Internet Law

Microsoft Trial Win a Legislative Loss?

A stunning $1.52 billion verdict against Microsoft Corp. in a patent case earlier this month was the impetus for planned changes in U.S. patent law. But now that the computer megalith has succeeded in getting the federal jury verdict overturned, its courtroom win is likely to mean a legislative loss.…

Sep 5, 2007 3:58 PM CDT

Google Ad Suit Settled

A blinds and wallpaper company says American Airlines has a better chance of making its trademark infringement claim fly against Google. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory has settled a declaratory judgment suit brought by Google posing an unusual legal question: whether a search engine violates a company’s trademark by allowing…

Sep 5, 2007 11:10 AM CDT

Tax Protest Site Wins Reprieve

A tax protest Web site has won a temporary reprieve from an order to turn over identifying information about people who accessed certain online information. The order would have required givemeliberty.org to give the government information about people who learned how to keep the federal government from withholding taxes from…

Sep 4, 2007 3:46 PM CDT

Watch Out, UK Wireless Thieves

Those who see nothing wrong with piggybacking on someone else’s wireless Internet service may want to think twice about doing so in and around London. British authorities have arrested a 39-year-old man seen using his laptop on the street, charging him with what the London Times describes as suspicion of…

Aug 23, 2007 4:47 PM CDT

State AGs Seek Web Protections

State attorneys general from across the nation are pushing for new laws and greater controls to make social networking Web sites safer for children. Leading the 50-member group are Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.). They say sites such…

Aug 22, 2007 6:15 PM CDT

Cost of Biggest Data Breach: $256 Million

It will cost at least $256 million to correct a massive data breach involving the theft of computerized information about 45 million credit and debit cards. Reportedly the biggest such security breach ever to occur in the U.S., the yearlong theft of computer data from TJX Cos., based in Framingham,…

Aug 15, 2007 6:31 PM CDT

Tale of 2 Cities: Tampa Porn Dorm Legal, But Miami’s Isn’t

A so-called porn dorm in Tampa, in which women live and participate in sexual activities that are videotaped and publicized over the Internet, is apparently legal. But that doesn’t mean that a comparable business—featuring buffed-up young men who are paid $1,200 plus room and board to live in a house…

Aug 15, 2007 4:34 PM CDT

Quelle Crime! Teen Held for Potter Book Posted en Français

A 16-year-old has been arrested and briefly jailed for allegedly translating the entire 759-page book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, into French and posting it on the Internet within days of its July 21 release. The teen, a high school student from Aix-en-Provence in southern France, is not named…

Aug 8, 2007 7:27 PM CDT

Google Maps Make Life Less Private

It isn’t illegal. But an ambitious Google Inc. project to map metropolitan areas throughout the country is reducing the limited amount of privacy that used to apply, as a practical matter, on public streets. “The law allows you to take a picture of anything you can see as long as…

Aug 7, 2007 6:50 PM CDT

Go Google Yourself!

Blogs and Web sites may tell employers more than you want them to know

Aug 1, 2007 12:33 PM CDT

Judge Skeptical of Facebook Suit

Lawyers for the founders a social networking Web site will get a chance to revise their infringement complaint against their big-name competitor, Facebook Inc. But they may face an uphill battle, if comments by a Boston federal judge during a pretrial hearing yesterday are any indication. Judge Douglas Woodlock was…

Jul 26, 2007 8:29 PM CDT

29,000 Sex Offenders Using MySpace

The estimated number of registered sex offenders among some 180 million people using the social networking site MySpace to post personal profiles has quadrupled. Several months ago, operators of the site said they thought some 7,000 registered sex offenders had posted on MySpace. But now they have upped that estimate…

Jul 25, 2007 11:54 PM CDT

Abbott Drops Cyber Attack Suit

Abbott Laboratories has withdrawn its controversial lawsuit against AIDS activists who launched a cyber attack against its Web site in April. Abbott said it would drop the suit after meeting with members of Act-Up Paris and reaching an agreement about access to its AIDS drugs, the Wall Street Journal (sub.…

Jul 24, 2007 6:03 PM CDT

Firm’s Archive Search Not Illegal

A Pennsylvania law firm has emerged unscathed from its trip through the “Wayback Machine.” Judge Robert Kelly of Philadelphia has ruled Harding, Earley, Follmer & Frailey did not infringe a company’s copyright by obtaining its archived Internet pages using a search tool called the Wayback Machine. Nor did the law…

Jul 24, 2007 1:20 PM CDT

Child-Porn Linked to Abuse

A new study finds a strong link between viewing child pornography on the Internet and child molestation. The study of 155 inmates convicted of downloading child pornography found that 85 percent had sexually abused minors, the New York Times reports. Previous studies had suggested the number was only 30 percent…

Jul 19, 2007 2:33 PM CDT