USPTO and Accessibility Compliance

“The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the first federal agency to fully comply with the provisions of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, requiring that all federal agencies’ electronic information is accessible to people with disabilities and is comparable to the information and access provided …

Subjects: Web Site Accessibility and Usability

Multiple Lawsuits on DVD Copying Software

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, Northern District of California, in a hearing of 321 Studios v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (C-02-1955.e), is reported to be substantially persuaded in favor of copyright holders as she considers whether it is fair use for consumers to continue to purchase and use a $50 (after rebate) DVD duplication software application …

Subjects: Copyright, Digital Rights

Communications Policy and the Internet

Promoting Innovation to Prevent the Internet from Becoming a Wasteland. “Markle Foundation President Zoë Baird joins two dozen prominent attorneys, public officials, journalists, industry leaders, public interest advocates, and academics in examining the state of communications policy and media output more than four decades after Minow’s celebrated speech.”

Subjects: Internet

FTC Campaign Against Internet Fraud Escalates

The FTC issued a press release today announcing the filing of 45 criminal and civil actions (state and federal) in conjunction with the SEC, the Postal Service and other state law enforcement agencies, in an aggressive and wide ranging campaign against “Internet scammers and deceptive spammers.” Links are provided to the full-text copies of the …

Subjects: Cybercrime, ID Theft

Commentary on Clicking Through Cyberspace

From Thinkers to Clickers: The World Wide Web and the Transformation of the Essence of Being Human, by M.O. Thirunarayanan, associate professor, Florida International University in Miami). “The growing popularity of the World Wide Web is slowly but surely transforming the lives of human beings who are beginning to make the sad transition from being …

Subjects: Internet

New Legal Blog Search Aggregator

Blawg Search, in beta, allowers users to view and search postings (listed as “top stories” and “new stories”) from 68 (as of this afternoon) legal blogs, including beSpacific. The site also indicates when the page was refreshed. With cookies activated, users may list preferences for content that includes number of results, sorting results by relevance …

Subjects: Blogs, Legal Research, Search Engines

Banking Web Site Scam

PCWorld reports on a scam used against Bank of America customers which lured them via an unauthorized e-mail message to a fake site used to capture their personal data. The article also references a site that collects links to fake banks and examples of bank scam e-mails from around the world, called Scam o Rama.

Subjects: Cybercrime, ID Theft, Privacy

The Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act

From FAS Congressional Watch, Members Say Pentagon “Transformation” Involves Unprecedented Exemptions from Oversight, letter from Reps. Waxman, Skelton, Obey and Spratt, May 13. “As ranking members of committees charged with overseeing the Department of Defense (DOD), we are writing to raise serious objections to the Department’s legislative “transformation” proposal, also known as the Defense Transformation …

Subjects: Freedom of Information