Sony Pictures Entertainment warned media outlets against using the mountains of corporate data revealed by hackers who raided the studio’s computer systems in an attack that became public last month. In a sharply worded letter sent to news organizations, David Boies, a prominent lawyer hired by Sony, characterized the documents as “stolen information” and demanded that they be avoided, and destroyed if they had already been downloaded or otherwise acquired.
Police in Bangalore, India, arrested the man accused of being behind @ShamiWitness, the Twitter handle of a fervent and widely followed English-language supporter of the Islamic State extremist group. The authorities had been on the hunt for the man, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, since Channel 4 news in Britain broke the improbable story of a clean-shaven Indian executive who it said lived a double life: spending his hours off from his food company far from any Middle Eastern battlefield cheering on the Islamic States’ advances and trying to rally Muslims from around the world to its jihadi cause.
Uber Technologies Inc. dodged a legal setback when a Paris judge ruled not to block its UberPop service, which lets users get rides with private cars. The company will maintain its UberPop service in France in light of the judgment, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s general manager for western Europe, said in a phone interview.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned U.S. businesses to be on the alert for a sophisticated Iranian hacking operation whose targets include defense contractors, energy firms and educational institutions, according to a confidential agency document. The FBI's confidential "Flash" report, seen by Reuters, provides technical details about malicious software and techniques used in the attacks, along with advice on thwarting the hackers.
The world’s speediest-growing mobile brand Xiaomi, which made an impressive India entry in July this year, has been barred from importing or selling its devices in the country over alleged patent infringement. The Delhi High Court has passed an interim order directing that the world’s third-largest mobile maker, as well as its exclusive online retail partner in India, Flipkart, refrain from selling handsets that run on technology patented by Swedish equipment maker Ericsson.
The European Union antitrust authority sent questionnaires this month to companies in areas like online mapping and travel as part of its long-running investigation into Google’s business practices, said Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition commissioner. Ms. Vestager took office last month vowing to take the necessary time reaching a decision in the four-year-old investigation, which is examining whether the search giant favors its own suites of services.
The Google News website, which compiles headlines and summaries of news articles from various sources, will go dark in Spain on Dec. 16. Google plans to shut the site there in protest of a new law that would force the company and other news aggregators to pay Spanish publishers for the use of their content.
Canada's Competition Bureau is investigating allegations that Apple Inc.'s Canadian unit used anti-competitive clauses in contracts with domestic wireless carriers, the watchdog said. The bureau said no wrongdoing by Apple's Canadian arm has been found so far, without stating who made the allegations.
The White House is applying lessons from post-Sept. 11 information-sharing efforts to protect government and businesses from hackers, a top Obama administration national security official said. Attacks on businesses, such as the recent hacks of large banks and Sony Corp., have shown the need for federal officials to address private sector vulnerabilities -- and fast -- said Lisa Monaco, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.
Congress has elected to extend a moratorium on taxes for Internet sales and services. That means that states are banned through October 2015 from imposing state taxes on access to the Internet.
Germany, which is spearheading Europe’s fight against U.S. tech giants on everything from data privacy to Google's search engine monopoly, is hoping to scupper net neutrality too. It is opening another front in the growing battle between Europe and the U.S. on control over the Internet, and toward what some warn is an increasing balkanization of the World Wide Web.
Hackers are increasingly stealing directly from banks and other companies and helping organized crime to operate more efficiently, according to the chief of cyber-security firm Kaspersky Lab. Examples range from infecting cash machines to dispense all their money to thieves, to hacking operations-management systems at ports so drugs can be smuggled more smoothly and at less risk, founder and Chief Executive Officer Eugene Kaspersky said in an interview at his Moscow office.
So this is how it may end for the Pirate Bay: two of its founders imprisoned, its offices reportedly raided, its Web site bounced from the Internet. The file-sharing site, which shot into existence in 2003 and at one point commanded 22 million users, has now crashed to a new depth from which it may not emerge.
The U.S. National Association of Manufacturers wrote to congressional and Federal Communications Commission leaders to oppose potential stricter regulations for Internet service providers. The FCC is working on new rules that would dictate Internet service providers' freedom to manage web traffic on their networks, aiming to ensure that ISPs do not discriminate against any content in ways that could harm competition or consumers.
San Francisco car-sharing service Uber was hit with a civil suit by its hometown district attorney, just as a wave of criticism and legal action against the company spreads worldwide. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced that he had joined with his Los Angeles counterpart in filing a lawsuit accusing Uber of "making false or misleading statements to consumers and for engaging in a variety of business practices which violate California law."
Internet companies like Cisco and Google are seeking to be excluded from a new EU cybersecurity law that would force them to adopt tough security measures and report serious security breaches to national authorities. The so-called Network and Information Security directive is due to be finalised in talks between the European Parliament, the European Commission and member states over the coming weeks.
Some of the last video footage taken of the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs shown in antitrust court last week may see the light of day after lawyers representing the Associated Press, Bloomberg and CNN filed a motion with the court to have it released. "Given the substantial public interest in the rare posthumous appearance of Steve Jobs in this trial, there simply is no interest that justifies restricting the public's access to his video deposition," attorney Thomas Burke, who is representing all three media organizations, wrote in the filing.
Supreme Court justices heard arguments on Colorado’s novel attempt to collect sales taxes on out-of-state purchases in response to the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. That decision said states may not collect taxes from companies without some local physical presence. In 2010, Colorado tried a different approach, enacting a law that required out-of-state merchants to report transactions to their customers and to state tax authorities.
As China’s popular dating app Momo prepares for an initial public offering in the U.S., a second Chinese relationship service – also called Momo – is saying it was Momo first. Hangzhou Momo Wedding Service in November sued the better-known Beijing Momo Technology — the one set for a Thursday U.S. IPO — for 11 million yuan ($1.79 million), alleging they have exclusive use of the brand for what in China is called the friend-making businesses.
A senior FBI official said that the agency has not confirmed widely held suspicions that North Korea is behind the unprecedented cyber attack on Sony's Hollywood studio. "There is no attribution to North Korea at this point," Joe Demarest, assistant director with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's cyber division, said while speaking on a panel at a cybersecurity conference sponsored by Bloomberg Government.
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.