The federal government is suing Deutsche Bank, accusing the bank of committing fraud by repeatedly lying to the government and for reckless lending practices in underwriting thousands of federally insured mortgages that ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the bank “repeatedly and brazenly”…
WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal appeals court has dismissed two legal challenges to new Federal Communications Commission regulations that prohibit phone and cable companies from interfering with Internet traffic on their broadband networks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday dismissed lawsuits filed by Verizon…
GENEVA (AP) – A Swiss court has ruled that Google Inc. must guarantee anonymity before publishing faces and license plates in its Street View service in Switzerland. A ruling published Monday by the Swiss Federal Administrative Court affects any new ground-level pictures that the popular Internet search engine publishes. Read…
The campaign to persuade the judiciary to apply personal privacy principles to corporations has suffered two recent body blows. On March 1st, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Federal Communications Comm. v. AT&T, Inc., 2011 U.S. LEXIS 1899 (2011) that the exemption in the Freedom of Information Act for matter…
California Supreme Court Holds that ZIP Codes are “Personal Identification Information” In a broadly-worded unanimous ruling, the California Supreme Court recently overruled lower court decisions to hold that businesses cannot request and record ZIP codes as a condition to credit card transactions, because ZIP codes are “personal identification information” under…
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and the companies that sell software for the iPhone and iPod touch at the App Store have lost over $450 million to piracy since the store opened in July 2008 according to an analysis by 24/7 Wall St. There have been over 3 billion applications downloaded since the…
Introduction On December 1, 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released its highly anticipated consumer privacy protection framework titled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change” (“Privacy Report”). A copy of the Privacy Report may be obtained on the FTC website: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2010/12/101201privacyreport.pdf. The FTC seeks public comment on…
For over a year, the news media has reported extensively on proposed rules from the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) concerning “net neutrality.” Today, the FCC released its anticipated order placing “network neutrality” requirements on broadband internet access providers. In this e-bulletin we provide a background on developments leading up to…
NEW YORK (AP) – Google Inc., the top Web search provider, said Tuesday it will allocate about $8.5 million to Internet privacy and policy organizations as part of a class action settlement involving its Buzz social hub. The lawsuit had been filed by users of Google’s free e-mail service, Gmail.…
NEW YORK (AP) – If you use Facebook to “check in” to your favorite restaurants or shops, you can now expect to see rewards and discounts from companies looking to drum up business and lure in loyal customers. Facebook is looking to bridge online advertising with people’s offline behavior as…