PhonepayPlus fines company £20,000 for promoting premium rates services to...
PhonepayPlus, the UK regulator for premium rate (or phone-paid) services, has fined a company £20,000 after two sisters ran up a mobile phone bill of more than £2,500 for texting a premium rate...
View ArticleOfcom targets ‘slamming’ offenders and to make switching easier
Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, has proposed a set of measures to allow broadband and landline customers to switch providers more easily and to better protect them from being switched to another...
View ArticleGoogle told to postpone privacy policy update by Article 29 Working Party
Google recently announced its plans to introduce one privacy policy to cover all of its uses of personal data across all the services it offers worldwide; currently Google has separate privacy policies...
View ArticleEuropean Banking Authority asks for ban on “.bank” and “.fin” domain names
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has urged the Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names (ICANN) to withdraw the availability of “.bank” and “.fin” general top level domain names (gTLDs). ICANN...
View ArticleInformation Commissioner’s Office gives mixed reaction to proposed new EU...
The Information Commissioner’s Office – the UK’s data protection regulator – has given a mixed reaction to the proposed new European Union’s data protection laws. Overall, the ICO welcomes a lot of the...
View ArticleMore criticism of Google’s privacy changes
On 1 March 2012, Google consolidated all of its privacy policies into one, so that personal data collected through one Google service can be shared with other Google services such as YouTube, Gmail and...
View ArticleThe Pirate Bay going the same way as Newzbin – Dramatico Entertainment Ltd...
Following the recent ruling in favour the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) that Internet service providers (ISPs) must block access to Newzbin2, a website that offers users a search engine and...
View ArticleDigital Economy Act lives on, again – R (British Telecommunications plc and...
BT and TalkTalk, the Internet service providers (ISPs), have seen their appeal in the judicial review of the Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA) rejected by the Court of Appeal. They had argued that the DEA...
View ArticleCNIL questions sent to Google about new privacy policy
Following on-going criticism about Google’s implementation of a new privacy policy, CNIL, the French data protection regulator, has asked Google to answer 69 questions about the move. The new privacy...
View ArticleUK teenage website operator faces extradition to US for making money out of...
A UK man who was a teenager when he operated the tvshack.net website is facing extradition to the US after the Home Secretary approved the US’s request. Richard O’Dwyer’s site made £150,000 from...
View ArticleGovernment proposes intermediary role for ISPs in new Defamation Bill
The Government has proposed that intermediaries such as Internet service providers act as “liaison points” between authors of allegedly defamatory comments and the people about whom the allegations are...
View ArticleHigh Court does not consider Google a publisher in relation to blogs on its...
In April 2011, a blog named “London Muslim” published an article on Blogger.com, a blogging platform operated by Google Inc. The article was about Mr Tamiz, a former Conservative Party local election...
View ArticleFacebook counter-sues in Yahoo! patent fight
Facebook has hit back against Yahoo! in the latest round of a patent spat. Facebook has accused Yahoo! of infringing some of Facebook’s patents relating to online recommendations and photo-tagging....
View ArticleApp withdrawn following privacy complaints
A Russian app-developer has withdrawn an app from the market following privacy complaints. The “Girls Around Me” app allowed users to find women nearby who had “checked in” to a social network. The app...
View ArticleInternet filtering law to restrict access to pornographic material proposed
A new Bill proposed to Parliament, if approved, would oblige Internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent customers from accessing pornographic images unless those customers have specifically notified...
View ArticleRegulators’ body advises that consent needed for use of image recognition...
The Article 29 Working Party has advised that social networking sites such as Facebook should get specific consent from users before suggesting to other users that photos those subsequent users are...
View ArticleNew cookie law to be enforced from 26th May
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 will be enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office from 26 May 2012. The Regulations require website...
View ArticleMarathon data publication to be investigated by Information Commissioner’s...
The London Marathon organisers are being investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office after the names, email addresses and home addresses of all 38,000 participants in this year’s competition...
View ArticleWeb site operator may be liable for site to which it links – McGrath v...
McGrath sued Professor Richard Dawkins and various others for allegedly defamatory material posted on a web site. This was an application by the defendants to strike out the claim. The most interesting...
View ArticleTripAdvisor latest to complain about Google’s alleged abuse of dominant...
TripAdvisor has become the latest business to complain that Google has allegedly abused its dominant position in the way it displays search results. TripAdvisor alleges that the search engine giant...
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