India Nears Final Decision on Blocking BlackBerry

India will take a final decision on August 30 on whether to block some BlackBerry services over which the country has security concerns, a senior government source said. The maker of the smartphone, Canada's Research In Motion, faces an August 31 deadline to give India the means to track and read its secure email that officials fear have the potential to be misused by militants.

RIAA Says "DMCA Isn't Working for Content People"

The Recording Industry Association of America said that current U.S. copyright law is so broken that it "isn't working" for content creators any longer. RIAA President Cary Sherman said the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains loopholes that allow broadband providers and Web companies to turn a blind eye to customers' unlawful activities without suffering any legal consequences.

Arrest Sheds Light on World of Russian Hackers

Vladislav A. Horohorin, known as "BadB," is expected to appear soon before a French court that will decide on his potential extradition to the United States, where he could face up to 12 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 if he is convicted on charges of fraud and identity theft. For at least nine months, however, he lived openly in Moscow as one of the world’s most wanted computer criminals.

WikiLeaks Relies on Secrecy to Protect Funding, Network

The controversial website WikiLeaks, which argues the cause of openness in leaking classified or confidential documents, has set up an elaborate global financial network to protect a big secret of its own -- its funding. WikiLeaks particularly tries to obscure payments for "basic infrastructure that could be attacked," for "servers that are engaged in source protection," and for "security engineers," founder Julian Assange said.

RIM May Allow India to Access BlackBerry Messages

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion may provide some solution soon to help Indian security agencies access corporate e-mail by obtaining encrypted data in readable format, a government source said. Research In Motion faces an August 31 deadline to give Indian authorities the means to track and read BlackBerry Enterprise e-mail and its separate BlackBerry Messenger service.

McAfee Says Cameron Diaz Searches Linked to Malware

McAfee's fourth annual list of the "most dangerous celebrities to search for" on the Internet places Cameron Diaz at No. 1. The company says searching for the "latest Cameron Diaz pictures and downloads yields a 10 percent chance of landing on a website that's tested positive for online threats, such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware."

ACLU Cites Privacy Concerns Over Facebook's "Places"

Moments after Facebook introduced a new feature called Facebook Places that allows its users to share their location and find their friends, advocates raised flags over online privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California cited concerns over the new product, saying Facebook neglected to include several crucial privacy features.

Companies Settle Online Fee Club Charges for $10.1 Million

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said six companies will pay $10.1 million of fines and restitution after hundreds of thousands of consumers were tricked into joining discount clubs that carried hidden fees. Cuomo said shoppers who bought goods online would often get cash-back and discount offers from marketers and accept them without realizing they were agreeing to join fee-based programs and hand over credit and debit card information, because these obligations were buried in the fine print.

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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.