Supreme Court Hears Free Speech Arguments in Student's Snapchat Case

The Supreme Court explored the extent of protections for student speech that occurs off campus, in a case that could break new First Amendment ground in the social media age. Hearing arguments by phone, the court grappled with a dispute pitting a teen cheerleader against her Pennsylvania high school district, which imposed a yearlong suspension from the squad after she made a profane Snapchat post off campus and outside of school hours.

Microsoft President Says Google Has Broken Promise of 'An Open Web'

Microsoft Corp. President Brad Smith said Google has hurt the concept of the open web and impaired content creators’ ability to make money, continuing an attack the software maker began earlier this year over whether internet companies need to pay news organizations for content they re-share. “The reality is that Google has fundamentally sucked most of the oxygen out of the opportunities for people who create content to actually earn a living through advertising,” said Smith, who is also Microsoft’s chief legal officer, in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Officials Consider Cryptocurrency Regulation to Fight Ransomware

Government and industry officials confronting an epidemic of ransomware, where hackers freeze the computers of a target and demand a payoff, are zeroing in on cryptocurrency regulation as the key to combating the scourge, sources familiar with the work of a public-private task force said. In a report, the panel of experts is expected to call for far more aggressive tracking of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. While those have won greater acceptance among investors over the past year, they remain the lifeblood of ransomware operators and other criminals who face little risk of prosecution in much of the world.

Senators Probing Whether Google Tried to Influence Critic at Hearing

Senators are probing whether Google tried to influence a top critic’s testimony at a high-profile hearing about the future of app stores. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are demanding more details about an alleged phone call between a Google employee and a Match Group employee on the eve of a key hearing before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.

EU's Competition Chief Plans to Issue Charges Against Apple

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, will issue charges against Apple stating that its App Store rules break EU law, according to several people with direct knowledge of the situation. The charges relate to a complaint brought two years ago by Spotify, the music streaming app, that Apple takes 30 percent commission to distribute apps through its iPhone App Store and forbids apps from directing users to pay for subscriptions elsewhere.

Ransomware Gang Threatens to Leak Sensitive Files from D.C. Police Department

A ransomware gang is threatening to leak sensitive police files that may expose police investigations and informants unless the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia agrees to pay a ransom demand. “We are aware of unauthorized access on our server,” Sean Hickman, a public spokesperson for DC Police, told The Record in an email today after screenshots of the department’s internal files and servers were published on the website of the Babuk Locker ransomware gang.

German Advertising Federation Files Antitrust Complaint Against Apple

The German Advertising Federation filed an antitrust complaint against Apple over the tech giant’s rollout of its App Tracking Transparency feature. The ZAW, the advertising federation, filed the complaint with a German competition regulator, arguing Apple is abusing its market power and violating antitrust law through the launch of its antitracking feature, according to the federation’s press release.

China's Internet Watchdog Releases New Rules to Regulate Live Streaming

China’s internet watchdog and six other regulators have jointly released new rules to regulate live streaming in the country’s booming e-commerce sector, set to go into effect on May 25, in Beijing’s latest move to tighten oversight of the powerful digital economy. Live-streaming service providers will be required to create a list specifying the categories of products and services that are either unlawful or unsuited for sales through live-streaming, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on its official website.

Twitter Removes Tweets Critical of Indian Government's Pandemic Response

Twitter has removed more than 50 tweets critical of the Indian government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and did so at the request of the Indian government. First reported by Indian news site MediaNama, the Indian government sent Twitter an emergency order to censor 52 tweets, according to a disclosure notice on the Lumen database.

U.S. Response to SolarWinds Hack Unlikely to Deter Russia, Official Says

The White House's top official on the response to the massive SolarWinds hack says the sweeping measures announced by the Biden administration against Russia are unlikely on their own to prevent Moscow's malicious cyber activity against the U.S. and did not dispute that the hackers responsible for the massive breach are still lurking on American networks. Expelling Russian hackers from U.S. government networks and getting them to re-consider their malign behavior is going to take time, more comprehensive dialogue and fundamental changes to American cybersecurity, deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told CNN in an interview.

  • Read the article: CNN

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter Executives to Testify on Social Media Algorithms

Executives from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter will testify at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on social media algorithms and amplification, the panel announced. The hearing will feature Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of content policy, Alexandra Veitch, YouTube’s director of government affairs and public policy for the Americas and emerging markets, and Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s head of U.S. public policy.

Internal Facebook Report Says Company Failed to Shut 'Stop the Steal'

Less than a week after Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in front of a House of Representatives committee, an internal company report concluded that Facebook failed to stop a highly influential movement from using its platform to delegitimize the election, encourage violence, and help incite the Capitol riot. Shared on Facebook’s employee communication platform last month, the report is a blunt assessment of how people connected to “Stop the Steal,” a far-right movement based on the conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, used the social network to foment an attempted coup.

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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.