Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor whose computer equipment was seized in April as part of an investigation into a missing prototype iPhone 4, has voluntarily agreed to turn over information to authorities. The agreement between Chen and the San Mateo County District Attorney's office, which calls for the DA to drop attempts to search Chen's property, puts an end to the dispute over whether the search of Chen's computer gear was lawful.
A patent infringement lawsuit filed against Amazon.com was a procedural move and not a new lawsuit, according to Discovery Communications Inc., which filed the complaint. Earlier, Reuters reported that Discovery Communications filed a lawsuit accusing Amazon.com Inc of infringing patents covering electronic book delivery and security with its Kindle e-book reader.
Half of Americans who have a profile on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are worried about their privacy, according to a new poll. The Marist survey showed that people over 60 are the most worried about privacy, and women are more concerned than men.
The FCC launched an effort to tap the Universal Service Fund to establish a $400 million program aimed at extending broadband service to rural healthcare providers, CongressDaily reported. The changes, consistent with goals laid out in the commission's 10-year national broadband plan, are aimed at expanding eligible applicants from 9,800 healthcare providers to 12,000 by including providers who may not operate within hospitals, such as skilled nursing facilities, off-site administrative offices and data centers, and renal dialysis centers.
Former security company Finjan has filed a lawsuit against five companies -- McAfee, Symantec, Webroot Software, Websense, and Sophos -- claiming they are in violation of its patents. Finjan is asking for financial damages and an injunction to stop the five security companies from selling software allegedly tied to the patents.
Mozilla has disabled and added to a block list a Firefox add-on that stole log-in information when users visited Web sites, the company says. The software, called Mozilla Sniffer, had been downloaded about 1,800 times in the approximately five weeks it was available on addons.mozilla.org, Mozilla reported in a blog post. Read the article: CNET News
Chinese social networking websites that provide Twitter-like services have suddenly reverted to testing mode and access has been spotty amid reports of a government clampdown. Although Twitter has been banned for more than a year in China, Chinese Internet companies have been quick to fill the void, providing microblogging services that allow users to post frequent updates and follow other posters.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said the FCC's rules on indecency are too vague and violate the First Amendment, undermining the government's primary tool for policing civility over the airwaves. The ruling questioned how the FCC can single out broadcast TV while most American families subscribe to cable or satellite TV, watch Internet video on cellphones, and play lifelike video games with few standards of decency.
Google broke Australia's privacy law when it collected private information from wireless networks, the country's privacy commissioner said, following an investigation into the Internet giant's "Street View" mapping service. Several other countries are investigating Google over the data collection, and there are growing concerns from regulators and consumer watchdogs worldwide that Google isn't serious enough about people's privacy -- a charge the company denies.
A company called XPRT Ventures says transaction system PayPal knowingly incorporated XPRT's e-commerce technology, for which it had filed for U.S. patents, into its own patent applications back in 2003 -- and has served parent company eBay with a $3.8 billion lawsuit.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says it's joining a group of other organizations in a legal challenge to a new state law that was intended to ban distribution by the Internet of "matter harmful to minors." The plaintiffs said the law may have been intended to protect children from sexual predators on the Internet, but its effect was much broader, effectively banning from the Internet anything harmful to minors, including material that adults have a right to view.
The U.S. Defense Department and State Department are allowing greater use of Facebook and Twitter, while warily noting that social media can be a boon for spies and "compromise operational security." The State Department released a manual saying that personal use of Facebook and Twitter is permitted on work computers, and the agency "will not arbitrarily ban access to or the use of social media."
A now-defunct Web site that catered to gay youth is now ensnared in a federal bankruptcy proceeding that the founder says could result in as many as 1 million profiles being sold to creditors, putting its former subscribers' privacy at risk.
A New York judge has issued a temporary restraining order restricting the transfer of Facebook Inc.'s assets, following a suit by a New York man who claims to own an 84% stake in the social-networking company. Paul D. Ceglia filed a suit in the Supreme Court of New York's Allegany County on June 30, claiming that a 2003 contract he signed with Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to ownership of the company and monetary damages.
A federal judge will allow a lawsuit filed against Apple and iPhone wireless carrier AT&T to proceed as a class action. At issue is Apple's control over what applications can be installed to the iPhone as well as their exclusivity deal with AT&T.
Though it has successfully resisted pressure to install a mandatory "panic button" on users' home pages, Facebook has permitted the U.K.'s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to build an app for its platform that members of the social-networking site can use to report online abuse directly to CEOP or seek advice about potential dangers of the Web.
Europe's highest court confirmed an earlier ruling that companies using the names of their competitors as Internet advertising keywords are not infringing European trademark laws. The case involved temporary cabin maker Portakabin, which accused its competitor Primakabin of infringing its rights as trademark owner of the Portakabin name by using it as an ad keyword.
Apple has filed a lawsuit against three companies it alleges are selling knockoff power adapters for MacBooks and MacBook Pros, according to court filings. The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, names Brilliant Store, Sunvalleytek International, and Hootoo.com as defendants.
The Department of Homeland Security will, effective immediately, assume primary responsibility for making sure agencies comply with federal information security requirements, sidelining the Office of Management and Budget from administrative duties, according to a memo OMB and the White House cybersecurity coordinator released.
In a major setback for the recording industry, a Boston judge slashed by 90 percent a $675,000 damages award that a Boston University graduate student had been ordered to pay to four record labels for illegally downloading 30 songs and sharing them online. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the amount a federal jury ordered Joel Tenenbaum to pay last July was "unconstitutionally excessive" in light of what she described as the modest harm caused to the record labels.
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