Hackers broke into Fox’s political Twitter account early Monday, posting updates saying President Barack Obama had been assassinated. A series of six tweets coming from the FoxNewsPolitics account reported that Obama had been shot to death in Iowa and the shooter was unknown.
See more on www.twitter.com/salaratrizadeh
California legislators approved collection of an online sales tax among their revenue efforts as they passed the state budget on Wednesday.
Sponsors estimate the tax could bring in $200 million a year by collecting taxes that consumers have been avoiding when they make online purchases.
Federal law says states can only tax companies with a physical presence in a state, but the new California law applies that to include companies such as Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle, that have “affiliates” in a state.
Civil Rights – Social networking website was not “place of public accommodation” within meaning of Title III of Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).
Plaintiff Karen Beth Young brings this action against Defendant Facebook, Inc., alleging violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq., the Unruh Civil Rights Act, Ca. Civ. Code § 51, et seq., the California Disabled Persons Act, Cal Civ. Code § 54, et seq., and state-law contract and negligence claims. Although Young’s amended complaint describes vividly her personal experience of losing access to her online social community and the challenges she faced attempting to obtain redress through Facebook’s automated customer care systems, it does not state a legal claim upon which relief may be granted. Accordingly, Facebook’s motion to dismiss will be granted.
Young opened a personal account with Facebook in February 2010.[1] She subsequently created additional Facebook pages for the “Cancer Forum,” “Cartesian Plane For The Cure,” “Karen Beth Young ,— Public Figure,” and “Join Karen Petition Facebook Say No to 5000 Friends.” Young sent “friendvites” to others she believed were interested in cancer-related issues and developed “genuine and heartfelt” relationships with those she met online. Young’s personal page grew to include approximately 4,300 “friends.”
Internet miners voted Monday to allow virtually unlimited new domain names based on themes as varied as company brands, entertainment and political causes, in the system’s biggest shake-up since it started 26 years ago.
Groups able to pay the $185,000 application can petition next year for new updates to “.com” and “.net” with suffixes using nearly any word in any language, including in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided at a meeting in Singapore.
California Senate Does Not Pass Social Networking Privacy Bill.
On June 2, 2011 the California State Senate for the second time did not pass a Senate Bill that would require social media networks to adopt default settings restricting the display of their users’ personally identifiable information.
The bill, S.B. 242, known as the ,”Social Networking Privacy Act” was introduced by Senator Ellen Corbett earlier this year. The bill required social media networks to adopt default settings prohibiting the display of “personal identifying information”, such as address, telephone number, driver’s license, social security number, and credit card numbers. It also required the networks to advise users of their ability to change the settings for display of personal information in “plain language.” Finally, it required networks to remove personal identifying information “in a timely manner” upon request.
A former San Francisco computer engineer convicted of locking other city officials out of the city’s network has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 million in restitution.
A judge also ordered 45-year-old Terry Childs on Tuesday to forfeit the $11,000 he had on him when he was arrested as a down payment toward the money he owes his former employer, San Francisco’s Department of Technology. A jury convicted Terry Childs last year of changing the passwords to the city government’s computer network in July 2008. Following a 12-day stalemate, Mr. Childs finally surrendered the new passwords to then-Mayor Gavin Newsom during a jailhouse visit.
To read more go to http://www.ap.org/
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
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
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
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.
