court

An appeals court has upheld rules on net neutrality that stop broadband providers blocking or slowing web traffic. The legal battles will likely continue, but this week's verdict is a big blow to those arguing to block the rules. Net neutrality is ... the principle of treating all Internet traffic in the same way with the only exception being illegal content. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has tried several times to bring in rules to enforce the principle, with bans on carriers deliberately slowing or blocking some types of traffic (such as streaming video) or taking payments ... (view more)

The Supreme Court has rejected claims by authors that Google Books violates copyright. It ends a legal battle dating back 12 years. The legal issues originally centered on Google Library, in which the company scanned millions of books that were no ... longer being published and made them available in full. Later on Google used the same technology to scan books that are in print and add them to its search database alongside web pages and other forms of information. When users carry out a search that matches content in a scanned book, they can now see the relevant section as part of the search ... (view more)

The FBI says it may be able to unlock the San Bernadino shooter's phone without Apple's help. But it's refusing to reveal details of its apparent solution. Apple recently refused to comply with an order to assist law enforcement officials with ... unlocking the phone, leading to a planned courtroom hearing this week. The FBI then asked for the case to be put on hold until next month, saying it wanted to investigate a method it discovered this past weekend that may make Apple's help irrelevant. The argument isn't about decrypting the data on the phone, something that's ... (view more)

A court has ordered Google to hand over details that could identify the people behind four accounts used for bogus online reviews. One of the accounts had assumed the identity of a dead woman. The reviews were made on the social networking site ... Google+. While the site has arguably struggled to compete with the likes of Facebook, posts there are particularly likely to show up in search results for a relevant term. In this case the reviews were of an Amsterdam daycare center, and would appear next to a map of the center's location before the rest of the "ranked" search results. ... (view more)

Tech company leaders are backing Apple in its defiance of a court order to make it easier for the FBI to access a murderer's iPhone. However, a poll shows public support for officials despite Apple's claims that the order threatens security. The ... case involves a phone belonging to Syed Farook who, along with his wife, shot dead 14 people in California last December. He was killed in a police shootout, but the FBI wants to examine his phone to see if it contains any details about the planning of the attacks and links to terrorist groups. FBI Needs More Than 10 Password Attempts The ... (view more)

Apple has told a court that it's impossible to access data in most iPhones and iPads without a password. It could lead to a legal standoff in the 'security versus privacy' debate. The comments came in a case involving a recently-seized iPhone. The ... United States Justice Department is unable to access the contents of the phone and has therefore asked the court to order Apple to help them gain access. In this specific case however, Apple is physically able to access the device's data because the phone itself is running a susceptible operating system (iOS version 7). Nonetheless, Apple has ... (view more)

Apple has lost a federal appeal against a ruling that it conspired to keep e-book prices artificially high. The verdict means it will have to pay $450 million in penalties and compensation. It marks the ending of a case dating back to 2012 based ... around two different models of pricing for electronic books. Amazon, which dominated the market before Apple started selling ebooks, uses the same model as with print books: the publisher sets a wholesale price and then the retailer decides how much to charge customers. Apple instead pushed for the "agency model" in which the publisher ... (view more)

The US government is being sued by civil liberties groups who say the security services' collection of personal data online fundamentally breaches the constitution. At issue is the question of whether or not the government's interpretation of the ... law correctly allows for mass surveillance without probable cause about specific individuals. The lawsuit is led by the American Civil Liberties Union and is joined by at least nine other groups, including the organization that oversees Wikipedia. It makes the accusations against the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of ... (view more)

California has passed a law that means companies can no longer ban customers from writing negative reviews on websites. Even attempting to do so could mean they firms face a financial penalty. The new law follows a protracted court battle that ... concluded this summer after an online gadget seller tried to "fine" a couple $3,500 for leaving a negative review on an independent website. A court eventually ordered KlearGear to pay more than $300,000 to the couple after its attempts to collect the "debt" hurt their credit rating. KlearGear had been trying to enforce a clause in ... (view more)