Good Primer on Spyware
Spyware: Background and Policy Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL32706 (May 18, 2005). This report, written as a primer for Congress, is one of the most balanced descriptions of the spyware issues I’ve seen. (Balance is a…
Update on Click Fraud Lawsuit
I’m a little late blogging this. It appears that the Lane’s Gift and Collectible lawsuit over click fraud is tied up in procedural limbo right now. The suit was filed in state court, the defendants moved the case to federal…
More on .kids.us
In critiquing the .xxx TLD, I took a brief swipe at the .kids.us debacle. Meanwhile, during my trip, Reuters ran a good retrospective article on the complete failure of the domain. As the article says: “while Congress and administrator NeuStar…
BBSs and History
A new documentary called BBS: The Documentary is out, and it inspired a retrospective on BBSs at Wired. I haven’t seen the documentary yet, but the Wired article definitely took me back to my first flirtations with cyberspace. I got…
Google’s Spam Rating Guide
I previously posted how Google uses humans to QA search results. Henk van Ess has subsequently posted the training manual for people doing the QA. There’s nothing too shocking in the guide. Some of the techniques it specifically addresses include:…
AWOL Opinions
While we are on Grokster watch, I also have been thinking of two opinions that seem to have disappeared into the void: * Second Circuit opinion in 1-800 Contacts v. WhenU. The district court ruled in December 2003, the parties…
FTC Settles Another Case for Failure to Use Reasonable Security
In the Matter of BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc., File No. 042 3160. The FTC settled with BJ’S Wholesale Club over BJ’s allegedly deficient security practices. This is the second settlement of its nature in three months (the last being an…
FTC Votes Against Mandatory Spam Labeling
The FTC has recommended against adopting a mandatory label for spam like “ADV.” The FTC concluded that recipients have better filtering mechanisms for law-abiding emailers and the law will have no effect against law-breaker emailers. I think this quote sums…
New Reality TV Show IP Case
RDF Media Ltd. v. Fox Broadcasting Co., 74 USPQ2d 1769 (C.D. Cal. May 11, 2005) [BNA subscription required]. The producers of “Wife Swap UK” sued Fox for its “Trading Spouses” TV show, alleging copyright infringement and direct/contributory trade dress misappropriation….
Grokster Watch
So just about all of my professional peers are on a Grokster opinion watch. Unless something weird happens, the opinion should come out either this Monday (June 20) or next (June 27). As this Monday grows closer, our collective anxiety…