A coalition of health, welfare and social services advocates is calling for a boycott of Amazon.com Inc. until the Internet retailer drops a referendum to repeal a new law requiring it to collect sales taxes on Californians' purchases. At a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol, the Think Before You Click campaign asked shoppers to cancel accounts with the Seattle-based company.
Several members of Congress praised the Federal Trade Commission for settling charges with a mobile app developer accused of invading the privacy of tens of thousands of children, but the lawmakers say more needs to be done to protect kids online. The FTC accused Broken Thumbs Apps, owned by W3 Innovations, of collecting personal information from children who submitted comments and blog posts to the online character "Emily."
As the school year resumes, Missouri teachers will have to think twice about making private contact with students on Internet sites such as Facebook. The state's school districts are under orders to draft policies to comply with a new law restricting such communications in an effort to prevent inappropriate relationships between teachers and students.
Paul Ceglia, the western New York man who claims he’s entitled to part-ownership of Facebook Inc., can’t keep dozens of documents found on computers he owned confidential, a judge ruled. U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio in Buffalo, New York, ruled that Ceglia’s lawyers improperly designated all 120 of the documents, including versions of the contract Ceglia claims he signed with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2003, as confidential.
A mobile security expert says he has found new ways for hackers to attack phones running Google's Android operating system. Riley Hassell, who caused a stir when he called off an appearance at a hacker's conference, told Reuters he and colleague Shane Macaulay decided not to lay out their research at the gathering for fear criminals would use it attack Android phones.
Anonymous has apparently made good on a promise to wreak havoc on the Web site of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, although not exactly as planned. Earlier, the amorphous collective had threatened to take Bart.gov offline for six hours today, or twice the amount of time BART managers took cell phone service offline at some BART stations Thursday night in order to head off a planned protest then.
With growing concern over data collection, including proposed legislation to more closely protect consumers, one company is trying to make privacy policies that are both easy for consumers to read and easy for mobile application developers to create. "Everybody complains that no one reads privacy policies and that privacy policies are too long and too difficult," said Jim Brock, the founder of PrivacyChoice, a company that has analyzed and indexed the data in hundreds of privacy policies across the Web.
Authorities in China's southwestern city of Kunming have identified another 22 unauthorized Apple retailers weeks after a fake of the company's store in the city sparked an international storm. China's Administration for Industry and Commerce in the Yunnan provincial capital said the stores have been ordered to stop using Apple's logo after Apple China accused them of unfair competition and violating its registered trademark, state media said.
The group that manages the Internet's address system could be facing a major legal battle over its plan to allow the introduction of hundreds or even thousands of new Internet addresses. The Association of National Advertisers, representing companies ranging from Apple to Bank of America to Exxon Mobil, called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to abandon its proposal for unlimited registration of new Internet domain names.
Britain is considering disrupting online social networking such as Blackberry Messenger and Twitter during civil unrest, Prime Minister David Cameron said, a move widely condemned as repressive when used by other countries. Egyptian authorities shut down mobile and Internet services in January during mass protests against then-President Hosni Mubarak, while China is quick to shut down online communication it sees as subversive.
Traditional lawyers may not like it, but venture capitalists are pouring money into one of the last industries to resist commoditization on the Web. Google Ventures today announced it is part of a group that infused $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer, which bills itself as the "fastest growing online legal service."
One of China’s more prolific bloggers, whose introspective musings on democracy, human rights and fatherhood earned him tens of thousands of followers but also charges of inciting subversion, was unexpectedly released after nearly six months in police custody, his wife said. The blogger, Ran Yunfei, 43, returned to his home in Sichuan Province from a detention center in the city of Dujiangyan, his wife, Wang Wei, said by telephone.
Viacom Inc and Cablevision Systems Corp have resolved a dispute over the latter's alleged unauthorized streaming of Viacom programing on devices such as Apple Inc's iPad. In a joint statement, the companies said the settlement allows Viacom programing to remain on Cablevision's Optimum Apps for the iPad and other devices.
Federal Trade Commission officials are focusing their antitrust investigation on several key areas of Google Inc.'s business, including its Android mobile phone software and Web search related services, people familiar with the probe say. Six weeks after serving Google with broad subpoenas, FTC lawyers, in conjunction with several state attorneys general, have been asking whether Google prevents smartphone manufacturers that use its Android operating system from using competitors' services, these people said.
Apple and a group of book publishers were accused in a lawsuit of illegally fixing e-book prices to "boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing." The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, alleges Apple, HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster "colluded to increase prices" on popular books.
A congresswoman requested more information on security company McAfee's report detailing a five-year hacking campaign that breached 72 organizations globally. Representative Mary Bono Mack, chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over cybersecurity, said she was alarmed by the report on a slew of cyber attacks that McAfee has dubbed "Operation Shady RAT."
Misdemeanor charges have been filed against the two men responsible for shopping around a lost iPhone 4 prototype to various websites before the iPhone 4 was officially unveiled, though no one from Gizmodo -- the site that eventually bought the prototype -- will be charged. The San Mateo County, California District Attorney's Office announced its decision on who to charge, noting in its brief press release that 22-year-old Brian Hogan -- the one who allegedly found the device in a Silicon Valley bar -- and his 28-year-old friend Sage Wallower had both been charged with misappropriation of lost property.
The Anonymous Internet hacking group is planning to "kill" Facebook and has announced the date it will attempt do so, in a statement gaining prominence. In a YouTube video, the hacking group warns, "Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed."
Apple Inc. said a German court has ruled that a tablet computer made by Samsung Electronics Co. cannot be sold in most of the European Union, the latest turn in a patent fight between the two companies. The preliminary injunction bars Samsung from distributing its Galaxy Tab 10.1 touchscreen tablet throughout most of Europe, with the exception of the Netherlands.
As rioting continues to roil the streets of London, local police forces are turning to the Web to help unmask those involved in the torching and looting. The Metropolitan Police of London posted a set of photos on Flickr showing people they believed to be participants in the riots.
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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.