Internet Cases Show Privacy Law Dated

As Internet services -- allowing people to store e-mails, photographs, spreadsheets and an untold number of private documents -- have surged in popularity, they have become tempting targets for law enforcement.  Many Internet companies and consumer advocates say the main law governing communication privacy -- enacted in 1986, before cellphone and e-mail use was widespread, and before social networking was even conceived -- is outdated, affording more protection to letters in a file cabinet than e-mail on a server.

Twitter Subpoena Harassment, Assange's Lawyer Says

U.S. prosecutors’ demand that the microblogging service Twitter Inc. hand over data about users with ties to WikiLeaks amounts to harassment, said a lawyer for Julian Assange, the website’s founder. The Justice Department subpoena, approved last month in federal court and later unsealed, also violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable government searches, Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens said today in a telephone interview in London.

Supreme Court Lets Internet Music Price Suit Proceed

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the country’s four largest music labels, refusing to block a suit accusing them of conspiring to fix Internet song prices. Units of Sony Corp., Vivendi SA, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group Ltd. argued unsuccessfully that the allegations in the consumer complaint aren’t sufficient to suggest the companies engaged in misconduct.

Commerce Department to Work on Online "Identity Ecosystem"

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said. It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

More Regulation Expected to Follow Net Neutrality Rules

Regulators' new rules for Internet lines are likely the start of a greater effort by the government to more closely oversee such channels, broadband industry lobbyists said. The Federal Communications Commission's new rules are "an initial foray" by the agency to police Internet lines, but changes may need to be made in the future as the Internet develops said Rick Whitt, Google Inc.'s top policy lawyer, during a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Junk E-mail Levels Drop After Big Spammer Goes Silent

The number of spam e-mail messages circulating on the Internet tumbled at the end of December after the world’s largest spamming operation mysteriously went dark on Christmas Eve. A network of malware-infected computers known as the Rustock botnet, which is widely believed to be Russian-operated and had been responsible for about half of all spam globally, “appears to have completely gone off the map and is yet to resume,” said Matt Sergeant, senior anti-spam technologist at MessageLabs, a unit of the security-software maker Symantec.

Facebook, States Agree on Terms of Service

Facebook and two groups representing state attorneys general and chief information officers have reached an agreement aimed at resolving state concerns over the social media site's terms of service. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers and the National Association of Attorneys General said the agreement will apply to states already on Facebook, and they expect it will serve as a model to be used by other states as they move to set up pages on Facebook.

FCC Proposes "Open Internet Challenge"

U.S. regulators are asking software developers in an "Open Internet Challenge" to create apps that let Internet users know when their service provider -- fixed or mobile -- is interfering with content. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is trying to get consumers to help police Internet service providers for network management abuses such as slowing bandwidth-hogging content from movies.

Judge Rules for Google in Government E-mail Contract

Google scored a small victory in its government contracting race with Microsoft when a federal judge ordered the Interior Department to rethink an e-mail services contract it plans to put up for bid. Google had said the proposed terms were unfairly designed against it, arguing in a lawsuit in November the Interior Department acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner by only considering proposals based on Microsoft technology.

Skype's Chinese Partner Says Service Complies with Law

Skype's partner in China, TOM Group, said the Web-based calling service is complying with Chinese law, even as a crackdown on illegal Internet telephone providers could complicate Skype's operations in the country. The comments from TOM Group, which is 51 percent owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing, came as potential investors in Skype's planned $1 billion initial public offering year fret that any ban on Internet telephone services in China could exclude the company from of the world's largest Internet market.

Security Researcher Releases Browser Bug Tool

A security researcher who created a tool he used to find numerous bugs in major browsers has released it to the public, saying the importance of its distribution is heightened by the leak to the Web of an unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Michal Zalewski, a Google security researcher based in Poland, announced in a blog post that he was releasing a tool called "cross_fuzz" and said its distribution was a priority because at least one of the vulnerabilities discovered by the tool appears to be known to a mysterious third party.

LimeWire Seeks Subpoenas in Damages Phase

LimeWire, the popular file-sharing service that allows people to transfer music, movies and TV shows free of charge over the Internet, is looking to get court-ordered subpoenas that require third parties to open up about their dealings with the record industry. After U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood delivered what was essentially a death penalty for LimeWire for copyright violations with an injunction against the company in October, the case moved onto the next question: How much money should LimeWire pay the record industry for its misdeeds?

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.