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Google Takes Heat for Illegal Rx Drug Sales Online June 19, 2013 
Mississippi AG Jim Hood has called on his counterparts in other states to join him in confronting Google for not doing enough to prevent illegal online activities including the sale of prescription drugs by rogue pharmacies. Hood invited Google CEO Larry Page to discuss his concerns but did not receive a response, he said. Consequently, the state had no choice but to issue subpoenas.
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Sprint Takes Clearwire Fight to Court June 19, 2013 
Sprint has taken legal action to prevent Dish from closing a deal with Clearwire. This is the latest development in the tug of war between the companies over the 50 percent of Clearwire's spectrum that Sprint does not already own. Sprint announced last December that it had worked out a deal to purchase the rest of Clearwire for about $2.97 per share, which would value the company at $2.2 billion.
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Apple's E-Book Trial Shrouded in Fog, Not Smoke June 19, 2013 
The e-book price-fixing trial took another turn this week, with Apple claiming that what the Department of Justice called a "smoking gun" was simply a misunderstood email draft. Apple veteran Eddy Cue worked with the late Steve Jobs to engineer a price-fixing plan that would undermine Amazon's dominant position in the e-book market, the DoJ has alleged.
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Google Settlement Paves the Way for Stock Split June 18, 2013 
Google has settled the class-action shareholder lawsuit that had been blocking a stock split it originally announced last year, the company said Monday, paving the way for it to move forward with the split as planned. The suit's settlement was an eleventh-hour development in this 14-month storyline, which included the imminent prospect of a trial in Delaware chancery court over the issue.
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The Ghost of SCO Dogs IBM Again June 17, 2013 
Like Carrie, whose hand emerged from the grave to grab Sue by the ankle in Sue's nightmare, SCO has reemerged from its grave to revive its lawsuit against IBM, 10 years after the case was first filed. A court has granted SCO's motion for reconsideration and reopening the case. SCO originally had sought $1 billion in damages from IBM, but it was soundly defeated in court.
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Tech Giants Dump Data in Trust-Rebuilding Bid June 17, 2013 
In the wake of recent revelations that the government has been tapping their networks to monitor users, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft in recent days have all published more information about those monitoring requests. Facebook, for example, reported that for the six months ending December 31, 2012, the number of user-data requests it received from U.S. government entities was between 9,000 and 10,000.
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Google to Pit Technology Against Child Pornographers June 17, 2013 
Google is spearheading an initiative to build a picture-sharing database aimed at ridding the Web of child pornography. The company's new database will rely on "hashing" technology; once an image has been flagged as offensive, it uses an algorithm to identify that photo elsewhere on the Web. Despite widespread efforts to combat it, child pornography online is only growing.
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Hackers Find WordPress Easy Pickings June 17, 2013 
Adobe Reader and Oracle Java aren't alone in having a bull's eye painted on their code. WordPress also is becoming a popular target for Internet outlaws. It's quite a large target, too. About 18 percent of the sites on the Web -- about 60 million of them -- use WordPress. One reason WordPress is attracting hacker attention is that it's so easy to write plug-ins for it.
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Apple Exec Points Finger at Publishers in E-Book Trial June 15, 2013 
Apple SVP Eddy Cue gave testimony Thursday in the e-book price-fixing trial under way in the New York U.S. District Court. Cue, who was Apple's primary negotiator with most of the publishers during the run-up to the launch of iBookstore in 2010, told the court that it was not surprising that publishers began increasing pricing for e-books after Apple entered the market.
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From the Inevitable Files: Lawmakers Scrutinize Snowden-China Connections June 14, 2013 
Well, this was bound to happen. U.S. lawmakers said Thursday that the House Intelligence Committee -- the same House Intelligence Committee that trashed Chinese telecommunications companies last year -- will conduct a "thorough scrub" of connections between China and Eric Snowden. Snowden -- a "traitor," according to Committee chairman Mike Rogers, R.-Mich. -- is now believed to be in Hong Kong.
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Patenting Future Cures - or Not June 14, 2013 
The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decided that some of Myriad Genetics' patent claims were invalid for claiming products of nature. However, the Court also held that other Myriad patent claims were perfectly valid. In short, Myriad discovered the location and DNA sequence listing for two human genes that pertain to breast and ovarian cancer.
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No Patents on Human Genes, Supreme Court Rules June 13, 2013 
In a decision that could make it more affordable for women to be screened for breast cancer, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that human genes cannot be patented. The court's rationale is that human genes occur in nature, making them unpatentable. Complementary DNA, on the other hand -- a synthetic DNA that's also used in genetic testing -- can be patented, the court ruled.
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New Drive Aims to Stamp Out Smartphone Crime June 13, 2013 
A coalition of United States officials, institutional investors and consumer advocates on Thursday launched the Save Our Smartphones Initiative nationwide. With smartphone-related crimes, some of which are shockingly brutal, on the rise in the U.S., law enforcement officials have cranked up the pressure on the cellphone industry to come up with technologies to deter theft.
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Google Outs Iran for Pre-Election Phishing Expedition June 13, 2013 
Google announced it has been tracking and disrupting "multiple email-based phishing campaigns" in Iran. The campaigns, which have been going on for nearly three weeks, are targeting the accounts of tens of thousands of Iranian users. Google posits that the phishing is related to the Iranian presidential elections, which will be held Friday.
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Pandora Fights Fees with Terrestrial Acquisition June 13, 2013 
In an effort to manage acquisition fees, Pandora Radio has acquired a terrestrial radio station based in Rapid City, S.D. The move enables Pandora to be subject to licensing fees and royalties for broadcast radio stations rather than streaming stations. Internet radio services such as Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody and Last.fm have struggled for years to balance acquisition costs with revenues.
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Tech Titans Speak Out for More PRISM Transparency June 12, 2013 
After initially denying involvement in the U.S. National Security Agency's highly controversial PRISM program revealed last week, Google and other tech giants that were named as participants now admit their involvement and are calling for greater transparency. Google, for instance, is requesting that it be allowed to publish more data about the NSA requests it receives.
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Iceland Won't Grant Snowden Asylum - Until He Gets There June 12, 2013 
As far as Iceland goes, Edward Snowden may be left out in the cold. Snowden, the whistleblower who made international headlines after leaking secrets about the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM program, is believed to currently be in Hong Kong. Given Hong Kong's history of extraditing people to the United States, speculation has turned to where Snowden might go after Hong Kong.
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IT Companies Back Federal Plans to Battle Patent Trolls June 12, 2013 
Major IT companies want to seize the moment in an effort to restrain what they consider to be an abuse of intellectual property rights by so-called patent trolls. In a recent flurry of activity, lawmakers and the Obama administration have taken steps to support large IT companies seeking patent claim reforms. The big IT companies claim that current law overwhelmingly favors the patent trolls.
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EC Mulls Potential US Threat to Europeans' Privacy June 11, 2013 
The European Commission is concerned that U.S. data collection practices such as PRISM may pose a threat to Europeans' privacy rights. Commission Vice President Viviane Reding, who is in charge of justice, plans to raise the issue at an EU-U.S. meeting later this week in Dublin. That announcement comes after last week's revelation of the headline-grabbing PRISM program.
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Spreading Your E-Commerce Wings June 10, 2013 
Much has been said of the opportunities that lie in emerging retail markets, especially in countries or regions that have been less affected by recession. For many Western companies, however, a lack of confidence and basic local knowledge is stifling opportunity for international expansion. There are two key markets that I consider to be low-hanging fruit for U.S. merchants: Russia and China.
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