Data collection firms are the new Big Tobacco. West Virginia Senator John D. Rockefeller IV has initiated what the New York Times called "an extensive investigation of nine leading information brokers." While their practices are legal, Rockefeller expressed concern that consumers don't know what information is being collected about them or how it's being used by marketers: "Collecting, storing and selling information about Americans raises all types of questions that require careful scrutiny," said Rockefeller in the press release. “While these practices may offer some benefits to consumers [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy

ZDNet offers a rundown on the current, increasingly tense state of "do not track" (DNT) negotiations. The W3C standards body is trying to develop a DNT standard and ad-industry trade groups are essentially trying to derail it. Simply put, DNT is part of a larger set of consumer privacy protections first proposed by the US FTC in 2010 after an extended period of hearings on online behavioral targeting. Microsoft caused quite a stir in online marketing circles in May when it said that Internet Explorer 10 would be set to DNT by default. This stunned and angered ad-industry professionals. H [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Legal: Privacy

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) announced today that it had settled long-standing litigation with Google over its book scanning project. Google was sued in late 2005 by the AAP (and individual publishers) and the Authors Guild on behalf of writers. The litigation sought more than $100 million in damages for copyright violations. The settlement of the AAP claims doesn't impact the Authors Guild class action suit, which lives on. The specific book-publisher plaintiffs in the action were McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Penguin, Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Simon & Schuster. Specifi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark

The "holy grail" of online measurement has always been tracking to offline sales. Indeed, 95 percent of retail sales happen in stores and clicks are often a poor proxy for those in-store activities (comScore has long made this point regarding online display advertising). Accordingly there are now multiple initiatives going on to try and "close the loop" between online ads and offline sales. Google Wallet and Offers have online-to-offline tracking as one of their long-term objectives. And the advent and growth of smartphones has made online-offline tracking more feasible generally. Facebook [...]

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According to Bloomberg Apple has won another legal victory against rival Samsung, this time in front of the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Samsung had gone to the ITC to block the importing of iPhones and iPads (from China) into the US on patent-infringement grounds. Samsung claimed four patent violations by Apple. Administrative law judge James Gildea found that Apple didn't violate any of the Samsung patents in question. The decision is still preliminary; however it's likely to stand. And it comes on the heels of Apple's recent federal court trial victory against Samsung la [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Legal: Patents

Last night at the equivalent of a midnight movie opening, Apple iPhone 5 pre-orders went on sale. Unlike some of my colleagues here at SEL/ML I was not up ordering one. But lots of people were and it appears the initial run of pre-orders has "sold out." Shipping and availability dates have now been pushed to "two weeks" rather than September 21. It took the previous iPhone (4S) roughly 24 hours to "sell out" initially. Last night Apple was apparently cleaned out of its first tranche of iPhones in roughly an hour, with a heavy load on servers. Would-be iPhone buyers can still potentially get [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Legal: Privacy | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Top News

Yesterday the world's largest domain provider, GoDaddy, experienced massive DNS outages that took down millions of sites worldwide for several hours. While GoDaddy didn't disclose the source of the issue, one member of 'Anonymous" took claim to the outages as his own doing. The Twitter account AnonymousOwn3r has confessed to the alleged attack saying: Hello everyone who wanna me to put 99% of the global Internet in #tangodown?— Anonymous Own3r (@AnonymousOwn3r) September 10, 2012 GoDaddy stated on their website that intermittent outages have occurred and that at no time was [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Domaining | Internet Marketing Industry | Legal

Recently Apple won a major victory "at home" and lost (partly) "on the road" in South Korea, where a court last Friday issued a split decision in its IP litigation with Samsung. Earlier today Samsung won a round: a court in Japan found that the Korean company did not infringe Apple patents that involve "synchronizing music and video data with servers." From the published reports it appears the court was skeptical of Apple's claim to such basic functionality. Following the decision, Samsung shares gained back some of the losses they suffered in the wake of the major defeat the company suffer [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Android | Google: Legal | Legal: Patents

Reuters is reporting that Google's CEO Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been involved in "behind-the-scenes conversations about a range of intellectual property matters." Like Russia and the US during the cold war, Reuters says the "two companies are keeping the lines of communication open at a high level." The article suggests the discussions started before the recent Apple victory over Samsung in the much-watched US patent trial. That litigation was widely thought to be a proxy fight against Google-Android. And many assumed that direct Apple-Google litigation was likely in its wake [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Industry | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: Patents

Will Apple's sweeping, yet still preliminary, patent victory over Samsung have a positive or negative impact on Android? Will it have any impact at all? Will it be the death of competition or a boon for competition? Opinions are all over the place. Over the weekend Google issued a statement (via TheVerge) that the decision will have no impact on "core Android" features or capabilities: The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Pate [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Industry | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: Patents | Top News

As you may recall the judge in the Oracle v. Google patent and copyright trial (William Alsup) asked both sides to reveal authors, bloggers, journalists and others with whom they had financial relationships. Oracle disclosed that it had retained Florian Mueller, who writes the widely read patent blog FOSS Patents. Google said that it had no such relationships. The judge wasn't satisfied with that response and ordered Google to try again and produce a list of paid commentators by August 24. At the end of last week, Google complied by filing a supplemental disclosure listing several nam [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Legal: Patents

This is the question on many minds following the dramatic Apple victory over Samsung in its patent case in US federal court on Friday. Many bloggers, pundits and tech journalists are now mulling over the implications and considering "What comes next?" Decrying the $1 billion-plus verdict Samsung immediately predicted the sky will fall on consumers: "It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation and potentially higher prices," the company statement claimed. Mostly hyperbole, that's unlikely to happen. Indeed the verdict is unlikely to impact Samsung in a big way either. Samsung Unlikel [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Legal: Patents | Top News

Apple has won most of its case against Samsung. The jury found in Apple's favor on an overwhelming majority of claims. Samsung was found to have infringed six of seven Apple patents. Conversely, the jury found against Samsung on almost all claims, including arguments that Apple's patents were invalid. The jury also found that Samsung's infringement was "willful" in several cases and awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages. By the same token Samsung mostly drew a blank on its claims and was awarded $0 damages. The Korean handset maker will certainly appeal. But the outlook for succ [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Legal: Patents | Top News

The tech world is breathlessly waiting for the jury in the US federal district court trial (San Jose, CA) in Apple v. Samsung to deliver its verdict. My prediction: expect some sort of "split decision," in which the jury finds Samsung liable on some but not all of Apple's claims and awards some but not all the damages that Apple is asking for. (Update: see our post-verdict story: Apple Wins: Proves Samsung Infringed Patents As Jury Awards $1B+ In Damages.) Apple might similarly be held liable on a couple of Samsung's counter-claims but those are unlikely to be "material." In such an [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Features & Analysis | Legal: Patents

According to a Google job listing and several stories this morning Google is building an internal "Red Team" to address privacy and security issues. The job description reads: As a Data Privacy Engineer at Google you will help ensure that our products are designed to the highest standards and are operated in a manner that protects the privacy of our users. Specifically, you will work as member of our Privacy Red Team to independently identify, research, and help resolve potential privacy risks across all of our products, services, and business processes in place today. Top candidates will hav [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy

In the Oracle vs. Google litigation, which is winding down, Judge William Alsup ordered the companies to disclose authors, bloggers and journalists with whom they had financial relationships. Oracle previously disclosed that it had retained Florian Mueller, who writes the blog FOSS Patents. Google disclosed that it had paid no one. On August 17, 2012 Google filed a statement that read in part: Neither Google nor its counsel has paid an author, journalist, commentator or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case. And neither Google nor its counsel has been involved in any [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Legal: Patents | Top News

Apple has been waging a proxy war with Google and Android through its global litigation with Samsung. Now the companies will be directly battling it out in a new action filed by Google subsidiary Motorola before the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Motorola filed and partly won a patent case before the ITC, prior to the Google acquisition. But this is the first case filed under Google ownership. The earlier Motorola ITC patent victory was based on a single claim related to wireless 3G standards. Motorola seeks an import ban on iPhones in that case. A final decision from the administ [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Google: Acquisitions | Google: Android | Google: Business Issues | Google: International | Google: Legal | Google: Mobile | Legal: Antitrust | Legal: Patents | Top News

According to Reuters the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has opened a formal antitrust investigation against Google. The article reports that CCI received a complaint that Google had "contravened" an Indian "competition rule." However that rule and the substance of the complaint aren't identified. Google told Reuters that it was cooperating with the CCI and was confident that it hadn't violated any Indian regulations. This is merely the latest legal headache for Google in India. The country has also sought to impose aggressive censorship rules on Google that require Google to block [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Critics | Google: International | Google: Legal | Legal: Antitrust

Beginning this week, Google will be penalizing certain sites that are frequently accused of violating copyright laws. In a blog post Friday morning, Google explained the change this way: Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.... Rights groups such as the Recording Industry Association of Americ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Google: Legal | Google: SEO | Legal: Copyright & Trademark | Search Marketing

It's official. As earlier reported, Google will pay $22.5 million to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it placed tracking cookies and served targeted ads to Safari browser users, after it said it wouldn't. The cookie placement violated the privacy settlement Google reached with the FTC in October of last year. It's the largest penalty ever posed for violation of an existing order by the FTC, according to the Commission, but it represents a drop in the bucket for Google, which had Q2 revenues of more than $12 billion. When questioned about the sufficiency of the penalty, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News