OECD Report Criticizes Proposed Internet "Kill Switch"

A proposed U.S. Internet "kill switch" to be used in the event of a cyberwar could actually cause more problems than it would prevent, a new report commissioned by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has argued. The report for the OECD by the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford looked at the potential of cyber-events to cause major disruption and found a tendency to exaggerated language, an over-reliance on military concepts of war and defence and plenty of confused thinking.

RIM to Block Porn on BlackBerry Devices in Indonesia

Research In Motion Ltd. is committed to Indonesia and will comply with the government’s request that it block pornographic websites on its BlackBerry browsers, RIM Southeast Asia Managing Director Gregory Wade said. Wade and other executives from Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM met with government officials in Jakarta to discuss the request, after Communication and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring said RIM has until Jan. 21 to begin filtering porn sites or face legal action including revocation of its license to operate in the country.

Righthaven Sues Users for Reposting News Articles

Las Vegas copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC is now suing individual message-board posters, not just website operators. Righthaven, which files copyright infringement lawsuits over unapproved online postings of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, filed seven infringement lawsuits in U.S. District Court for Nevada, lifting its lawsuit total since March to at least 203.

Judge Allows Microsoft's Cybersquatting Case to Proceed

Microsoft scored a notable victory in the war on so-called cybersquatters when Seattle federal district court judge Ricardo Martinez issued a 9-page opinion allowing Microsoft to proceed with what he called "a novel cause of action for contributory cybersquatting." Microsoft argued in an amended complaint that Digispace and yMultimedia "actively and intentionally induced others" to infringe and cybersquat on Microsoft trademarks by providing instruction on how to do so, purportedly as a way for squatters increase traffic to their own sites.

PlayStation 3 Hacker Defends His Actions

A hacker sued by Sony for circumventing the PlayStation 3's protections against pirated software is claiming he had the right to alter the video-game console he had purchased legally. George Hotz, best known for hacking the Apple iPhone in 2007, was named as a defendant with two other hackers and 100 "John Does" in a complaint Sony filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Europe Finds Flaws in Internet Filtering Software

The European Commission released the results of a survey it conducted that found while most software programs it tested do a good job of blocking kids from accessing certain websites, they are less effective at blocking access to social networking sites and blogs. The commission, the European Union's regulatory arm, analyzed 25 parental control tools for personal computers, three aimed at video game consoles and two for mobile phones and found that 84 percent are good at allowing parents to block access to certain websites, but at least 20 percent of sites offering "unsuitable" material for kids could pass through the filters, while blocking sites targeted for children.

Justice Department May Challenge Google-ITA Deal

The Justice Department is laying the groundwork for a potential court challenge to Google Inc.'s acquisition of a travel-software company that powers some of the most popular Internet airline-ticket search and booking sites, people familiar with the matter said. Justice Department staff lawyers have begun preparing legal documents for use in a possible court challenge to the $700 million deal for ITA Software Inc., but no decision to proceed has been made, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Official Indicted for Fixing LCD Panel Prices

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted a president of a Taiwanese technology company on a price-fixing charge. Ding Hui Joe, also known as David Joe, of Hannstar Display Corp. was charged with a participating in a global conspiracy to fix prices of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display panels, which are the flat display screens used in many laptop computers, cell phones and new TVs.

FBI Seeks Loughner's Internet Game Records

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked the administrator of an Internet game to hand over records of communications by Jared Loughner, following a Wall Street Journal article describing disturbing messages the accused shooter wrote over a three-month period last year. In an interview, David McVittie, the administrator of the Web game Earth Empires, said he was contacted by the FBI, which requested the files, including 131 messages that Mr. Loughner wrote.

Sony Sues to Stop Jailbreaking of PS3

Lawyers for Sony Computer Entertainment have asked a San Francisco District Court judge to block the release of code that would enable the "jailbreaking" of the Sony PlayStation 3. SCEA filed suit against George Hotz (AKA "geohot") as well as "Bushing," Hector Martin Cantero, Sven Peter, and others alleged to be part of the FAIL0VERFLOW group of hackers that contributed to the release of the PlayStation 3's root key.

European Politicians Protest WikiLeaks-Twitter Move

An influential group of European politicians is protesting the U.S. government's attempt to pry WikiLeaks-related information out of Twitter, saying that EU privacy rules may have been violated. The parliamentary maneuver expected tomorrow comes as London-based lawyers for WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange warned that their client could face illegal rendition to the United States, execution, or indefinite detention "at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere," and a U.K. judge set a two-day extradition hearing to start on February.

Microsoft Opposes Apple's "App Store" Trademark

Apple's effort to trademark the name "App Store" has run in to opposition from Microsoft, which argues the phrase is too generic to register and would restrict competitors' ability to use of the term to describe their own services. A week after Apple launched its App Store for iPhone apps in 2008, the company applied for a trademark for "app store," a retail store offering "services featuring computer software provided via the internet and other computer and electronic communication networks," as well as other services, according to its application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Winklevoss Twins Ask Appeals Court to Undo Facebook Settlement

Facebook Inc.’s settlement of claims that its founder Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for the social- networking company should be undone, former college classmates of Zuckerberg told an appeals court. The ex-Harvard University classmates, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, asked a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to void the 2008 agreement because closely held Facebook, based in Palo Alto, California, didn’t disclose an accurate valuation of its shares before agreeing to pay them $65 million in stock and cash. In the same year, a lower court ruled the accord was binding.

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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.