Internet Law

Computer Game-Makers Threaten to Sue 25,000 in UK re Downloads

In an unprecedented effort to enforce their copyrights, five top computer game-makers are reportedly about to threaten 25,000 residents of the United Kingdom with lawsuits unless they ante up about $560 each. The 25,000 residents are believed to have illegally downloaded computer games without paying for them, reports the London…

Aug 19, 2008 10:33 PM CDT

Judge Sides With MIT Students, Lifts Gag Order in Transit Case

A federal anti-hacking law wasn’t intended to prohibit the disclosure of public information about computer security flaws and hence doesn’t prohibit three MIT students from discussing with fellow academics how they learned to circumvent the Boston transit fare system, as part of a class project. That’s what a federal judge…

Aug 19, 2008 8:31 PM CDT

Google Among Web Cos. Tracking Users Without Explicit Consent

Internet and broadband companies are monitoring the Web surfing habits of their users via targeted-ad technology, letters released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee reveal. The companies are doing so without explicitly informing their customers, the Washington Post reports. Leading online advertiser Google acknowledged that it’s now following Web-surfers…

Aug 12, 2008 12:41 PM CDT

Trump Claims Firm Invaded Privacy By Posting Name on Website

Real estate mogul and reality TV personality Donald Trump is continuing his battle against his former lawyers, this time with a $5 million suit claiming they have violated his privacy by using his name on its website and talking about representing him during media interviews. Trump has sued again, this…

Aug 12, 2008 10:36 AM CDT

Marshals Service Investigates Video Rants Against YouTube Judge

Someone who goes by the name Cap’n Awesome isn’t happy with the Manhattan judge handling Viacom’s $1 billion infringement lawsuit against YouTube. The Cap’n has posted a YouTube video, rated five stars, that features liberal use of the F-word and a crude name for U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton. InsaneClownPerv,…

Aug 11, 2008 12:27 PM CDT

New Website Sells Restaurant Reservations

There are laws against reselling tickets. But offering restaurant reservations online to the highest bidder may be entirely legal. A 10-day-old Internet venture, which has created a new website to do just that has attracted customers and critics, reports the Chicago Tribune. However, despite unhappiness on the part of some…

Aug 8, 2008 8:48 PM CDT

Bogus Olympics Tickets Sold on Internet

An Internet ticket scam is of Olympic scope for victims who have spent thousands of dollars, not to mention days of vacation time, to travel to China for the games in Beijing. Family members of athletes are among thousands in more than half-dozen countries who reportedly paid hefty sums for…

Aug 8, 2008 5:24 PM CDT

Yale Law Students Start Naming Names in Suit Over Blog Posts

Two female students at Yale Law School have begun identifying, in federal court papers, the defendants who allegedly posted vile comments about them under anonymous screen names on an Internet discussion board—and are unwilling to settle the lawsuit they brought as a result. The two students learned the posters’ names…

Aug 6, 2008 8:59 PM CDT

11 Charged in Biggest ID Theft Case Ever

Updated: The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston reportedly has charged 11 individuals from four countries in what is believed to be the largest identity theft case ever prosecuted by the Justice Department. Those charged allegedly stole more than 40 million debit and credit card numbers, many of them used by…

Aug 5, 2008 5:24 PM CDT

Yale Students Unmask Anonymous Critics; Legal Careers at Risk

Apparent law students who posted nasty comments about female classmates on the Internet thought they were doing so anonymously. But now two female Yale Law School students who sued over the AutoAdmit posts have identified at least some of those who made the vile comments, including posts that said women…

Jul 31, 2008 8:50 PM CDT

Wordscraper is Facebook’s New Scrabulous, Testing IP Law

There is Scrabulous news today for some 500,000 aficionados of the popular computerized word game that was played on the Internet by some 450,000 Facebook users each day. Although Scrabulous can no longer be played via the social networking site, a remarkably similar game by the same software developers is…

Jul 31, 2008 7:23 PM CDT

Internet Flaw Puts Huge Numbers of People at Risk of Fraud

What if you called up a telephone company’s directory assistance service and got a wrong number for a major bank? And, worse yet, the wrong number was for a fraud scheme that pretended it was that major bank, extracting information from callers so that it could steal from them? That…

Jul 30, 2008 8:10 PM CDT

Game Over for Scrabulous Players on Facebook

One of Facebook’s most popular features is now kaput. Users of the social networking site in the U.S. and Canada can no longer play Scrabulous; the two individual developers of the Internet version of the classic Scrabble board game decided to take it down after they were sued by Hasbro,…

Jul 29, 2008 9:57 PM CDT

Internet Lawyer By Day, Law Prof By Night

Adam Palmer’s day job is working as policy counsel for .ORG, a public interest Internet domain registry based in Reston, Va. But his avocation is protecting children from Internet predators, and he travels around the world teaching other attorneys how to prosecute such cases. That’s why he volunteered to teach…

Jul 29, 2008 5:30 PM CDT

Supremacist Escapes Sanction for Internet Posts About Troutman Sanders Lawyer

A federal judge has refused to sanction a white supremacist who posted the home address and telephone number of a lawyer for Troutman Sanders in Richmond, Va. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bradford Stillman of Norfolk said the posts by white supremacist William White didn’t suggest physical harm and were less threatening…

Jul 29, 2008 1:41 PM CDT