Officials from the U.S. government's personnel agency unexpectedly refused to attend a closed-door congressional briefing on their handling of a massive computer breach that affected more than 22 million federal workers. The breach last year at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) underscored Washington's online vulnerabilities amid threats from perpetrators ranging from foreign governments to terrorist groups and various amorphous hacktivist collectives.
The operator of a major music piracy site was sentenced to three years in prison. Rocky Ouprasith, now 23, was the man behind RockDizMusic.com and RockDizFile.com. The latter was the second-largest online file-sharing site specializing in pirated music in the United States in 2013, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
American and French officials say there is still no definitive evidence to back up their presumption that the terrorists who massacred 129 people in Paris used new, difficult-to-crack encryption technologies to organize the plot. But in interviews, Obama administration officials say the Islamic State has used a range of encryption technologies over the past year and a half, many of which defy cracking by the National Security Agency.
Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. were among U.S. companies facing questions from European Union lawmakers about their tax-reducing techniques, a month after regional antitrust regulators raised the stakes by ordering Starbucks Corp. and a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV unit to repay millions of euros in back taxes. The queries about the “Dutch Sandwich” and the “Double Irish” -- tax arrangements that allow companies to declare income in lower-tax areas -- came as the European Commission weighs its next decisions on fiscal pacts Amazon.com Inc. arranged with Luxembourg and Apple Inc. with Ireland.
New York State's top prosecutor filed for a temporary injunction that would shut down daily fantasy sports leaders DraftKings and FanDuel in the state in a latest blow to the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar industry. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in legal documents filed in a Manhattan trial court that the games are illegal gambling, no different from poker or blackjack.
In a first, UFC is discouraging the press (not just the general public) from sharing unauthorized footage of a Ronda Rousey fight on the Internet, whether it's a GIF animation or a looping video. There's no official explanation, but it's easy to see the concern: the league is worried that you'll skip that pay-per-view purchase knowing that a fan site could recap everything in a tweet.
In an effort to give students additional options — and to provide schools with more concrete data — a nonprofit software start-up in San Francisco called Sexual Health Innovations has developed an online reporting system for campus sexual violence. Students at participating colleges can use its site, called Callisto, to record details of an assault anonymously.
Germany's Federal Cartel Office has begun an investigation into Apple Inc's arrangement with Amazon for purchasing audiobooks, the competition watchdog said in a statement. It said both companies had a long-term agreement for the purchase of audio books by Apple from Amazon's Audible business for distribution via Apple's iTunes store.
The Turkish government has officially blocked access to Reddit. An official government site confirms the ban with a generic message that reads, "After technical analysis and legal consideration ... administration measure has been taken for this website."
A D.C. federal judge has ruled that FilmOn is liable for infringing the public performance rights of Fox Television and other major broadcasters and has dealt a blow to the digital streamer's argument that it is entitled to a compulsory license of programming. In the order, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer finds FilmOn X (which allowed network streams) to be an infringement of copyrights while giving FilmOn.TV (an affiliate with a library of shows and movies) and its founder Alki David a pass from liability.
DraftKings Inc. and FanDuel Inc. filed separate lawsuits seeking to stop New York’s attorney general from banning fantasy-sports games in the state. DraftKings has retained Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, a high-powered law firm that previously has represented the National Football League and players in the National Basketball Association.
Russia's biggest search site Yandex said it had asked the European Commission to investigate Google's practices in relation to its Android mobile operating system in the European Union. The new complaint could strengthen the case against Google, possibly giving enough ammunition to EU antitrust regulators to eventually charge the company with anti-competitive business practices, on top of accusations related to its Google Shopping service.
A man from Akron, Ohio, who has supported the Islamic State online was arrested by federal authorities and charged because he allegedly "reblogged" a GIF on Tumblr that called for attacks on members of the U.S. military. Terrence J. McNeil, 25, was charged in federal court in the Northern District of Ohio with soliciting a crime of violence.
A new plan from T-Mobile USA to allow unlimited streaming of some video services may become the first test of the federal government’s rules to prevent favoritism on the Internet. T-Mobile, the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, said customers could stream as many videos as they want — regardless of their data plan limits — from more than two dozen video providers, including Hulu and Netflix.
University of Missouri police arrested a 19-year-old student over threats made on social media, capping days of turmoil after two top school officials resigned amid protests about racial incidents on campus. Authorities arrested Hunter Michael Park, a student at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.
Facebook Inc. said content restrictions and government requests for data surged in the first half of 2015, which the social network has seen continually increase since it began publicly releasing such data two years ago. Government requests for account data globally jumped 18 percent in the first half of 2015 to 41,214 accounts, up from 35,051 requests in the second half of 2014, Facebook said in a blog post.
An Instagram client which was the most downloaded free app in Britain and Canada has been silently stealing usernames and passwords and uploading them to its developer’s server. The app, marketed as “Who Viewed Your Profile - InstaAgent”, claimed to allow users of the social network to track the people that have visited their account.
The New York State attorney general ordered the two biggest daily fantasy sports companies, DraftKings and FanDuel, to stop accepting bets from New York residents, saying their games constituted illegal gambling under state law. The cease-and-desist order by the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, is a major blow to a multibillion-dollar industry that introduced sports betting to legions of young sports fans and has formed partnerships with many of the nation’s professional sports teams.
Microsoft threw down a challenge to the U.S. tech industry as it came up with a radical new regime to try to protect the data of some of its biggest European customers from U.S. government over-reach. The arrangement, which will ringfence European data with a new legal set-up designed put it beyond U.S. courts and the country’s national security establishment, in one of the most drastic corporate responses yet to the American internet spying scandal.
Google faces a fresh round of European Union questions about its Android operating system for mobile devices as regulators quizzed rivals and customers over applications for maps, e-mail and other services. The EU wants to know whether Google Maps for phones has supplanted portable or in-car navigation devices, such as those produced by TomTom NV and the HERE unit of Nokia Oyj, according to a document sent to companies and seen by Bloomberg.
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.