Minnesota regulators may have been outplayed when they bet a decades-old federal law would lend itself to an online gambling crackdown. Following a lawsuit by the gambling industry, which considers the push a violation of federal commerce and free-speech protections, state officials said they'll withdraw a demand that Internet service providers block access to hundreds of sites.
Sweden's "Pirate Party" Gains Seat at European Parliament
Sweden's Pirate Party has won entry to the European Parliament in Brussels in elections. The Pirate Party is focused on three main goals: "to fundamentally reform copyright law, get rid of the patent system, and ensure that citizens' rights to privacy are respected."
Rambus Asks ITC to Drop Patent Prove of Nvidia
Nvidia said that Rambus had filed motions with the U.S. International Trade Commission to terminate an investigation relating to Nvidia's alleged infringement on four patents. Rambus in November filed a complaint with the ITC alleging that Nvidia had infringed nine of its patents relating to memory technology.
ISP Accused of Shielding Criminals Shut Down by FTC
Although a Federal Trade Commission order shut down Internet access for San Jose Web-hosting firm Pricewert based on several complaints, the company says the action was unfair and plans to fight the FTC in court. The FTC has accused Pricewert of shielding clientele said to be engaged in criminal activities that include child pornography.
Twitter Co-Founder Calls La Russa's Suit "Frivolous"
Following the filing of a lawsuit by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa over fake tweets made in his name, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has taken to the company blog to respond to the suit and detail Twitter's future plans to combat false accounts. "With due respect to the man and his notable work, Mr. La Russa's lawsuit was an unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous, " Stone wrote in a post.
Hacker Joins Homeland Security Advisory Council
Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat and Defcon hacker and security conferences, was among 16 people sworn in to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. The HSAC members will provide recommendations and advice directly to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
Despite Recession, Domain Name Registrations Keep Growing
The domain name business is still adding new registrations even in the midst of the worst recession in at least 50 years. According to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from VeriSign, at the end of the first quarter of 2009 there was a total 183 million domain names registered across all Top Level Domain names, representing a 12 percent increase on a year-over-year basis.
Lawmakers Want U.S. to Retain Oversight of ICANN
Several U.S. lawmakers and an executive with the world's largest domain-name registrar called on the U.S. government to maintain oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) after a major agreement between two expires in September. The U.S. needs to maintain oversight of ICANN to push the organization to become more transparent and accountable to registrars and Internet users, said Christine Jones, general counsel and corporate secretary for The Go Daddy Group, a huge registrar based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Russia Probing Microsoft Over Windows XP Cuts
Russia's state anti-monopoly service launched a probe of Microsoft over cutbacks in supplies of the Windows XP operating system in Russia, it said. The agency said it thought Microsoft had violated antimonopoly legislation by cutting delivery of Windows XP to Russia both separately and pre-installed on personal computers, as well as in its pricing policy on the product.
Baseball Manager Sues Twitter Over False Account
St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing the social-networking site Twitter, saying an unauthorized page using his name damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress. The suit filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco seeks unspecified damages.
Microsoft Licenses Messaging Patents in Settlement
Group messaging company Paltalk said that it has reached a deal with Microsoft to settle a patent dispute. As part of the deal, Microsoft has taken a license to Paltalk's patents and is paying an undisclosed amount of money, Paltalk said in a press release.
BlackBerry Gets Security Patch After Hacker Warning
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion has issued a security patch for the popular device, whose users include U.S. President Barack Obama, warning that it is vulnerable to attacks by hackers. Research in Motion issued the security warning in a bulletin on its web site, but officials could not be reached to comment on details of the patch.
U.S. Probes Tech Firms for Antitrust, Hiring Practices
The Justice Department has launched a preliminary investigation into whether some of the nation's largest technology companies violated antitrust laws by negotiating the recruiting and hiring of one another's employees, according to two people with knowledge of the review. The probe is focused on search engine giant Google Inc., rival Yahoo Inc., iPhone maker Apple Inc., biotech firm Genentech Inc. and others, said the sources, who described the inquiry as "industrywide" and spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.
Phishing Scam Tries to Get Information from Outlook Users
Trend Micro is warning about a phishing attempt that targets users of Microsoft Outlook, prompting recipients to reconfigure their Outlook by clicking on a link that leads to a Web site that asks for an account name and password, as well as mail server information.
Scammers Luring Victims Through Twitter, Google Searches
Online scammers are targeting people looking for popular topics on Twitter and Google to lure them to Web sites that display fake security warnings and try to sell them antivirus products, PandaLabs said. This technique isn't new, but seems to be widening on Google and is particularly successful on Twitter where links are spread fast and furiously and people often don't think before they click.
China Blocks Twitter Before Tiananmen Anniversary
Access to the popular social networking service Twitter and e-mail service Hotmail was blocked across mainland China, two days before the 20th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown. While anniversary commemorations are illegal in China, crowds gather every year for a vigil in Hong Kong, a former British colony that enjoys greater freedom.
Privacy Expectations, Reality Differ Online, Study Says
When asked about online privacy, most people say they want more information about how they are being tracked and more control over how their personal information is used. Those consumer expectations are rarely in line with the data collection practices of Internet companies, which often collect information about their users not only on their own sites, but also when those users visit other sites across the Web, according to a new privacy study conducted by a group of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hackers Increasingly See Facebook as Easy Target
Facebook is the new playground for phishers. Why? The social networking site has made things relatively easy for computer criminals.
Psion Drops "Netbook" Tradedmarks to Settle Dispute
Psion and Intel have settled their legal battle over the use of the word "Netbook." Since early 2008, chipmaker Intel has been using the term to refer to small, cheap, low-powered sub-notebooks, and its Atom chipset has become by far the most popular engine for such machines.
Obama Administration Struggling with Internet, Paper Says
In a paper on the early use of Web 2.0 techniques by the Obama administration, a lawyer for the new media team of the Obama transition leading up to Inauguration Day says using social networking sites and other tools technology to bring citizens into government is more difficult that it sounded on the campaign trail.
