RIAA Loses Again: No Legal Wins Against P2P File Sharers So Far

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been taking a lot of people to court -- basically, harassing folks in an attempt to curb file-sharing. The $220,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas got a lot of news (and probably worried a lot of folks). However, on appeal (i.e., after a new court not cherry-picked by the RIAA to try the case looked things over), the RIAA lost... again. ...At its heart, the verdict reaffirms that simply making a copyrighted work available is not the same as actually distributing the work. more»

CAN-Spam-a-Friend? The Case Against Reunion.com

Hoang v. Reunion.com sidesteps an eagerly anticipated legal dispute over the legality of commercial address book scraping and 'send-to-a-friend' emails, and also highlights the damage that can cascade when a federal Circuit Court woefully misreads a statute. more»

Email Portability, DKIM, and Socio-Political Implications on Tech Development

A few years ago, cell phone portability was introduced in the United States which caused a major shift in the market. The same thing happened this past year in Israel, following a major battle involving the cell carriers, consumer groups and the Israeli parliament (The Knesset). What if the same happened with email addresses? Ridiculous, you say? May be so, but there is chatter here in Israel to create a law which forces the local service providers hands to do just that. more»

Two Europeans Charged for DDOS Attacks in U.S.

A British man and a German man have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to intentionally cause damage to the computers of two U.S.-based retail satellite companies by launching large-scale distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks that shut down the companies' websites. The two men were allegedly hired by the owner of Orbit Communication, currently wanted by the FBI, to carry out DDOS attacks. Those attacks were directed at the public websites of two of Orbit's competitors, Rapid Satellite of Miami, Florida, and Weaknees of Los Angeles. If convicted, Walker and Gembe face 15 years in prison. more»

Delayed Enforcement Blocks Domain Name Lawsuit: Southern Grouts v. 3M

I'm often baffled by lawsuits over domain names and keywords because they just don't seem to make any economic sense. This lawsuit is especially perplexing given the plaintiff's delays and the seeming impossibility of the plaintiff reaching a profitable outcome, even if it won in court. What was the plaintiff thinking? more»

Google Ordered To Release YouTube User Data to Viacom

On Wednesday night, a federal judge ruled that Google must turn over YouTube user activity which includes videos watched, IP addresses, and usernames, to the media giant, Viacom as part of a long-running copyright infringement case. Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says: "The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users." However, according to CNET News, there is a heavy protective order in place that will keep individuals' personal information protected in this ruling. Update: PDF download of court order here. more»

Do "brandsucks.com" Names Really Have a "Destructive Potential"?

"'Sucks.com is the rightmost anchor of nearly 20,000 domains registered today. Two thousand domains have 'stinks.com' on the right and about the same number of domains begin with the term 'boycott'," write the authors of the recently released paper The Power of Internet Gripe Sites. According to their (interesting) study, 35% of the "brandsucks" domains are owned by the brand while 45% are available for registration. They thus advise brand owners "to take a serious look at the traffic that these names garner and the kind of unique marketing opportunity they can afford." ...I do not fully agree with their conclusions... more»

Continued Controversy Over Google Ads on Typosquatted Domains

Regular readers of this site would be familiar with the ongoing legal battles involving the practice of typosquatting; the registration of misspelled domain names of well know brands with the intention of making a profit. Taking advantage of the fact that millions of online users mistype addresses of websites they intend to visit, typosquatters register common misspelled versions of popular sites and make money by displaying ads. Google's AdSense for Domains (AFD) program, often used for displaying such ads, has been particularly targeted by trademark owners which according to McAfee's SiteAdvisor, serves ads on more than 80% of typosquatting sites recently uncovered. more»

Comcast Given 30 Days to Disclose Network Management Practices, Says FCC Order

In follow up to August 1st ruling against Comcast, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a 67 page order released today has given Comcast 30 days "to disclose the details of their unreasonable network management practices, submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these unreasonable management practices by the end of the year, and disclose to both the Commission and the public the details of the network management practices that it intends to deploy following termination of its current practices." more»

Inside a Managed Spam Service

A managed spam vendor always has to raise the stakes during its introduction period on the market. But what happens when a market follower starts using the market leader's proprietary managed spamming system, and is able to provide better spamming rates at cheaper prices? Market forces and unethical competition at its best. more»

Google Says It Will Support Creation of U.S. Internet Privacy Law

In a letter, copy of which was obtained by Reuters yesterday, Google Inc. has told a senior U.S. Republican lawmaker concerned about privacy that the Internet search and advertising company supports a federal privacy law. more»

Comcast Discloses Network Management Practices

Comcast has provided U.S. regulators details of how it plans to change the way it manages Web traffic over its high speed Internet network without blocking any applications or content. The move comes after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted last month to uphold a complaint that Comcast had violated the regulator's open-Internet principles by hindering peer-to-peer traffic from applications such as BitTorrent. Comcast said on Friday that under the plan designed to give all users their "fair share" of bandwidth it would focus on managing the traffic of customers who are using most bandwidth when the network is congested. more»

India Considers Making Open WiFi Illegal in Terrorist Bombing Aftermath

In response to recent terrorist bombings in India where security officials believe the bombers made use of open wireless (WiFi) connections to communicate, the government is examining the possibility of making unsecured WiFi connections illegal. According to the Economic Times, sources have also said the "new norms may put the onus of educating consumers on telcos and ISPs." Further more "ISPs will also be asked to ensure that customers access the internet over a WiFi connection only through a password." more»

Kentucky Governor: All Your Gambling Sites Belong to Us

According to news reports, the governor of Kentucky has filed a suit in state court to seize 141 gambling domain names. His claimed authority is a 1974 law against "gambling devices", on the theory that a domain is a "device", and online gambling is taking money away from in-state horse racing and the lottery. The judge sensibly has said that he doesn't understand all the issues, and has given all sides a week to submit briefs. more»

Soloway Court Case Reveals the Sophisticated World of Online Fraud

Testimony received during the sentencing hearing for notorious spammer Robert Alan Soloway has offered an inside look at the big business of online fraud. Although anti-spam efforts implemented by ISPs have deterred many small-time spammers, sophisticated players remain active and they have developed tools to make their efforts easier. From the stand on Monday, investigators revealed some of the techniques that Soloway allegedly used to send out massive amounts of email. After the government seized Soloway's computer servers, investigators found files with as many as 10 million email addresses on each server along with Dark Mailer software on each server. more»