Stories by: Stephen Bell

With an anti-spam law only two months old, Australia has claimed to be responsible for only a seventh of the amount of unsolicited email emanating from New Zealand.

Both suppliers and purchasers should be alert to unforeseen legal problems when involved in competitive tenders.

Moves are afoot at the United Nations that could decide the way the Internet is run worldwide in the future.

Internet service providers (ISPs) appear to have escaped - for the moment - the need to obtain a government license in New Zealand.

A scrap has broken out between two Australian online watchdogs over the country's proposed anti-spam legislation.

Electronic Frontiers Australia has trenchantly criticised the Australian federal “anti-spam” bill, a phrase EFA insists on putting in quotation marks.

Microsoft’s “shared source” scheme, a response to the growing popularity of open source software, is a “Faustian bargain”, says lawyer Craig Horrocks.

The New Zealand and Australian operations of EDS will not - for the time being at least - be affected by a pruning of staff in US EDS offices, said Sydney-based EDS spokesman Brian Finn.

Transfer of electronic publications into New Zealand via telecommunications will be put on the same footing as importing of physical publications from the point of view of Customs powers, if the Customs Amendment Bill No 4 becomes law.

Telstra Saturn plans to roll out in New Zealand a network based on IP (Internet Protocol) carrying voice, data and video, and offering speeds as high as 1Gbps. The network will be deployed in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch by June, "with national availability soon after," says the company.