A court in The Hague, Netherlands has ordered Internet providers to block the The Pirate Bay website or face large fines, a ruling that means accessing the Swedish-born site directly will soon be impossible for most Dutch consumers.
The Netherlands has become the first country in Europe and only the second in the world to pass Net Neutrality legislation. The new law forces ISPs to treat all traffic equally and, crucially, also prevents them from peering too much into what the users are sending and receiving via their networks.
There's been plenty of talk around the world about this type of legislation, but it's a controversial subject, not least because ISPs, copyright-dependent companies, police and government agencies and so on, don't want anything like this ever becoming law.
SIM card maker Giesecke & Devrient is showing off Apple's new nano-SIM design, which has been modified to resolve Nokia's objections to it, at the CTIA tradeshow in New Orleans, La.
Handset makers have been lobbying for their preferred fourth form factor (4FF) SIM card standards as a vote by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute nears. The ETSI was scheduled to decide on the standard in March, but it postponed the vote because of continued disagreement between Apple and Nokia.
Apple has filed a claim with the World Intellectual Property Organization in an attempt to gain ownership of the domain iphone5.com, which is currently owned by another party.
Apple's filing, first reported by Fusible (via MacRumors), could be seen as evidence that Apple plans to name its next-generation iPhone the "iPhone 5." However, it could also simply just be an effort by Apple to avoid confusion among consumers who might think the domain is owned by or affiliated with the company.
A landmark ruling in one of the many mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the US has delivered a severe blow to a thus far lucrative business. Among other things, New York Judge Gary Brown explains in great detail why an IP-address is not sufficient evidence to identify copyright infringers. According to the Judge this lack of specific evidence means that many alleged BitTorrent pirates have been wrongfully accused by copyright holders.
The High Court has ruled that five of the UK's largest internet service providers must block access to Swedish-based file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) claims that sites like The Pirate Bay infringe copyright on a massive scale, destroying jobs in the UK and undermining investment in new UK artists.
The recent arrest of Higinio O. Ochoa III, of Galveston, Texas -- allegedly a member of the Anonymous-linked CabinCr3w --generated considerable amusement (and some unbearably bad puns) when it was reported that the FBI tracked him down using photos he had posted of his girlfriend's breasts (covered somewhat by a bikini top).
Two members of Congress have introduced a bill that would ban the practice of requiring job applicants, employees or students to provide their social networking information.
The Social Networking Online Protection Act, authored by Congressman Eliot Engel of New York and sponsored by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, is in response to a growing number of reports of employers demanding their employees’ Facebook passwords as a condition of employment.
That was quick. One day after Oracle asked for the right to assert a third patent against Google in the ongoing Android/Java intellectual property trial, Judge William Alsup has ordered that it is too late to introduce the patent into the case.
Not a fan of CISPA? Fear not. President Barack Obama isn’t either. A Wednesday e-mail released by the Office of Management and Budget made very clear that should the bill reach the president’s desk in its current form, "his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."
