iTunes in Europe - but not Australia, yet

iTunes has continued its globe conquering march - it's up and running in Europe:

"Music hungry consumers will have more than 700,000 pop, rock, jazz, classical and other tracks to choose from when they log on to iTunes, with each song priced at 99 euro cents ($1.20). "

Now could they please get their skates on and launch in Australia.

Spammer becomes rocker

Well, I'll put aside all my drummer jokes for a moment, a Canadian spammer has just agreed to give up his life of crime, and he's become a drummer in a band.

"Canadian Eric Head, his father and brother had been sued by Yahoo in March as part of a worldwide industry crackdown on hundreds of people sending unsolicited email, or spam.

Yahoo alleged that in one month alone, the three men sent more than 94 million emails to users of Yahoo's email service. "

Do Not Email List Does Not Work

Plans in the US to establish a national do-not-email list have stalled, with the government saying it would not work. The idea is based around the do-not-call telephone marketing list, which was launched in the US a few years ago. It has proven overwhelmingly popular, I think half of the US population is now subscribed, and thus preventing having their dinners interupted by phone salespeople.

The government's opposition to the do-not-email list is fair - spammers operate either illegally, or in a legal grey zone, so are probably not going to take much notice of a list of email addresses they are not supposed to mail. And more importantly:

"The agency said such a registry cannot work because there is no effective system for "authentication," or verification of the origin of an e-mail message. "

They also point out the obvious security concerns - the do-not-email list would be like gold for any spammer who could hack or steal it.