The Register: UK Govt protects right to spam

The Register: Random executions: Hotmail gets tough on spam

Reuters: Principal attacked for not letting students cheat

Ananova: Police travel 120 miles to arrest man over library books

Reuters: Student sues professor over class demonstration (former Pace law student sues Torts professor and university after he pulled away a chair as she sat down)

Wired News: EBay fraud law: any takers? (also see CNET coverage and Tauzin/Wilson press release)

AP: Freelance writers win case over electronic reprint rights (New York Times Co. v. Tasini, No. 00-201 (June 25, 2001) (175K PDF))

Ananova: Internet mix-up sends couple to Italy instead of Spain

SatireWire: Survey: Majority of web users are undercover FBI

The Onion: Nobel fever grips research community as prize swells to $190 million

Cease and desist letter from law firm to humor site that threatened to kill Barney (even more ridiculous than another firm’s letters to flyingbuttmonkeys.com)

CNET News.com: A profitable e-business idea: Go sue a spammer

The American Humane Association’s Film and TV Unit rates movies based upon the treatment of animals during production. Check out their reviews of Freddy Got Fingered and Joe Dirt.

CNET News.com: IM chats don’t fade from PCs’ memories

CNET News.com: Rental-car firm exceeding the privacy limit? (car renter fined for speeding detected by GPS device)

Wired News: As American as curry pie

Privacy.Org: Senate passes Student Privacy Protection Act

BBC News: Square fruit stuns Japanese shoppers

CNET News.com: Trojan horse targets Word users (yet another security hole attributable to sloppy Microsoft code)

As if X-10′s new “popunder” ads on the N.Y. Times web site and elsewhere weren’t annoying enough, the company now lets you opt-out of the annoying ads — but you have to let them place a cookie on your hard drive in order to opt out. (Actually, they’ll put a cookie on your hard drive when you visit their web site, whether or not you opt out.) Yet another argument for an opt-in rule, if you ask me.

AP: Can McVeigh killing be hacked?; San Antonio Express-News: Net security experts expecting bootleg video of McVeigh execution; search eBay for McVeigh execution video

St. Petersburg Times: Clothes make the inmate (jail trusties say their new uniforms make them look like the Hamburglar)

Cyberspacelaw: Washington spam statute upheld

RISKS: Converting Pi to binary: Don’t do it! (why it is illegal to compute pi in binary)

Wired News: FTC powerless to protect privacy