According to a press release from plaintiff’s counsel Eugene Crew, Microsoft has agreed to a record settlement for a series of antitrust class action suits. California consumers and businesses will receive $1.1 billion for Microsoft products that they “purchased between Feb. 18, 1995, and Dec. 15, 2001, for use in the State of California.” Payment will be in the form of vouchers, which may be used to purchase computers or software from any company.
See also Microsoft’s resource page on the case here, which includes the Transcript of Microsoft News Teleconference on California Class Action Antitrust Settlement.
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Daily Archives: January 13, 2003
Google v. SearchKing
The legal rangling between search engine giant Google and a search engine portal aggregator called SearchKing is playing out in the U.S. Western District Court of Oklahoma. The lawsuit by SearchKing revolves around the use of Googles’ Page Rank Algorithm, a system by which websites are displayed in response to Google queries based on popularity… Continue Reading
Popular Blog Stays in the News
InstaPundit, a weblog by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, has garnered significant recognition and praise from the mainstream press recently (one good example is here). The site is also a top destination for the blogging community. Reynolds offers opinions, facts, links, and interviews on a range of issues, including technology and the law,… Continue Reading
Trouble With D&B's Purchase of Hoover's?
Apparently there is some controversy brewing in the purchase of Hoover’s Inc., the corporate intelligence database, by the huge financial database publisher D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), according to this article. Continue Reading
Net Gambling
According to this press release from the House Committee on Financial Services, Rep. James A. Leach reintroduced the Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act in the 108th Congress. See H.R. 566 for the text of this bill from the 107th Congress. The new bill number is H.R. 21 (not yet available on Thomas). For reference,… Continue Reading
Chinese Gov't Blocking Blogs
According to this posting, the Chinese government is blocking user access to blogs created with Blogspot. This source also provides links to a range of information concerning the ongoing, systematic campaign by the Chinese government to censor and restrict citizen access to the Web. Continue Reading
Spam Attacks on the Rise
BrightMail Inc., a provider of anti-spam techology, has been tracking spam attacks against their network. The results of their survey, with a coverage period of June 1, 2002 to November 1, 2002, is available via ServerWatch, here. Needless to say, their information indicates that attacks have tripled during this period. The ServerWatch article also provides… Continue Reading
Net Libel Cases
The current issue of the ABA Journal eReport has a noteworthy article, Where in the World Wide Web to Fight, that weighs in on the growing concerns about jurisdiction and Internet libel cases. See my posting on the recent Australian case and the two U.S. cases here. Continue Reading
EFF’s New Survey on DMCA
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a redesigned website, and also published a new report, Unintended Consequences: Four Years under the DMCA. The conclusion of the report states, “Four years of experience with the ‘anti-circumvention’ provisions of the DMCA demonstrate that the statute reaches too far, chilling a wide variety of legitimate activities in… Continue Reading
