September 2007
Fri, Sep, 28 2007
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a controversial case in which LG Electronics is accused of trying to "shake down the entire computer industry for several billion dollars in duplicative licensing fees".
Fri, Sep, 28 2007
As many as 95% of CCTV systems in the UK are operating illegally, according to a CCTV expert. The revelation comes as new legislation is about to take effect in Scotland which could render even more systems illegal.
Fri, Sep, 28 2007
A dead woman's medical records should not be released because a duty of confidentiality survives her death, the Information Tribunal has ruled. The decision backs an earlier ruling by the Information Commissioner.
Thu, Sep, 27 2007
IBM faces virtual reality's first picket line today at the company's offices in online community Second Life. Workers have taken their industrial relations dispute online and have received attention and backing from all over the real world.
Thu, Sep, 27 2007
EDITORIAL: Barely a day goes by without Google or Microsoft or some other company with vast vaults of our personal data tweaking its privacy policy.
Wed, Sep, 26 2007
Media regulator Ofcom has fined broadcaster GMTV £2 million over its misconduct in viewer competitions over a four year period. It is the highest fine ever issued to a broadcaster by Ofcom, which said that up to 25 million people may have been cheated.
Wed, Sep, 26 2007
The leak of 45 million people's credit card information was caused by retailer TJX gathering too much data and not protecting it properly, according to the Canadian Privacy Commissioner.
Tue, Sep, 25 2007
Virgin Mobile is being sued by woman who says that a photo of her daughter was taken from a photo-sharing site and used in an ad campaign without permission. The photographer is also suing, claiming he was not warned that his photo could be used in ads.
Tue, Sep, 25 2007
Apple has warned that any buyer of its iPhone who has attempted to make the mobile phone work with alternative mobile networks could find the phone broken when it is next updated.
Tue, Sep, 25 2007
A file-sharing website at the centre of a music and film piracy storm has filed a criminal complaint in Sweden against the biggest corporate names in entertainment, claiming sabotage, hacking and spamming.
Tue, Sep, 25 2007
Premium rate phone line regulator ICSTIS has fined phone line company Opera Telecom £250,000 for what it says is the worst case of premium line abuse it has ever come across. The fine relates to competitions run for ITV's GMTV programme.
Mon, Sep, 24 2007
A free software lobby group has filed the first US lawsuit for violation of the GNU General Public Licence. The GNU GPL is the most popular licence for open source software in the world and previously has been upheld in a German court.
Mon, Sep, 24 2007
The Globalisation Institute, a European think-tank run by free market advocates, today went on the offensive against Microsoft, calling on the EU to require all PCs to be sold without operating systems.
Mon, Sep, 24 2007
Three council workers in Wales have lost their jobs for spending too long on eBay when they should have been working. BBC News reports that the trio, who worked for Neath Port Talbot Council, were spending up to two hours a day at the auction site.
Mon, Sep, 24 2007
The UK Intellectual Property Office has launched a public consultation on proposals to introduce a fast-track system for patent and trade mark applications. The plan builds on a suggestion made in the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property.
Fri, Sep, 21 2007
A pioneering project aimed at improving the quality of patents in the US must be made compulsory if it is to work, according to the project's manager. Currently the pilot project is only voluntary.
Fri, Sep, 21 2007
Europe's top privacy official says that the European Union is weakening a planned privacy protection in order to secure agreement for the proposal. He says that the agreement threatens to reduce privacy protection in Europe.
Thu, Sep, 20 2007
A politician in the US is protesting at frivolous law suits in the US courts by launching one himself in which he is suing God. The suit seeks an injunction against God to stop him and his followers making terrorist threats.
Thu, Sep, 20 2007
A company's legal obligation to communicate with customers in a way that they can use extends beyond just web accessibility. A recent Braille bill mix up has highlighted the pitfalls for firms.
Thu, Sep, 20 2007
The company at the centre of an intellectual property dispute with IBM that has lasted for years is facing the prospect of financial ruin. The SCO Group said that it may be unable to continue operating as a company.
Wed, Sep, 19 2007
The registry for .uk domain names has proposed a change in the way that name disputes are handled, but the proposed fast-track system faces criticism for not being radical enough.
Wed, Sep, 19 2007
In-house lawyers cannot now assume that all of their correspondence with their employer is covered by lawyer-client confidentiality rules, following a judgment this week from Europe's second-highest court.
Wed, Sep, 19 2007
The UK Government is considering intervening in the market for broadband internet access amongst fears that the UK is falling behind international rivals in infrastructure quality.
Wed, Sep, 19 2007
The biggest threats to the security of financial institutions' electronic systems are the mistakes that people make, according to a survey of banks' IT security published today.
Tue, Sep, 18 2007
Any business that takes card payments from residents of California will face strict new duties on the security of card data under proposals that are just a signature away from becoming law. A breach would trigger unprecedented reimbursement provisions.
Tue, Sep, 18 2007
The Business Software Alliance has settled a case over the use of unlicensed software for £1.7 million with a global media company that it refuses to name. The settlement follows police raids on the company's premises.
Mon, Sep, 17 2007
EXCLUSIVE: The UK's Data Protection Act does not implement European law properly, according to the European Commission which cited problems in the UK's implementation of 11 of the Data Protection Directive's 34 articles.
Mon, Sep, 17 2007
Today's decision by an EU court to uphold a landmark antitrust ruling against Microsoft is likely to influence other cases in the software industry. A competition lawyer said the principles of the case will be "rolled-out more actively" across the EU.
Mon, Sep, 17 2007
An eBay trader is taking software publisher Autodesk to court in the US over his right to sell on software he bought in a $10 million battle over how far a licence can control a customer's use of software.
Mon, Sep, 17 2007
Credit cards are advertised on the underground economy at prices ranging from fifty US cents to five dollars, according to new research. Security firm Symantec today published the typical asking prices for stolen data, from passwords to full identities.
Fri, Sep, 14 2007
The head of privacy at Google is urging the governments of the world to adopt a unified set of privacy laws to protect personal data online. A non-binding framework that is already used by Asia Pacific nations is recommended for global use.
Fri, Sep, 14 2007
The UK's biggest companies still struggle to deal with basic data protection enquiries, according to a survey of responses. Though almost all companies have taken some action, the majority are only paying 'lip service' to the issue, said the report.
Thu, Sep, 13 2007
An epileptic woman who worked at perfume giant Estée Lauder has settled her case with the firm after winning a tribunal claim for bullying.
Thu, Sep, 13 2007
A record label which uses Creative Commons licences and allows consumers to choose how much they pay for music is focusing on streaming music because its downloading business has dipped dramatically.
Thu, Sep, 13 2007
One third of IT projects run over budget, costing the UK economy £256 million, according to computing giant CA. One IT projects expert said that the problems could be contained by separating two critical aspects of major projects.
Wed, Sep, 12 2007
EBay is being sued across Europe by the world's biggest cosmetics firm for not trying hard enough to battle counterfeiting. L'Oreal is taking the action in five European countries, including the UK.
Wed, Sep, 12 2007
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act comes into force in October, carrying a threat of prison terms for a person who tries to stir up religious hatred. However, its free speech exemptions are so wide that convictions could be difficult, a lawyer said.
Wed, Sep, 12 2007
A US Court of Appeal has said that a website can incorporate terms into a contract with a link above a 'continue' button that is part of a registration form. The approach is not recommended for sites in the UK, an e-commerce lawyer warned.
Tue, Sep, 11 2007
A documentary that cited video games among the reasons for childhood obesity did not treat Sony unfairly when criticising the PlayStation maker's refusal to sponsor a fitness scheme for kids. Sony also lost a claim that the company's privacy was breached.
Tue, Sep, 11 2007
A new US law which would reduce the damages to be paid out for patent infringement has been passed by one half of the US legislature. The proposed law was backed by large technology firms and banks but opposed by smaller tech companies and drug companies.
Tue, Sep, 11 2007
A Belgian court ruling would force internet service providers into conducting "invisible and illegal" checks on internet users' actions, according to the managing director of Belgian ISP Scarlet.
Mon, Sep, 10 2007
Buying software or other digital goods as a consumer does not entitle an individual to the same rights under EU law that he or she enjoys when buying tangible products. But that could change following a Resolution of the European Parliament on Thursday.
Mon, Sep, 10 2007
The BBC broke broadcasting rules when it included a video logo designed for the London Olympics in three separate news bulletins, according to a ruling published by Ofcom today. People complained that the animation was likely to cause epileptic seizures.
Mon, Sep, 10 2007
The founder of controversial lawyer-rating site Avvo.com has said that a defeat for his company in a consumer protection lawsuit could threaten widespread product-rating systems on major sites such as Amazon.com.
Mon, Sep, 10 2007
The organisation behind the .eu domain has suspended 10,000 domain names registered by a Chinese woman whom it accuses of being a cybersquatter. The woman has filed a lawsuit in Belgium in retaliation.
Fri, Sep, 7 2007
Lord Justice Sedley's proposal to put everyone in the UK on a DNA database would be dependent on a British man's case against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to a privacy law expert.
Fri, Sep, 7 2007
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has said that net neutrality legislation is unnecessary and could harm innovation and investment in the internet. The DoJ has submitted its views to US communications regulator the Federal Communications Commission.
Fri, Sep, 7 2007
OPINION: Madonna has been accused of climate-change hypocrisy. The pop diva headlined July’s global warming awareness concert Live Earth amid claims that she has financial links to some of the world’s biggest polluters.
Fri, Sep, 7 2007
Nokia will be investigated by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) over claims that some of its mobile phones violate another company's patents. Nokia said the patented technologies were agreed parts of a standardised technology.
Thu, Sep, 6 2007
Electronic invoicing is underused across the EU due to technical complexity, legal uncertainty and operational constraints, according to a European Commission task force. A new e-invoicing framework could cut business supply chain costs by €243 billion.
Thu, Sep, 6 2007
More than three million online crimes were carried out last year, according to estimates published today. These included more than 200,000 cases of financial fraud, twice the official number of real-world robberies carried out during the same period.
Thu, Sep, 6 2007
Google News has unveiled a deal with some of the world's leading news agencies to host their content on its own site as a part of its own service. The move is expected to reduce traffic to sites that reproduce news wire content.
Thu, Sep, 6 2007
The US and UK patent offices have agreed to share and recognise each other's patent examination reports under a new deal. The offices hope that the deal could save significant application time for would-be patent holders.
Wed, Sep, 5 2007
A company breached advertising guidelines when it sent a text message to phone users without permission advertising a phone as free when it in fact required an 18 month contract, according to advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Wed, Sep, 5 2007
Proposed equality legislation is not clear enough for UK employers to follow and will not result in a more diverse workplace, according to the human resources professional body. The new laws will result in 'box ticking', the body said.
Wed, Sep, 5 2007
Large databases do not adequately protect sensitive personal information according to a statistics professor in the US who says that individuals can still be identified despite attempts to anonymise them.
Wed, Sep, 5 2007
Another former Harvard student has come forward claiming to have invented a precursor to social networking giant Facebook. Aaron Greenspan has written an unpublished book detailing his claims.
Wed, Sep, 5 2007
An appeal court has quashed an $11m judgment against anti-spam organisation Spamhaus in favour of controversial email marketing outfit e360 Insight.
Tue, Sep, 4 2007
US regulator the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has failed to block a company merger in a case dominated by a chief executive's ill-advised anonymous message board postings.
Tue, Sep, 4 2007
A US retailer has dropped a suit against Google which challenged the trade mark policy of its keyword advertising system, AdWords. American Blinds and Wallpaper Factory (ABWF) has withdrawn its long-running action against Google.
Tue, Sep, 4 2007
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) may pass on individuals’ personal details if there is good reason, such as the prevention or detection of crime, according to guidance published today by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Tue, Sep, 4 2007
The number of cases brought to employment tribunals in Great Britain rose by 15% over the last year, according to new figures. The Tribunals Service said the biggest reason for the surge was a big increase in equal pay claims, up 155% year-on-year.
Mon, Sep, 3 2007
Major changes are in store for Britain's £91 billion gambling industry after new gambling laws came into force on 1st September. The Gambling Act 2005 replaces legislation dating as far back as 1845 and governs nearly all forms of gambling.
Mon, Sep, 3 2007
Many remote workers are uninterested in security, according to Cisco. It found that as companies increase workers' usage of laptops and smartphones, the security risks increase as a result of unsafe and sometimes reckless end-user behaviour.
Mon, Sep, 3 2007
A man charged with having sex with a 14 year old girl cannot sue a website for publishing her claim that she was 18, a US court has ruled. It said that a legal protection for publishers of third party information did apply.
Mon, Sep, 3 2007
Microsoft will crush competitors when antitrust measures expire in the US in November in a marketplace which has not been made more competitive by the US government's actions, according to a group of state attorneys general.
