WEB 2.0 LEGAL NEWS

A judge protects the anonymity of bloggers

web20lawyer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:58:02 +0000

Joining at least six other states, a state court judge in Nashville has ruled that anonymous bloggers are entitled to legal protections before being unmasked.

A Tennessee judge ruled that people who seek to learn the identities of anonymous bloggers must first make a showing that they would be able to prove a libel case. With the ruling, the judge joined courts in Arizona, California, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Texas and the District of Columbia, which have held that plaintiffs in a lawsuit can’t simply demand to know a blogger’s identity without first establishing that they stand a chance of prevailing in a libel lawsuit. http://xrl.in/1s78

Internet Lawyer

EPIC Asks the FTC to Investigates Googles Privacy Polciies

web20lawyer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:47:11 +0000

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Google Inc. has built adequate privacy protections into its software services, such as Gmail and the company’s word-processing and spreadsheet offering, Google Docs. What do they want to gain? A better or clearer privacy policy. SInce very few people actually read those policies, is this “any real” solution? http://xrl.in/1t0z

Getting served via a Social Network?

web20lawyer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:38:16 +0000

In an interesting twist, a judge in New Zeland authorized the serving of legal papers using Facebook.

A Hacker is sentenced to 4 years in prison

web20lawyer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:22:34 +0000

A Los Angeles computer security consultant has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for using malicious software (botnets) to infect thousands of computers, turn the computers into “zombies” and steal individuals’ identities by extracting information from their personal computers. http://xrl.in/1t0o

Cook County sheriff sues Craigslist for sex ads

web20lawyer — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:12:03 +0000

A local Sheriff decided to sue Craigslist as a classified forum for prostitution rings. This is sure to end up in a settlement. The protection afforded to Publishers who do not edit or contribute to content is fairly settled in case law nationwide.

Click Fraud Liability and the Meaning of “User”

web20lawyer — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:05:49 +0000

Email
A California district court considered the issue of whether the language of the contract entered into by the advertiser and a Web publisher was such so as to exempt the advertiser from paying fees for fraudulent clicks on its advertisements. The court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss, finding that meaning of the term “user” was a triable issue. Lambotte v. IAC/InterActiveCorp, (C.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2008). http://xrl.in/1smp

Patent Suit Is Filed Against Amazon

web20lawyer — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:02:15 +0000

Cable programmer Discovery Communications Inc. filed suit Tuesday against Amazon.com Inc., claiming it owns a patent to technology used in Amazon’s Kindle electronic-book reader.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, claims Discovery owns a patent to encryption technology for electronic books that it believes is part of the operation of the Kindle. http://xrl.in/1smn

Yahoo Loses Quest To Move Lawsuit To California Courts

web20lawyer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:06:14 +0000

If a circuit court of appeal rules (some 13 years ago) ruled out radio and television coverage in the court room, should that apply to live webcasts too? Lawyers are arguing on both sides. While i think that opening the court system to the scrutiny of the public is s good move, i don’t see how webcasts can be treated differently from live television. http://xrl.in/1s78

New Kindle 2 Legal Issue

web20lawyer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:04:35 +0000

A new legal issues has arisen over Amazon’s Kindle 2. Amazon sent take down letters to MobileREad.com demanding the removal of links and posts to software code that allows users to open and read LEGAL purchases of e-books from non-Amazon sites on the Kindle 2. Threatened with DMCA provisions, MobileRead.com, which never hosted the script, removed all links and postings.

Section 1201 of the DMCA says: “No person shall… offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology… is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

However an exception exists. It allows for circumvention for “interoperability” of computer programs. Interoperability is defined as the “ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.”

Would have been interesting to see how a court would have ruled on this issue. http://xrl.in/1sfz

Is Privacy a Growing Concern?

web20lawyer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:51:20 +0000

It seems that industry associations have one more chance to get it right. For the longest time, they’ve been told – DISCLOSE. Let people know what you are doing with their information. It appears that the new Obama administration and Congress are not content letting industry associations decide what rules should look like. Is this their last chance to get it right before a slew of new regulations are put in place? http://xrl.in/1sfw

Cybersquatting Cases Hits Record in 2008

web20lawyer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:37:22 +0000

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is preparing to launch a variety of new “personal” domain names. The result may be at questions. While cyber squatting cases have been fought successfully for some years now, these new personal domains (think of .ibm or .microsoft) may force trademark holders to go on a buying spree to prevent others from squatters from acquiring them. http://xrl.in/1sfr