Tech Law

The explosion of e-commerce has exposed consumers to an unprecedented level of risk regarding personal privacy. Businesses, government agencies and consumer groups agree that privacy protection needs to be drastically improved. However, there is a tug-of-war brewing over how to accomplish that goal ...

Social media is transforming communications, but what many people do not see is how social media impacts litigation. Today at least 95 percent of all information is electronic, and the continued proliferation of social media surely will make that percentage grow. As I pointed out in my recent colum...

Sony will be able to proceed with its prosecution of a hacker who published an encryption key allowing PlayStation 3 owners to override Sony's copy-protection software and gain control of their consoles. The hack reportedly was built using earlier jailbreaks to the system. A federal magistrate has g...

In the midst of the civil unrest in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, U.S. Senate-proposed legislation that has become known as the "Internet kill switch bill" was recently reintroduced. The controversial bill, first introduced by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn, i...

Another company has lodged antitrust allegations against Google in one of the most feared forums -- at least for U.S. tech companies -- in the world: the European Commission. This time it is French firm 1plusV, a maker of specialized search engines for such topics as law and music, and parent compan...

Technology leaders in the White House have promoted greater use of cloud technology at the federal level almost from the start of the Obama presidency. Now the administration has issued its strongest backing yet for cloud technology with the release of the Federal Strategy for Cloud Computing. Offic...

Major federal agencies in the U.S. are gradually getting the hang of dealing with open source technology -- a situation that bodes well for commercial open source providers. In a recently released "report card," Open Source for America says that a handful of top level cabinet departments have achiev...

In 1998, Congress enacted the Internet Tax Freedom Act, effectively banning sales taxes on sales on the Internet, with some exceptions. Its purpose was to encourage and foster the growth of Internet business. Internet sales totaled an estimated $155 billion in 2010 and will reach about $250 billion...

On Jan. 26, a federal judge in Denver granted a preliminary injunction to prevent Colorado from enforcing an information-reporting law that requires e-tailers to report sales made to Colorado residents. This preliminary injunction is a first step toward a formal decision by the trial court that woul...

A Canadian recently sued the Internet giant Google, citing unspecified damages regarding alleged problems stemming from Google's social networking and messaging tool "Buzz," which is integrated into Gmail, the company's Web-based email program. This came on the heels of the recent $8.5 million settl...

Verizon Communications Thursday picked a legal fight with the Federal Communications Commission over its recently announced Net neutrality rules. "We are deeply concerned by the FCC's assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation," said Michael Glover, Verizon senior vice president and de...

HP's board of directors has launched an internal investigation into the circumstances of former CEO Mark Hurd's departure from the company. The investigation was disclosed in a filing to the San Jose, Calif., federal court on Jan. 14. Hurd resigned from the company in August 2010 following allegatio...

Sony is taking its ongoing battle with hackers to the U.S. District Court in Northern California. On Tuesday, the company filed a temporary restraining order targeting George Hotz, of the hacking group fail0verflow, and 100 others who were not named. Sony said the hackers violated federal copyright ...

A husband, using his wife's password, read her email on a shared laptop and learned she was having an affair. A prosecutor in Michigan then charged him with a felony for reading his now ex-wife's Gmail, sending shock waves through the Internet. One might wonder where marital boundaries of sharing i...

Governments in a number of jurisdictions are moving not only to regulate online gaming but also to become an active participant in the industry. Various provinces in Canada have recently entered into the online gaming industry by developing and providing online gaming websites. In July of 2010, the ...