Tech Law

After the Supreme Court appeared to deliver a death blow to Aereo, it has latched onto a part of the Court's decision in an effort to stay alive. The Court determined that Aereo flouted copyright rules by retransmitting programming without a license. Aereo let users watch broadcast TV over the Inter...

The FTC has filed suit against Amazon over billing kids for unauthorized in-app purchases that in many cases they did not know they had made. The suit accuses Amazon of violating Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. The FTC is s...

The Beijing First Intermediate Court ruled against Apple in a case that pitted it against a Shanghai-based firm and the country's State Intellectual Property Office's Patent Review Committee. The court found that the intellectual property rights of Zhizhen Internet Technology, a company that holds s...

Marie Antoinette may not have been too far off the mark when she intoned the immortal line, "Let them eat cake." When it comes to the right to be forgotten, it seems Europeans want both to have their cake and eat it. They are up in arms over Google's having deleted links to various news stories from...

Do you remember those snotty little kids who didn't seem to understand the difference between right and wrong? You know, the little brats who thought the rules didn't apply to them. The kids who thought they could get away with whatever they wanted -- rules were for somebody else. Well, that seems t...

T-Mobile's efforts to market itself as the un-carrier that puts customers first may be impacted by the FTC's allegations that it has engaged in "cramming" -- charging consumers for services offered by third-party companies without their knowledge or consent. "We're asking the court for an order both...

California Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday signed a measure that legalizes the use of bitcoins and other virtual currencies in the state. The law repealed previous legislation that specified only "lawful money of the United States" could be used in California. "Modern methods of payment have expanded b...

The Supreme Court has declined Google's appeal of a lower-court ruling in a class-action lawsuit that alleges it violated federal wiretap laws with its Street View cars. The court left in place a decision the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down in September. The appeals court declined to d...

After a hornet's nest was stirred up earlier this week over the premature termination of some Chromebook Pixel users' free data plans, Verizon apparently has begun trying to make amends. "A very small number of Chromebook Pixel customers may have had a promo end prematurely," said Verizon spokespers...

Google has started to remove search results in certain cases in Europe, in compliance with the EU's new "right to be forgotten" rules. The EU last month ruled that the company must allow individuals to request the removal of links to news articles, court judgments, and other documents that might tur...

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association has complained to German antitrust authorities that Amazon has been anticompetitive. Amazon delayed the shipment of books from publisher Bonnier following a disagreement over dividing the revenue from e-book sales, it said. Although Amazon was receiv...

Aereo may be dead in the water after the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled it broke federal law by retransmitting programming without paying copyright fees. The company, which allows consumers to watch broadcast TV over the Internet, had been in long-running battles with broadcasters over the legalit...

When the U.S. Supreme Court issues a unanimous decision, it's easy to conclude that it must be right on the facts, right on the law, and right in applying the law to the facts. So what's not to like about its recent 9-0 ruling in a software patent case? "This decision is a victory for innovation," s...

Though early purchasers of the LTE model of Google's Chromebook Pixel were promised two years of limited data, it appears Verizon has reneged on those assurances. The WiFi-only Pixel cost $1,299 while the LTE model set back consumers an extra $150. Those who bought the system through the Google Play...

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son may have new hope for a Sprint, T-Mobile merger. After SoftBank merged with Sprint last summer, Son set his sights on T-Mobile. There was early resistance from regulators, but that may be softening, with Comcast-Time Warner Cable and AT&T-DirecTV having joined the merg...