In many countries around the world, if you break the law by stealing copyrighted content you can be sentenced to prison and heavily fined. But if Google catches you breaking copyright laws, the punishment is more akin to being caught smoking in the boys room in high school: You’re forced to take an online class at YouTube’s Copyright School.
A Malaysian man, accused of hacking into a Federal Reserve computer server, pleaded guilty to possessing stolen credit and debit card numbers that the government said he intended to sell. Lin Mun Poo, 32, entered his plea to one fraud count before U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
By seizing servers and domain names and getting permission to remotely turn off malware on compromised PCs, U.S. officials have disabled a botnet that steals data from infected computers. The legal actions are part of the "most complete and comprehensive enforcement action ever taken by U.S. authorities to disable an international botnet," according to a statement from the Department of Justice.
Russian hacker attacks on the country's biggest blog site and a spy agency's warning to Gmail and Skype have raised fears that authorities are tightening their grip on dissent in a China-like assault on free speech. With an eye on Arab unrest that has toppled two North African leaders and spurred Western military intervention in Libya, Moscow is keen to defuse potential turmoil ahead of a December parliamentary election and a 2012 presidential vote.
Law enforcement officials are reporting significant progress in cracking a massive semiconductor-theft case, which involved an armed robbery at a Silicon Valley company of chips officials value at $37 million. Thirteen to 15 masked thieves took part in the Feb. 27 robbery at Unigen Corp., a closely held company with businesses that include manufacturing electronics products for other companies.
Motorola Solutions and the Chinese company Huawei Technologies said that they had agreed to settle a pair of lawsuits over intellectual property. The agreement is expected to clear the way for Motorola Solutions to complete the sale of its networking division to Nokia Siemens Networks.
The Texas Comptroller's office started sending notification letters to residents whose names were inadvertently placed on an agency server that was open to the public. The records of about 3.5 million Texans were placed on the public server. Disclosed data included names and mailing addresses, Social Security numbers, and to varying degrees, information like dates of birth or driver's license numbers.
Senators introduced an Internet privacy bill that would create first-time rules for Facebook, Google and other Web firms that thrive by collecting information about users. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said their measure aims to protect Internet users by forcing companies to explain how they collect information and what they do with it.
Walker Digital, a research and development laboratory for technology patents, filed 15 lawsuits against more than 100 companies including Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon and Google for unauthorized use of its intellectual property rights. Walker Digital, a Stamford, Connecticut-based company that includes Priceline.com founder Jay S. Walker as its chairman, filed the lawsuits in a Delaware court alleging that some of the biggest names in technology are using inventions created and owned by Walker Digital.
E-mails allegedly written by Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg are cited in a new court filing by Paul Ceglia as proof of his claim that he’s entitled to 50 percent of the company under a 2003 contract. The revised complaint, filed in federal court in Buffalo, New York, includes new allegations supporting Ceglia’s claim to own part of Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, the world’s biggest social-networking site, including that Zuckerberg sent numerous e-mails discussing the terms of the contract and the early development of “The Face Book” with Ceglia.
A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal -- expected to be made public soon after Tax Day -- would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.
The Huffington Post is the target of a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed in United States District Court in New York on behalf of thousands of uncompensated bloggers. The suit seeks at least $105 million in damages for more than 9,000 writers.
Sony Computer Entertainment America announced that it has settled its contentious suit against infamous hacktivist George Hotz, aka GeoHot. For those who haven't been keeping up, Hotz hacked Sony's PlayStation 3, jailbreaking it to run non-Sony-approved software and, potentially, pirated games.
Chinese telecommunications hardware maker ZTE Corp. filed a lawsuit in China against a unit of Swedish rival Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson over alleged patent infringement, said Wang Haibo, ZTE's intellectual-property director. The move escalates a legal battle that began when Ericsson said earlier this month it filed patent-infringement lawsuits against ZTE in the U.K., Italy and Germany, and highlights ZTE's growth overseas in competition with Western rivals.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss -- the former Harvard University classmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg -- can't undo their settlement over the social networking site. The appeals court ruled that the twins were savvy enough to understand what they were agreeing to when they signed the agreement in 2008, a deal that called for a $20 million cash payment and a partial ownership of Facebook.
Google falsely claimed that a version of its hosted services for government agencies was certified under a government security standard, according to court documents. Microsoft noticed the false claim in a court filing and quickly pointed it out on its legal and government affairs blog.
Government officials are imposing significant conditions on Google Inc. as they allowed the Internet search leader to proceed with its $700 million purchase of airline fare tracker ITA Software. The purchase will establish the Internet search giant as a key player in online travel.
Federal securities regulators are weighing demands to make it easier for fast-growing companies to use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise money by tapping thousands of investors for very small amounts of shares. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at adapting its rules to encourage Internet-age techniques for small companies raising capital.
The House of Representatives voted to reject Internet "neutrality" rules that were adopted last year to keep big Internet service providers from blocking certain traffic. House Republicans, in a 240-179 vote, pushed through a measure disapproving the Federal Communications Commission's rules.
Public interest groups are keeping the option of lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission on the table to fight for stronger Internet "neutrality" rules, an executive at a public interest law firm said. So-called net neutrality rules adopted by the FCC in December would prevent network operators from blocking lawful content but still let them ration access to their networks.
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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.