An old name in retail was hit by a modern scourge -- a hack of its customers' credit card numbers -- but didn't inform the consumers, revealing how data breaches might be heavily undercounted even with new notification laws. At least 51,000 records were exposed in the breach at the parent company of Montgomery Ward.
ICANN Approves New Rules for Top-Level Domains
The Internet’s main oversight agency approved the most sweeping changes to the network’s address system since its creation. According to new rules unanimously passed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, at its meeting in Paris, any company, organization or country will soon be able to apply for a new Web address extension, called a top-level domain.
Facebook Agrees to Settlement Payment Over Founding
Facebook agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of cash and stock to settle a long-running legal battle over whether founder Mark Zuckerberg stole ideas for the site from fellow Harvard students, according to court documents. The parties in the case -- which pitted Zuckerberg, a shy 24-year-old entrepreneur now worth billions of dollars, against former Harvard classmates and one-time U.S. Olympic team rowing hopefuls Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss -- agreed to a tentative settlement deal in February, according to the court papers.
Lawmakers Fail to Define Illegal Internet Gambling
Lawmakers failed to agree on setting a clear definition of illegal Internet gambling to go along with a 2006 ban on online betting. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have been unable to finalize rules to implement the ban because Congress didn't clearly define online gambling when it passed legislation less than two years ago.
Anti-Spam Group Pushes Best Practices for ISPs
A major antispam organization is pushing a set of new best practices for ISPs to stop increasing volumes of spam from botnets. The guidelines, from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group, were drawn up at a meeting in Germany and deal with forwarded e-mail and e-mail that is sent from dynamic IP addresses.
Security Concerns Holding Back Data Archiving
Despite the benefits and increasing popularity of the Software as a Service model, companies are still wary about the idea of farming out data archiving to a partner. Just 24 percent of enterprises are using hosted archiving solutions, compared to 76 percent using on-premise technologies, according to a new study by the Radicati Group, a research firm.
ABC to Pay Staffers for Some After-Hours BlackBerry Use
ABC staffers had been feuding with management for weeks over whether they should get paid for the time they spend on their BlackBerrys while out of the office. ABC said it would pay its news writers and producers for using their BlackBerrys after hours -- but only in specific, work-related situations.
Student Visa Extension Won't Hurt Tech Workers, U.S. Says
In papers filed in court, the Bush administration says its student visa extension won't hurt U.S. tech workers and argues that it's not a backdoor H-1B increase. The administration was responding to a lawsuit filed in May by the Immigration Reform Institute, The Programmers Guild, and other groups challenging the extension of the Optional Practical Training provision from one year to 29 months.
Security Firm Finds Flaws in 80% of Corporate PCs
Security firm Sophos ran a 40-day test of visiting computers from corporate users, and the results aren't pretty. Four in five of the machines checked were lacking in at least one area of security.
Man Ordered to Pay $15,000 for Redirecting Website
A man has been ordered to pay $15,000 in damages after he set up a shadow website for a Canmore bicycle shop that re-routed Internet users to a gay pornography website. In 2004, Ryan Draper bought the domain name InformCycle.com, according to a decision by Court of Queen's Bench Justice Scott Brooker.
Charter Drops Plan to Track ISP Customers
Charter Communications is dropping plans to track the Web use of some high-speed Internet subscribers, citing concerns raised by customers, the company said. In May, Charter, which is based in St. Louis, announced a pilot program in four markets intended to produce enough information for advertisers to aim online ads at individual customers based on their viewing habits.
Supreme Court to Consider ISPs' AT&T Antitrust Case
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review an antitrust lawsuit brought by several Internet service providers alleging a unit of AT&T Corp. charged unreasonably high prices for access to the company's extensive phone networks. The AT&T unit, Pacific Bell Telephone Co., was sued by several Internet services providers in 2003, including Linkline Communications Inc., Notelog Inc. and In-Reach Internet Inc.
Group Pushes for Affordable National Broadband Policy
In response to concerns that cable and telecom companies aren't doing enough to build out broadband access in the U.S., public interest and business groups have formed a new initiative to push for a national broadband policy. The new InternetforEveryone.org organization aims to ensure that all Americans have affordable access to high-speed Internet service.
Software Company Accuses Google of Using Trade Secrets
LimitNone, a small software development company, is seeking nearly $1 billion in damages in a lawsuit that accuses Google of reneging on a partnership with the small company and misappropriating its trade secrets for its Google Apps online service. Specifically, the suit concerns LimitNone software called gMove designed to let people move e-mail, contacts, and calendar information stored in Microsoft Outlook to Google's online service.
Judge Wants Microsoft to Disclose More Documents
A federal judge told Microsoft Corp. that she expects it to make technical documents available that describe how its various applications interact with one another as part of its antitrust consent decree. At a status hearing on the company's compliance with the antitrust order, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the technical documents are "integral to inter-operability" for other software programmers to create applications that work on the Windows platform.
Defendant in Obscenity Trial Turns to Google for Standards
In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought. In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like "orgy" than for "apple pie" or "watermelon."
Obama's Rise Motivates Supremacists Online
Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.
FCC May Auction Airwaves for Free Internet Access
The Federal Communications Commission said it wants to auction a section of wireless airwaves to buyers willing to provide free broadband Internet service without pornography. The agency asked for public comment on its plan to auction an unused portion of the wireless spectrum with the condition that the winning bidder offer free Internet access and filter out obscene content on part of those airwaves.
Facebook, ConnectU Go to Court Over Business Idea
A hearing in a dispute between Facebook and ConnectU wrapped up with no ruling, after the federal judge overseeing the matter had closed the proceedings to the public and the press. U.S. District Judge James Ware plans to issue a ruling before too much time has elapsed, attorneys involved in the matter said as they left the courthouse here following the hearing, which lasted somewhat less than two hours.
Antitrust Officials Evaluating IE Explorer 8
Antitrust regulators are evaluating the forthcoming Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 as part of ongoing activities to ensure Microsoft is in compliance with the final judgment in two landmark antitrust cases that involved individual states and the U.S. government. Microsoft and antitrust regulators also said they were concentrating on revising and extending documentation the software company is making available as part of its Microsoft Communications Protocol Program.
