Tech Law

Microsoft may find itself at odds with the Russian government after creating a new license permitting free use of its software by certain nonprofit organizations and small newspapers in more than 30 countries around the world. Microsoft's move was in response to a Sunday New York Times article detai...

A federal appeals court has ruled that prosecutors may need to get warrants to access cellphone location data. The decision by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Justice Department's argument that the Stored Communications Act requires judges to issue orders for access to such dat...

In 2006, the U.S. enacted the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which outlawed Internet gambling and restricted how financial institutions could pay monies to Internet gambling sites. The UIGEA resulted from four major policy concerns of the federal government. First, the Internet was too ...

Mark Hurd, the former CEO of HP who resigned in disgrace last month, has joined Oracle as co-president. At the same time, Charles Phillips, co-president and a member of Oracle's board of directors, has resigned. Hurd will serve alongside Co-President Safra Catz. Wall Street investors are excited abo...

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- enacted in the waning days of the 20th century -- contains provisions designed to make it evolve over time. The idea was that as technology fostered new ways of creating and distributing copyrighted material such as music, movies and software programs, the law...

The United States' largest trading partner and direct neighbor to the north recently made the bold statement that the Ontario government will be entering the online gambling business. Following moves by other Canadian provinces, including British Columbia and several Maritime Provinces, the Ontario ...

A lawsuit that is moving forward in the state of Hawaii adds another dimension to the ongoing debate over Internet addiction -- while prompting more than a few cynical guffaws from tort reform advocates. The suit, filed by plaintiff Donald Smallwood against the company NCSoft, claims that he became ...

In the mid-to-late 1980s, colleagues and friends were surprised when I transitioned from working as an on-camera investigative TV reporter to cover the then-fledgling high-technology industry for specialized trade magazines. After all, they reasoned, how could I be content covering semiconductors, m...

A former employee's age-discrimination lawsuit against Google can proceed now that the California Supreme Court has cleared the way for "stray remarks" made by his colleagues to be included as evidence. The suit was originally filed in Santa Clara County in 2004 by Brian Reid, who served as director...

The Federal Trade Commission and Intel are settling charges of anticompetitive behavior the government agency has levied against the chipmaker. Intel, which hasn't admitted to any wrongdoing, has agreed to make several concessions to settle the charges, which the FTC brought forward in a lawsuit las...

YouTube uploaders who wish to follow 60s pop-art icon Andy Warhol's advice and grasp their 15 minutes of fame now can do so fully. YouTube has raised the maximum length limit on submissions from 10 to 15 minutes, announced Product Manager Joshua Siegel on the company blog. While an additional five m...

When many individuals attempted to watch the recent World Cup games online, depending on where they were located and from which website they tried to view them, they may have found the following statement on their screen: "The requested video cannot be displayed in your region" rather than the game...

The pressure on major Web site operators and online advertisers to do a better job of protecting consumers' privacy continues to mount. On Tuesday, Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., said he plans to introduce legislation that would "give people more control over how their personal information is collecte...

Hacking the technological protections built into copyrighted digital material in order to view or use the content does not necessarily contravene the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans ruled on Friday. The move could send shock waves through th...

eBay has been slammed with a lawsuit alleging that the e-commerce giant infringes on six patents with its PayPal, Bill Me Later, Shopping.com and StubHub services. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware by XPRT Ventures, veers from the typical pattern of patent disputes. For starters...