A group of bandwidth providers that includes AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are closer than ever to striking a deal with media and entertainment companies that would call for them to establish new and tougher punishments for customers who refuse to stop using their networks to pirate films, music and other intellectual property, multiple sources told CNET.
Apple Inc. may face hurdles in stopping online retailer Amazon.com Inc from using Apple's App Store name through a trademark lawsuit, a U.S. judge indicated at a hearing. Apple, the maker of best-selling iPhones and iPad tablets, filed a lawsuit saying that Amazon has improperly used Apple's App Store name to solicit software developers throughout the United States.
Police in the United States and seven other countries seized computers and servers used to run a "scareware" scheme that has netted more than $72 million from victims tricked into buying fake anti-virus software. Twenty-two computers and servers were seized in the United States and 25 others in France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.
There has been a flood of news about hacker break-ins at companies. But how bad is the situation really? Significantly worse than the headlines suggest, and getting worse still, a new study from the research firm Ponemon Institute suggests.
The Netherlands became the first country in Europe, and only the second in the world, to enshrine the concept of network neutrality into national law by banning its mobile telephone operators from blocking or charging consumers extra for using Internet-based communications services like Skype or WhatsApp, a free text service. The measure, which was adopted with a broad majority in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament, the Tweede Kamer, will prevent KPN, the Dutch telecommunications market leader, and the Dutch units of Vodafone and T-Mobile, from blocking or charging for Internet services.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have decided to abandon an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a federal court filing in San Francisco, the Winklevosses said they had decided not to seek review of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the $65 million cash-and-stock settlement they reached in 2008 with Facebook Inc.
A U.S. judge rejected Samsung's request for a peek at Apple's unreleased iPhone and iPad, which was brought in the course of high-stakes patent litigation between the two companies. Apple sued Samsung in April, claiming Samsung's Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets infringe several patents and trademarks. Samsung counter-sued, asserting its own patents against Apple.
British police filed charges against a teenager suspected of involvement in cyberattacks on the CIA website. Ryan Cleary, 19, has been charged with five offenses under the Computer Misuse Act, police said.
The FBI seized Web servers in a raid on a data center, causing several Web sites, including those run by the New York publisher Curbed Network, to go offline. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid.
When it comes to branding on the Internet, 2012 may be the dawn of a chaotic new era with companies and other groups expected to battle over suffixes like .cancer, .chocolate and just about .anything. The decision by the body that governs Internet domain names to stop restricting them to suffixes like .com and .gov will change the way companies interact with consumers and how much they'll be paying to do so.
On its face, a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Barclays v. Theflyonthewall.com seems like a win for the folks who republish the news. The Second Circuit, in an 88-page ruling, found that a financial news website called Theflyonthewall.com had not engaged in "hot news" misappropriation when it ran headlines about stock recommendations by Barclays, Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit, and Morgan Stanley.
The European Commission, which is still finding its way in regulating the Internet, published a study on how social networking sites treat minors. The most compelling result it found: Only Bebo and Myspace (which is owned by News Corp., publisher of this blog) “have default settings to make minors’ profiles accessible only to their approved list of contacts.”
Indian police said they had ordered Google to stop taking photos of the city of Bangalore for its Street View product because of fears the images could be used by militants. Technology giant Google launched its plan to collect panoramic images of India last month, picking IT and software hub Bangalore as the starting point for the gigantic undertaking.
The Israeli government has appealed to Apple Inc. to remove an application called "ThirdIntifada" from its App Store. Israel's information minister, Yuli Edelstein, says "one can easily see that this is in fact anti-Israel and anti-Zionist."
British police arrested a 19-year-old man who may be linked to the online hacker group LulzSec, the latest development in a global law-enforcement scramble to contain an outbreak of cyber attacks aimed at companies, governments and other entities. The arrest came as the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics Tuesday said it is investigating whether computer hackers have stolen data from the 2011 Census.
Microchip heavyweights Micron and Hynix used their combined power to prevent Rambus' superior memory technology from becoming an industry standard, a Rambus lawyer said in court. Opening statements began in a California state court in a long running antitrust lawsuit launched by Rambus against rivals Micron and Hynix.
Phishing attacks are on the rise: the Anti-Phishing Work Group's April 2011 Global Phishing Survey reports 67,677 phishing attempts in the second half of 2010, up from 48,244 in the first half of 2010, but down significantly from the 126,697 attacks recorded in the year-earlier period due to the Avalanche botnet.
Two prominent hacker groups say they are combining forces to attack governments in what they say is a war on corruption. LulzSec, the hacker group whose list of victims has included the U.S. Senate, the CIA, Sony and most recently, it says, the FBI and SOCA, a British police agency, says it is at the forefront of the hacking campaign.
The body that controls the way Internet domain names work, known as ICANN, has voted to open up the naming system so that any established organization with enough cash can apply to create its own version of .com, .org or .gov. In the for-profit world, that means that instead of going to coke.com or nike.com, you might be able to go to drink.coke or justdoit.nike.
Even before a loosely organized group of hackers broke into the CIA's and Senate's public websites, the White House asked for stiffer sentences for breaking into government and private computer networks. Last month the Obama administration pressed Congress to pass stronger cybersecurity measures, including a doubling of the maximum sentence for potentially endangering national security to 20 years in prison.
About : Legal Services | Doug Isenberg | Cases & Clients | Firm News
Resources : YouTube Channel | Daily News | Blog | Masterclass | Domain Dispute Digest
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.