The liability of an Internet service provider is one of the topics that has been vigorously disputed and discussed in Germany. And given the lack of borders in cyberspace, the outcome could impact e-commerce vendors in the United States and elsewhere.
New chairman for Board of Editors.
Mover Fails to Prove Jurisdiction in Suit over Internet Site
Filesharing Ruling Against ISP Hailed As Precedent
Peyton Manning or LaDanian Tomlison? Fantasy sports league enthusiasts can argue over who the top pick will be in this year's draft ' without worrying whether they are participating in illegal gambling after a ruling by a federal judge in New Jersey.
For the past five years, the white-collar criminal-defense bar has been working to enhance the obligations of federal prosecutors to disclose exculpatory and impeaching information under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150 (1972), and their progeny. In the past few months, those efforts have begun to bear significant fruit.
A cross-coastal ruling in the little-known predecessor of the epic suit filed in March by Viacom International, Inc. against YouTube, Inc. and its new parent, Google, Inc., elucidates key issues arising under the Digital Milleneum Copyright Act that the a New York federal district judge will likely focus on in the much anticipated and ballyhooed litigation.
Creativity is king, and on the Internet you can be anything imaginable: a man posing as a woman, an undercover agent impersonating a curious boy, or the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company pretending to be an adoring fan of ' himself? So goes the strange tale of John Mackey, the chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market, who used a pseudonymous identity on the Yahoo! message boards for nearly eight years to lambaste competition and promote his supermarket chain's stock, according to documents released by the Federal Trade Commission last month.
In response to a controversial Web site that exposes the identities of criminal defendants who have agreed to cooperate with authorities, the federal judges on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania bench have adopted a plan designed to make it impossible for any visitor to the court's Web site to discern whether a defendant is cooperating. The new protocol, adopted last month, is a direct response to the Who's a Rat Web site (www.whosarat.com), and will result in a modification of the docketing of all sentencing and plea documents in all criminal cases.
Caution ' an employee of your company may go to work for the IRS. Well, not in the traditional way. In the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 ('the Act'), effective Oct. 20, 2006, Congress amended ' 7623 of the Internal Revenue Code, substantially enhancing the IRS's informant or whistleblower program.
The operators of MySpace and Facebook social networking sites assure their millions of subscribers that only designated 'friends' can read registrants' private postings. But do the postings stay private if the registrant becomes the plaintiff in an emotional distress case? Can the defendant get the texts of MySpace and Facebook messages to support a defense that the distress claim is bogus? And is the expectation of privacy by users of such sites higher than it is for customers of common e-mail providers such as Microsoft and Comcast?
