Tech Law

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a copyright infringement case involving textbooks resold on eBay. The outcome could have lasting effects for those who sell products in the U.S. that were made abroad. The case centers around Thai student Supap Kirtsaeng, who partially financed his...

Federal authorities arrested Paul Ceglia on charges of mail and wire fraud last week. Ceglia is accused of tampering with, destroying and fabricating evidence in a scheme to defraud Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of billions of dollars. Ceglia originally filed suit in 2010, claiming that while Zuckerb...

Compete has agreed to settle FTC charges that it used its Web-tracking software to collect personal data without disclosing the extent of its information-gathering activities, and failed to honor promises it made to protect the personal data it collected. Under the settlement, Compete must obtain co...

The Center for Copyright Information and major Internet service providers are preparing to roll out within weeks the Copyright Alert System, designed to cut down on online piracy. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision volunteered to work with the CCI to develop a system of el...

It appears Google is catching flak from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. European privacy authorities have asked Google to modify its global privacy policy in order to give users a better understanding of what personal data is being collected. The move comes on the heels of rumors that the ...

One of the classic items on the agenda for all presidential candidates, including incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, is to cut federal government waste. In fact, the Obama administration has been campaigning for nearly the past two years to reduce waste and improve the efficiency of ...

In the latest film installment of Ayn Rand's influential novel, Atlas Shrugged, the government has taken the drastic step of seizing all patents, as well as copyrights, for the public good, under the so-called Fair Share Act. Although the U.S. government has not officially taken such a drastic step,...

The Federal Trade Commission is poised to launch an antitrust case against Google, according to anonymous sources. The alleged charge is straightforward: Google has been using its search engine dominance to hurt competing firms. The rest of the details are expected to unfold in the coming weeks. The...

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a preliminary injunction granted to Apple this summer in district court by Judge Lucy Koh. Apple had shown it would see a significant loss of sales and smartphone marketshare if a preliminary injunction were not granted, she fou...

Most everyone on the Internet reads Wikipedia, whether they rely on it or not, but few understand how wikis work or who owns the content. Understanding content ownership is important, because so many people freely contribute to wikis. If the owner of the wiki decides to revise or move the content, t...

Google and the American Association of Publishers, whose members are 300 of America's largest publishers, have settled their 7-year-old legal dispute over digitizing books for Google Books. The settlement will give Google access to publishers' journals and books that are in copyright, for its Google...

The California federal judge who issued a preliminary injunction in June against U.S. sales of a Samsung tablet has lifted the ban. Judge Lucy Koh had originally found the Galaxy Tab 10.1 likely violated a design patent held by Apple, but a jury found in August that it did not. Apple was the overall...

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved a notice of proposed rulemaking that will lay the groundwork for the agency to auction television spectrum to mobile carriers. The NPRM establishes proposed rules and asks for public comment on the auctions. This would be no ordinary FCC auctio...

The European Commission will charge Microsoft for failing to comply with a 2009 ruling that had ordered the software giant to provide users in the European Union with a choice of Web browsers, the EU's antitrust chief said Thursday. The EC will likely levy a hefty fine on the company. This is just t...

Facebook came under fire again on Monday as a privacy advocate called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the social network's relationship with data marketer Datalogix. This wasn't just another instance of what have become typical privacy concerns with Facebook. The latest call came fro...