A republican senator says that the UN is too incompetent to run the Interweb and he wants the US to remain in control.

"My probe revealed management that was at best, incompetent, and at worst corrupt," said Coleman.

"Putting the UN in charge of one of the world's most important technological wonders and economic engines is out of the question. This proposal would leave the United States with no more say over the future of the Internet than Cuba or China—countries that have little or no commitment to the free flow of information," he said.

According to recent research by online publication The Marketing Experiments Journal, up to 29.5% of paid search traffic could be fraudulent.

Click fraud, as defined by The Marketing Experiments Journal, is "any paid-for-click that originates in a malicious attempt to drain an advertiser's budget". Occasionally advertisers will try to drive up their competitors' marketing costs by clicking on ads for high-priced search terms.

Flint McGlaughlin of MEC labs said that people committing the fraud were more likely to be using specially designed programs or sophisticated devices, rather than repeatedly clicking on an ad over and over. "Our random sample of PPC campaigns uncovered as much as 29.5 percent PPC fraud and showed that Google was able to account for and credit only a tiny portion of those fraudulent charges," said McGlaughlin. He added, "Companies should be aware of how big of a problem it really is and be equipped to more aptly detect it."

Microsoft representatives said Friday that the company has begun distributing a beta version of its Web-based Communicator messaging software to qualified customers. The company said the tool is similar to its Outlook Web Access product and provides customers with new methods for accessing corporate IM systems and integrating collaborative applications with older operating systems, among other functions.

The software giant said the launch brings it closer to fulfilling its strategy of making real-time communications and presence-sharing capabilities available to workers regardless of their location. Microsoft said previously that the interface for Communicator Web Access will closely mimic the controls the company has built into the desktop version of the messaging tools which are labeled Microsoft Office Communicator 2005.

A democratic lawmaker is hoping that a 25 per cent tax on internet porn will suddenly stop kids looking at the stuff.

Called the Internet Safety and Child Protection Act of 2005, the bill also proposes new rules for Web sites to verify they do business only with adults. It would compel sites to use specialized software to verify a customer's age. It will be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

Since it is a state law, all the pornsters will have to do to avoid paying it, is to shift their businesses to another country.

However, it looks like the law, like many which have been before it, is destined to run aground in the courts on free speech grounds. It could be seen as a tax on people who say things that law makers disagree with, which is pretty much, against those amendments in the constitution against that sort of stuff.

As Microsoft inches closer to the first beta release of Internet Explorer 7, the company's development advisors have been advising Web site developers and managers to run certain tests now to prevent problems when the beta version does appear.

One area that Microsoft has clearly articulated as being one in which developers can start work now to prepare for IE 7 involves the UA (user agent) string.

First discussed in the company's Weblog in April, the code change prompted a reminder on Wednesday to developers, telling them that Microsoft continues to run across Web sites that are not expecting Version 7 of the browser, and urging them to test their UA strings.

"Developers should ensure that their sites are ready for the IE 7 user agent string and treat IE 7 just like they would IE 6," Schare said. He did not comment on what would happen if changes were not made, but said it is likely that testing issues will be discussed again on the development blog.

According to Denver-based message security vendor MX Logic, spammers are continuing to adopt Sender ID and Sender Policy Framework (SPF), two of the prominent e-mail authentication schemes that are actually intended to stop spam.

MX Logic tracked a sampling of 17.7 million messages that passed through its servers from June 19 through June 25, and found that of the 9 percent from domains with published SPF records, 84 percent was spam. Of the even smaller number of messages from domains with published Sender ID records (just 0.14 percent), 83 percent were spam.

Microsoft recently reworked its free-of-charge, Web-based Hotmail service so that all messages not using Sender ID are identified as such. The Redmond, Wash.-based developer isn't, however, deleting non-Sender ID mail or trashing it by placing it in a junk mail filter. Yet.

"As adoption of Sender ID and SPF records grows, and the lack of a domain with an SPF record becomes the exception to the norm, we may choose to investigate unauthenticated e-mail more closely before deciding whether to deliver it to the users' inbox," said Craig Spiezle.

In other e-mail and spam news, MX Logic said that in June zombies accounted for a record 62 percent of all spam. In comparison, May's tally was 55 percent, and April's 44 percent.

Certain travel-oriented Web sites made it to the verboten list because they provide easy access to Cuba for Americans who choose to break the law, the OFAC says. While visiting the sites may be permitted, downloading software from them probably isn't.

It's already illegal to go to Cuba without a special Treasury Department-issued license, typically granted based on educational or professional purposes. Tourism, according to federal guidelines, is not allowed. Once licensed, travelers must make travel arrangements with an organization chosen from a list of OFAC-approved agencies.

It doesn't seem to be a crime to check Cuban weather or read up on Ernest Hemingway's ties to the island at the sites. Signing up for free e-mail lists would also be permissible, said Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise, provided that they did not include "interactive software." That's because transfer of "intangible" goods, like information, is exempt from the regulations, but goods considered tangible, such as software, are not.

"Theoretically, yes, a person can be prosecuted and subject to civil or criminal penalties by OFAC for purchasing a ticket or doing any businesses with any of these Web sites," Jacobson said.

The US government wants to keep control of the interweb until the technology becomes redundant and is snubbing foreign governments and ICANN, the body set up to eventually run it.

Previously the US has said that it would hand over control to ICANN if the body met a number of conditions. Now it is saying, it doesn't matter what ICANN does, the Internet is still US territory.

In a move which is a change of US policy, a senior government official said that it was not giving away any control to foreigners.

In an interview with Associated Press journalist Michael Gallagher, the assistant secretary for communications and information at the Commerce Department said that America needed control because of the growing security threats and increased reliance on the Internet for communications and commerce. Apparently only Americans can secure the Internet.

It appears that some countries might want to withdraw support for the ICANN if it doesn't get control. Some commentators fear that countries refusing to accept US control could establish their own separate Domain Name System.

Despite the fact that Microsoft is practically forcing ISPs to adopt its Sender ID anti-spam methods, Sysadmins and network professionals don’t believe it will work.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, most of the people it interviewed about the latest Volish moves were sceptical that such pressure would work. Yesterday, Microsoft threatened to block mail access to its glorious Hotmail free email service if the mail didn't have Sender ID tags.

But Melbourne-based IT consultant Craig Sanders told the Herald that if Vole starts doing that, then most legitimate mail would be classed as junk.

Sanders said that there was no way that Vole could force everyone to use their proprietary and patented Sender ID proposal because the net didn't work like that.

Computer Associates researcher Jakub Kaminski said that Volish plans to reduce spam using Sender ID would not work, because the early adopters of the system were the spammers.

The end of free Internet content will come when Web browsers start blocking online advertisements by default, a DoubleClick executive has warned.

Bennie Smith, the online advertising network's privacy chief, told ZDNet Australia the popularity of tools like Adblock -- an extension to the Mozilla Firefox browser -- which makes blocking online ads simple was tied to "a negative vibe against advertising in general".

He said if a similar tool could be produced for newspapers, it would not be accepted by consumers.

"You'd go to your local corner shop and buy the daily paper, and you'd have these large holes where the ads were."

Part of the Internet's value proposition lies in the provision of large amounts of free content. "But that content is not without cost. And that cost is my eyeballs seeing an ad on a page. Or within an e-mail, or next to my search results, or however it's going to come," Smith explained.

"In an offline world, what would happen in that case is that the 25c newspaper would cost $5," he said.