Tech Law Prof Blog

Google-DoubleClick Clears the FTC

The FTC has approved the Google-DoubleClick merger by a 4-1 vote.  What happens in Europe is still an open question.

Read about it here.

Googkle

D.H.S. Finds Managing Tech Hard

Tech is hard.  Just ask the people at Homeland Security.  They spend billions on tech but apparently their efforts are not necessarily making the United States more secure.  Business Week is taking a closer look at what's going on.  Read it here.

XP SP3 RC Available

Don't you just love strings of acronyms.  Microsoft has placed the Release Candidate for Windows XP SP3 on its web site.  As with any RC software, download and use at your own risk.

Yet Another Patent Suit Against Vonage

Vonage is hit with another patent violation suit, this time from Nortel.  Nortel's claims involve patents for 911 and 411 calling and click to call features.  A Vonage acquired company had previously sued Nortel for patent violations in 2004.

Vonage was pummeled by Verizon and Sprint recently.  It's trying to work out another settlement deal with AT&T.  Doesn't anyone do research there?

Another GPL License Violating Case Settlement

Another GPL licensing violation case is settled.  Xterasys agreed to pay developers of BusyBox.  Read about it here.

No Privacy Violations When Tech Finds Child Porn on Hard Drive

Consider the case of one Kenneth Sodomsky.  He took his PC to Circuit City to get a DVD burner upgrade.  He got that and more.  The store tech installed the drive and looked for video files to test his handiwork.  What he found was videos of nude adolescent boys.  Ooops.  Sodomsky claimed that his right to privacy was violated.  The Pennsylvania Superior Court reasoned that the tech was using standard commercial practices in testing the drive.  Thus, there was no privacy violation.  The evidence is not suppressed.  What was he thinking?

The case is Commonwealth v. Sodomsky (filed December 5, 2007), and is available via links from here.  News reports are here and here.

MPAA Wins Case Against TorrentSpy Over Destruction of Evidence

TorrentSpy lost big time to the MPAA in a federal copyright suit.  The case was notable because the judge at one point in the litigation ordered TorrentSpy to enable logging of IP addresses of site users, even those in temporary RAM.  The sad part about this is the way the case ended.  TorrentSpy was found to have destroyed evidence and lied about its existence.  The judge declared that termination in favor of the plaintiffs was the proper remedy for spoliation of the evidence.  What TorrentSpy did was plain wrong.  The sordid details are in Ars Technica.