Electronic Frontier Foundation

Twitter’s Legal Blow in Occupy Case Will Make a Lot of Companies Nervous

Mike Isaac in Social on September 14, 2012 at 12:59 pm PT

The outcome of Twitter’s legal battle has implications for companies that compile private user information.

Exploring iStuff at CES With Mobilized (Video)

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 10, 2011 at 5:14 pm PT

Apple may not have been in Vegas, but its legions of followers were. The maker of the Mac and iPhone prefers having the stage to itself, but an entire section of CES was devoted to iStuff. Mobilized toured the show floor and has a video report.

How Much Copyright Infringement Can You Cram Into a Single Tweet?

Liz Gannes in Social on December 30, 2010 at 11:09 am PT

If you run a user-generated content site, takedown notices from copyright holders are a fact of life. That even goes for Twitter, where messages are limited to 140 characters of text. The site received on the order of 300 takedown notices in the last month.

Jennifer Granick, Lawyer to Hackers, Joins Zwillinger Genetski

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on December 2, 2010 at 10:58 am PT

San Francisco lawyer Jennifer Granick, until recently civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is joining the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Zwillinger Genetski. Granick gained a reputation as a lawyer willing to defend accused computer hackers.

Google Gets a Copyright Pro

Peter Kafka in Media on June 23, 2010 at 10:57 am PT

High-profile technology attorney Fred von Lohmann is reportedly leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation and heading to Google, where he’ll be the search giant’s new senior copyright counsel. In the intellectual property world, that’s a big deal.

Facebook’s New Privacy Settings an Improvement Over the Old–Which Isn’t Saying Much

John Paczkowski in Social on May 26, 2010 at 4:20 pm PT

Announcing Facebook’s newest set of privacy controls this morning, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We are really going to try to not have another backlash.” If backlash is the metric for evaluating the company’s approach to member privacy, it seems to have done okay, at least at this early juncture. Within hours of Facebook’s announcement of new privacy controls, four of its most outspoken critics weighed in on them. And all had positive things to say.

Your Web Browser Just Told Everyone You Visited a Porn Site

Peter Kafka in Media on May 17, 2010 at 11:47 am PT

Your identity as a dog may still be safe on the Internet. Everything else about you, though, is looking increasingly like an open book. Latest data point: No matter what you do to stay anonymous, there’s a good chance your Web browser is betraying your identity, by leaving a unique fingerprint every time you visit a site.

Voices

EFF Creates a "Hall of Shame" for Disputed Takedowns

Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on October 30, 2009 at 8:42 am PT

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest effort to call out what it considers violations of copyright and trademark law comes in the form of a mock-awards page, complete with “honorees,” called the Takedown Hall of Shame. The tech-advocacy group highlights a handful of cases it calls “the most egregious examples of takedown abuse,” usually involving businesses or organizations that cry foul–or issue takedown notices–even when their copyrighted materials are used in accordance with fair-use laws.

Voices

FTC to Hold Privacy Roundtables

Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on September 16, 2009 at 1:13 pm PT

The Federal Trade Commission is planning three public discussions, starting in December, devoted to technology and consumer privacy. According to the FTC, the roundtables will address topics such as social networking, cloud computing, online advertising and mobile marketing, the goal being “to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.”