Anti-Cybersquatting Enforcement

Columnist Eric Sinrod reports in this article how a non-profit group called The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is leading the fight against cybersquatting.

Youtube's Failure To Dismiss Tur Suit

According to an article in Andrews Intellectual Property Litigation Reporter (14 No. 9 Andrews Intell. Prop. Litig. Rep. 2) on Robert Tur's copyright suit against Youtube.com (Tur v. Youtube Inc.), Youtube's motion to dismiss was refused because the company failed to show that it has the "right and ability to control" the content posted on its site. For background on this case, see this post. To see the text of the orders, click here and here.

Antitrust Concerns In Cyberspace

For an interesting case applying antitrust principles to the cyber arena, see this recent case from the US District Court of the Central District of California (Liveuniverse v. Myspace).

A Setback For Spammers

See this article from PC World: "Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) said this week they've discovered a critical weakness in the spam ecosystem that could be used to help cut off the promise of economic returns fuelling the huge growth in spam levels." For a brief history of spam, see this article from the New Yorker entitled "Damn Spam."

Authenticating Email

Check out today's article from Law.com entitled "Authenticating Email Evidence As Evidence." As the authors point out, part of what makes authenticating email for use as evidence difficult is that each email is not an independent entity--it is part of a chain of emails which form a discussion.

FTC On Laptop Security

The FTC recently published this page offering suggestions for maintaining laptop security.

Financial Privacy Legislation

The National Conference of State Legislatures provides this list of financial privacy legislation--both introduced and enacted--from all 50 states for the years 2000-2006. The list includes links to the full text of the legislation. The same site also provides a 50-state listing of security breach legislation.

Visa Held Not To Be Vicarious Infringer

A recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Perfect 10 Inc. v. Visa International Service Association et al., found that credit card companies that process transactions over the internet that ultimately involve infringed goods, are not themselves liable for vicarious infringement. See this article from Mealey's for more.

GAO Report On Cybercrime

GAO recently published a new report entitled "Public and Private Entities Face Challenges in Addressing Cyber Threats." From the Executive Summary: "Cybercrime has significant economic impacts and threatens U.S. national security interests. Various studies and experts estimate the direct economic impact from cybercrime to be in the billions of dollars annually. The annual loss due to computer crime was estimated to be $67.2 billion for U.S. organizations, according to a 2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) survey."