News wrap: Napster, Sex.com, cookies, Palm-sized clothing

Reports indicate that controversial song swapping service Napster has generated record traffic figures during the last week of March, despite its attempts to block the trade in copyrighted material.

An enormous surge in traffic saw file share figures hitting the 593 million mark, a 25 per cent increase on the third week in March. Webnoize, the US company that carried out the research said that users were "taking the file-blocking filter in their stride."

It seems users have been finding ways of sneaking songs past the filtration software put in place after the Recording Industry Association of America protested that Napster was not complying with the 5 March injunction passed against it.

Sex.com case results in $65m payout

A US judge has granted a $65m payout to the owner of the Sex.com website after ruling that the domain name had been gained unlawfully by Stephen Cohen. Cohen was found guilty of fraud and forgery in the five-year court case, one of the longest internet disputes in history. He was ordered to pay $40m in compensation and $25m in damages.

The lawyer of Gary Kremen, the entrepreneur who registered Sex.com back in 1994, said the outcome proved that the internet was not a "lawless wasteland" after the judge ruled that Cohen had formulated and carried out a plan to steal the domain name from Kremen.

Kremen's lawyer added: "There have been countless incidents in the last few years where domain names have been improperly transferred from one party to another. This shows that these thieves should not be allowed to profit from their actions".

That's the way the cookie crumbles

Although the use of cookies has been the subject of much controversy over the last year, research has found that internet users couldn't care less about whether they are used or not.

Net researcher WebSideStory carried out tests on over one billion web pages and found that users only actually rejected cookies 0.68 per cent of the time. As a result, the company concluded that although cookies have received a lot of bad press from security analysts because they can track user actions, internet users are not at all concerned about the issue.

Palm comes into fashion

Handheld develop Palm has teamed with Sanyo Fashion House, the clothing arm of the electrical vendor, to produce items that include specially built pockets to hold handhelds and accessories.

The spring coat collection will have palmtop sized pockets to ensure that handhelds are easily accessible, while an anti-static and waterproof lining will mean the devices are protected from the elements. The collection is currently available in the US, but will retail in the UK soon for between £100 and £500.