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The court earlier sought response from the information technology ministry and social networking sites Facebook India and Google India

News | by IANS

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the finance and home ministries on a plea to recover tax from social networking websites, arising out of their Internet-based business in the country.

A division bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice R.V. Easwar also issued notices to the law and information and broadcasting ministries and department of personnel. The court sought responses of central ministries within six weeks and posted the matter for April 9.

The court earlier sought response from the information technology ministry and social networking sites Facebook India and Google India.

The court's direction came on a public interest litigation filed by former Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue K.N. Govindacharya. He asked the court to direct the government to recover all "past and present" direct and indirect tax demands arising from business income from Indian operations of different social networking websites.

The petition sought direction to ensure proper accounting compliances as per the Reserve Bank of India guidelines. Govindacharya pleaded for a court order to these companies to implement the verification norms issued by the central government.

He said penalties should be imposed on social networking sites and other internet-based companies for non-verification of their users.

The petitioner, at present involved in social service through his organisation Rashtriya Swabhimaan Aandolan, said: "Facebook gross revenue for previous year was approximately $37 billion..."

"...They are not paying due taxes on their Indian operations as per provisions of double taxation avoidance agreement and the government is not taking any action to safeguard the national interest and sovereignty of India."

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'Govt should recover tax from social networking websites'

David Lynch

News

Published on Feb 20, 2013

Sony has revealed the enhanced social networking options of the PS4 and has even revealed that it has dedicated hardware built into it to deal with the new functions

Sonys lead architecture designer, Henry Bayle took to the stage to in New York to reval the PS4s new features. So far they include:

Downloading and updating games in the background as you play

Social play is also very important to PS4, always on video decompression for uploading and downloading video.

Players will be able to scan the last few minutes of gameplay and upload it in seconds. Sharing of video as important in the next-gen as sharing of screenshots is in the current.

It will also integrate with phones and tablets.

The PS4 will also be highly customisable. Personalization is central to the gamer experience. The system will get to know you. Learns your likes and dislikes and will present games that it thinks you will want to play.

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PS4: PSN Will Support Social Networking

The operator of the Path social networking app has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived users by collecting personal information from their mobile device address books without their knowledge and consent. The settlement requires Path, Inc. to establish a comprehensive privacy program and to obtain independent privacy assessments every other year for the next 20 years. The company also will pay $800,000 to settle charges that it illegally collected personal information from children without their parents consent.

The settlement with Path is part of the FTCs ongoing effort to make sure companies live up to the privacy promises they make to consumers, and that kids personal information isnt collected or shared online without their parents consent.

Over the years the FTC has been vigilant in responding to a long list of threats to consumer privacy, whether it is mortgage applications thrown into open trash dumpsters, kids information culled by music fan websites, or unencrypted credit card information left vulnerable to hackers, said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. This settlement with Path shows that no matter what new technologies emerge, the agency will continue to safeguard the privacy of Americans.

Path operates a social networking service that allows users to keep journals about moments in their life and to share that journal with a network of up to 150 friends. Through the Path app, users can upload, store, and share photos, written thoughts, the users location, and the names of songs to which the user is listening.

In its complaint, the FTC charged that the user interface in Paths iOS app was misleading and provided consumers no meaningful choice regarding the collection of their personal information. In version 2.0 of its app for iOS, Path offered an Add Friends feature to help users add new connections to their networks. The feature provided users with three options: Find friends from your contacts; Find friends from Facebook; or Invite friends to join Path by email or SMS. However, Path automatically collected and stored personal information from the users mobile device address book even if the user had not selected the Find friends from your contacts option. For each contact in the users mobile device address book, Path automatically collected and stored any available first and last names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook and Twitter usernames, and dates of birth.

The FTC also alleged that Paths privacy policy deceived consumers by claiming that it automatically collected only certain user information such as IP address, operating system, browser type, address of referring site, and site activity information. In fact, version 2.0 of the Path app for iOS automatically collected and stored personal information from the users mobile device address book when the user first launched version 2.0 of the app and each time the user signed back into the account.

The agency also charged that Path, which collects birth date information during user registration, violated the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule by collecting personal information from approximately 3,000 children under the age of 13 without first getting parents consent. Through its apps for both iOS and Android, as well as its website, Path enabled children to create personal journals and upload, store and share photos, written thoughts, their precise location, and the names of songs to which the child was listening. Path version 2.0 also collected personal information from a childs address book, including full names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and other information, where available.

The COPPA Rule requires that operators of online sites or services directed to children, or operators that have actual knowledge of child users on their sites or services, notify parents and obtain their consent before they collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13. Operators covered by the Rule also have to post a privacy policy that is clear, understandable, and complete.

The FTC charged that Path violated the COPPA Rule by:

In addition to the $800,000 civil penalty, Path is prohibited from making any misrepresentations about the extent to which it maintains the privacy and confidentiality of consumers personal information. The proposed settlement also requires Path to delete information collected from children under age 13 and bars future violations of COPPA. Path has already deleted the address book information that it collected during the time period its deceptive practices were in place.

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Path Social Networking App Settles FTC Charges on Privacy Infringement

Published on 18 February 2013 Hits: 964 Written by AFP

GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) urged countries to be vigilant over the spread of a potentially fatal severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS-like virus after a new case in Britain brought the global number to 12.

Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections and to carefully review any unusual patterns, the United Nations health agency said in a statement.

On Friday, British health authorities said that a third member of a family had been diagnosed with so-called novel coronavirus, but was not in danger.

Although this new case offers further indications of person-to-person transmission, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been identified, said the Health organization.

Testing for the new coronavirus should be considered in patients with unexplained pneumonias, or in patients with unexplained severe, progressive, or complicated respiratory illness not responding to treatment, it added.

Clusters of cases, and cases among health workers, should be thoroughly investigated wherever they occur, it underlined.

Britains Health Protection Agency said that the latest person to contract the virus was a relative of two other cases announced earlier this week.

The first member of the family, who was confirmed on Monday as having the virus, had just traveled to the Middle East and Pakistan. The two relatives had no recent travel history.

Twelve cases have been reported to the Health agency, with five of them fatalthree in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.

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Countries warned vs. new killer virus

Feb. 21, 2013 Simon Fraser University virologist Masahiro Niikura and his doctoral student Nicole Bance are among an international group of scientists that has discovered a new class of molecular compounds capable of killing the influenza virus.

Working on the premise that too much of a good thing can be a killer, the scientists have advanced previous researchers' methods of manipulating an enzyme that is key to how influenza replicates and spreads.

Their new compounds will lead to a new generation of anti-influenza drugs that the virus' strains can't adapt to, and resist, as easily as they do Tamiful. It's an anti-influenza drug that is becoming less effective against the constantly mutating flu virus.

These increasingly less adequate anti-influenza drugs are currently doctors' best weapons against influenza. They helped the world beat H1N1, swine flu, into submission four years ago.

The journal Science Express has just published online the scientists' study, revealing how to use their newly discovered compounds to interrupt the enzyme neuraminidase's facilitation of influenza's spread.

Tamiful and another anti-influenza drug, Relenza, focus on interrupting neuraminidase's ability to help influenza detach from an infected cell's surface by digesting sialic acid, a sugar on the surface of the cell. The flu virus uses the same sugar to stick to the cell while invading it. Once attached, influenza can invade the cell and replicate.

This is where the newly discovered compounds come to the still-healthy cells' rescue. They clog up neuraminidase, stopping the enzyme from dissolving the sialic acid, which prevents the virus from escaping the infected cell and spreading.

The new compounds are also more effective because they're water-soluble. "They reach the patient's throat where the flu virus is replicating after being taken orally," says Niikura, a Faculty of Health Sciences associate professor.

"Influenza develops resistance to Replenza less frequently, but it's not the drug of choice like Tamiful because it's not water-soluble and has to be taken as a nasal spray.

"Our new compounds are structurally more similar to sialic acid than Tamiful. We expect this closer match will make it much more difficult for influenza to adapt to new drugs."

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Influenza study: Meet virus' new enemy