In June of 2013, Edward Snowden released information showing that the National Security Agency was collecting data from phone calls, texts, and emails of people all over the world. The resulting revelations sparked mass outrage at the invasion of privacy and a nationwide debate over the amount of access the government should have in our …
What employment consequences can result from posting controversial material on Facebook for government employees? Rex Duke recently found out the hard way. Duke was a veteran police officer with the Clayton State University Police Department, and had achieved the rank of Captain. On November 6, 2012, after the results of the 2012 Presidential election, Duke …
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act was abused again earlier this month to bring suit against Yahoo!. Responsible for increasingly clogging up courts, the TCPA has been used aggressively against debt collectors and telemarketers, the intended target industry – but it’s curious to find a suit on a friendly text message. Yahoo! offers instant message users …
Millions of Americans stream music to their phones, tablets, and computers daily, commonly employing services such as Pandora or Spotify to do so. In the past year alone, Pandora Media has claimed to hold over seven percent of the radio market, with nearly seventy million listeners. This method of listening to and enjoying music shows …
With its recent decision to deny certiorari in Sony Computer Entertainment America, LLC v. 1st Media, LLC, the Supreme Court missed an ideal opportunity to help ensure the integrity of the United States patent system by rescuing the doctrine of inequitable conduct from death’s door. The Therasense standard for inequitable conduct that the Federal Circuit …
During the 2014 State of the Union address delivered on January 28, President Obama expressed support for anti-patent assertion entity (PAEs), or patent troll, legislation, “Let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly, needless litigation.” Companies such as Apple and White Castle have come out to …
As millions around the world will tune in to watch the 2014 Winter Olympics in the coming weeks, the prestigious competition’s host country, Russia, is employing innovative technology to do some crucial watching of its own. With high concerns regarding the possibility of security breaches leading up to the start of this year’s games, the …
In 2013, California State Senator Ellen Corbett introduced S.B. 501, a bill requiring social networking websites to comply with requests to remove sensitive or identifying information from their websites within 96 hours. This bill is one among many bills introduced in recent years that attempt to secure greater individual privacy rights on the Internet. Yet, …
Technology companies including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo have recently given the first look at secret data requests made by the government in regards to national security issues. These new details were published this past week and revealed both the scope and volume of requests that were made. The data requests by the government were …
It is easy to be idealistic about the cultural effects of the internet—opening communication between different cultures, comparatively free and open information—until one gets to the comments section of any given interactive content-based website. One of the negative things the internet is good at is stirring self-righteous indignation in even the best of us. Recently, …
