Monthly Archives: April 2012
Yahoo’s Five Counter-Counterclaims Against Facebook. #1: Throw Out Retaliatory Patents
This week in the Oracle/Google trial: Week 2
One of the biggest trials in the recent history of the tech industry is in full swing, as Oracle (s orcl) and Google (s goog) slug it out in downtown San Francisco over whether Google pilfered Oracle’s Java technology to develop Android.
Here’s our recap of what happened during the first week, and highlights of the second week follow below:
Stick and move: Early in the week, Android chief Andy Rubin and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt borrowed the same strategies used by their colleagues during the first week of trial, uttering things like “I do not recall” fairly often. But they both agreed that Google believed its arrangement with Sun was legal, an opinion that would be bolstered later in the week. (Wired)
Patent denied: Oracle wrapped up its presentation of the copyright phase of the trial on Tuesday, but was dealt a blow…
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A step-by-step guide to making CISPA less repulsive
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is a lot like your old college buddy who used to get way too drunk and then puke in your lap: it claims to mean well, but its actions suggest otherwise. With its passage by the House of Representatives on Thursday, though, CISPA is one step closer to becoming law. Your old college buddy wants to work at your company, and he wants you to put in a good word.
It’s tough to figure out whether that’s good news or bad news. Maybe he’s changed and it will be a lot of fun to work together. Maybe CISPA could actually be used primarily for the legitimate cause of fighting cyber attacks, and critics are just reading too much into its myriad vagaries.
Just to make sure, though, here’s a step-by-step guide Congress can follow in order to quell any concerns about how…
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Even if carriers don’t like net neutrality, their investors should
AT&T’s shareholders today didn’t require the telecommunications giant to implement network neutrality on its wireline and wireless networks. The proposal lost with a mere 5.9 percent of the vote. But based on an interview I had two weeks ago with Jonas Kron, Vice President of Trillium Asset Management, the goal of the shareholder proposal was to get 3 percent of the vote so they could bring it back next year. So in that case, Trillium and other shareholders in favor of the proposal (including Mike D of the Beastie Boys) won.
In fact Kron told me that anything over 5 percent would be a substantial victory because it means that the company would have to pay attention to the issue.
Regardless of change coming from this particular vote, in our talk Kron offered me something far more interesting, an economic justification for broadband companies to embrace network…
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National Post editorial board: The ethics of ‘sometimes’ foods
Should we be as worried about CISPA as we were about SOPA?
Just a few months ago, internet companies and the technology community came together to protest two anti-piracy bills (SOPA and PIPA) because they would have breached free-speech protections and other social safeguards in the name of stopping copyright infringement. Now, a new bill called CISPA that just passed in the House of Representatives is getting a lot of negative attention, with some saying it is just as evil as SOPA, and others — including Facebook and Microsoft — supporting the legislation and arguing that it is much more nuanced than either of its predecessors. So which is it?
Formally known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the bill is supposed to be aimed at “cyber-security” threats, and it gives federal authorities and law enforcement fairly broad powers to find and share data about web users, provided they believe the information is necessary to go after cyber-criminals…
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