Justice Department Accuses Google of Failing to Provide Documents

The U.S. Department of Justice accused Google of dragging its feet in providing documents in preparation for a trial on allegations that it broke antitrust law while the search and advertising giant said the government was being unreasonable. In a joint filing, the Justice Department said that Alphabet’s Google had balked at some search terms that the government wanted it to use to locate relevant documents.

Creator of Keyboard Interface Sues Apple for Delay in App Store

Apple Inc. was sued by the creator of a mobile-device keyboard interface for the blind who says the company’s failure to police fraudulent knockoffs sold in the App Store penalizes honest developers. Kosta Eleftheriou, who cites a long history of developing successful applications acquired by Google and Pinterest, says that after struggling with the iPhone maker to get permission to sell his FlickType in the App Store, competitors quickly surfaced with products that were slickly marketed but didn’t really work -- stealing 80% of his revenue.

Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Eliminate Protections for Unlawful Material Online

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced legislation targeting a decades-old law that gives internet platforms legal liability protection from content posted by third parties. The bill — the Stop Shielding Culpable Platforms Act — would yank those protections from companies that “knowingly peddle unlawful material” such as child pornography on their sites.

China's Internet Regulator Punishes LinkedIn for Not Controlling Political Content

China’s internet regulator rebuked LinkedIn executives this month for failing to control political content, according to three people briefed on the matter. Though it isn’t clear precisely what material got the company into trouble, the regulator said it had found objectionable posts circulating in the period around an annual meeting of China’s lawmakers, said these people, who asked for anonymity because the issue isn’t public.

Twitter Seeks Public Input on New Policies for Accounts of Public Officials

Twitter is putting out a call for public input as to how it should handle world leaders on the platform -- particularly ones who violate the site's rules. "Politicians and government officials are constantly evolving how they use our service, and we want our policies to remain relevant to the ever-changing nature of political discourse on Twitter and protect the health of the public conversation," reads a new blog post from Twitter posted.

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Justice Department Investigating Google's Decision to Block Cookies

Google’s plan to block a popular web tracking tool called “cookies” is a source of concern for U.S. Justice Department investigators who have been asking advertising industry executives whether the move by the search giant will hobble its smaller rivals, people familiar with the situation said. Alphabet Inc’s Google a year ago announced it would ban some cookies in its Chrome browser to increase user privacy.

New YouTube Tool Lets Creators Check Copyright Issues Before Uploading

In an effort to make the process of uploading a video and receiving ad revenue easier, YouTube is rolling out a new tool called “Checks” that tells a creator ahead of time if their video contains copyrighted material and complies with advertising guidelines. Prior to Checks, creators uploaded their videos to YouTube and hoped everything went off without a hitch.

Georgia Shootings Highlight Spike in Online Hate Against Asians

The fatal shootings of six Asian women in Georgia have turned a spotlight on a disturbing trend of the past year: Crimes against people of Asian descent have risen sharply in the United States, along with online slurs blaming them for the coronavirus pandemic. Although authorities say the alleged shooter, Robert Aaron Long, 21, does not appear to have been motivated by ethnic hatred, the broader trend of hateful words and deeds against Asians and Asian Americans is clear, researchers say, and appears to have spiked since the November presidential election and the contentious months that followed.

Federal Antitrust Officials Unlikely to Appeal Qualcomm Case to Supreme Court

Federal antitrust officials are unlikely to mount a Supreme Court appeal seeking to revive their case alleging leading chip maker Qualcomm Inc. engaged in illegal monopolization, according to people familiar with the matter. The Federal Trade Commission sued Qualcomm during the final days of the Obama administration in 2017, alleging the company used unlawful tactics to maintain a monopoly on cellphone chips.

Facebook Oversight Board to Examine General Policies for Elected Officials

As Facebook’s “Supreme Court” gets ready to rule on whether Donald Trump’s suspension should be permanent, the board will also tackle some of the thornier policy issues about how Facebook handles the accounts of elected officials. Speaking on a panel at SXSW, Rachel Wolbers, public policy manager for the Oversight Board, said that in addition to the “binary” decision about whether or not to reinstate Trump's account, the board will also look at Facebook’s policies around elected officials more broadly.

White House Hacking Task Force Meets with Private Sector Representatives

The White House’s task force looking into the recent hack of Microsoft Corp’s Exchange met with representatives of the private sector, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. The group, “included private sector members for the first time” who were invited “based on their specific insights to this incident,” she said.

Chinese Government Appears to Block Signal Messaging App

Messaging app Signal became unusable for many people in mainland China this week, stifling one of the last widely used messaging apps that could send and receive encrypted messages in the country without a virtual private network. The government’s apparent move to block Signal intensifies its hold on public and private discourse in China, where many social-media and messaging apps, including Facebook, Twitter and, most recently, the popular social-audio platform Clubhouse, have been banned.

Russia Threatens to Ban Twitter Unless It Removes Requested Content

An official at a Russian telecommunications watchdog warned that Moscow will block Twitter in one month unless the platform complies with demands to remove banned content. "Twitter has not properly responded to our requests. If the things go the same way, it will be blocked out of court in a month," Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of Roskomnadzor, told the Interfax News Agency.

Florida Teenager Gets Three-Year Sentence for Twitter Hacking

A Florida teenager who was involved in the high-profile and massive hack of Twitter last year has reached a plea deal with prosecutors and will serve three years in a juvenile facility, followed by three years of probation. Graham Ivan Clark, now 18, was the “mastermind” of the “Bit-Con” hack, authorities said, and one of three charged in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

Facebook Agrees to Pay News Corp. for Journalism Content in Australia

Facebook has agreed to pay Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for its journalism content in Australia, a month after the social media platform temporarily blocked news links inside the country over legislation pressing digital giants to compensate publishers. The multiyear deal includes news content from major Murdoch conservative media outlets like The Australian, a national newspaper; the news site news.com.au; and other metropolitan, regional and community publications.

More State Join Texas Antitrust Advertising Lawsuit Against Google

Alaska, Florida, Montana, Nevada, and Puerto Rico have joined a lawsuit filed by Texas and others against Google, which accuse it of breaking antitrust law to boost its already dominant online advertising business, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said. The lawsuit was one of five filed last year by the federal government or states against two big tech platforms, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc.

Facebook Studying Vaccine Hesitancy to Understand Medical Attitudes Online

Facebook is conducting a vast behind-the-scenes study of doubts expressed by U.S. users about vaccines, a major project that attempts to probe and teach software to identify the medical attitudes of millions of Americans, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The research is a large-scale attempt to understand the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy, or the act of delaying or refusing a vaccination despite its availability, on social media — a primary source of health information for millions of people.

More Privacy Decisions Being Challenged in European Courts

Nearly three years after a sweeping privacy law took effect in Europe, regulators are seeing more sanction decisions challenged and overturned as companies file appeals. European courts struck down or reduced several multimillion-dollar fines in recent months, raising questions about whether judges and privacy regulators disagree about how to enforce the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation.

Swiss Authorities Raid Software Engineer's Home in Probe of Camera Hacking

Swiss authorities confirmed a police raid at the home of a Swiss software engineer who took credit for helping to break into a U.S. security-camera company’s online networks, part of what the activist hacker cited as an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of mass surveillance. The Federal Office of Justice said regional police in central Lucerne, acting on a legal assistance request from U.S. authorities, carried out a house search involving hacker Tillie Kottmann.

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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.