Even though Sony started bringing back its Playstation Network console online service in North America and Europe late Saturday and throughout the day Sunday, the servers are still dark over at Sony's home country of Japan. Why? According to a story at Fox Business, the Japanese government is still not ready to approve the restart of the online network.
The story quotes Kazushige Nobutani, the director of Japan's Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as saying "We met with Sony on May 6 and 13, and basically we want two things from them." One of those things is taking preventive measures to keep the cyber attack that caused Sony to shut down the Playstation Network on April 20. Nobutani said, "As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference."
The other thing that Japanese officials want from Sony is info about how the company will regain confidence after personal data from tens of millions of Playstation Network users was exposed in the cyber attack. Nobutani said, "There were similar cases in the past that were caused by other firms, and we are asking Sony whether their measures are good enough when compared to countermeasures taken in the past." Sony has already announced plans to offer free fraud and identity protection services for a year for Playstation Network users in the US and Europe.
While Sony has said it is "still in talks with various authorities" in Japan about restoring the network in that country so far there's no specific date on when that will actually happen.
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