Business reviews site Yelp amounts to an "extortion scheme," according to a class action lawsuit filed in a Los Angeles court by two law firms and a Long Beach, Calif., veterinary hospital that claims it was "victimized" by Yelp sales representatives asking for payment in exchange for the removal of negative reviews. "The plaintiff... asked that Yelp remove a false and defamatory review from the Web site," a release from the law firms alleges.
An Italian court's ruling that Google executives violated the privacy of an individual via a YouTube video is "at complete odds" with a European law that protects service providers, said Rachel Whetstone, Google Inc.'s vice president for public policy and communications. An Italian judge convicted three Google officials of violating the privacy of a disabled boy by allowing a video of students bullying him to appear on Google's YouTube site.
A Pennsylvania educator named in a webcam spying lawsuit says she never monitored students through webcams or authorized anyone else to do so. She did not specifically address the lawsuit's accusation that she talked to a student about "improper behavior" at home, citing images taken from his school-issued laptop's built-in camera.
Broadcasters could share in the proceeds from airwaves auctions if they agree to give up spectrum to help meet the growing needs of wireless broadband, the top U.S. communications regulator said. The upcoming National Broadband Plan will propose freeing up a big chunk of airwaves over the next decade.
Twitter users were being hit with what seems to be the second phishing attack in a week, according to security firm Sophos. The latest attack features a message that says "This you????" followed by a link that leads to a fake Twitter log-in page, according to a blog post by Sophos' Graham Cluley.
A judge in Milan found three Google executives guilty of violating Italy's privacy code over a video that was uploaded on the search giant's video platform, the company said. Google said it plans to appeal the court's decision because its employees "had nothing to to do with the video in question" and for its implications on Internet freedom and censorship.
Computer-based network attacks are slowly bleeding U.S. businesses of revenue and market advantage, while the government faces the prospect of losing in an all-out cyberwar, experts told Senators in a hearing. "If the nation went to war today in a cyberwar, we would lose," said Michael McConnell, executive vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton's national security business and a former director of national security and national intelligence.
Google, owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, faces European antitrust scrutiny after three companies filed complaints about unfair competition. A U.K. price-comparison site called Foundem, a French legal search engine called Ejustice.fr and a Microsoft Corp. service called Ciao From Bing, have brought competition complaints to the European Commission, Google said in a blog posting.
U.S. communications regulators will unveil on March 17 a blueprint aimed at bringing fast affordable Internet access to more than 90 million Americans being held back by fees and technology. The Federal Communications Commission said that the long-awaited National Broadband Plan will try to help connect 93 million Americans to high-speed Internet to find jobs, access educational and healthcare services, and reduce household energy costs.
Web site owners in China will have to start submitting personal photos to register their sites with the government under new trial regulations, China's latest move in an Internet clampdown focused on porn. The regulations, issued by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, are part of an ongoing effort by the ministry to create records for all Web sites in the country.
Xerox Corporation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Yahoo, and YouTube over disputed Internet search and e-commerce technology. The document management company alleges that Google has infringed upon its patent "System for automatically generating queries" with its AdWords and AdSense software.
Intel Corp said it faced a "sophisticated" hacker attack in January about the same time as the recently publicized Chinese hacker attacks on Google but said there was no clear link between the two events. "The only connection is timing," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said, declining to elaborate.
Google's assertion that its computers were attacked by hackers based in China was "groundless," Beijing said, hardening its rhetoric in a spat with Washington over Internet freedom. The remarks from Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang were the first direct rejection of the firm's allegations. China had previously defended its right to censor content on the Internet and brushed aside the hacking accusations, saying Google must abide by Chinese law.
Amazon.com Inc. and Perfect 10 Inc. settled a copyright infringement lawsuit the adult publisher had brought over thumbnail images of nude pictures it said can be viewed with Amazon.com search sites A9.com and Alexa.com. Perfect 10 had sued Google Inc., the world’s most-used Internet search engine, and Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, alleging they were offering users access to copyrighted material on other Web sites.
Neither Red Bull or Verizon Communications is an Olympic sponsor, but both have posted items about the Vancouver Games on Twitter and Facebook. That is a violation of Olympics rules, which say advertisers that don’t pay the tens of millions of dollars an official sponsorship costs may not associate themselves with the Games or the athletes during the events or the weeks surrounding them.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has notified nearly 100 organizations that data from their networks has been found on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, the agency said. The FTC notices went to private and public entities, including schools and local government agencies and organizations with as few as eight employees to as many as tens of thousands, the FTC said in a statement.
Amazon will pay its cross-town tech buddy Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money for a patent-licensing agreement that opens up each company's intellectual property portfolio to the other. Specific terms of the deal were confidential, but Amazon ostensibly is after legal use of some specific Microsoft technologies.
Siding with Google, a federal judge in Corpus Christi, Texas has transferred a trademark infringement lawsuit by an AdWords marketer to Google's hometown of northern California. U.S. District Court Judge Janis Graham Jack ruled that the marketer, Flowbee -- which manufactures home haircutting systems -- must litigate any matters against Google in California because the AdWords contract provided that any claims related to Google's ad programs would be tried in that state.
A Southern Nevada adult Web site operator has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against a national company that sells services allowing people to screen potential dating partners. DCAEV, based in Henderson, runs a Web site called www.date-check.com promoting escort services and other sexually oriented businesses.
U.S. investigators are homing in on the likely perpetrators of the attacks on Google and as many as 33 other companies, with evidence pointing to an Asian hacking group that is likely Chinese, according to people familiar with the investigation. Initial forensic investigations of several of the companies affected have revealed the electronic infiltration techniques of a prominent Asian hacking group -- one of a handful of the major groups, they said.
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