"Google accidentally mapped much more than addresses, says privacy boss"

Apparently Google's street view caused some privacy concerns and even broke Canadian privacy laws by collecting personal information from wireless networks. They collected info like emails, usernames, and passwords.....awkward


http://www.thestar.com/business/article/877850--google-accidentally-mapped-much-more-than-addresses-says-privacy-boss

Entrepreneur Takes On Apple And Wins $625 Million Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/entrepreneur-takes-on-apple-and-wins-625mm-2010-10#ixzz12

Biggest patent win ever? That is quite a huge sum of money... even for Apple. It's quite mind-boggling how even with Apple's legal team they could lose so big. I guess patents do work :)

http://www.businessinsider.com/entrepreneur-takes-on-apple-and-wins-625mm-2010-10

Nader

Google, Facebook To Microsoft’s Paul Allen: Your Argument Is Invalid!

This is related to Vince's previous post on this blog entitled "Against the Necessity of Software Patents"

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/27/paul-allen-google-faceboo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29



""Patent #682 “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.

“Defendant Facebook has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the ’682 patent. Facebook is liable for infringing the ’682 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent.”

“Defendant Google has infringed and continues to infringe one or more claims of the ’682 patent. Google is liable for infringing the ’682 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271 by making and using websites and associated hardware and software to provide alerts that information is of current interest to a user as claimed in the patent.”"

HyperMac stops selling magsafe connectors

HyperMac infringed the patent on the magsafe connector and Apple requires them to stop selling the cables before any negotiations can occur.

via

Court says University sanction over Facebook postings violated Charter

Canadian court in Alberta ruled against U of Calgary for violating its students freedom of expression when it sanctioned the students for posting critical comments about a professor on Facebook. One of the issues here is whether the the Charter of rights applies to universities (as this is a constitutional right and only applies to government but not private entities). The court ruled that the university is not a Charter free zone and further decided that the students' Charter rights were infringed.

The link to the news: http://brianbowman.ca/2010/10/15/court-says-university-sanction-over-facebook-postings-violates-charter/

In particular, at paragraph 82 of the judgment, the court comments about the value of the critical comments made by the students:

"I cannot accept that expression in the form of criticism of one's profession must be restricted in order to accomplish the objective of maintaining an appropriate learning environments. I do not regard this particular kind of expression as being of little value. Students should not be prevented from expressing critical opinions regarding the subject matter or quality of the teaching they are receiving. As an educational institution, the University should expect and encourage frank and critical discussion regarding the teaching ability of professors amongst students, even in instances where the comments exchanged are unfavourable...[omitted]"

Here is a copy of the judgment:

http://btdbowman.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/reasons-for-judgment2.pdf

Basically, the Judge treated Facebook Wall as a forum for discussion, thus, a place for expressing ideas. The Judge also mentioned that to object the critics the professor should bring a civil action (if she considers the comments as defamation), not just have the school sanctioned the students for making negative comments.

Map of Online Communities - updated 2010!

I remember seeing something like this map a long time ago, and I just stumbled upon this brand new updated version from summer 2010! Enjoy. This map is based on activity levels, as supposed to number of users, (which would probably explain why Farmville is so friggin huge, it's probably used for hours on end by many people, while twitter is only accessed maybe 3 times a day for an average user? Same with 4chan's prominence among forums, maybe it's the type of thing people spend long hours on? internet addiction?) You also have to wonder about possible bias towards North American / English language activities (although there is China's "QQ" messenger, and "Euro Gulf")

My Highlights:

• Shaq in the Twitter territory
• "Former site of adult services" in Craigslist territory (crater)
• Myspace's huge importance for bands, music videos' prominence on Youtube
• "Web 3.0 (under construction)"
• "Sea of Protocol Confusion"
• Sarah Palin USA's proximity to Russia
• "Catbus Route" on the 4chan island
• Bieber Bay!

Amazing.

New US Internet Censorship bill

This article is even more relevant to our fellow American 430'ers - but can touch us all as we all use youtube and similar services on a regular basis.. This bill could effectively overturn the recent supreme court decision that prevented Viacom from removing clips of their shows from youtube.com...

"Stop the Internet Blacklist

By David Segal and Aaron Swartz

When it really matters to them, Congressmembers can come together -- with a panache and wry wit you didn't know they had. As banned books week gets underway, and President Obama admonishes oppressive regimes for their censorship of the Internet, a group of powerful Senators -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- have signed onto a bill that would vastly expand the government's power to censor the Internet.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) was introduced just one week ago, but it's greased and ready to move, with a hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee this Thursday. If people don't speak out, US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet.

COICA creates two blacklists of Internet domain names. Courts could add sites to the first list; the Attorney General would have control over the second. Internet service providers and others (everyone from Comcast to PayPal to Google AdSense) would be required to block any domains on the first list. They would also receive immunity (and presumably the good favor of the government) if they block domains on the second list.

The lists are for sites "dedicated to infringing activity," but that's defined very broadly -- any domain name where counterfeit goods or copyrighted material are "central to the activity of the Internet site" could be blocked.

One example of what this means in practice: sites like YouTube could be censored in the US. Copyright holders like Viacom often argue copyrighted material is central to the activity of YouTube, but under current US law, YouTube is perfectly legal as long as they take down copyrighted material when they're informed about it -- which is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court.

But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn't even need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal to get it shut down -- as long as they can persuade the courts that enough other people are using it for copyright infringement, the whole site could be censored.

Perhaps even more disturbing: Even if Viacom couldn't get a court to compel censorship of a YouTube or a similar site, the DOJ could put it on the second blacklist and encourage ISPs to block it even without a court order. (ISPs have ample reason to abide the will of the powerful DOJ, even if the law doesn't formally require them to do so.)"

Read the full article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-segal/stop-the-internet-blackli_b_739836.html