Two recent Pennsylvania State Court rulings only make things more confusing as Social Media privacy disputes become more prevalent.
Bucks County Common Pleas Court Judge Albert J. Cepparulo ruled in Piccolo v. Paterson denied a motion to require the Piccolo to accept Patterson as a Facebook friend. In this…
Continue Reading Courts Give Mixed Signals about Privacy in Social Media
Senator Ron Wyden blocked a change to the Copyright Act which would have allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order search engines and ISP to stop sending traffic of websites accused of infringing copyrights. The proposed law is called “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft…
With 2010 revenue of about $240 million LinkedIn’s IPO $9.1 billion foreshadows an unbelievable value for Facebook when it has an IPO. Particularly since Facebook had 2010 revenue of about $2 billion, and that Hitwise most recent report of the Top Ten Social Networking Sites listed Facebook #1 with a…
Continue Reading LinkedIn IPO is a $9.1 Billion Success – How Much is Facebook Worth?
Current US Congressional debate will impact the future of the Internet with Net Neutrality opponents claiming that the FCC has overstepped its bounds of regulation and should rely on the antitrust laws. My recent eCommerce Times column entitled “Net Neutrality in a Nutshell” helps put the debate in perspective:
What…
Continue Reading Future of the Internet in the Balance as the Net Neutrality Battle Rages
VOIP is likely headed in a new direction now that Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Skype. It was reported that Facebook and Google’s offers were in the $3 to 4 billion range, while at the same time Skype was still considering an IPO later this year. As…
Continue Reading Microsoft Purchases Skype – Facebook and Google Unlucky Suitors
By the fall of 2011 BlackBerry mobile devices will use Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine (with Bing maps) in direct competition with Google and to try to capture location based marketing opportunities. This should not be a surprise to anyone since Microsoft’s reported a 4% decline in sales…
Continue Reading Mobile Search Wars – Microsoft & BlackBerry vs. Google
Steve Jobs admitted that Apple made mistakes in how it handled location data on the iPad and iPhone, but claims the data was not used to keep tabs on the whereabouts of customer. In the meantime Google announced that it used Android phone location data anonymously and with user consent…
Continue Reading Apple and Google Confess They Collect Location Data
Researchers reported that Apple iOS4 operating system secretly logs unencrypted location data for iPhones, iPads, and those computers on which the devices synch to iTunes. Apparently the data resides on these devices only, so the largest problem will occur if the devices are lost, stolen, or hacked into. As a result of…
Continue Reading Senator Sends Letter to Apple Complaining about iPhone/iPad Location Logging
Q1 revenue increased $8.6 Billion which is 27% higher than a year earlier, however there are a number of critical legal issues facing Google which I included in my recent eCommerce Times column. Those legal challenges include the recent rejection of the long-running Google book settlement by US Circuit…
Continue Reading Google Reports Increased Revenue- But Legal Issue Abound
Although Social Media users rely on information posted on Wikipedia, a recent ruling in a US Federal Court is a reminder that US Federal Courts refuse to accept Wikipedia as a credible source. U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson of Louisville, Kentucky recently denied a new trial for Karen Sypher…
Continue Reading Wikipedia Not Legal Authority in US Federal Courts
