Tech Law

Fifteen people have filed suit against online media company NebuAd, alleging that its use of deep packet inspection technology violates consumer privacy. The technology tracks the Web-surfing habits of ISP customers in order to better target ads to them. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District C...

Lost in the furious run-up to the November elections was a Kentucky court ruling that could unravel a long-established legal argument supporting basic e-commerce activity: namely, that local or state governments cannot extend their reach into cyberspace to impose their own laws on a Web site. Becaus...

Circuit City has filed for reorganization relief in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Richmond. The retailer -- No. 2 in the electronics goods space after Best Buy -- has clearly been struggling for the last several months. In November alone, it slashed its w...

An online ad-sharing deal between Google and Yahoo may be on the verge of collapse. Talks between the two Internet search powerhouses and the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly have stalled, prompting Google and Yahoo to consider walking away from the proposed agreement. Despite the press reports...

Search engine giant Google has settled two copyright lawsuits over its Google Book Search program for $125 million. In two separate lawsuits, the New York City-based Author's Guild and McGraw-Hill sued Google in 2005, alleging it had violated copyright laws through its scanning and online distribu...

The vote is set for Nov. 4, and the activism is approaching historic -- some say hysteric -- levels. Phone calls, e-mails and press releases are flying in attempts to sway opinions; there are charges and countercharges of questionable political tactics and quotes taken out of context, along with a l...

The Internet has opened up information sharing in unprecedented and ever-expanding ways. This new world is great for creativity and communication, but it's also brought intellectual property rights into question. It's vital that online retailers understand intellectual property law so that they don'...

Self-promotion: Some would say that lawyers excel at it, but when it comes to actual advertising and marketing, a lot of them can be a step or two behind other businesses. "In the 1960s, my dad -- who was a lawyer -- sent a note to a client telling him to call if he had any questions about a certain...

The Federal Communications Commission continues to receive plenty of static from both sides of the television white space debate. Last month it was Google cofounder Larry Page raising allegations of rigged FCC testing of white spaces prototype devices. Now, the National Association of Broadcasters c...

Immigration is becoming as nettlesome to high-tech companies as it has long been in the agriculture and construction businesses. Although technology firms don't reach into the same labor pool as do ag comglomerates or building contractors, their problems are converging. The challenge, advocates of i...

The Federal Trade Commission has essentially shut down the largest spam operation in the world, freezing the assets of two of its accused ringleaders. Lance Atkinson, a New Zealand citizen living in Australia, and Jody Smith of Texas, deceptively marketed a variety of products through spam messages,...

Search engine giants Google and Yahoo are in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice in the hopes of alleviating regulators' antitrust concerns regarding their pending online ad sharing deal. Reports that the three sides were meeting first surfaced early Tuesday. Antitrust issues have been raised ...

The new film "Flash of Genius" may be based on a 1960s case of patent infringement, but its David-vs.-Goliath story involving independent inventors going up against monolithic corporations continues to spin off sequels well into the 21st Century, says a Minneapolis-based patent attorney. And while t...

While the communications industry waits for the FCC to fill in the blanks on a white spaces policy, the commissioners are going forward with another plan that would provide free wireless Internet access throughout the U.S. Late last Friday, the commission released a report showing test results on cl...

The Internet often has the effect of eliminating the middle man and enabling consumers to complete tasks directly. While these changes have occurred swiftly in some markets, they have been evolving more slowly in the legal profession. In fact, the process of finding legal advice is quite similar to ...