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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” took part in shoddy lending practices for mortgages “that were really ticking time bombs.” Bharara says sometimes the bank even failed to verify that a mortgage applicant even was employed. “In fact, they often seemed to treat red flags as if they were green lights. … While the homes the defendants issued loans for may have been built on solid ground, the defendants’ lending practices were built on quicksand.”

To read more go to http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2011050402?OpenDocument

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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 Communications Inc. and Metro PCS Communications Inc. on technical grounds. The court said the companies filed their challenges prematurely since the rules have not yet been published in the federal register.

Read more at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_FCC_INTERNET_RULES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-04-18-07-26

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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 more at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWITZERLAND_GOOGLE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-04-13-30-55

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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 within one’s personal privacy was not available to business entities.

A trade association of AT&T competitors requested documents relating to an F.C.C. investigation of AT&T. The F.C.C. refused to apply on behalf of the corporation an exemption for “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes” that “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” The Third Circuit reversed, and the U.S. Supreme Court in turn unanimously reversed the Third Circuit.

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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 the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971 (the “Credit Card Act”). Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc., S178241 (Cal. Supreme Court, Feb. 10, 2011). More generally, the Court implicitly recognized the impact on consumers of aggregating and matching their personal data from vast databases.

To read more go to: http://twitter.com/calbarsections

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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 App program began. Bernstein analyst, Toni Sacconaghi, estimated that between 13% and 21% of those downloads are from paid applications. According to this analysis, the average price of an application purchased at the App Store is $3. Sacconaghi estimated that Apple’s revenue from the App Store is between $60 million and $110 million per quarter. That amount has certainly increased since this research report was published because of the rapid growth of the number of applications.

However, behind all this success lies an insidious force that has plagued the music, software, and movie industry for decades. Developers of iPhone applications have reported alarming piracy rates for their software, and the ease with which users may obtain pirated versions of paid applications for free is only increasing. The total number of applications available at the store, including those which are free and those which require payment, is in excess of 100,000.

Anyone who is familiar with the iPhone is likely to know that these phones can be “jailbroken” or, to use the more common term “unlocked”. Jailbreaking an iPhone modifies the OEM Apple iPhone OS. This allows the user to circumvent the limitations put on the phone by Apple. Apart from the ability to modify the OS itself to allow for customizing of icons, backgrounds, functionality and processes, a jailbroken iPhone permits the installation of applications from sources other than the iTunes store. It is even possible to use an unlocked phone for access to carrier services other than AT&T (NYSE:T) and the Apple-assigned retailers outside the US. The great majority of iPhones sold in China are unlocked and Apple partner, China Unicom (NYSE:CHU), have only begun to sell locked phones in the last three months.

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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 the proposed privacy framework by January 31, 2011.

The proposed privacy framework has three major components: (1) privacy by design; (2) expansion of consumer choices about how companies collect and use consumer information; and (3) increased transparency of data collection practices.  All three components have already ignited a lively debate among consumer advocates, businesses, advertisers and policy makers.  Although, stated as tasks that a company “should do,” there is worry the FTC could take steps to use its enforcement powers against a non-compliant company.

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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 the FCC’s action, and a brief overview of the order.

Background

The term “network neutrality” refers to the general principle that all content available on the Internet should receive equal precedence, such that Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) do not discriminate between different types or sources of traffic.

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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. In February, Google added a new social hub called Buzz, which let Gmail users track their frequently e-mailed contacts’ status updates and other information shared online. But frequent e-mails don’t necessarily mean people are actually “friends.” The class action suit said Google violated privacy rights by automatically adding Buzz to Gmail without making it clear what information would be shared and with whom.

The settlement acknowledges that Google has made many changes to Buzz to ease privacy concerns. Google is creating an $8.5 million fund, mainly to go to Internet privacy and policy organizations. The company said it will also make additional efforts to teach users about privacy on Buzz.

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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 it announced a service called “Deals.” It’s an extension of Places, the check-in feature the company unveiled this year. Rising with the explosive growth of smart phones, services based on people’s location help them find coupons, earn quirky merit badges or simply share with friends where they are.

The number of people using such services is still small – just 4 percent of the U.S. Internet population have ever used it and just 1 percent on any given day, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

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