which joined the EU in 2004, has committed to signing ACTA tomorrow.
Popular Polish websites including satirical joemonster.org and demotywatory.pl donned black shrouds for several hours yesterday morning, Poland’s TVN24 news channel reported.
Meanwhile, a notice on a silent street protest in Warsaw planned for yesterday afternoon, organised by “Stop ACTA” campaigners on Facebook, attracted more than 38 000 “like” tags.
The fresh wave of protest comes after weekend anti-ACTA cyber attacks by the groups Anonymous and Polish Underground took down official websites belonging to Poland’s president, prime minister, parliament and foreign and culture ministers.
The prime minister’s website (www.kprm.gov.pl) was still down yesterday, with links directing users to his official Blip, Facebook and Twitter pages.
An attack early on Monday morning left the message “Hacked by the Polish Underground: Stop ACTA” appeared on it.
Under a vast Internet anti-piracy campaign launched over 18 months ago, US authorities have seized more than 350 website domain names, including a spectacular global swoop on file-sharing site Megaupload.com.
But US congressional leaders put strict anti-online piracy legislation on hold following a recent wave of protests led by Google and Wikipedia denouncing the Bills as a threat to Internet freedom.
Meanwhile, the French online shopping website Twenga has filed a complaint against Google at the European Commission, accusing the Internet search giant of abusing its dominant position to eliminate any competition.
The commission, the European Union’s competition watchdog, has been investigating Google since November 2010 following several complaints, with US IT giant Microsoft filing its own grievance last year.
“The abusive practices of Google strengthened considerably in 2011 with a clear willingness to eliminate all forms of competition in several sectors such as video, hotel and product searches, and airfare searches, despite anti-trust probes in Europe and the United States,” said Twenga co-founder Bastien Duclaux.
“In this context, Twenga has asked the European Commission to quickly make the US giant stop its anti-competitive actions, which undermine innovation and jobs in the European Union,” he said.
The French company accuses Google of giving an edge to its own services, such as Google Shopping, in search results while systematically putting competing websites lower down.
The European Commission said it would review Twenga’s complaint and decide whether to include it to the ongoing investigation. Nine other complaints are already part of the probe. – AFP.

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