A new bill proposed in California could force Facebook and other social networking sites to strip out personal information for children at a parent's request. SB 242 -- also known as the Social Networking Privacy Act -- would require Facebook and others to carefully police which pieces of information on individuals under age 18 are accessible to the public.
Private/public partnerships are the most effective way to secure most of cyberspace, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told National Journal. He said there is no question that cyberattacks are taking a toll on the American economy and he said he considers cyberattacks as one of the two greatest threats to the country, along with biological attacks.
Thousands of people in more than 30 cities around Turkey took to the streets to protest a new system of filtering the Internet that opponents consider censorship. The Information and Communications Technologies Authority, known by its Turkish initials as B.T.K., is going to require Internet service providers to offer consumers four choices for filtering the Internet that would limit access to many sites, beginning in August.
The European Commission's advisory panel on data protection plans to urge governments in the European Union to treat the geographic location of cellphone users as personal data, deserving of the highest level of privacy protection. The statement is unlikely to have an immediate influence on the collection of cellphone location data by smartphone makers like Apple, which is being investigated by several European countries for its practices.
Twin brothers who accused Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for the social networking website lost their bid to have a federal appeals court void a settlement of their claims. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss failed to convince the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to reconsider its April 11 ruling upholding the $65 million cash-and-stock settlement they reached with Facebook in 2008.
Disney's Playdom social-gaming service has been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to pay $3 million in fines for collecting and disclosing children's information without parental approval. According to the FTC, many of Playdom's games, most notably the child-focused Pony Stars, attracted over 400,000 kids between 2006 and 2010.
One administrative law judge of the U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled that Kodak did not infringe Apple patents in its cameras, possibly setting the stage for dismissal of a complaint by Apple. Apple filed a complaint with the ITC last April, saying Kodak had infringed two of its patents and asking the agency to bar Kodak from importing products containing the technology into the U.S.
A U.S. appeals court found memory chip designer Rambus wrongly destroyed documents related to patent lawsuits it filed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it was clear that Rambus had destroyed documents but it was not clear that the destruction was so serious that a lower court should have tossed out one of its lawsuits.
A British judge has banned Twitter users from identifying a brain-damaged woman in one of the first attempts to prevent the messaging website from revealing sensitive information. The ruling follows the publication on Twitter of a list of celebrities alleged to have tried to cover up sexual indiscretions by obtaining court gag orders.
Google is considering shutting down Street View in Switzerland if the supreme court there fails to throw out an April court order mandating that the tech giant give an "absolute guarantee of anonymity for people" photographed in Street View photos, according to a report. Patrick Warnking, Google's country manager for Switzerland, told the Associated Press that the company will ask the Swiss Federal Tribunal to overturn the court decision, which also would require Google to make unrecognizable not only people, but license plates as well, before images are published in Street View.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins challenging a $65 million settlement with Facebook Inc., must face a lawsuit filed by a Boston businessman over a failed partnership, a judge ruled. The businessman, Wayne Chang, claims in a lawsuit filed in December 2009 that a former partnership with the Winklevosses’ ConnectU project entitles him to part of the Facebook settlement.
Square Enix has confirmed up to 25,000 e-mail addresses were swiped during a hack of its Eidos Montreal Web site and two product sites, one of which is for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Also taken: the resumes of 350 people submitted to the Web site by people interested in working for the studio.
Excited about Google Music, the recently announced free streaming service? A lot of folks are -- and others are looking to take advantage of that enthusiasm by trying to get you to hand over your personal data on the basis that they'll give you what's needed to get started with Google Music.
The makers of several iOS applications have received cease and desist letters over the use of in-app purchasing, from parties who claim the feature infringes on an existing patent. Computer LogicX, which makes Mix and Mash and Mix and Mash LITE, as well as developer James Thomson, who makes PCalc and DragThing, have received letters threatening legal action if the feature is not removed.
Osama bin Laden used a simple but clever way to send lots of emails without being detected by the U.S., the Associated Press reported. Citing interviews with counter-terrorism sources in the U.S. government, the AP said that bin Laden used thumb drives, the flash memory sticks that can hold a considerable number of email messages, to send his emails.
The online eyeglasses seller who terrified customers in the hopes of creating buzz about his Web site, and raising its profile in Google searches, pleaded guilty to two counts of sending threatening communications, one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. Vitaly Borker, who owned and operated DecorMyEyes.com out of his home in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, admitted in court that he had lied to and frightened his customers, suggesting that business pressures explained his behavior.
Having facilitated the mass piracy of billions of songs over a 10-year period, Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton and his file-sharing company have agreed to compensate the four largest record labels by paying them $105 million. Gorton's lawyers closed in on a settlement agreement after meeting to hammer out a deal.
The PR firm behind a negative campaign against Google's Social Circle feature has confirmed it was working on behalf of social-networking giant Facebook. In a statement, Burson-Marsteller backed away from the campaign, saying it went against the firm's policies and "should have been declined."
Apple is facing another lawsuit over location data, this time from a filing with the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. According to The Loop, the action filed by one Lymaris M. Rivera Diaz accuses Apple of transmitting users' location information to third-party advertisers. Charges include fraud, unfair trade practices and abuse.
The European Union's top advisory body on online privacy will issue an opinion this month saying that information collected by phone and Internet companies on customer locations must be treated like names, birthdays and other personal data, EU officials say. That means smartphone giants like Apple Inc. and Google Inc. will likely have to obtain user consent before gathering the data, delete the information after a certain period of time and keep it anonymous.
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