Chip Rosenthal has an interesting fight on his hands. He has registered and has been using the domain name unicom.com since 1990, but now a California company — also doing business as Unicom — wants the domain name and attempting to commandeer it by alleging that Chip is engaging in cybersquatting
Record companies’ efforts to protect CDs against digital copying are beginning to draw scrutiny from lawmakers concerned that the plans might violate the law
Toysrus.com, the online arm of toy retailer Toys R Us, has agreed to pay a US$50,000 fine to settle allegations that it shared customers’ personal information with another firm
Fed up with spending more time killing than saving lives, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Hong Kong aims to abolish the practice of mercy killing of unwanted pets by the summer
Microsoft is being accused of infringing on six patents for a process that improves the quality of images seen on a computer screen
Vanessa Leggett, an aspiring author jailed for more than five months for refusing to hand over her research to a grand jury, was released today from a federal detention centre when the grand jury’s term expired
Civil libertarians in Washington say they’re worried that proposed new anti-terrorism laws could lump together peaceful protesters with others whose actions are criminal, despite assurances from state officials that they aren’t trying to stifle free debate
An Irish Protestant minister who does not believe in xmas or that Jesus was the son of god has been suspended from his post for three months to reflect on his statements
New counter-terrorism measures pushed by a government run out of control
will see more Australian agencies able to intercept e-mails for routine investigations, according to civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers of Australia. Australia’s NSW Council for Civil Liberties has described the move as reminiscent of the Soviet Secret Police, the KGB
A lorry driver fired for wearing women’s clothes away from work is firing back with a web site attacking his former employer, Winn-Dixie Stores. The US supermarket chain is seeking to shut it down. Peter Oiler, the transvestite trucker who worked for the company for 21 years, is the figurehead of ShameOnWinnDixie.com, a web site supported and maintained by American Civil Liberties Union activists
Companies and organisations will no longer be able to sell or pass on clients’ personal details to other organisations without direct consent under tough new privacy laws set to come into force this week
Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling outlined at a United Nations meeting
Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, held in the United States since July on charges of violating the terms of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, has reached a deal with prosecutors under which he will be free to leave the country in exchange for testimony against his employer
Workers will be able to act as Big Brother by monitoring the corporate activities of their bosses on a new Internet site, Bosswatch — which will probably never be as scary as They Rule!
The poison on an arrow that paralyses a wild beast in the jungle and a pill that can relax our tense muscles have something in common — they both come from the curare plant discovered by Brazilian Indians. Now, the indigenous people of Brazil want this type of link between primitive hunting trick and modern pharmaceutical technology to be recognised as a property right that could bring much-needed cash to needy tribes, some of them on the brink of extinction
David Soul won a libel case today against a journalist who called a play Soul was in the worst he had ever seen — without having seen it
A court in Sweden has ruled that a man who donated sperm for artificial insemination, enabling a lesbian couple to have three children, must pay child support after the two women separated
The birth records of more than 24 million Californians have been sold by the state and posted on the Internet, offering easy access to critical information needed to create fake identities
Outraged at the exclusion of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Greens call democracy impossible without representation of women. US Green Party officers travel to Europe for meetings with Green members of European parliaments and other Green officials and the European Federation of Green Parties
Earth-orbiting listening posts are on active duty in the United States-led war on terrorism. Signal-seeking spacecraft not only play a critical role in eavesdropping on nations from on high, but also within the borders of the US itself
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