legal

A group of "electro-sensitive" Santa Fe residents has asked the city government to ban Wi-Fi from public buildings. The group's members attribute a range of symptoms, such as chest pains and headaches, to the electric fields produced by Wi-Fi routers and cell phones.

The citizens claim that Wi-Fi networks in libraries and other civic buildings constitute discrimination as defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The city attorney is looking into the matter and expects to make a legal recommendation by the end of the month.

This isn't the first report of a so-called "gadget … Read more

This post was updated at 10:49 AM with comment from Ariel Waldman.

Some Web enthusiasts find microblogging service Twitter to be addictive because you can say absolutely anything you want--as long as it's 140 characters or less. So what happens when "saying anything" translates into harassment?

One avid Twitter user, Ariel Waldman, posted an entry Thursday on her personal blog, declaring that "Twitter refuses to uphold (its) terms of service."

She said she started receiving "multiple accounts of harassment" from another user of the microblogging service and that when she petitioned to … Read more

No, we're not talking about vile blog commenters. A Jewish human rights group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, released a report last week that says online terror and hate is on the rise, particularly on social-media sites.

According to a briefing detailed by The New York Times' Brad Stone, the Wiesenthal Center flagged about 8,000 "problematic" sites on the Web pertaining to terrorism and hate, a 30 percent increase from last year.

In addition to religious terror groups, the sites identified also pertain to anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic, and various anti-religion and anti-government sentiments. And social media is … Read more

MySpace can breathe a little easier. A federal appeals court ruled last week that the News Corp.-owned social network can't be held responsible for the sexual assault of an Austin, Texas, teen by a man she met on the site.

The girl, named in the case as Julie Doe, initially filed suit along with her mother, named as Jane Doe, after she was sexually assaulted in May 2006 by 19-year-old Pete Solis, whom she met on MySpace. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas state court, targeted MySpace, parent company News Corp., and Solis. Among the allegations against MySpace … Read more

This post was updated at 11:02 AM PT with comment from MySpace.

Facebook on Thursday reached a user safety agreement with the attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia, much as rival MySpace.com did several months ago.

"We've agreed with 49 states and the District of Columbia to set up principles around Internet safety," Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly explained in an interview with CNET News.com. The agreement is centered on "largely features that (Facebook) has in place already, but that we've committed to continuing and to enhance … Read more

Another prominent Google employee has jumped ship to Facebook.

Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs at Google, has been hired in a similar role at the fast-growing social network, reports Kara Swisher of All Things Digital.

Schrage's role at both companies, founded in a legal rather than marketing background, involves dealing with D.C. lobbyists and policymakers in addition to the press. His move to Facebook follows Sheryl Sandberg, who became chief operating officer at Facebook after a stint as vice president of global sales at Google. Schrage will report to Sandberg, Swisher writes, but … Read more

How much longer can Psystar get away with selling Open Computers?

Now that Psystar has satisfied any doubts that it's a real company making real products, the propriety of those products seems bound to be tested. In case you missed it, Psystar is currently selling Open Computers with Apple's Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled, in what appears to be a clear violation of Apple's software license agreement for that product.

There's a running joke about the number of consumers that actually read the licensing agreements that come along with new software. But these types of agreements … Read more

A federal district court in New York ruled Wednesday that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is owed "reasonable license fees" by online media powerhouses AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo for the music streamed and distributed on their sites.

Currently, music streamed by sites owned by the three companies is advertising-supported and no dividends are paid to ASCAP.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York will now determine appropriate fees for AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo, all of which have applied for ASCAP licenses but have not been able to agree upon fees. … Read more

Looks like Dish may have spoken a bit too soon.

A little over a week ago, an appeals court determined that Dish Network (formerly EchoStar Communications) had indeed violated a software patent held by TiVo on digital video recorders.

While TiVo gleefully celebrated, Dish expressed disappointment, but assured its customers that none of its products would be affected because the software that was in violation had already been remotely updated by the company some months before.

Now it appears there's just a bit more to the story. Engadget has a blog pointing to notices Dish sent on Monday. The … Read more