internet use for business and education but tries to
keep children shielded from violent games and sexually explicit
material. All the 100,000 or so net cafes in the country are required
to use software that controls what web sites users can see. The cafes
are popular in China because computer hardware is expensive and few
people have PCs in their homes. Despite the many regulations, 87
million people in China are on the web, a number second only to the
United States.
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