Germany Asks Facebook to Disable Photo-Tagging

A German regulator said that he had asked Facebook, the social networking leader, to disable its new photo-tagging feature, which he warned could violate European privacy laws. Johannes Caspar, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg, who has been aggressive in investigating the online practices of companies like Google and Apple, said he was concerned that Facebook’s facial recognition feature amounted to the unauthorized collection of data on individuals.

Security Experts Uncover "Enormous" Cyber Attacks

Security experts announced the discovery of an unprecedented series of cyber attacks spanning five years that affected the networks of 72 organizations globally, including the United Nations, governments and corporations. Security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one "state actor" behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

Apple Gets Small Fine in S. Korea for Location Data

South Korea's telecom regulator will impose a 3 million won (US$2,829) fine on Apple Inc. for allegedly collecting the location data of iPhone users in the country, in a development that comes amid growing concerns over the privacy of mobile users world-wide. The Korea Communications Commission said that after a four-month investigation it found that even if iPhone users disabled location systems on their handsets, Apple collected users' whereabouts from June 22 last year through May 4 this year.

Amazon Goes to Great Lengths to Avoid Sales Taxes

Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest online retailer, hasn't charged sales tax in most states since its founding in 1994. And it has taken some extreme measures to keep it that way. A close examination of Amazon's corporate practices, based on interviews with more than a dozen former employees and people who have done business with the Seattle company, as well as a review of corporate documents, indicates that the company believes its sales-tax policy is critical to its performance.

Miley Cyrus' Alleged Hacker Pleads Guilty in Another Case

A 21-year-old who bragged about hacking into Miley Cyrus' email account and distributing revealing pictures of her pleaded guilty in federal court to unrelated charges of credit card fraud and hacking. Josh Holly pleaded to having about 200 credit card numbers and to commercial electronic mail message fraud in a scheme to spam visitors to celebrities' MySpace pages.

ITC to Investigate Apple-Samsung Dispute

A U.S. trade panel that hears patent disputes has agreed to investigate Apple Inc's complaint that mobile phones and tablets made by South Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd violate its technology intellectual property. The world's most valuable technology company and Samsung are waging an escalating legal battle in multiple countries, accusing each other of infringing on technology and design patents as competition in the red-hot mobile gadgets arena intensifies.

Judge Orders DVD-Streaming Service Zediva Shut Down

Zediva, the video service that attempted to build a business by exploiting loopholes in copyright law, suffered a serious setback when a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the service. U.S. District Judge John Walter has ruled that Zediva violates copyright infringement and granted a preliminary injunction motion made by the Motion Picture Association of America for Zediva to be shut down.

Court Gives Support to NTP's E-mail Patents

NTP Inc., the patent licenser that extracted a $612.5 million settlement from Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) in a dispute over wireless e-mail technology five years ago, won an appeals court ruling in a battle over the validity of its patents as the company sues other smartphone makers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ordered the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider findings that invalidated elements of seven NTP patents, while upholding the rejection of an eighth.

Microsoft Stops Publishing Wi-Fi Location Data

Microsoft has ceased publishing the estimated locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other devices with Wi-Fi connections around the world after a CNET article highlighted privacy concerns. The decision to rework Live.com's geolocation service comes following scrutiny of the way Microsoft made available its database assembled by both Windows Phone 7 phones and what the company calls "managed driving" by Street View-like vehicles that record Wi-Fi signals accessible from public roads.

Facial Tech on Websites Raises Privacy Issues

As Internet giants Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. race to expand their facial-recognition abilities, new research shows how powerful, and potentially detrimental to privacy, these tools have become. Armed with nothing but a snapshot, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh successfully identified about one-third of the people they tested, using a powerful facial-recognition technology recently acquired by Google.

Samsung Agrees to Stop Selling Galaxy Tab in Australia

Apple Inc. won an agreement from Samsung Electronics Co. that the South Korean company won’t sell the newest version of its tablet computer in Australia until a patent lawsuit in the country is resolved. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes 10 Apple patents, including the “look and feel,” and touchscreen technology of the iPad, Steven Burley, a lawyer for Apple, told Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett in Sydney.

Senate Bill Aims to Resolve Online Sales Tax Issue

Cash-strapped states seeking to collect billions in taxes from online transactions gained an ally in Washington when a senator introduced a bill for a federal solution to the problem. Although the fate of the bill by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin was uncertain given the anti-tax environment on Capitol Hill, his measure is backed by the National Governors Association and the National Retail Federation and even earned a pledge of cooperation from giant online retailer Amazon.

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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.