Google, Yahoo Sued Over ‘Sponsored’ Ads

Law360, New York (May 06, 2013, 10:13 PM ET) — Search giants Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. were sued in California federal court by a car replacement part business accusing them of allowing so-called sponsored advertisements for unrelated firms and competitors to appear next to results for its name that allegedly misdirect potential customers to …

Syria’s Internet goes offline

Syria’s Internet has gone down, according to wide reports. Umbrella Security Labs, a division of Internet security firm OpenDNS, reported that a Syria had a significant drop in traffic at around 6:45 p.m. UTC. The organization posted a graph showing that both top-level domain servers for Syria are “unreachable.” According to Google’s transparency report, all the …

Correlation between country governance regimes and the reputation of their Internet (IP) address allocations

We recently analyzed the reputation of a country’s Internet (IPv4) addresses by examining the number of blacklisted IPv4 addresses that geolocate to a given country. We compared this indicator with two qualitative measures of each country’s governance. We hypothesized that countries with more transparent, democratic govermental institutions would harbor a smaller fraction of misbehaving (blacklisted) …

Ex-White House Official Joins Group Fighting “Excessive” Online Privacy Laws

As the Obama administration and tech company lobbyists chip away at the European Union’s attempts to protect online privacy, a new pro-industry coalition has popped up to join the fray. Not quite two weeks ago, the Coalition for Privacy and Free Trade announced its existence. The group’s senior academic adviser is Daniel Weitzner, who, less than …

Egypt catches divers cutting Internet cable amid disruptions

(Reuters) – Egypt’s coastguard caught three divers cutting through an undersea Internet cable on Wednesday, the army said, the first suggestion criminals might be involved in days of severed connections and disruptions online. A patrol stopped a fishing boat near the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and arrested three divers, the army spokesman said on …

Aaron Swartz Prosecutor Carmen Ortiz Admonished In 2004 For Aggressive Tactic

 WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, under fire over her office’s aggressive prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz, was admonished by a federal appeals court in 2004 for advocating a harsher jail term for a defendant than she had promised him in a plea-bargain agreement, according to a court document. Ortiz, a potential candidate for …