Hungary plans to impose a new tax on Internet data transfers, a draft 2015 tax bill submitted to parliament showed, in a move that could hit Internet and telecoms providers and their customers hard. The draft tax code contains a provision for Internet providers to pay a tax of 150 forints (60 US cents) per gigabyte of data traffic, though it would also let companies offset corporate income tax against the new levy.
Staples Inc. is investigating a possible breach of payment card data and has contacted law enforcement about the matter, making it the latest U.S. retailer to become a possible victim of a cyberattack. The office-supply retailer disclosed the investigation after security reporter Brian Krebs reported on his blog Krebsonsecurity.com that several banks have identified a pattern of payment card fraud suggesting that several Staples stores in northeastern United States had succumbed to a data breach.
This summer’s huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase and a dozen other financial institutions is accelerating efforts by federal and state authorities to push banks and brokerage firms to close some gaping holes in their defenses. Top officials at the Treasury Department are discussing the need to bolster fortifications around a critical area of cybersecurity: outside vendors, which include law firms, accounting and marketing firms and even janitorial companies, according to several people briefed on the matter.
A landmark British test case has opened the gates for brand owners to compel Internet service providers (ISPs) to police trademark infringement at scale, in addition to their already controversial role in copyright enforcement. The case was brought by luxury brands in the Richemont/Cartier group, demanding that the UK’s five major ISPs -- BSkyB, BT, EE, TalkTalk, and VirginMedia -- block six websites sporting fake versions of their brands and selling counterfeit goods.
The U.S. Justice Department is restructuring its national security prosecution team to deal with cyber attacks and the threat of sensitive technology ending up in the wrong hands, as American business and government agencies face more intrusions. The revamp, led by Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, also marks a recognition that national security threats have broadened and become more technologically savvy since the 9/11 attacks against the United States.
Apple Inc.'s iCloud storage and backup service in China was attacked by hackers trying to steal user credentials, a Chinese web monitoring group said, adding that it believes the country's government is behind the campaign. Using a method called a "man-in-the-middle" attack, unknown hackers interposed their own website between users and Apple's iCloud server, intercepting data and potentially gaining access to passwords, iMessages, photos and contacts, Greatfire.org wrote in its blog post.
An influential advocate for banks and financial services released 10 principles it believes the government should follow when issuing new cybersecurity regulations. While a partnership between the government and private industry is important, information sharing should be "limited to cybersecurity purposes," according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).
Apple has filed an appeal with the Trademark Office after an examiner turned down an application that would have protected the Siri mark, the company’s voice-activated personal assistant, in the field of “online social networking services.” According to documents filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, Apple claims the examiner made a mistake in concluding that the company is not using the Siri mark (shown at right) as part of a social networking business.
Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sued a handful of lawyers who represented Paul Ceglia in a 2010 case in which Ceglia claimed he was entitled to 84 percent ownership of the social network. Ceglia’s claim was dismissed earlier this year after Facebook and Zuckerberg alleged that Ceglia forged the documents he used as evidence of his ownership in the company.
A top Senate Democrat is taking aim at Comcast over net neutrality, arguing that its previous commitments to an open Internet won't be enough to protect consumers — particularly if its merger with Time Warner Cable goes through. In a letter to the company, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Comcast should pledge to avoid "paid prioritization" schemes that would speed up some Web site traffic over others.
South Korea is trying to ease worries about online privacy after a domestic chat app lost customers to a foreign rival because of fears prosecutors in one the world's most wired countries might get access to online conversations. Prosecutors last month launched a cyber investigation team after President Park Geun-hye spoke out against online rumors that she said "crossed the line" and were deepening divisions in society.
The White House announced that it will nominate former Google lawyer Michelle K. Lee to lead the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, potentially handing Silicon Valley a key victory and ending a two-year tussle for the agency's leadership. Lee has been managing the 10,000-employee Patent Office day-to-day since being appointed deputy director in January. But efforts to permanently elevate her to director have been stymied by powerful outside groups -- particularly pharmaceutical companies, which backed an industry insider for the job.
A class-action lawsuit in California accuses the social network LinkedIn of violating federal consumer protection laws by selling users' employment history to potential employers without their consent. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Northern California takes issue with LinkedIn's job reference tool, which is available to employers who subscribe to its premium features.
The JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a series of charitable races held each year in big cities across the world, is one of those feel-good events that bring together professionals from scores of big companies. It was also a target for the same cyberthieves who successfully breached the bank’s digital perimeters, compromising the accounts of 76 million households and seven million small businesses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Mass surveillance of the Internet by intelligence agencies is “corrosive of online privacy” and threatens to undermine international law, according to a report to the United Nations general assembly. The critical study by Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism is a response to revelations by the whistleblower Edward Snowden about the extent of monitoring carried out by GCHQ in the UK and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US.
FBI Director James Comey warned in stark terms against the push by technology companies to encrypt smartphone data and operating systems, arguing that murder cases could be stalled, suspects could walk free and justice could be thwarted by a locked phone or an encrypted hard drive. Privacy advocates and technology experts called the concerns exaggerated and little more than recycled arguments the government has raised against encryption since the early 1990s.
Getty Images Inc. has failed to convince a federal judge to halt Microsoft Corp's Bing Image Widget, which it said enabled massive copyright infringement, because the software company had already taken it down voluntarily. The multimedia photo and video agency sued Microsoft on Sept. 4 over the widget, which it said permitted the display of images without giving their owners a licensing fee or attribution. Getty owns or represents the owners of more than 80 million digital images.
Europe’s top antitrust official criticized what he called the “defensive” and “irrational” response by European politicians to his investigation of Google Inc., and said separately that his department may launch more probes into alleged sweetheart tax deals for multinational companies. Spanish-born Joaquín Almunia -- who is preparing to step down as the European Union’s competition commissioner in a few weeks -- said the political pressure that preceded his decision to reopen the four-year-old Google case for a fourth time was unprecedented.
Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable company, won $7.5 million in damages from wireless carrier Sprint Corp. for infringing telecommunications patents after a four-day federal jury trial. Comcast, which is seeking regulatory approval to buy rival Time Warner Cable Inc. for $45.2 billion, sued Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint in 2012 in Wilmington, Delaware, alleging Sprint used its protected technology for methods of call-routing over the Internet and traditional phone lines.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned U.S. businesses that hackers it believes to be backed by the Chinese government have recently launched attacks on U.S. companies. The "flash" warning described tools and techniques used by the hackers and asked companies to contact federal authorities if they believe they are the victims of such attacks.
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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.