Blue Chi’s

ICANN, the not-for-profit organisation responsible for taking care of top level domains (TLDs) such as .com, .net, .org and all the country TLDs such as .uk, .jp, and .om, has announced that it will allow individuals and organisations to register any top level domain name they wish. For exmaple:

One should be able to register http://ahmed.albalushi/ instead of http://ahmedalbalushi.com/

Countries can register their full name as the top level domain. Example:

The Ministry of Tourism can be registered at http://tourism.oman/ instead of http://mot.gov.om/

Companies can also register their own name as their top level domain:

Apple can register http://apple.mac/ instead of http://apple.com/

This might be the start of a new domain craze just like the mid nineties when people were registering all the domain names they can think of in hope of making money by selling them later to people who might be intersted in them or by by simply parking them and generating money through advertising. However, history might not exactly repeat itself as some people predict that the cost registering a TLD might start from $50,000 to $100,000. (In comparison to the $10 you need to pay to get a .com domain name).

ICANN will provide trademark owners with an objection-mechanism to stop people for registering their domain names. This will surely be easier said that done because of the regional and industrial scope limitations of trademarks.

An object mechanism will also be made for stopping people from registering TLDs which are offensive to the public.

The second major update to the domain name business is that Arabic and Asian characters will be allowed in domain names. I can understand why people would want to it, but why would you ever want to have a domain name in characters that cannot even be typed by the rest of the world?!

I was reading the Times of Oman buggy horrible news feed on Google Reader in Firefox 3, and when I tried clicking on one of their items to view the whole article I was faced with the message above. (Click the image to enlarge)

When I clicked on the button for more info it took me to this automatically generated Google page.

The written stuff are too technical for me to understand, but what I do understand is Times of Oman has some serious issues to take care of.

Just learnt from Kishor’s that the first MVNO in Oman has received its final approval from the Ministry of Transport and Telecom. So now we are going to have a third operator in addition to Oman Mobile and Nawars. The new operator is called FRiENDi, it was founded in 2006 in Dubai Internet City.

It is unclear if the company’s brand name will be FRiENDi here as well. The company’s CEO is Antti Arponen, (I checked their website and it has somebody else, so I assuem that this is the CEO of the Omani company only), he is Finnish.

The Chairman of FRiENDi in Oman is Mohamed Bin Yousuf Bin Alawi. I think that he is a board member of Raysut Cement and that he is the son of the Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Yousuf Bin Alawi.

An MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) is basically a company that buys a huge number of calling minutes from a regular mobile network operator and then sells them back to the public under its own brand. This works in some places because when you buy a huge number of calling minutes you get them cheaper than the regular price, and then you can sell these minutes at a higher price that you paid to make a profit.

However, because an MVNO does not have its own infrastructure and merely resells the minutes it gets from somebody esle, an MVNO cannot offer any real new services. So, if Oman Mobile never gets 3G, then an MVNO that uses Oman Mobile as its provider will not be able to offer 3G. Nawras on the other hand is not an MVNO and has its own infrastrucure, so it managed to offer services that Oman Mobile do not have. (eg 3G)

The mobile telecom business relies greatly on customer service. MVNOs usually rely on offering better customer support and try to develop a relationship with the customer to get them rather than attemping to use new services or lower prices to lure them.

It will be really interesting to see how an MVNO performs in Oman, additional competition in the market is always nice.

Update: Just as Muscati has said in his post below, the another MVNO has been approved as well. The company is named Injaz, it’s chairman is Abdul Rahman Al Harthy and it’s CEO is Sameer Saadah.

The maker of the coolest business cards on Earth, Moo Cards, has announced that they will be making their cards in the regular business card size format. I have made tons of these for myself and the guys over at Oman3D in their previous cute format. The cool thing about Moo Cards is that you can print a different image on each business card (So for this regular size you can have 50 different images for 50 business cards).

The package costs about $22 for 50 cards, they deliver worldwide. Check out the video below:

Introducing MOO Business Cards. from Moo Crew on Vimeo.

I cannot get over the shocking death of Sleepless of Muscat. I’ve had this little chill throughout my body for the whole day, it is sad, and a little bit scary. I met him only once. But I have known him online for a while. Sadness and loneliness has taken up so much of his life, yet he seemed to have many hopes for the future, but he just ran out of time… He was only 29. May he rest in peace.

Sadly enough, the last post he made on his blog was about dark poem he wrote titled “Passion’s Death“:

… I cannot fathom life
I cannot understand you
I try to push you away
But the farther I push, the more I want you back …

It sounds like a mystical spell when you read it out loud… There is something surreal about the death of online personalities. You never imagine them to really vanish and die. They are like characters out of a novel alive only in their own virtual universe.

How does it feel to read a blog of a dead person? Does it feel spiritual, religious, or cursed?

There used to be a time when I was so up to date with the latest music, but I don’t know what went wrong, I don’t listen to new music as much as I used to, I don’t watch TV, and I don’t listen to the radio and I’m not following any music blogs – and I decided not to download illegal music, it is very hard to do, it is much harder than not using pirated software, playing pirated games, or even watching pirated DVDs.

Anyway, I bought this album on way to Egypt, the music shop in duty free zone of Muscat Airport is just as bad as the shops in town, I think that their commercial register activity category should be changed from music store to antique shop.

“As I Am” is the most recent album by Alicia Keys, it was released November 2007 and it is her usual soul/RnB, which is good. It took a bit of time to grow on me, I initially was only liked the lead single “No One” and just couldn’t play anything else, but after forcing myself to listen to the rest of the album I think that it is a very decent one, it is a slower than what I usually listen to, but still a nice change:

1. As I Am (Intro)
2. Go Ahead
3. Superwoman
4. No One
5. Like You’ll Never See Me Again (Main)
6. Lesson Learned
7. Wreckless Love
8. The Thing About Love
9. Teenage Love Affair
10. I Need You
11. Where Do We Go From Here
12. Prelude To A Kiss
13. Tell You Something (Nana’s Reprise)
14. Sure Looks Good To Me

3.5/5

[Blue Chi writes a long essay about what he feels about human rights, the weather, arranged marriages, , the gulf currency, oil prices, inflation, and how he thinks that Oman is generally a good place, but there is a great room for improvement and how he thinks that labour issues should be sorted].

The Expert Expats over at Muscat Confidential have decided to infringe my copyright and the copyright of all of those who commented in that Oman Human Trafficking post by copying the entire content of that post to discuss it there as I suggested. (But, come on UD, was the copying really necessary? I’m very particular about my copyright!)

Anyway, I’m posting this here again as opposed to posting at UD’s BECAUSE I AM NOT INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE REPORT and I would like to discuss something else.

First of all, you can read the entire post here and tell me if you see me say any of the following:

• I think that the report is a lie?
• I think that Oman does not deserve to be on the list?
• I agree with what the local papers are saying?

I obviously INTENTIONALLY did not say any of that , what I did say was that (1) all the justifications that were written in specific post at Muscat Confidential did not make any sense and (2) that the Expert Expats over there were all agreeing to that nonsense. I have also expressed my dislike of UD’s approach in writing about Oman and (3) that if it is really very bad with foreign labour then why is he still here.

Anyway, it is not really important that all the Expert Expats are claiming that I agree with whoever and that I think whatever or that I should go and read history, what is really interesting are the beliefs illustrated by these quotes by the Expert Expats:

(a) By Anonymous Lurker: It just means that as (mostly) foreign workers, who have experience of life in at least 1 other country, we can easily see the difference in human rights here for some people.

This person believes that he has a better understanding of human rights than Omani people because he comes from another country. I assume that many expats also think that they have better understanding of all aspects of life because they come from another country. Does this also apply for Expats from India and Pakistan, or is it only for Expats coming from first world countries?

(b) By Leo Americanus: If you don’t want the criticism and don’t want foreigners here, then do the job. Maybe you do the job, but most don’t. Across the Gulf, people complain about foreign meddling, but if they actually worked, and worked hard enough not to need foreign workers, then there would be less foreigners here and less foreign bloggers complaining about local problems.

I don’t know where to start with this one.

(c) By cooguy: I feel people like Blue Chi really need to go back into the history of Oman and see wut ‘Expatriates’ actually did during the formative years of Oman….The American doctors( Dr.Bosch and family) who set up the first telegraph communication in Oman and provided some form of health care, the British oil explorers who helped discover oil in Oman…

This guy probably thinks that Americans and British *helped* Omanis find oil and other things as a favour.

Do you think that many of the expats in the gulf really seriously think they know better than the locals just because they come from abroad, that they are here because the locals are too lazy to do anything, and that the locals should grateful for their *interest in our resources*?

I am sorry if this sounds like a racist hate post, it is not intended to be, but I think that there is a serious issue to be discussed in here.

Today I sent the offer confirmation letter to the University of Southampton in the UK to do an LLM in IT and Commerce. The Ministry of Legal Affairs is sponsoring me to go do a Masters degree this upcoming academic year.

I have recently been assigned to some projects relating to IT law at MOLA, so my Director General was very supportive of the specialization choice I made and the Minister agreed.

I had offers from Cardiff University and Essex University as well, but I decided to go to Southampton because the course structure and their module selection appealed to me to the most. I’m basically going to study Internet Law, Internet Policy, Intellectual Property, and maybe Internal Trade or International Economic Integration.

I originally wanted to apply to a university in the states, but the deadlines for American universities is way earlier than those in the UK. So yeah, it is THEIR LOSS.

Anyway, Southampton is the place from which the Titanic departed for its fated trip, and it is the home of Craig David! (Too much pop culture?)

I just read an extremely irritating post by Muscat Confidential, Oman’s number 1 blog for political gossip, I suggest that you read the latest post on Oman’s 3 Monkeys where Mr Undercover Dragon states that:

1. The Americans are under a federal duty to say the truth so they will never make a lie and that makes everything in their report true.
2. It does not matter that the report does not talk about the absolute scale of human trafficking (then what the hell are tier levels for?)
3. Oman deserves this because it used to trade in slaves hundreds of years ago.
4. Oman should take action for the prostitution that happens in Thailand.

Undercover Dragon, as you can see, is very objective and has serious suggestions to make the Omani government, his analysis of foreign labour issues are spot-on and I suggest that the government takes his blog more seriously.

I don’t understand, if UD thinks that Oman is so bad with foreign labour then why doesn’t he just get the [censored] out?!

The Omani Electronic Transactions Law was issued by Royal Decree 69/2008, its basically recognizes electronic transactions as legitimate transactions, sets the ground rules for dealing electronically, regulates digital encryptions, recognizes and regulates digital signature and authentication services, regulates improper usage of digitally collected personal details, and establishes punishments for digital crimes.

The whole Arabic text of the law can be downloaded from here (warning PDF link). There is no official translation of the law until the time of this post, but our law is very much identical to a number of American legislations relating to the same subject matter (for example: the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (PDF version found here)) this happened because of American pressure on Oman to provide the minimum legal framework required for the entry of the Free Trade Agreement into force.

I would like to try and write several posts talking about the different issues governed by the Electronic Transactions Law. My first post is going to be about the impact of this law on website owners, as I am one of them.

I would like to make a disclaimer at this point that I am writing this post in my personal capacity. I am a civil servant employed by the Ministry of Legal Affairs, but this post is not be treated as any official opinion or commentary. I would also like advise you to seek the help of a proper lawyer if you face any problems with the law and not take the contents of this post as the decisive stance of the law as interpretation of it may differ from one person to the other.

Electronic Transactions Law 101: Website Owners and Bloggers

The law defines the term “Network Agent” to which it applies and the coverage of this term is is not limited to websites that we traditionally think of as online shops, but it covers any website that provides a service for sending, receiving, adopting, or storing an electronic transaction or performs any services relating to these transactions. It is worth noting at this moment at the term ‘Electronic Transaction” as any procedure or contract concluded or performed completely or partially using electronic messages.

This definition does not make any reference to receiving or facilities payment and that means that your mere involvement in providing a medium for merely communicating and offer and its acceptance makes you a “Network Agent” to which the law applies:

Example:
Ali owns a forum in which people can sell and buy products from each other. Anybody can register to his forum. He does not make any profit from it, but people can advertise their goods and other members can offer to buy them. When an offer and acceptance are met online, the seller and buyer agree to meet up somewhere offline to exchange the goods. Ali in this example offers a service for performing an electronic transaction. The fact that he does not make money from it is irrelevant. The fact that the money was not transferred on his website and that the contract was ‘performed’ offline does not matter, the ETL applies to his website.

It can also be easily argued that a website is a “Network Agent” to which the law applies is as follows:

1. Putting advertisement on a website can be an act related to an electronic transaction and that by itself is enough to make the law applicable to your website.
2. Providing a medium for communicating an offer or acceptance (eg. a private message system rather than a public post) can be considered as a electronic transaction service.

The wide definition of the term “Network Agent” means that the law will apply to a massive number of websites, and to add to that, there are obligations on all websites that collect personal information about their users without necessarily having any business aspect relate to them.

It is also worth noting that the term “Electronic Transaction” covers any ‘procedure’ or ‘contract’, it is unknown what the term ‘procedure’ means and but it can expand this definition even further. It is unknown if the authorities realize how wide the definition of Network Agent is or whether this definition was in fact intentional, but it seems to include forums, and websites and blogs in which advertisement is served at least.

So what does it mean to have your website recognized as a Network Agent under the ETL?

1. First of all, under Article 6, the law makes it an obligation for a network agent to provide under his own expenses all technical tools required to make his website accessible for the purposes of national security. The Ministry of Finance will specify any connectivity requirements to which network agents must be compliant with. Though the law makes this as a clear obligation, I do not think that it will mean anything in practice other than allowing the authorities to gain full access to your website for the purposes of national security.

2. Article 14 is one of the most interesting articles in the ETL as it covers the liability of a network agent of information created on his servers by others. The ETL states that the network agent can avoid the liability for creating, publishing, or distributing this infringing content if he satisfies both of the following conditions:

1. He does not know that the status of this information constitutes a criminal or a civil liability.
2. He instantly removes and stops access to this information once he knows about it.

Article 14 also states that it does NOT create an obligation on the network agent to monitor electronic records when his is limited to the provision of a service for accessing those records.

This is an interesting article as it rebuts the general belief that the website owner is not liable for content written by other people on his website and makes him liable for if he knows about it does not take any action regarding it. It is also worth noting that the information or infringing action does not have to relate to an electronic transaction itself.

Khalid has a blog in which he puts advertisements, he allows people to comment on his blog. Khalid wrote a review about a computer program. Ali replies to Khalid’s blog post and links to a cracked link of the program. Khalid knows about Ali’s comment but does not do anything about it. Khalid is liable for publishing copyright infringing content even though he did not put it himself because he is a network agent. He may face criminal and civil actions under the Copyright Law.

The law is not clear about the definition of ‘knowledge’ in this context, is ‘actual’ knowledge required, or can the network agent be expected to know where it is reasonable for him to be so. For example, can someone reasonable not know about a comment on his blog. Should he be assumed to know about it whether or not he actually knew about it?

3. The third relevant section of the ETL is Chapter 7 on the protection of personal data. Article 45 requires any person (not just a network agent) who controls personal information in the practice of his involvement in electronic transactions to inform the person to whom he has any information on prior to ‘using’ that information. The article requires the information holder to inform the user about who is responsible for using his information, the nature of the data to be held, and the purpose of using it.

The best example of this is a forum database, those databases have a massive amount of personal and non-personal information of users, e.g. name, location, date of birth, and obviously emails. So if you are going to use any of this information the user must be informed of everything related to this prior to your usage.

Mohammed has a forum in which he serves advertising. His database holds thousands of emails. Mohammed must tell his users that he is going to send them period advertisement emails before he sends any of these emails.

In the example above, Mohammed can inform his users about this practice right before they register by adding it to the terms and conditions of the website, but he must ensure that it mentions who is going has control and access to these emails.

Article 48 later prohibits using these personal details to damage the users or violate their rights or freedoms.

Article 49 requires any person holding personal information about users to take care while transferring these information abroad and he must take into consideration matters such as the nature of the information, the source of the info, the purpose for the transfer, the destination country, and the laws available to protect information in the destination country.

I find this last article above very strange, the practical implication of it is not clear, but I think that following it can release the liability of a person for the loss of data he has transmitted to a third party.

However, in practice, it is extremely rare circumstances will the data be stored in Oman itself because we do not have local hosting services, so everybody will be transferring personal details abroad.

—-

This concludes my very first post on Oman Electronic Transactions Law. I have only talked about article which I thought directly affected website owners and bloggers in general. I will try to post about the other topics in the near future.