Google Inc. is moving its Washington office closer to Capitol Hill after spending $18.2 million on lobbying, more than Northrop Grumman Corp. and enough to rank the technology company as the eighth-biggest advocacy spender. It’s an investment that’s already paying off in increased influence.
Iran’s government should legalize access to social-networking websites including Twitter and Facebook, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Ali Jannati said. “Not only Facebook, but other social networks should be accessible and the illegal qualification should be removed,” Jannati said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
Cyberbullies could face up to three years' imprisonment, with their bullying set to be criminalized in a new bill being introduced to the New Zealand parliament. It comes just two days after news broke that a group of Auckland teenage boys, calling themselves Roast Busters, were having sex with drunk girls, many of them underage, and posting details -- including the girls' names -- online.
Senior military officials are leaning toward removing the National Security Agency director’s authority over U.S. Cyber Command, according to a former high-ranking administration official familiar with internal discussions. Keith Alexander, a four star general who leads both the NSA and Cyber Command, plans to step down in the spring.
Just days away from the company’s initial public offering, Twitter disclosed that multi-national computing conglomerate IBM is claiming Twitter has infringed upon its existing intellectual property. The news, which came as a brief aside in Twitter’s latest S-1 amendment filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, signals Twitter’s first big step into the aggressive landscape of technology patent litigation in Silicon Valley, a place where companies like Google, Oracle, Apple and Samsung lobby suits back and forth on a regular basis.
Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt slammed reports that the U.S. government allegedly spied on the company's data centers, describing such an act as "outrageous" and potentially illegal if proven. "It's really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that's true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK," Mr. Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
The U.S. Supreme Court let stand Facebook Inc's $9.5 million class action settlement over allegations the social networking company's defunct "Beacon" service violated its members' privacy rights. Although the court declined to hear the case, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement raising concerns about the particular type of settlement in the case and said the Supreme Court might take up another case in the future to clarify the law.
Nokia has announced that Samsung has extended an existing patent licensing agreement with the company for a further five years. Nokia hasn't said what patents are covered in the agreement, which was set to expire at the end of 2013.
The website of Singapore's main paper, The Straits Times, has been hacked by someone who claimed to be a part of the hacking collective Anonymous. It comes just days after a person claiming to be part of the group posted an online video threatening to hit out at the country's infrastructure.
Online auction site eBay is facing an international storm of outrage after it was revealed to be profiting from the repulsive trade in Holocaust memorabilia. The Internet giant apologized and vowed to give £25,000 to a suitable charity, before removing more than 30 other death camp souvenirs which it said had evaded its strict vetting process.
What began as a public relations predicament for America’s technology companies has evolved into a moral and business crisis that threatens the foundation of their businesses, which rests on consumers and companies trusting them with their digital lives. So they are pushing back in various ways -- from cosmetic tactics like publishing the numbers of government requests they receive to political ones including tense conversations with officials behind closed doors.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West sued a co-founder of YouTube claiming he violated a confidentiality agreement by posting a video of the couple's marriage proposal to his new video-sharing website. The couple's lawsuit states Chad Hurley wasn't invited to the elaborate Oct. 21 proposal at San Francisco's AT&T Park, but was allowed to stay because he signed an agreement not to post any video or images from the event.
The group that owns thousands of former Nortel patents filed a barrage of patent lawsuits against cell phone manufacturers including Google, the company it outbid in the Nortel bankruptcy auction. Rockstar, the consortium that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion, sued Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Huawei and four other companies for patent infringement in U.S. District Court in Texas.
Delaware lottery officials are beginning real-stakes Internet gambling in the state with a select group of preferred players whom they wouldn't name or describe. State lottery director Vernon Kirk said that officials will conduct a "soft launch" of online gambling with the group.
State legislatures around the country, facing growing public concern about the collection and trade of personal data, have rushed to propose a series of privacy laws, from limiting how schools can collect student data to deciding whether the police need a warrant to track cellphone locations. Over two dozen privacy laws have passed this year in more than 10 states, in places as different as Oklahoma and California.
Here's more evidence of cutting corners during the development of the Healthcare.gov insurance marketplace: the website appears to be violating its own privacy policy by sending private user information to third parties. Security researcher Ben Simo noticed that Healthcare.gov was sending his user name and password reset code to third party partners including the analytics services Pingdom, DoubleClick, and Google Analytics.
Foreign intelligence agents hacked into the Finnish foreign ministry's network and gained access to its communications for years, broadcaster MTV3 reported, in an embarrassing security breach for the government. MTV3, citing sources, said the hackers seem to have targeted communications between Finnish and European Union officials and also said Chinese and Russian intelligence agents may have been involved.
The union representing German journalists advised its members to stop using Google and Yahoo because of reported snooping by U.S. and British intelligence. "The German Federation of Journalists recommends journalists to avoid until further notice the use of search engines and e-mail services from Google and Yahoo for their research and digital communication," the union said in a statement.
An internal government memo obtained by CNN and written just days before the start of open enrollment for Obamacare warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of testing of the HealthCare.gov website. "Due to system readiness issues, the SCA (security control assessment) was only partly completed," said the internal memo from the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
While Google Glassers will soon have a further dorkening of their beloved accessory to contend with, there may be a bigger problem to worry about: Driving with the Internet on your face may be considered a ticketable offense. Self-described Transhumanist and prolific #GoogleGlass poster, Cecilia Abadie took to Google+ (of course) to claim the title for what appears to be the first person to receive a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving.
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.