Google is feeling the heat over its decision to build its new Hangouts IM and audio/video chat product with proprietary technology that doesn't support server federation via the XMPP industry standard, but the company is defending its move. ...
Tags: Google, Computer Products
Texas is poised to become the first state in the U.S. to require law enforcement officers to get a search warrant based on probable cause before they access any electronic communications and customer data stored by a third-party service ...
A 1996 podcasting patent is in the crosshairs of two digital rights groups, which are hoping the public will help them get the patent invalidated. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, partnering with the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard ...
Tags: EFF, Podcasting Patent
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has resumed accepting bitcoins donations, saying some of the legal ambiguity around the virtual currency has disappeared. The influential digital watchdog stopped accepting bitcoins two years ago citing ...
Tags: Eff, Bitcoin, Computer Products
Washington's biggest problem when it comes to Bitcoin may just be that policymakers on the Hill don't know enough about it, yet. That was the general consensus of a panel of legal experts speaking Saturday at a Silicon Valley conference ...
Tags: Bitcoin, Washington
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that an abstract idea is not patentable simply because it is tied to a computer system, signaling what one judge described as the "death" of software and business method patents. The U.S. Court of Appeals ...
Tags: Software Patents, Software
The White House has threatened to veto the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in its current form, citing concerns that the bill does not adequately prevent sharing of irrelevant personal information. If ...
Internet companies and privacy advocates appear headed for a fight over a proposal to broaden California's so-called Shine the Light Law, which requires online companies to disclose to consumers how their personal information is used. The ...
Tags: Computer Products, software
The US government plans to reinforce its cybersecurity programme by expanding web monitoring, using a process which currently scans traffic going in and out of defence contractors and expanding it to private firms. That means employees of ...
Tags: US, Computer Products, web monitoring
Less than six week after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a civil rights impact assessment stating that the government needed no warrant or cause to search laptops and other electronic devices at U.S. borders, a federal ...
Tags: laptops, electronic devices, smartphones
The author of a successful White House petition calling on government officials to legalize the unlocking of mobile phones has turned his attention to broader reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Sina Khanifar, the ...
Tags: mobile phone, unlocking, Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Rights advocacy groups and security practitioners remain on opposite ends of the spectrum on the merits of sharing information as a means to improve cyber security. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and ...
Tags: rights advocacy, sharing information, Electronic Frontier Foundation
So-called patent trolls force technology companies to spend money on lawyers instead of innovation, and Congress needs to discourage infringement lawsuits from patent-collecting companies, a group of tech and business representatives said. ...
Tags: patent troll, technology company, infringement lawsuit
Egypt‘s telecom regulator said last week that it is not viable for it to follow a court order to block YouTube in the country, and is appealing the ruling. The order banning YouTube and some other websites for 30 days was issued by ...
Tags: Egypt, Youtube, telecom regulator
Egypt's telecom regulator says it is not viable for it to follow a court order to block YouTube in the country, and is appealing the ruling. The order banning YouTube and some other websites for 30 days was issued by a Cairo court after ...
Tags: YouTube, technically, Google search