Lawmakers sent letters requesting information from more than 30 popular iPhone applications developers as part of an inquiry into how software companies collect private consumer data. Recipients of the letter, including Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Path, were asked to provide information about the user data that is collected when consumers download their apps -- and how that data is used.
Privacy advocates in the U.S. and the European Union are on edge over changes Facebook is enacting in its language governing its terms of service. Their upset comes as Facebook is proposing modifications to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that, at least on the surface, seem fairly minor and don't indicate any radical shift in thinking or practice in terms of privacy.
Facebook Inc. acquired 750 patents from International Business Machines Corp., adding intellectual property that may help it counter allegations of patent infringement, a person with knowledge of the transaction said. The patents cover various technologies such as software and networking, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deal hasn’t been made public.
Facebook removed a page that paid homage to the young Frenchman who died in a shootout with police after killing seven people, officials said. French interior ministry officials said the ministry had asked the social networking site to remove the page that went up shortly after Mohamed Merah was killed in Toulouse.
Despite rising concern that cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, hackers used relatively simple methods in more than 90% of data breaches in 2011, according to a report compiled by Verizon. The annual Verizon report on data breaches also found that in a vast majority of attacks (80%), hackers hit victims of opportunity rather than companies they sought out.
TiVo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. agreed to dismiss their patent litigation against each other, after TiVo's settlement with Microsoft's partner AT&T Inc. eliminated the motivation for the suits. Microsoft first sued TiVo in a San Francisco federal court in 2010 as part of a broader attempt to provide legal cover for partner AT&T, a customer of its Internet video platform.
Hollywood studios want a federal judge to preserve data on all the 66.6 million users of Megaupload, the file-sharing service that was shuttered in January due to federal indictments targeting its operators. The Motion Picture Association of America is requesting Carpathia, Megaupload’s Virginia-based server host, to retain the 25 petabytes of Megaupload data on its servers, which includes account information for Megaupload’s millions of users.
Three online dating giants agreed to screen for sex offenders and take other safety steps after a woman was assaulted on a date, the California attorney general's office announced. Match.com, eHarmony and Spark Networks signed a joint statement of business principles intended to provide an example for the industry and help guard against sexual predators, identity theft and financial scams.
President Bill Clinton's 1997 electronic embargo against Iran, which curbed its citizens' access to U.S.-based software and Web sites, continues to create legal hassles for American Web companies. In August 1997, Clinton signed an executive order saying U.S. companies and individuals could not provide "goods, technology, or services to Iran" -- a decree that led to unintended consequences such as Utah-based Bluehost giving the boot to Iranian bloggers and open-source software site SourceForge.net denying access to Iranians.
The Chinese government has helped Microsoft Corp.'s business in China by improving intellectual-property protection, the company's top China executive said, but continues to hurt it with regulations preventing the official launch of the Xbox 360 game console. Simon Leung, chief executive of the Greater China Region for Microsoft, said that a group of government agencies in 2004 issued a regulation to limit the influence of videogames and arcades on children, and it has had the effect of preventing Microsoft from officially selling its popular console in China.
A new bill has been submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives that will require most video games to include a warning label that states: "WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior." Introduced by Rep. Joe Baca and Rep. Frank Wolf, H.R. 4204 would require any game rated "E" (Everyone), "Everyone 10+" (Everyone 10 and older), ''T'' (Teen), ''M'' (Mature) or ''A'' (Adult) by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).
Introduced by Rep. Joe Baca and Rep. Frank Wolf, H.R. 4204 would require any game rated "E" (Everyone), "Everyone 10+" (Everyone 10 and older), ''T'' (Teen), ''M'' (Mature) or ''A'' (Adult) by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).
In an apparent quest to make the patent system look even more ridiculous, a firm sued Samsung and Research in Motion for allegedly infringing a patent titled "emoticon input method and apparatus." Varia Holdings Inc., claims it owns the concept of allowing users to choose emoticons from a menu of options rather than typing them out one character at a time.
Aereo Inc., an online television service backed by billionaire Barry Diller, filed a second countersuit against major broadcasters that want to stop it from retransmitting their programming. The newest lawsuit against News Corp's Fox, the Public Broadcasting Service, Univision Communications Inc. and the WPIX and WNET stations in the New York area was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Google Inc., the world’s largest Web-search provider, was questioned by France’s data protection authority to determine whether policies for mobile devices running its Android operating system and information collected using “cookies” violate European privacy rules. The National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, known by its French acronym as CNIL, asked Google to reply to the list of 69 questions on its privacy policy before April 5, according to a statement on the regulator’s website.
A group of prominent Chinese writers have demanded millions of dollars in compensation from Apple Inc. for allegedly selling unlicensed versions of their books in its online store, a lawyer said. Three separate lawsuits have been filed with the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court on behalf of 12 writers who allege 59 of their titles were sold unlicensed through Apple's iTunes online store, said Wang Guohua, a Beijing lawyer representing the writers.
Microsoft is giving law enforcement PhotoDNA, a digital tool that sifts through massive amounts of online images to help identify instances of child pornography and rescue victims. The software giant announced that it, along with NetClean, a Swedish maker of technology to combat the spread of child porn, will give away the image-matching software to help law enforcement agencies detect new images of child abuse online.
A boardroom dispute over ethics has broken out at the organization that maintains the Internet address system after its most important supporter, the United States government, reproached the group for governance standards said to fall short of “requirements requested by the global community.” The Commerce Department said this month that while it was temporarily extending a contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to manage the allocation of computers’ Internet protocol addresses -- and the .com and .net names of Web sites associated with them -- it warned the organization that it needed to tighten its rules against conflicts of interest or risk losing a central role.
AT&T Inc. has cut a deal with an iPhone user who sued the carrier for $850 in Small Claims Court -- and won. Matthew Spaccarelli of Simi Valley sued AT&T recently after having seen his mobile data speeds drastically decreased -- a process called throttling.
Google Inc.'s breach of Apple Inc.'s Safari Internet browser is under investigation by U.S. regulators to determine whether it caused consumers to be misled about privacy safeguards, a person familiar with the matter said. The Federal Trade Commission is examining whether Mountain View, California-based Google effectively deceived consumers by planting so-called cookies on Safari, bypassing Apple software’s privacy settings, said the person, who lacked authorization to speak publicly on the matter and declined to be identified.
A German court suspended a trial in which Apple alleged that Samsung Electronics copied the slide-to-unlock technology of its iPhone and iPad devices pending the outcome of a separate suit. The regional court in Mannheim, Germany, said it would wait for a decision in ongoing proceedings in a Munich court over the feature, which allows users to switch on a device by swiping over the touch-screen.
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.