Stop Watching Us | Stop Watching Us

Stop Watching Us | Stop Watching Us.

An online petition crated by Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reddit, and the ACLU (among others) to register concern to the Obama Administration over the recent revelations regarding government surveillance.

I would strongly recommend you check out (and if you agree, sign) the petition.

As a society we cannot afford to simply allow our civil liberties to slip away from us, even if for what appears to be a good cause. Out founding fathers very wisely build our government on a firmament of checks and balances. We are in deadly danger of allowing those checks and balances to be swept away, to all of our detriment.

A new(ish) tactic: Patent trolls want $1,000—for using scanners | Ars Technica

Patent trolls want $1,000—for using scanners | Ars Technica.

A disturbing new trend is emerging in the world of patent litigation. Non-Participating Entities (“NPEs” or, more colloquially, “Patent Trolls”) have now started threatening, and in some cases suing end-users of technology which the NPEs are claiming infringes upon patents they now own.

In the ArsTechnica article above, you can read the tale of an Atlanta-based IT services company, BlueWave, who recently tangles with such a troll. In this instance, the NPE, through a law firm, was seeking to “settle” an infringement claim against BlueWave for making use of scanners to create .pdf documents from hard copies and then e-mailing and otherwise distributing the .pdf files (as just about every business in this country now does). Of course, it sounds ridiculous on its face that this could be a violation a valid patent, and yet, there do exist several patents which claims to cover this series of processes.

While it is probable that these patents (and many like them) are vulnerable to attack, NPEs are increasingly making use of such patents to press for settlements from companies who they believe are unlikely to go the time and expenses of fighting off such claims (or seeking to invalidate the underlying patents). In some cases, the NPEs are even filing suit, in hopes that by increasing the pressure on the alleged infringer, that a settlement will result.

Technically, there is nothing illegal about such tactics. At the same time they reek of bad faith and dubious business practices. At a minimum, they certainly represent a perverion of the intent behind our intellectual property system.

Legitimate or illegitimate  though, we can expect to see much more of this kind of behavior.

6 States Bar Employers From Demanding Facebook Passwords | Threat Level | Wired.com

6 States Bar Employers From Demanding Facebook Passwords | Threat Level | Wired.com.

As of today, there are now a total of six states which have passed laws which specifically prohibit employers from demanding that employees provide the employer with their Facebook passwords: California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.

As more and more employers have begun demanding access to employees’ or potential employees’ personal, non-public social media data, these laws represent clearly developing trend towards greater protection of employee privacy. It is important to note, however, that none of the laws enacted to date prohibit employers from reviewing what employees or potential employees publicly post to social media sites.

With this kind of rapidly changing privacy landscape, it is increasingly important for employers to continuously review and update their hiring and other employment policies. What’s more, the most recent laws are most likely only the tip of the iceberg. Many other states are considering similar laws, some of them potentially even more far reaching than those enacted by these first six states. Likewise, the specter of increasing federal laws and regulations dealing with privacy both within and outside the workplace is also increasingly real.

And so, the $100,000 question: “Have you reviewed your company’s employment policies lately?” If not, now is a good time to do so!

How can we build a future of post-industrial journalism?

Reblogged from GigaOM:

• 

There's been a lot written over the past few years about the future of the news industry -- how the rise of the web and social media have disrupted it, and how traditional players like the New York Times and others can recover from this disruption and repair their business models by using things like paywalls. But a new manifesto from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University says that trying to figure out how to repair or rebuild the news industry is a waste of time: the paper's authors argue that…

Read more… 1,365 more words

Very interesting! Well worth the read.

Navigating the Legal Pitfalls of Augmented Reality

Navigating the Legal Pitfalls of Augmented Reality.

Mashable.com has published an interesting article on the legal implications of Augmented Reality as a marketing and advertising tool.

In the past year, AR has increasingly moved out of the “gee-whiz” phase of just being a technological marvel into becoming a legitimate and increasingly adopted tool in the marketing arsenal of a significant number of companies. (The Mashable article cites Ikea and Philips electronics as two examples, but there are many more, with new-comers jumping on board each day.)

There are, however, a number of significant legal implications that companies need to factor into their decision of whether or not AR is an appropriate tool to use and, if so, how to implement it.

These legal concerns include general privacy and data security issues, truth in advertising regulations, child protection (COPPA) issues, just to name a few.

The takeaway here is: if you are using AR in your marketing and product delivery process OR if you are thinking of adding AR to the mix, make sure that you have thought through and implemented policies and procedures that will keep you on the right side of the applicable laws and regulations that apply. Failing to do so can lead you into a ugly (and expensive) virtual dead-end.

Twitter limit: University of Washington caps live game coverage for media, threatens credential revocation – GeekWire

Twitter limit: University of Washington caps live game coverage for media, threatens credential revocation – GeekWire.

Based in this article from GeekWire, it looks like the University of Washington (a public institution, I believe) may have set itself up for a bit of a First Amendment issue with its “Live Coverage Policy” for journalists credentialed to cover its sports program.

The policy explicitly limits journalists to 20 Tweets per basketball game and 45 per football game. Violations can result in revocation of the violator’s press credentials. As a public institution, and thus, arguably, a “state actor”, the UoW may be violating the First Amendment with this policy.
Even if it is not, it certainly raises (once again) the issue of social media in the press and what its implications are for First Amendment speech (including, but not limited to freedom of the Press).

Of course, there are (albeit distant and indirect) additional issues of trademark, fair use, and the role of public university ownership and use of intellectual property implicated in these situations as well. Those, however, are subjects for another time.

Website “Terms of Service” Provisions Reigned In By Federal Courts

Zappos Terms Of Service Ruled Invalid – Business Insider.

As reported by Business Insider, a recently handed down decision in a case against Zappos stemming from January 2012 hack of Zappos customer databases now makes it clear that Courts taking much harder look at the enforceability of Terms of Service provisions posted by websites.

Specifically, the Court in the Zappos case found the mandatory arbitration provision contained in Zappos’ ToS to be unenforceable, at least in part because it did not require a user to review and explicitly accept the terms of the ToS. Zappos, like many websites these days, made use of a “browerwrap” ToS, which provide that a vistor of the site automatically accepts the terms of the agreement simply by using the site. The Court found that such a provision did not demonstrate a “meeting of the minds” between Zappos and users of its web site, and thus the ToS did not constitute an enforceable contract.

Ironically, a growing body of case law suggests that if Zappos were to have created a “click-wrap” agreement, that is one that required the user to scroll through the agreement and click a button specifically indicating agreement with the terms of the ToS, that the Court would have found the ToS to be enforceable.

The takeaway here for companies engaged in business on the web: courts are casting increasing scrutiny on the enforceability of Terms of Service agreements associated with such web-based commerce. Understanding what is enforceable and what is not may (and modifying ToS agreements where necessary) may be a key business decision, with costly repercussions if the agreements turns out to be unenforceable.

Have you reviewed your ToS lately? If not, now is the time!