03/11/2010 12:33 PM
Court Upholds $240 Microsoft Word Patent Verdict
The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals has once again upheld a jury’s verdict that Microsoft willfully infringed on patents awarded to i4i. The verdict, which the appeals court first affirmed in December, required Microsoft to pay more than $240 million in damages and forced it to remove a feature in versions of Microsoft Word 2007 [...]

03/11/2010 12:27 PM
British Court Ruling May Block Pink Floyd Sales Online
Pink Floyd tracks may be removed from digital music services like iTunes after a High Court ruling. Their latest record deal, signed with EMI before legal downloads came along, said individual songs must not be sold without the band’s permission. Read the article: BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8561963.stm

03/11/2010 02:30 AM
Twitter Launching Service to Thwart Hackers
Twitter is launching a new service designed to stop users of the social-media site from getting duped by phishing links that steal their login credentials and other attacks. The company will route all links submitted to the site through a filter created to catch links that lead to malware, the company said. Read the article: CNET [...]

03/11/2010 02:28 AM
European Parliament Votes Against Anti-Counterfeiting Pact
The European Parliament took aim at a secret intellectual property treaty that has been criticized for possibly giving copyright holders more power to pull the plug on peer-to-peer users. By a remarkable vote of 633 to 13, the Parliament rebuked European negotiators who have been drafting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a series of [...]

03/11/2010 02:27 AM
Iran Blocking More Websites, Including CNN, Google
Ever since the disputed victory of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June elections led to wide-scale protests, Iran’s leaders have been cracking down on the tech-savvy opposition movement with the Revolutionary Guard and police blocking millions of foreign and domestic Web sites, including some Google services, CNN and the BBC. Iran’s leaders say these measures [...]

03/11/2010 02:25 AM
Google’s CEO Expects Outcome “Soon” with China
Google expects an outcome soon from its talks with China over a censorship and hacking dispute, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said. “I’m going to use the word ’soon’, which I will not define otherwise,” Schmidt told journalists at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. Read the article: Reuters

03/11/2010 02:23 AM
ICANN May Revisit Decision Denying .xxx Domain
A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a “.xxx” domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the allocation of Internet addresses globally, may revive [...]

03/11/2010 02:21 AM
California May Seek Tax Help from Internet Retailers
California lawmakers hunting for revenue are eyeing one source that could prove costly to millions of California consumers: Amazon.com. California is one of several cash-strapped states exploring a novel legal strategy that could force Amazon and others like it, including Overstock.com, to start collecting tax from their customers. Read the article: Los Angeles Times

03/10/2010 12:58 PM
Google, Italy Agree on Book-Scanning Project
Google said it had reached agreement with the Italian culture ministry to scan up to a million books housed in the national libraries of Rome and Florence. “Google will cover the costs of scanning all these works and will set up a scanning centre in Italy,” making them available on its Google Books website, the [...]

03/10/2010 12:18 PM
Pink Floyd Sues EMI in Dispute Over iTunes Payments
Rock band Pink Floyd launched a High Court action against EMI in a dispute over the calculation of online royalty payments and marketing of their music. Robert Howe QC, appearing for the group, said it partly concerned EMI’s “entitlement to sell individual tracks, or indeed any tracks, otherwise than in the original configuration of [...]