Tech Law

France has abandoned a law that called for copyright infringers' Internet connections to be cut off upon a third offense. The law stipulated that letters be sent the first and second time people illicitly downloaded copyrighted material; the third time around, an offender's Web access would be disco...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to exercise authority over the surveillance activities of the United States government, reportedly has been issuing rulings that assess broad constitutional questions and establish judicial pr...

The UK and Germany have become the latest European countries to demand that Google amend the privacy policy revamp it launched in April 2012, which consolidated user data across all its services. The Information Commissioner's Office in the UK announced that it has sent a letter to Google notifying ...

I just watched a presentation by the National Association of Attorneys General, and these top law enforcers painted Google as a criminal organization with so much power that it has unusual influence over the federal government. "Intellectual Property Crimes Online: Dangerous Access to Prescription D...

In what could be a prelude to censorship, the Turkish government has asked Twitter to establish a "representative office" in Turkey. The government has hinted that it might ban Twitter if the company doesn't comply. Turkey did as much to YouTube, blocking the site for two years until last October, w...

The UK's NSA-ish surveillance program, "Project Tempora," has drawn the ire of the German government. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the Germany justice minister, sent a pair of letters Tuesday to the British justice secretary detailing the angst and anger that Britain's snooping has caused. Ge...

Google cannot be forced to delete sensitive information from its search index, a key advisor to the European Court of Justice said. The opinion, released by Niilo Jaaskinen, was prompted by a case in Spain claiming that Google should remove outdated financial details about an individual. That case w...

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who recently blew the top off U.S. surveillance programs by leaking information to the press, has accused U.S. spies of hacking into Chinese mobile companies to thieve text messages. Snowden also alleged that the U.S. has hacked servers at Tsinghua University. Snowd...

A bug that has been in Facebook's network for about a year has exposed private information on about 6 million of its users to other users during that period. This has revived concern that the company maintains a database of shadow profiles of members and their friends, even if the latter are non-mem...

Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by imposing more requirements for prosecuting violators. Representatives Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a revised draft of the Act, naming it f...

France plans to propose a law that would prevent Amazon from offering discounts and free delivery for books in France. Amazon's discounts amount to unfair competition and threaten booksellers' business model, culture minister Aurelie Filipetti said. France is not alone complaining about Amazon's agg...

Google is asking the secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to let it disclose information about its orders. Such disclosures would be made without violating FISA or the Court's rules of procedure, Google said. Google's petition to the FISA Court follows revelations that it and other...

Google announced over the weekend it is spearheading an initiative to build a picture-sharing database aimed at ridding the Web of child pornography. The company's new database will rely on "hashing" technology; once an image has been flagged as offensive, it uses an algorithm to identify that photo...

SPOTLIGHT ON SECURITY

Hackers Find WordPress Easy Pickings

Adobe Reader and Oracle Java aren't alone in having a bull's eye painted on their code. WordPress also is becoming a popular target for Internet outlaws. It's quite a large target, too. About 18 percent of the sites on the Web -- about 60 million of them -- use WordPress. One reason WordPress is att...

Well, this was bound to happen. U.S. lawmakers said Thursday that the House Intelligence Committee -- the same committee that trashed Chinese telecommunications companies last year -- will conduct a "thorough scrub" of connections between China and Eric Snowden. Snowden -- a "traitor," according to ...

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