The supreme court in NY ruled that Internet businesses should be taxed on an equal footing with brick-and-mortar businesses, which likely lead to a US Supreme Court challenge. Accounting Today reported that the NY Court of Appeals, ruled 4-1 on March 28, 2013 that Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman wrote for…
Continue Reading NY Sales Taxes Apply to Amazon and Overstock
World-wide law enforcement agencies requested information regarding 137,424 Microsoft and Skype accounts in 2012 based 75,378 requests for customer information. Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith blogged that the Microsoft’s first Law Enforcement Report includes customer requests for:
Skype, Hotmail, Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Account, and Office 365.
In…
Continue Reading Law Enforcement Requests Report from Microsoft
Privacy of GPS data location in the US may improve if Congress passes the proposed bill that would require court-order search warrants before law enforcement can obtain GPS data. Although a similar bill was introduced in 2011 it failed to become law, however the pervasive use of GPS by law…
Continue Reading Federal Law Proposed to Require Warrants for GPS Data
Given all the cyber attacks of late the security of credit card information is more critical than ever, and with a greater use cloud computing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council recently issued Cloud Computing Guidelines.
PCI initially established its Data Security Standards (DSS) which among other things…
Continue Reading Credit Cards Security in the Cloud – New Clarity?
The Pentagon revealed a plan to create 13 offensive teams to use cyber weapons to defend the US from major cyber attacks from foreign countries. The Washington Post reported that on March 11, 2013 General Keith Alexander testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. For the past 8 years General…
Following the cheating scandal at Harvard which forced 70 students to leave, apparently Harvard administrators secretly search the email accounts of resident deans to determine who leaked the cheating scandal. The New York Times reported:
Several Harvard faculty members speculated that the administration had felt free to search the e-mail…
The EU Competition Commission concluded that Microsoft failed to comply with its 2009 agreement to offer browser choices to 15 million Windows customers so rather the customers were stuck with Internet Explorer. Under the terms of the 2009 settlement agreement between the EU and Microsoft when Microsoft Windows customers bought…
Continue Reading EU Fines Microsoft $732 million for Antitrust Violation
Given the recent disclosures of cyber attacks by Facebook, Google, and Apple, businesses need to establish policies about what their employees can do with Social Media whether on the job or just making comments about their employers. Each business needs to consider their employees, customers, and market places to…
Continue Reading VIDEO – Protecting Businesses from Cyber Threats
A New York State Judge recently ruled that a cell phone user has no reasonable expectation of privacy and the 4th Amendment right of privacy was not violated by the police’s pinging the GPS device in the defendant’s cell phone. Judge John L. DeMarco decision and order in the case…
