Politics and Law

In response to a Congressional inquiry about targeted advertising, Yahoo announced Friday that consumers will be able to opt out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com.

The news comes one day after Google announced the addition of DoubleClick ad tracking across its sites with an opt-out capability for users.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on August 1 sent a letter to 34 companies about concerns that privacy protections already in place for consumers may not be applicable to customized advertising. The letter asked the companies to respond to 10 questions about their targeted ad policies, including, "If your … Read more

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reversed course on its earlier move to grant Dell trademark rights to the term "cloud computing." Dell received a preliminary notice on July 8 saying it could have the trademark, but it was withdrawn on Thursday.

Dell spokesman Jeff Blackburn said the company could not speculate on the likelihood of the trademark being eventually approved. "We are waiting just for the decision," he said.

The Patent Office declined to comment on the specifics of Dell's application, but Cynthia Lynch, an administrator for trademark policy and procedure, said … Read more

Mobile devices today are far more capable, and capacious, than the analog bricks of decades past. That also creates new security risks, which the feds are asking the public to address in comments due Friday.

"Mobile devices are expected to continue to become more powerful and communicate at higher speeds, eventually giving people the power and functionality of a full desktop," the National Institute of Standards and Technology says in its draft of Guidelines on Cell Phone and PDA Security. "Besides increasing productivity, such improvements are rapidly turning cell phones into extensive data reservoirs capable of holding … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Transitions between presidential administrations are typically influence-peddling, power-consolidating, appointee-vetting exercises run by Washington insiders. Perhaps that's why the quintessential Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is trying to insert itself into the process.

The private organization, which has close ties to the U.S. military and counts Henry Kissinger on its payroll, has gathered about 35 people and awarded them the official-sounding title of "Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency." Adding to the formality are some closed-to-the-public meetings and ex-officio members from federal agencies, congressional offices, and the nebulous "… Read more

The whopping housing bill that President Bush signed into law last week does far more than merely address the nation's real estate woes. Some sections have raised serious privacy concerns.

Tucked in near the end of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act is a requirement that banks and online payment networks annually collect and report to the IRS electronic payments made to online merchants. It takes effect in 2011, and will affect what information companies like PayPal collect from their sellers and could raise privacy and auditing complications.

The housing bill also finalized the SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act. As … Read more

Just days before the Olympic torch will reach Beijing, Internet leaders Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft say they are close to an agreement on a code of conduct for doing business in China and other countries that censor the Internet.

Sen. Dick Durbin on Monday released separate letters from the companies, stating they have "reached agreement on the core components of the principles" of the code, as Google put it.

Those components, the letters say, include principles for promoting freedom of expression and privacy, implementation guidelines, and an accountability framework. The specifics of the code are now being reviewed … Read more

Controversial "paranormalist" Uri Geller has settled a lawsuit claiming he misused copyright law to squelch criticism. But much like Geller's mysticism, the legitimacy of his legal dispute remains rather ambiguous--the terms of the settlement are mostly confidential.

The legal battle began when Brian Sapient, a longtime skeptic of Geller's, used footage from a NOVA documentary to create a 14-minute video on YouTube debunking Geller's powers. Geller's company, Explorogist, sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice to YouTube because some of the NOVA material--about 8 seconds--was under copyright owned by Explorogist. YouTube suspended Salient'… Read more

A settlement reached over hidden sexually themed content in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been stolen, after a federal judge Wednesday tossed out the deal reached last November between the game maker and plaintiffs' lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram ruled that "each settlement class member's consumer-protection claims are governed by the law of the state where he purchased," so it cannot be settled in a single federal court proceeding. "Accordingly, the court decertifies the settlement class on the grounds that common issues do not predominate over individualized issues."

Kram … Read more

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border.

A pair of DHS policies from last month say that customs agents can routinely--as a matter of course--seize, make copies of, and "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States." (See policy No. 1 and No. 2.)

DHS claims the border search of electronic information is useful to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating "… Read more