Politech: FC: USA Today on Mattel's subpoenas, by Janet Kornblum

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/jk032000.htm

March 20, 2000
E-Briefing

   Judge helps Mattel zap effort to undermine filter
   By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY

   A federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order Friday
   that calls for the removal from the Net of a program that allows users
   of the Web filtering software Cyber Patrol to see which sites the
   software blocks. The program also lets kids and others circumvent the
   filtering, says Mattel, parent company of Cyber Patrol. The order
   sides with Cyber Patrol against two programmers and, says Mattel's
   attorney, extends to anyone who posted the program. It's tough to make
   something disappear once it hits the Net; several sites picked up the
   program and reposted it. Then again, a court order can be persuasive.
   For more information:

   On Saturday, Declan McCullagh, a journalist for Wired who runs a
   popular e-mail list and accompanying Web site on which this issue was
   discussed and links to sites were published, received a subpoena via
   e-mail from Mattel's attorney. It ordered him to reveal "each and
   every person who produced, received, viewed, downloaded or accessed"
   the program from his site. "If they do try to force me to turn over my
   readership list, I'll fight it as hard as I can," he says. "Can you
   imagine Mattel trying to subpoena Time magazine's subscriber list? A
   judge would laugh. Internet publishers shouldn't have fewer rights."

   ...

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