California Attorney General Launches Attacks on Web 'Revenge Porn'

Calling revenge porn and other cyber-borne assaults against women "heinous" crimes, California Attorney General Kamala Harris unveiled a campaign to have tech companies and law enforcement team up to go after criminals and help victims of online exploitation. The announcement laid out a wide range of efforts to train police and bring offenders to justice while enlisting some of Silicon Valley's major players to find ways to stanch the wave of so-called revenge porn, the criminal act of posting intimate photos or videos online without the consent of the individual.

Facebook Fighting Privacy Investigations in Europe

Facebook Inc. is gearing up to fight a cascade of privacy investigations in Europe, arguing that regulators are overreaching in ways that could hurt the social network’s ability to protect users against hacking and fraud. Ahead of a court ruling due in Belgium, the Menlo Park, Calif., company is attacking this case against it as an ill-thought-out attempt to regulate privacy that would instead remove one of the tools Facebook uses to stop automated programs from hacking into users’ accounts.

Music Labels Sue Aurous App for Copyright Infringement

The three major music labels -- Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group -- and two of their subsidiaries, Atlantic and Capitol, filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, alleging "blatant" copyright infringement by the nascent app maker Aurous, whose development was led by Andrew Sampson. “This service is a flagrant example of a business model powered by copyright theft on a massive scale," writes the RIAA in a statement. "Like Grokster, Limewire or Grooveshark, it is neither licensed nor legal."

California Laws Limit E-mail Searches Without Warrants

California has leaped to the forefront of protecting digital privacy -- from Big Brother, big business and even your Smart TV -- as Gov. Jerry Brown signed a raft of bills aimed at taming a world of increasingly surreptitious technology. The new laws will prevent state and local law enforcement from snooping on emails without a warrant and alert the public when they use high-tech surveillance to tap into cellphone calls.

U.S. Says Antitrust Monitoring of Apple E-Books Can End

The U.S. Justice Department said it’s satisfied Apple Inc. put in place reforms to comply with antitrust laws even though it fought with a monitor appointed to oversee its sale of electronic books. In a letter to the Manhattan federal judge who found in 2013 that Apple illegally conspired with publishers to set e-book prices, the U.S. said Apple has “now implemented meaningful antitrust policies, procedures, and training programs that were obviously lacking at the time Apple participated in and facilitated the horizontal price-fixing conspiracy found by this court.”

E-Trade Says Data on 31,000 Customers Accessed in Attack

Financial services company E-Trade notified about 31,000 customers that some of their personal information may have been accessed during a cyberattack in late 2013. The scope of the incident appears limited. The hackers may have accessed customers' e-mail names, as well as e-mail and physical addresses, according to a notification E-Trade sent to customers affected by the incident.

Insurers Raise Premiums Sharply After Cyber Attacks

A rash of hacking attacks on U.S. companies over the past two years has prompted insurers to massively increase cyber premiums for some companies, leaving firms that are perceived to be a high risk scrambling for cover. On top of rate hikes, insurers are raising deductibles and in some cases limiting the amount of coverage to $100 million, leaving many potentially exposed to big losses from hacks that can cost more than twice that.

Dow Jones Says Hackers Got Credit Card Data for 3,500

Dow Jones & Co. disclosed that hackers had gained unauthorized entry to its systems, accessing contact information for current and former subscribers in order to send fraudulent solicitations. The data breach potentially accessed payment card information for fewer than 3,500 individuals, said Dow Jones, a unit of News Corp and owner of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Barron’s.

White House Drops Plan Requiring Access to Encrypted Data

The Obama administration has backed down in its bitter dispute with Silicon Valley over the encryption of data on iPhones and other digital devices, concluding that it is not possible to give American law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to that information without also creating an opening that China, Russia, cybercriminals and terrorists could exploit. With its decision, which angered the F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies, the administration essentially agreed with Apple, Google, Microsoft and a group of the nation’s top cryptographers and computer scientists that millions of Americans would be vulnerable to hacking if technology firms and smartphone manufacturers were required to provide the government with “back doors,” or access to their source code and encryption keys.

Samsung Didn't Infringe Nvidia Chip Patents, ITC Judge Rules

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has been cleared on its use of graphics chip technology owned by Nvidia Corp without permission, in a U.S. International Trade Commission ruling. Judge Thomas Pender said Samsung did not infringe two Nvidia patents, and while it did infringe a third, he ruled that patent is invalid because it was not a new invention compared with previously known patents.

China Arrested Hackers at U.S. Request Before Obama Meeting

The Chinese government has quietly arrested a handful of hackers at the urging of the U.S. government -- an unprecedented step to defuse tensions with Washington at a time when the Obama administration has threatened economic sanctions. The action came a week or two before President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington late last month.

Microsoft E-mail Case Called 'Matter of National Sovereignty'

Since December 2013, Microsoft has been engaged in a pivotal battle with the U.S. government over e-mail stored on one of its company servers in Ireland. The government’s attorneys say the U.S. simply wants evidence linked to a narcotics case. Microsoft says if it loses the case, the consequences will resound well beyond the fate of an alleged drug dealer.

Samsung Says Users' Payment Info Not Compromised

Samsung Electronics Co. said that the personal payment information of users of its mobile payment system wasn’t compromised despite a reported hacking incident at LoopPay, a U.S.-based startup it bought earlier this year. Samsung said in a statement that the incident involved three servers on LoopPay’s internal office network and as soon as the incident was discovered, the U.S. company brought in professional security teams to investigate and quarantine devices.

Clinton's E-mail Server Targeted from China, S. Korea, Germany

Computer hackers in China, South Korea and Germany tried to attack Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server after she left the U.S. State Department in February 2013, the Associated Press reported. "It was not immediately clear whether the attempted intrusions into Clinton's server were serious espionage threats or the sort of nuisance attacks that hit computer servers the world over," the AP said, citing a congressional document.

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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.