Legal

Apple receives so many police demands to decrypt seized iPhones that it has created a "waiting list" to handle the deluge of requests, CNET has learned.

Court documents show that federal agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Kentucky man accused of distributing crack cocaine that they turned to Apple for decryption help last year.

An agent at the ATF, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, "contacted Apple to obtain assistance in unlocking the device," U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote in a recent opinion. But, she wrote, … Read more

A federal judge in New York has dismissed a trademark lawsuit against Apple over its use of the term "iBooks."

Black Tower Press sued Apple in 2011, claiming that Apple's use of the term to describe its e-reader platform violated a trademark the small New York-based publisher acquired in 2006 and 2007. The publisher of science fiction and fantasy titles asserted that it acquired the trademark along with various assets of Byron Preiss, who had published more than 1,000 books under the "ibooks" brand starting in 1999.

The lawsuit acknowledged that Apple has a … Read more

A federal judge on Thursday told Google it needs to hand over documentation about how it's searching for information it's required to provide as part of a lawsuit between Apple and Samsung.

Apple earlier this week had requested the court require Google to disclose its methodology, adding that the search giant was not doing "a full search" for documents related to its Android operating system, which Apple wants to use as evidence in its patent lawsuit against Samsung.

In a court order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal said that Google has two days to provide … Read more

Last month, Sen. Mark Udall and a handful of other privacy-focused politicians persuaded the IRS to promise to cease warrantless searches of Americans' private correspondence.

Now Udall, a Colorado Democrat, is taking aim at the Justice Department, which has claimed the right to conduct warrantless searches of Americans' e-mail, Facebook chats, and other private communications.

"I am extremely concerned that the Justice Department and FBI are justifying warrantless searches of Americans' electronic communications based on a loophole in an outdated law that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled was unconstitutional," Udall said in … Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal.

Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access … Read more

President Obama has picked Nicole Wong, Twitter's legal director, to be the White House's first chief privacy officer, CNET has learned.

Wong previously was a vice president and deputy general counsel at Google at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, where she managed a team of lawyers that worked with the company's engineers to review products before they launched. The reviews included privacy, copyright, and removal requests, which earned her a nickname of "The Decider" -- as recounted in a 2008 New York Times Magazine article.

A person familiar with the situation told CNET that the … Read more

Update: The Senate late today passed the bill, sending it to the House.

The U.S. Senate is planning to vote Monday to levy new taxes on mobile app developers, cloud computing services, music and movie downloads, and even people selling collections of WordPress themes.

Senators who are backing the legislation known as S.743 describe it as a way to force out-of-state retailers to collect taxes on physical shipments. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., claims his bill will "put local and Main Street retailers on a level playing field with their out-of-state and online counterparts."

What Enzi and … Read more

Facebook and the banks that financed its IPO want a judge to put the brakes on a slew of lawsuits filed by unhappy investors.

In court documents released Wednesday, Facebook claimed it was not required to reveal its own forecasts on how its mobile and product strategy might affect future sales, Reuters said today, even if that information had been disclosed to its underwriters.

Facebook is facing a host of lawsuits claiming that it misled investors about its financial health before it went public last year. Morgan Stanley and other underwriters are also targeted in many of the suits, blaming … Read more

Craigslist has won the first round in its federal lawsuit against PadMapper and two other companies, which extracted and used real estate listings from the world's most popular classifieds site.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco on Tuesday rejected attempts by the defendants to dismiss Craigslist's lawsuit, which alleged a slew of unlawful acts -- including terms of use violations, copyright violations, trespass, and civil violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

"Defendants' continued use of Craigslist after the clear statements regarding authorization in the cease and desist letters and the technological … Read more