Judge Dismisses Huffington Post Bloggers' Lawsuit

AOL Inc. won dismissal of a suit by unpaid bloggers seeking $105 million for their work on the Huffington Post. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl threw out the suit, filed last April by writers seeking a share in AOL’s $315 million purchase of the news and opinion website run by Arianna Huffington. Koeltl said the bloggers submitted pieces to the Huffington Post for the exposure, knowing they wouldn’t be paid.

Movie, Music Studios Planning "Copyright Center"

The major film studios and music companies will soon unveil plans for a "copyright center," an organization designed to oversee the implementation of the controversial graduated-response program, CNET has learned. Last July, when some of the country's top Internet service providers, including AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, agreed to begin implementing a series of measures designed to discourage illegal file-sharing, the ISPs said they and the entertainment companies would establish a Center for Copyright Information (CCI) to "assist in the effort to combat online infringement."

U.K. Gov't Planning Electronic Surveillance Network

The U.K. government is preparing proposals for a nationwide electronic surveillance network that could potentially keep track of every message sent by any Brit to anyone at any time, an industry official briefed on the government’s moves said. Plans for a massive government database of the country’s phone and email traffic were abandoned in 2008 following a public outcry.

preparing proposals for a nationwide

China Closes Websites for Circulating Political Rumors

China is closing a dozen websites, penalizing two popular social media sites and detaining six people for circulating rumors of a coup that rattled Beijing in the midst of its worst high-level political crisis in years. The extensive clampdown, announced by state media, underscores the authoritarian government's anxieties over a public that is wired to the Internet and eager to discuss political events despite censorship and threats of punishment.

EU Investigating Google After Complaint by Expedia

Online travel agency Expedia accused Google of breaching EU rules with a formal complaint to EU antitrust regulators as it joined a dozen other firms that have taken their case to the European Commission in the last two years. The EU watchdog is now investigating the world's most popular search engine after rivals, including Microsoft, accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the market for Web search engines.

Microsoft Seeks Patent Order Against Motorola

Microsoft Corp. has asked a U.S. court for a restraining order to prevent Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.  from taking action based on a ruling expected from a German court next month, ramping up a year-and-a-half old Transatlantic dispute. The motion filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, is aimed at preserving Microsoft's ability to sell in Germany its Windows and Xbox 360 and other products that rely on the video patents at issue in the battle with Motorola.

'Anonymous' Attack on Internet Called 'Anticlimactic'

A threat to attack a crucial part of the Internet by members of the mercurial, leaderless hacker collective called Anonymous appears to have had no discernible impact so far. Some Anonymous hackers had threatened six weeks ago to attack that system, which converts domain names like google.com into numeric addresses that computers use. It led to a quiet global multimillion-dollar effort to strengthen the Domain Name System in recent weeks.

Chinese Student Blamed for Japanese, Indian Hacking

A breach of computers belonging to companies in Japan and India and to Tibetan activists has been linked to a former graduate student at a Chinese university -- putting a face on the persistent espionage by Chinese hackers against foreign companies and groups. The attacks were connected to an online alias, according to a report by Trend Micro, a computer security firm with headquarters in Tokyo.

Security Researchers Take Down 'Kelihos Botnet'

Security researchers from four different organizations brought down a botnet by turning a supposed strength of the criminals' spamming network into a fatal weakness. Experts from CrowdStrike, Dell SecureWorks, the Honeynet Project and Kaspersky Lab crippled the second-coming of the Kelihos botnet on March 21 by "sinkholing" about 118,000 bot-infected computers using the hackers' own peer-to-peer network.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-greentech-ipo-idUSBRE82S19N20120329

Online Advertisers Urged to Self-Regulate on Privacy

Online advertisers facing scrutiny from governments wanting to give Internet users more control over personal data online were urged at an industry conference on Wednesday to avoid privacy blunders that could undermine calls for self-regulation. "If you don't want to be regulated, do it yourself," the Council of Better Business Bureau's Genie Barton warned participants at a conference held by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

Oracle Rejects Google's Offer in Android Patent Case

Google proposed to pay Oracle a percentage of Android revenue if Oracle could prove patent infringement of the mobile operating technology at an upcoming trial, but Oracle rebuffed the offer as too low, according to a court filing late. Oracle Corp sued Google Inc in 2010, claiming the Internet search leader's Android technology infringed Oracle's Java patents.

FBI Official Offers Grim Perspective on Hacking

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks: "We're not winning," he said. Shawn Henry, who is preparing to leave the FBI after more than two decades with the bureau, said in an interview that the current public and private approach to fending off hackers is "unsustainable.''

Six Smartphone Makers Sued for Patent Infringement

Top mobile device makers including Apple and Samsung were sued by Graphics Properties Holdings, which is alleging that the smartphone vendors infringed on a single graphics-related patent in their smartphones and other consumer electronics. Formerly known as Silicon Graphics, Graphics Properties Holdings is seeking damages and has filed six separate cases against Apple, Samsung, Research In Motion, HTC, Sony and LG with the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Subscribe

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.