March 30th 2009
Siding with the American Civil Liberties Union, Judge James M. Munley has barred the Wyoming County District Attorney from pursuing threatened felony charges against teenage girls he has accused of sending explicit photographs over their cell phones. The controversial case over so-called “sexting” was filed by the ACLU, along with the parents of three girls, […]
March 17th 2009
Video distribution sites such as YouTube, Metacafe, and DailyMotion host video files that can infringe the rights of content owners and brand holders. Until now, if you’ve needed to protect video assets, its been tough because video files are easily reformatted, edited, and distributed with changed metatags. Now, a tier of start-ups are competing both to […]
February 19th 2009
Have you heard of blended search? (That’s “search,” not “scotch.”) It’s when a search engine presents your search results from more than just webpages. It can include things like images, books, news and video. In 2007, Google released Universal Search, their flavor of blended search. On top of Google’s search engine results page, you’ll see […]
January 23rd 2009
Yesterday, Google announced a limited time offer to bring its employees stock options back to par, by trading them for what their stock will be worth on March 2nd, 2009. About 85% of Google’s (remaining) employees have stock options with a value which is, well, below zero. That is, their exercise price is higher than […]
January 7th 2009
The Consumer Law & Policy Blog describes a case of arguably false advertising, in which a “face lift” firm paid for keywords relevant to people complaining about their trademarked service, but connected them to a site singing its praises. Their apparent intent was to draw those seeking information for detractors to a forum which only […]
December 17th 2008
According to an article in The Register, Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, observed that editorial judgments may play a key role in Google searches in the near future. Mayer made her comments at the Le Web conference in Paris on December 10th. If this change does materialize, the editorial […]
December 3rd 2008
Each quarter, Google issues a brief summary of the legal threats it faces through its quarterly SEC 10-Q filings. Here’s that part of Google’s 10-Q Filing for September 30, 2008. Note 11. Contingencies Legal Matters Companies have filed trademark infringement and related claims against us over the display of ads in response to user queries […]
November 26th 2008
The Web Guild reports that Google is quietly laying off up to 10,000 staff. This report is now being picked up by larger news outlets. Citing anonymous sources, Web Guild says that part of the layoff includes 500 recruiters. Though Google is cutting back, its method is stealthy. Though Google reports just over 21,000 full-time […]
September 5th 2008
Give Food to the Hungry by Answering Vocabulary Questions The World Food Programme has recognized the website Free Rice for generating enough support to feed two million people per day. The ad-driven site offers a range of games, but instead of scoring points, participants score grains of rice to be donated by the site’s sponsors. […]
August 5th 2008
A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google on the grounds that their privacy was invaded by the dilettante search company during the capturing of street images to be incorporated in Google’s Street View software.The filed complaint can be seen here at The Smoking Gun. At issue is whether or not the “Google gander van” was in […]
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