Google Inc. is close to settling a U.S. criminal investigation into allegations it made hundreds of millions of dollars by accepting ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws, according to people familiar with the matter.
The White House issued a proposal to secure critical U.S. infrastructure and federal computer networks that aims to fend off attackers while assuring the privacy of Internet users. A legislative proposal from the Obama administration calls for the Department of Homeland Security to formally take over the job of ensuring the federal government's computers are protected, including oversight of intrusion detection and prevention systems.
Mark S. Zuckerberg, the Indianapolis guy who shares the name of Facebook's founder, realized his own Facebook account had been shut down. Facebook sent him error messages that said he had a fraudulent identity.
A group of U.S. lawmakers wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to push companies to disclose when they have fallen victim to cyberattacks. Three weeks after Sony Corp. was forced to shut down its PlayStation network by hackers who stole users' information, the group, which includes Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, on Wednesday sent a letter to the SEC asking it to issue guidance stating that companies must report when they have suffered a major network attack and disclose details on intellectual property or trade secrets that hackers may have stolen.
Amazon.com could cut its partnership with affiliates in more U.S. states that require the online retailer to collect sales tax, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said. The comments from the world's largest online retailer come less than a month after brick-and-mortar rival Best Buy expressed optimism about potential online taxation reforms that would expand the collection of sales taxes on items bought over the Internet.
Congressmen Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) have asked Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain a security vulnerability that gave advertisers and other third parties access to users' accounts and personal information. Security company Symantec Corp. discovered the vulnerability and alerted Facebook, which said it was fixed.
The U.S. Justice Department said its nine-year-old antitrust agreement with Microsoft Corp., set to expire May 12, permanently changed the software marketplace, making it more open, fair and innovative. The final judgment in the Microsoft case, in effect since 2002, prevented the company from using its monopoly Windows operating system for personal computing to quash competition, the department said today in a statement.
A top-five public relations firm stepped up a whisper campaign to get top-tier media outlets to run news stories and editorials about how an obscure Google Gmail feature -- Social Circle -- ostensibly tramples the privacy of millions of Americans and violates federal fair trade rules. Google said that Social Circle in fact allows Gmail users to make social connections based on public information and private connections across its products in ways that don't skirt privacy.
At least 23,000 file sharers soon will likely get notified they are being sued for downloading the Expendables in what has become the single largest illegal-BitTorrent-downloading case in U.S. history. A federal judge in the case has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright Group to subpoena internet service providers to find out the identity of everybody who had illegally downloaded the 2010 Sylvester Stallone flick -- meaning the number of defendants is likely to dramatically increase as new purloiners are discovered.
A security vulnerability on Facebook Inc. for years gave advertisers and other third parties a way to access users' accounts and personal information, according to security firm Symantec Corp. But Facebook said it had fixed the problem and found no evidence of the issue resulting in private information being leaked.
Saying there has been a fundamental shift for cellphone users in determining "who has their information and what they're doing with it," Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, called a Congressional hearing to question executives from both Google and Apple on data location and mobile devices. The hearing was the first for the newly formed Senate Judiciary subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law, led by Senator Franken.
The Justice Department is investigating Google advertising, and Google may have to pay $500 million, according to a Google filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Millions of children are active on Facebook in violation of the site's terms of service, which require users to be at least 13 years old, according to a survey released by Consumer Reports. The magazine said it estimates that 7.5 million of the 20 million minors on Facebook are younger than 13.
Lawyers representing the four largest music labels tried to convey a message in court: Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton was so determined to help people pirate songs that he disregarded copyright law, artists' rights, and even the Supreme Court. And eventually, Gorton conceded.
Apple defended how it gathers and uses customer-location data in a letter to a U.S. House lawmaker as it prepares to testify at a Senate hearing on mobile privacy. "Consumers are increasingly demanding accurate location information from their handheld devices," including directions to the nearest coffee shop or gas station, Bruce Sewell, Apple's general counsel wrote in a letter to Representative Mary Bono Mack, a California Republican.
Several privacy and civil rights groups voiced support for an online do-not-track bill introduced in the U.S. Senate, saying the legislation would give Web users control over their personal data. Senator John "Jay" Rockefeller's bill would create a national do-not-track mechanism, a "crucial civil liberties protection for the 21st century," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
A group of hackers that planned an attack against Sony's servers this weekend was unable to execute its plan. CNET has learned that publication of the group's plan may have caused Sony to secure the remaining servers this group claims it had access to, shutting off any avenues for another attack.
Google Inc. lost an attempt to overturn a Belgian ruling that blocked it from publishing links to local newspapers on its online news service. The Court of Appeal in Brussels on May 5 upheld a 2007 lower court ruling that forced Google to remove links and snippets of articles from French- and German-language Belgian newspapers from Google.com and Google.be.
Sony offers U.S. PlayStation and Qriocity customers up to $1 million dollars in identity theft insurance. In a letter posted online, Sony Chairman and CEO, Howard Stringer, apologized for the inconvenience and concern caused by the recent security breach.
Skype plans to push out an important update to its Skype for Mac software that will fix a big that could be leveraged by hackers looking to build a self-copying worm program. Details of the flaw haven't been made public, so it's unlikely that anyone is going to write a worm any time soon.
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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.