By Joey Seiler Google Buzz Gets Privacy Groups Talking—and Filing Complaints When Google launched Buzz, its new social media function, on February 9, the Internet giant moved into Facebook territory by sharing information and connecting social groups. According to the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s complaint to the FTC, Google may have also moved into Facebook territory by violating users’ privacy. (PaidContent covered EPIC’s FTC complaint against Facebook when the company changed its privacy settings in December 2009.) The New York ... Read More...
Archive for the ‘Privacy’ Category
By Kassity Liu India’s Stringent Patentability Standards Cause Corporate Dissatisfaction On February 12, the WSJ Law Blog reported that India’s standards for patentability may be leading to a lack of significant patent protection for important pharmaceutical drugs. Before 2005, India offered patent protection to processes for making pharmaceutical drugs, but no protection to the products themselves. After the patent system was extended to cover the products, a large number of multinational drug companies began to market their products in India. ... Read More...
By Tyler Lacey Australian State Backpedals on Anonymous Online Political Speech Ban On February 2, Ars Technica reported that following a harsh public reaction, South Australia’s Attorney General Michael Atkinson has pledged to repeal a recently enacted law that banned anonymous online political speech. The new law is particularly controversial because it applies specifically to bloggers and online commentators, but not to online newspapers or magazines. Atkinson noted that “the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all [Members ... Read More...
By Dr. Jur. Eric Engle, LLM[i] Edited by Gary Pong Editorial Policy New technologies have made types of searches possible which could never have been envisioned when the Fourth Amendment was proposed to prohibit unreasonable search and seizure. With remote listening, infrared imaging, and, now, wireless technologies, it is possible to detect movements of people within buildings with no discernible physical impact on the surveilled person’s life.[ii] Are remote searches reasonable? Do they require a warrant?[iii] In my opinion, courts ... Read More...
By Jyoti Uppuluri Spanish Law Won’t Allow Website Takedowns Without Court Order On December 4, Slashdot reported that Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced the Spanish Government would not take down websites without judicial authorization, contrary to language in a draft of Spain’s Sustainable Economy Act. The Prime Minister’s statement came as a response to a widely published online manifesto issued on December 2 by “a group of journalists, bloggers, professionals, and creators” opposed to the draft, which ... Read More...
