Britain's EU Exit Creates New Challenges for Data Protection

Britain’s exit from the European Union risks stripping companies of their ability to freely store information about EU residents on British soil, potentially creating a new barrier to trade in the region. Under current EU law, an independent country needs to convince the EU that it guarantees individual privacy up to EU standards for companies there to retain unfettered access to everything from European payroll records to EU residents’ cellphone-location data.

Qualcomm Files Patent Suit Against Meizu, Chinese Smartphone Maker

Qualcomm Inc has filed 17 fresh complaints in China against Meizu Technology Co, stepping up its battle with the Chinese smartphone maker after the two were unable to reach a licensing accord in the U.S. tech giant's biggest market. The patent infringement complaints by Qualcomm, submitted to intellectual property courts in Beijing and Shanghai on Thursday, mark the second time in a week it has taken legal action against Meizu, one of China's top 10 handset suppliers.

Facebook Wins Ruling Against Belgian Privacy Commission

The Belgian data protection authority said it had lost a legal battle with Facebook in which it sought to stop the social network from tracking the online activities of non-Facebook users in Belgium who visit Facebook pages. A spokeswoman for the Belgian Privacy Commission said the Brussels Appeals Court had dismissed its case on the grounds that the regulator has no jurisdiction over Facebook, which has its European headquarters in Ireland.

Researchers Sue DOJ Over Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Four academic researchers who specialize in uncovering algorithmic discrimination say that a decades-old federal anti-hacking statute is preventing them from doing work to detect  discrimination. They say a provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be used to criminally prosecute them for research that involves scraping publicly available data from these sites or creating anonymous user accounts on them, if the sites’s terms of service prohibit this activity.

  • Read the article: Wired

Amazon Removes Copyrighted Content from 'Inspire' Website

One day after Amazon announced that it would introduce Amazon Inspire, a free instructional resources site where teachers could share lesson plans, the company said it had removed three items from the site after educators complained that the products were copyrighted materials. In a related blunder, Amazon had included two of the items it has since taken down in a screen shot of the site that was sent to journalists and published in news outlets, including The New York Times.

ISIS Faces Resistance in Online Recruiting, U.S. Envoy Says

Islamic State’s online efforts to recruit and inspire terrorists are being met with increasingly effective resistance, according to the U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting the group in Iraq and Syria. “This network of voices on the internet right now is really starting to turn the tide against their message," Brett McGurk told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Google, Viacom Win Appeal on Children's Privacy Online

Google and Viacom defeated an appeal in a nationwide class action lawsuit by parents who claimed the companies illegally tracked the online activity of children under the age of 13 who watched videos and played video games on Nickelodeon's website. By a 3-0 vote, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, and Viacom Inc were not liable under several federal and state laws for planting "cookies" on boys' and girls' computers, to gather data that advertisers could use to send targeted ads.

China to Require Search Engines to Report Banned Content

Chinese authorities will require Baidu Inc. and other search engines to report banned content and verify advertisers’ qualifications in its latest attempt at Internet regulation. Under rules to take effect Aug. 1, search engines operating in the country will be prohibited from providing banned information in various formats including links, summaries, cached pages, associative words, related searches and relevant recommendations, the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement.

EU Planning New Antitrust Charges Against Google

The European Union’s competition watchdog has signaled it is preparing to issue a fresh set of formal antitrust charges, possibly before August, against Alphabet Inc.’s Google over abusing its dominance in advertising, according to people familiar with the matter. The European Commission has asked rival companies to permit disclosure to Google of confidential information they submitted that support allegations that it abuses its dominance in advertising.

German Publishers Appeal Google Decision on News Headlines

German publishers have appealed a Berlin court's rejection of a case in which they accused Google of abusing its market power by refusing to pay them for displaying newspaper articles online, a lawyer for the publishers said. Germany's biggest newspaper publisher, Axel Springer and 40 other publishers had accused Alphabet Inc's Google of unfair treatment.

Facebook Takes Down Troll's Page in Stanford Rape Case

A sardonic Facebook page that defended Brock Turner as the "real victim" in the controversy over the ex-Stanford student's sexual assault of an unconscious woman has been taken down for violating the social media company's community standards. Beginning June 9, the Brock Turner Family Support page published a series of increasingly offensive posts lamenting Turner's 6-month stint in county jail and trivializing the plight of his victim, whom Turner was convicted in March of assaulting outside a campus party in 2015.

YouTube, Facebook Use New Technology to Take Down Extremist Videos

Some of the web’s biggest destinations for watching videos have quietly started using automation to remove extremist content from their sites, according to two people familiar with the process. The move is a major step forward for internet companies that are eager to eradicate violent propaganda from their sites and are under pressure to do so from governments around the world as attacks by extremists proliferate, from Syria to Belgium and the United States.

ITC Issues Rulings For, Against Cisco in Patent Cases with Arista

Networking products company Arista Networks Inc., which has been in a patent dispute with Cisco Systems Inc., said the International Trade Commission issued a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist order against it concerning two features. The ITC ruled in Arista’s favor on two other features, finding that they don’t infringe Cisco’s patents.

Banks Abandoning Passwords for More Secure Technologies

Some of the nation’s largest banks, acknowledging that traditional passwords are either too cumbersome or no longer secure, are increasingly using fingerprints, facial scans and other types of biometrics to safeguard accounts. Millions of customers at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo routinely use fingerprints to log into their bank accounts through their mobile phones.

Subscribe

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.