LinkedIn Calls Chinese Censorship a Risk in IPO

Following a recent blocking of LinkedIn in China, the social Internet network for professionals warned potential investors in its initial public offering that similar incidents in the future could hurt its value. In its latest filing with U.S. financial regulators, LinkedIn confirmed that the Chinese government had briefly blocked access to its site and said that such censorship by China or other governments or organizations could lead to the loss or slowing of growth in its member base or member activity.

India's BlackBerry Demands Called "Astonishing"

A top executive of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd. said Indian security agencies are making "rather astonishing" demands for increased powers to monitor email and other data traffic, raising serious privacy issues that threaten to harm the country's reputation with foreign investors. Robert Crow, vice president of industry and government relations for RIM, said India's Home Ministry, which oversees domestic security, wants the ability to intercept in real time any communication on any Indian network—including BlackBerry's highly secure corporate-email service -- and get it in readable, plain-text format.

Amid Disasters, Internet Stays Alive in Japan

Unlike Egypt or Libya, where dictatorships found it all too easy to turn off the Internet, Japan's Internet has largely stayed up in the face of disaster. This is a credit to Japan's robust Internet that has managed to keep running despite a 8.9 Richter scale earthquake and numerous powerful aftershocks, tidal waves, and all the havoc that such natural disaster play on a modern society's infrastructure.

  • Read the article: ZDNet

Twitter Settles Privacy Charges with FTC

The Federal Trade Commission accepted a settlement with Internet messaging service Twitter Inc. to resolve charges that Twitter deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by not safeguarding personal information. The settlement bars Twitter from misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of non-public consumer information for 20 years, according to a statement posted on the FTC website.

Internet Explorer Subject to "Drive-By" Browser Attack

A vulnerability in the way Internet Explorer parses MHTML content -- a method for combining multiple file types and HTML content into a single file -- is now targeting users as part of a "drive-by" browser attack. It's called that due to the process by which attackers exploit the loophole: They'll create a malicious website, lure a user in, and then force the user's browser to run Javascript code.

Intelligence Director Warns of Chinese Cyber-Warfare

China's growing capabilities in cyber-warfare and intelligence gathering are a "formidable concern" to the United States, the top intelligence official told a Senate panel. "The Chinese have made a substantial investment in this area, they have a very large organization devoted to it and they're pretty aggressive," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Review Halts Sale of N.J. Computers with Personal Data

The State of New Jersey was about to turn over sensitive information on computers to the highest bidder, the state comptroller, Matthew A. Boxer, reported. After the comptroller’s office reviewed computer equipment that the state was preparing to auction to the public last year, it found that 46 out of 58 hard drives, or 79 percent, still had data on them, much of it confidential.

U.S. Agencies Help Anonymous Surfing in Middle East

The Obama administration may not be lending arms to dissidents in the Middle East, but it is offering aid in another critical way: helping them surf the Web anonymously as they seek to overthrow their governments. Federal agencies -- such as the State Department, the Defense Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors -- have been funding a handful of technology firms that allow people to get online without being tracked or to visit news or social media sites that governments have blocked.

Senators Propose "Online Privacy Bill of Rights"

Sens. John McCain and John Kerry are circulating proposed legislation to create an "online privacy bill of rights," according to people familiar with the situation, a sign of bipartisan support for efforts to curb the Internet-tracking industry. Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, are backing a bill that would require companies to seek a person's permission to share data about him with outsiders.

Denial-of Service Attack Takes Down 5,000 Sites

A distributed denial-of-service attack that affected thousands of customers at Codero and other hosting providers appeared to come from within China and to be launched at a Chinese site that is critical of communism or its Domain Name System provider, Codero said. The disruptions that took Codero's customers offline for most of the morning were collateral damage in the attack, said Ryan Elledge, chief operating officer at Codero.

ICANN, Governments Disagree on New Domain Names

A rare rift has developed between national governments and the nonprofit organization that oversees Internet domain names, with neither side showing signs of backing down in a dispute that includes trademarks and free expression. In a statement, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, listed 23 areas of continued disagreement over the rules for approving new top-level domain names.

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.