CYBER-CRIME/CYBER-REGULATION
KEYWORDS: EMAIL, ONLINE - BROKERS, PORNOGRAPHY, BROADCASTS,

The Japanese parliament has approved an international convention on cyber-crime. The Ministry of Telecommunications plans to start new laws completely outlawing unsolicited ads in e-mail, such as spam. The previous law required the sender to put “unsolicited ad” in the subject line and show contact info. Violators are first warned not to violate the law and if they fail to follow the warning, they can be fined up to 500,000 yen. Under the proposed revision, no warning would be necessary as all would be illegal.

Microsoft has announced plans to assist Japanese police authorities in fighting against hackers and other forms of cyber-crime.

A president of an internet car dealer and his wife were arrested for defrauding buyers when over 300 buyers were defrauded of 400 million yen by falsely promising to sell them cars. The company has also gone bankrupt.

Another group of scammers were using legal loopholes to bill unwary people for services they did not use or never even provided. The scammers go to court to enforce payment while consumers simply ignore the bills for services they never used. But under Japanese court procedures if the debtor does not respond within 14 days the scammer can seek a order of payment from the court, and if the defendant does not respond again in 14 days, the order becomes effective. After that, to defend, the victim will have to file a case in court.

Police arrested one man for secretly taping an appearance by a Japanese singer, and then selling the film on the internet. The police said he violated the copyright law.

One company has been sued for 10 million yen for online sales of jewelry closely resembling ones appearing on a popular Korean tv program. The suit was based on the Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

Police also arrested four people for fraudulently hacking into an on-line bank account and transferring 360,000 yen to another account. This was also a violation of the Anti-Hacking Law. Another party arrested for violating the Anti-Hacking Law involved a person who accessed a university server more than 100 times reading email and closing down its bulletin board. The employee had been transferred to a less desirable position.

The government is planning on revising the Protection and Keeping of Animals Law, to include online internet pet brokers. Previously they were not included as they did not have equipment for breeding and housing animals

In the first case of its kind in Japan, police have arrested four people for downloading porn over an overseas satellite system. Porn is very regulated in Japan.

The web sites of several leading Japanese government organizations were jammed in August, 2004 following denial of service massive cyber attacks. These included the web sites of the Foreign Ministry, the Coast Guard of Japan, the Prime Minister’s Official Residence, the Defense Agency, the National Police Agency, the Finance Ministry, and the Immigration Bureau of the Justice Ministry. Some suspect Chinese did it following recommendations for such acts on a Chinese web site and anti-Japanese riots after Japan’s victory over China in a soccer/football game.

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman

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