Europe’s highest court struck down an international agreement that has made it easy for companies to move people’s digital data between the European Union and the United States. The ruling, by the European Court of Justice, could make it more difficult for global technology giants -- including the likes of Amazon and Apple, Google and Facebook -- to collect and mine online information from their millions of users in the 28-member European Union.
U.S. intelligence does not conduct mass, indiscriminate harvesting of foreigners' private data, a senior U.S. official has said on the eve of a landmark EU court ruling that will affect thousands of companies including the likes of Facebook. Robert Litt, legal adviser to the Director of National Intelligence, firmly rebutted allegations that a U.S. surveillance program known as Prism, revealed in 2013, allows authorities to hoover up such information on a vast scale.
Obama administration officials believe a major trans-Pacific trade deal will help companies protect their digital property abroad and preserve online privacy. Six years in the making, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries is expected to lower trade barriers and open up new markets for U.S. exporters.
Researchers say newly-discovered malware, dubbed YiSpecter, can infect non-jailbroken as well as jailbroken iPhone and iPad devices, using a number of novel techniques. The YiSpecter malware is unusual on a number of fronts, according to security firm Palo Alto Networks, chiefly because it is the first malware in the wild that exploits the iOS system's private APIs -- the APIs in iOS that remain undocumented by Apple, possibly because they're not ready for wider use.
Russia’s antitrust regulator has ordered Google Inc. to amend agreements with smartphone producers that it said disadvantage third-party applications on devices running the Android operating system. Mountain View, California-based Google is abusing its market dominance through Android, the regulator ruled last month after a complaint from local search engine provider Yandex NV, which has been losing market share to its U.S. rival on mobile devices.
Regulatory agencies are trying to use copyright law to crack down on dangerous tampering with automobile computers, sparking fears that they will stymie needed cybersecurity research. As Internet-connected cars proliferate on the roads, so too do the opportunities for hackers to uncover and possibly exploit software security flaws — for good and bad.
A lawsuit over used printer cartridges has morphed into a proxy fight pitting Silicon Valley against Big Pharma that could ultimately determine whether consumers can buy refurbished and resold goods -- from car parts to computers. The case was argued before a dozen judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Australian businesses are turning their backs on bitcoin, as signs grow that the cryptocurrency's mainstream appeal is fading. Concerns about bitcoin's potential crime links mean many businesses have stopped accepting it, a trend accelerated by Australian banks' move last month to close the accounts of 13 of the country's 17 bitcoin exchanges.
Dimitry Belorossov – a Russian cyber-criminal who used the Citadel banking trojan – has been sentenced to four years and six months in a U.S. prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit computer fraud. According to information provided through the Department of Justice's Victim Witness Assistance program, his "botnet contained personal information from the infected victim computers, including online banking credentials for U.S.-based financial institutions, credit card information, and other personally identifying information".
LinkedIn announced that it had agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over sending unwanted emails. The lawsuit revolves around LinkedIn's Add Connections feature, which would send out connection requests to people in a user's contact list who did not already have a LinkedIn account.
Discount broker Scottrade said that it was the victim of a cyber attack from late 2013 to early 2014 that compromised client names and addresses in a database with information on some 4.6 million customers. The firm said it learned about the attack from federal law enforcement officials who were investigating the theft of data from Scottrade and other financial services firms.
Someone is hacking unprotected WiFi routers everywhere -- and forcing them to be on guard. Does your home WiFi use a default password? It forces you to change it. Does it leave unguarded communication channels open? It forces you to close them.
Microsoft announced it had signed an "expanded" patent-licensing deal with ASUSTek Computer Inc. (aka ASUS). The updated deal covers ASUS' Android-based phones and software. As nearly two-dozen Android, Chrome OS and Linux vendors are doing, ASUS seemingly is licensing Microsoft's patents to cover anything that is in those operating systems which potentially infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property.
Competitions for business are playing out across the country as states increasingly offer lucrative tax breaks to attract the data centers that function as the brains of the Internet. An Associated Press analysis of state revenue and economic-development records shows that government officials extended nearly $1.5 billion in tax incentives to hundreds of data-center projects nationwide during the past decade.
Europe's antitrust chief dismissed accusations of anti-U.S. bias over her decision to go after Google for abusing its Internet search dominance and Apple over an Irish tax deal, saying such talk was a fallacy. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager's robust defense of her actions came after she was criticized in the U.S. media for a spate of cases opened over the past year against U.S. giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Starbucks.
T-Mobile says as many as 15 million people may have been affected by the data breach, an attack that didn't compromise T-Mobile's own systems but rather those of its credit partner — the data vendor and credit bureau Experian. To be clear, the hack hurts even non-subscribers to T-Mobile — credit applicants who for whatever reason ultimately went with another service.
Facebook privacy hoaxes just won't die. It seems like every few months, some extended family member or high school "friend" will post a big block of legalese-style text, urging others to share it in their own feeds with a promise that it will somehow protect their privacy.
If you're planning to look up Usher, Luke Bryan or producer Armin van Buuren on the Web, take heed. Intel Security announced that the musicians top its ninth annual list of the most dangerous celebrities online. Searches for those famous names are most likely to land users on websites that carry viruses or malware.
A ruling due next week from the EU's top court on a long-running transatlantic pact on private data could affect all legal ways of moving such data from Europe to the United States, lawyers say, potentially disrupting the everyday online transactions of thousands of companies. Under current European privacy laws companies are forbidden from transferring European citizens' personal data to countries deemed to have lower privacy standards - such as the United States.
Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have agreed to end their long-running patent feud over smartphones and video game systems, dropping about 20 lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany. The two companies, which didn’t disclose financial terms, have been litigating over technology innovations for five years.
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.