Barack Obama has given no specifics about the job for the the nation's first chief technology officer, leaving the tech community to speculate about the role and who might fill it. The Obama camp isn't talking, but during the campaign it proposed using technology to, for example, make government records more accessible, increase network security and digitize health records.
Advocacy Group Seeks to Shape Privacy Standards
A group of privacy scholars, lawyers and corporate officials are launching an advocacy group designed to help shape standards around how companies collect, store and use consumer data for business and advertising. The group, the Future of Privacy Forum, will be led by Jules Polonetsky, who until this month was in charge of AOL's privacy policy, and Chris Wolf, a privacy lawyer for law firm Proskauer Rose.
Company Sues Samsung, Seeks to Ban Memory Chips
Spansion, a struggling Silicon Valley maker of flash memory chips, filed a pair of sweeping patent infringement suits against Samsung of South Korea, the world’s largest producer. In a complaint to the International Trade Commission in Washington, Spansion is seeking to bar the import into the United States of more than 100 million music players, cellphones, cameras and light laptop computers that use Samsung’s flash memory chips.
EBay Bans Sales of Tickets to Presidential Swearing-In
If you are one of the few to land a ticket to the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama, don't think about hawking it on eBay. The online auction site is banning such postings after a U.S. senator said she was crafting a bill to make the sales a federal crime.
Online, Age-Verification Proves Challenging
Performing so-called age verification for children on the Internet is fraught with challenges. The kinds of publicly available data that Web companies use to confirm the identities of adults, like their credit card or Social Security numbers, are either not available for minors or are restricted by federal privacy laws.
Google Encounters Privacy Challenges in Europe
Almost five years into its expansion into Europe -- where it has a headquarters in Dublin, large offices in Zurich and London, and smaller centers in countries like Denmark, Russia and Poland -- Google is getting caught in a web of privacy laws that threaten its growth and the positive image it has cultivated as a company dedicated to doing good.
Microsoft Asks Court to Invalidate WebXchange Patents
In a new lawsuit, Microsoft asks a San Francisco court to declare invalid several patents assigned to an online transactions company in hopes of defending customers who have been sued by the patent holder, WebXchange. WebXchange earlier this year filed lawsuits against Dell, Allstate and FedEx in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, charging patent infringement.
Obama Expected to Stop E-mailing as President
Before he arrives at the White House, President-elect Barack Obama will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.
Obama Expected to Push for Net Neutrality
It is widely expected that President-elect Barack Obama will make net neutrality and access to broadband Internet connections in rural and poor areas a key part of his agenda to close economic divides and help spur job creation. The task of putting net neutrality -- the notion put forth by academics that network operators should be banned from selectively slowing, blocking or altering Internet content and technologies -- into practice would probably fall to the Federal Communications Commission, business leaders and analysts said.
Facebook Removes Pages Used by Italian Neo-Nazis
Facebook said it had removed several pages from its site used by Italian neo-Nazis to incite violence after European politicians accused the Internet social networking site of allowing a platform to racists. Seven different group pages had been created on the site with titles advocating violence against gypsies.
Privacy Groups Want Info from Google on Flu Trends
Google's recent announcement that it may have found a way to predict U.S. flu trends has led to the inevitable expressions of concern from some privacy groups. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Patient Privacy Rights sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying if the records are "disclosed and linked to a particular user, there could be adverse consequences for education, employment, insurance, and even travel." It asks for more disclosure about how Google Flu Trends protects privacy.
Trial Delayed for Alleged Palin E-mail Hacker
The trial of 20-year-old college student accused of hacking into Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account has been delayed until May 2009. A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee moved the trial of David Kernell from December to May 19, 2009 after the government said it needed more time to sift through the evidence.
ISP Subscribers Sue Company Over Tracking Technology
Angry online subscribers who had their Web surfing habits tracked in detail are suing a Silicon Valley startup that created the controversial technology and six Internet service providers that briefly used it. The 15 customers who filed the lawsuit in federal court demand more than $5 million in damages and are asking a judge to turn the case into a class action representing tens of thousands Internet subscribers.
Nine Countries Raid Firms for Online Drug Sales
Authorities in nine countries have raided businesses suspected of supplying medicines illegally over the Internet in an unprecedented global swoop coordinated by Interpol, officials said. The operation, codenamed Pangea, involved dozens of locations in Britain, Germany, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Canada and the United States.
More Technology Veterans Named to Obama Transition Team
More members of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team were named, including some veterans of the technology and communications sectors. The transition team announced its agency review teams, groups of advisers who will review key federal departments, agencies, and commissions, as well as the White House, to aide Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and key advisers in their policy, personnel, and budget decisions.
Video Clips of Japanese Police Crackdown Popular
Video clips of a Japanese police crackdown on a group of "working poor" who tried to get a look at the wealthy prime minister's luxurious private home in Tokyo have attracted of thousands of viewers on the Internet. Three men were arrested on suspicion of assembling without a permit and scuffling with police, a spokesman at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police said, when about 40 people gathered last month near Prime Minister Taro Aso's home in an exclusive area of the capital.
Spam Volume Drops as Hosting Firm Goes Offline
The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide plummeted after a Web hosting firm identified by the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline. Experts say the precipitous drop-off in spam comes from Internet providers unplugging McColo Corp., a hosting provider in Northern California that was the home base for machines responsible for coordinating the sending of roughly 75 percent of all spam each day.
U.S. Move to Block Online Gambling Draws Protests
The Bush administration is moving in its last weeks to adopt final regulations to enforce a controversial law that seeks to block Internet gambling. The move is drawing hot protests from Democratic lawmakers and supporters of online betting.
Man to Plead Guilty in Guns N' Roses Case
The Los Angeles man arrested on accusations that he uploaded nine pre-released Guns N' Roses songs from the upcoming Chinese Democracy album has agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of copyright infringement as part of a deal, authorities said.
Yahoo Blocks Searches for Football Player Argentina
Following a judge's temporary restraining order, Yahoo! Argentina has blocked all web searches for the country's most famous son: notorious football cheat Diego Maradona. Maradona is known the world over for his, shall we say, sleight of hand in the 1986 World Cup quarter final between England and Argentina.
