The U.S. Justice Department has told a secret surveillance court that it opposes a request from technology companies to reveal more about the demands they receive for user information, according to court papers. Negotiations between the federal government and companies such as Google Inc have gone on for months, and while U.S. spy agencies said they plan to be more transparent, they have opposed company requests to disclose more detailed data.
U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down Silk Road, the web marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine as well as criminal activities including murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. The FBI arrested Silk Road owner Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco, according to court filings.
Google Inc., owner of the world’s largest search engine, won’t be challenged by U.S. antitrust regulators over its purchase of mapping application Waze, people familiar with the matter said. Federal Trade Commission hasn’t raised concerns that the transaction might hurt competition, said the people, who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter
An exploit for a vulnerability that affects all versions of Internet Explorer and has yet to be patched by Microsoft has been integrated into the open-source Metasploit penetration testing tool, a move that might spur an increasing number of attacks targeting the flaw. The vulnerability is known as CVE-2013-3893 and was announced by Microsoft on Sept. 17 after the company became aware of its use in targeted attacks.
Authorities and Internet-security experts say tens of thousands of dubious websites are popping up across the Internet. Their phony Web traffic is often fueled by "botnets," zombie armies of hijacked PCs that are controlled from unknown locations around the world, according to Internet security experts.
An offer by Google to modify how it displays Internet search results could settle a long-running antitrust dispute with the European Union, the EU competition chief said. The world's most popular search engine has been under investigation for three years by the European Commission, which acts as the bloc's antitrust regulator, over complaints it was blocking competitors in search results.
Pinterest won a judgment against alleged serial Chinese cybersquatter Qian Jin in US District Court in San Francisco today. Judge Richard Seeborg awarded Pinterest $7.2 million in damages and legal fees, while also issuing an injunction against Jin to hand over the domain names he'd been sitting on, including pintesrest.com, pinterests.com, pimterest.com, and pinterest.es.
Yahoo announced that it has paid undisclosed damages and costs to a Singaporean media company after reaching an amicable settlement in a copyright infringement suit. The American tech company acknowledged that its Yahoo Singapore news site reproduced content from Singapore Press Holdings without approval.
China launched a crackdown on several mobile news applications that provide news information services without approval from government regulators, threatening to shut down those who refuse to "rectify." The ruling follows a government campaign to curb "online rumors," as the government tries to rein in social media.
Zynga Inc. settled a lawsuit against the maker of “Bang With Friends,” a casual sex Internet application, alleging infringement of Zynga’s trademark for its “with friends” family of games. Lawyers for the two companies asked a federal judge to dismiss the case in light of the settlement, according to a filing today in federal court in San Francisco.
Google, which has been grilled twice in the past year by a UK parliamentary committee over its tax practices, had a UK tax bill of 35 million pounds ($55 million) in 2012, on sales of $4.9 billion to British customers, its accounts showed. The Internet search giant paid a tax rate of 2.6 percent on $8.1 billion in non-U.S. income in 2012, because it channeled almost all of its overseas profits to a subsidiary in Bermuda which levies no corporate income tax, the group's accounts show.
U.S. officials said Iran hacked unclassified Navy computers in recent weeks in an escalation of Iranian cyberintrusions targeting the U.S. military. The allegations, coming as the Obama administration ramps up talks with Iran over its nuclear program, show the depth and complexity of long-standing tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials. The spy agency began allowing the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs in November 2010 to examine Americans’ networks of associations for foreign intelligence purposes after N.S.A. officials lifted restrictions on the practice, according to documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.
The UK is to create a new cyber unit to help defend national security, the defence secretary has announced. The Ministry of Defence is set to recruit hundreds of reservists as computer experts to work alongside regular forces in the creation of the new Joint Cyber Reserve Unit.
An Australian record label may have picked a fight with the wrong guy. The label sent a standard takedown notice threatening to sue after YouTube computers spotted its music in a video. It turns out that video was posted by one of the most famous copyright attorneys in the world, and Lawrence Lessig is suing back.
Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s biggest maker of smartphones, offered to settle a European Union probe into whether it tried to use mobile-phone patents to hinder competition from Apple Inc.“After lengthy discussions, Samsung has sent us a set of commitments seeking to address our concerns,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a speech in New York.
Google Inc. faces a fine for failing to make changes to its privacy policies sought by French regulators. Google informed France’s data-privacy regulator that it contested findings that its policies weren't in compliance with national rules, the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties, the country’s data protection watchdog known as CNIL, said on its Website.
Nearly five years after the fact, Facebook has been awarded $3 million in damages in its case against social-network spammer Power Ventures and its CEO Steve Vachani. Power Ventures and its CEO were both found liable under the CAN-SPAM Act for sending 60,627 spam e-mail messages to Facebook members. Koh also granted Facebook permanent injunctive relief.
Three major U.S. data brokerages -- companies that amass and sell sensitive data -- have been hit by a hacking group that specializes in selling stolen social security numbers. The breaches at LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet and Kroll Background America were disclosed by cybersecurity blogger Brian Krebs on his blog, KrebsOnSecurity.
The Tokyo District Court ordered Apple Inc. to pay Y330 million in damages to Japanese inventor Norihiko Saito in a patent infringement case involving the U.S. firm's iPod music player, Kyodo News reported. The patent that Mr. Saito's company applied for in 1998 covers a technology for the Click Wheel controller that Apple has adopted for the music player in Japan since 2004, Presiding Judge Teruhisa Takano said in the ruling.
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