A blog relating to Internet legal issues by Professor John Swinson, University of Queensland
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Why are Google Maps So Much Better
Google Sued in New Zealand, and wins
See NZ Court Decision (A v. Google New Zealand Ltd) and comment.
Publicity Monster
See Publicity Monster Investigated.
Google's Top Lawyer: Some Apple Inventions are Commercially Essential, Should Be Made Into Standards
Google General Counsel Kent Walker disagrees, and this month wrote a letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee arguing that commercial inventions that impact "consumer welfare" should be just as important as technical patents.
See Here
New gTLDs by Australian Companies
- AFL
- AMP
- ANZ
- AUSPOST
- BEST
- BOND
- BOOK
- CANCERRESEARCH
- CBA
- CEO
- COMMBANK
- NETBANK
- COURSES
- FILM
- GLOBALX
- IINET
- KRED
- LATROBE
- COMPARE
- SELECT
- ISELECT
- CPA
- MELBOURNE
- MONASH
- NAB
- UBANK
- PHYSIO
- RMIT
- SALON
- SBS
- TAB
- TENNIS
- SEEK
- SELECT
- SEVEN
- STUDY
- SYDNEY
- WEBJET
- WOODSIDE
- YELLOWPAGES
There were two applications from New Zealand, KIWI and RIP.
Google Posts Data as to copyright takedown notices
See Google Data and SMH article
Privacy Inquiries re Google
Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little Cooperation All sorts of private Internet communications were casually scooped up as Google Street View cars photographed the world’s streets. http://nyti.ms/Kx4aE2
Oracle v Google - verdict
http://cnet.co/J9Ycz5
Was the jury qualified? See Washington Post.
More details here.
How to Muddy Your Tracks on the Internet
...
“Companies like Google are creating these enormous databases using your personal information,” said Paul Hill, senior consultant with SystemExperts, a network security company in Sudbury, Mass. “They may have the best of intentions now, but who knows what they will look like 20 years from now, and by then it will be too late to take it all back.”
See NY Times
German Court case fails to settle YouTube copyright controversy
The verdict strengthens the position of Germany's royalty collections body GEMA which has been battling Google-owned YouTube over copyright issues for years.
The last agreement expired in 2009 and the conflicting parties have since been at loggerheads over the proper method to collect copyright fees. However, Friday's verdict is not the landmark ruling which some had hoped would once and for all settle the contentious issue of copyright protection in the Internet.
Limited culpability
The Hamburg court decided that Internet platforms like YouTube are not directly liable for the breach of copyrights committed by users uploading protected material. However, the platform is now obliged to "deactivate immediately any illegal videos" once alerted by those holding the copyright.
Notably, the ruling does not oblige YouTube to check all content that has already been uploaded to its site – a key GEMA demand.
The judges said YouTube was not the main culprit because it does not upload or steal any content. Rather it facilitated the copyright breaches by offering and operating the online platform.
In order to prevent further copyright breaches, the judges called on YouTube to employ specific software capable of detecting songs in videos.
Class 7: Liability of intermediatories and ISPs
This is a very topical class, with a number of relevant decisions from the past two weeks. Thus, there is a lot of reading for this class.
The main reading for the class is the iiNet case:
- MegaUpLoad and Kim Dotcom indictment; and users trying to get access to their data and MegaRetrevial
- Viacom v. Google decided by the Second Circuit on 5 April 2012; and see note here (and older notes here: YouTube and note and Summary Judgment)
- Bunt case
- Cooper case
- ACCC v Allergy Pathways and ACCC Press Release
- Stratton Oakmont and follow-up
- Communications Decency Act section 230
- TripAdvisor: Terms; Restaurant Gives Up; tips; and Findlaw note; and another lawsuit
- DMCA - Unintended Consequences White Paper
Google Liable for Misleading Advertisements
The 3-0 judgment against Google included the following text:
"An ordinary and reasonable user would conclude from these circumstances that it was Google who was displaying the sponsored link in collocation with the sponsor's URL in response to the user's search. Even if all these circumstances would not be apparent to ordinary and reasonable users, so that Google could not be "seen" by them to be more than a mere conduit, these circumstances show that Google is, in fact, much more than a mere conduit. ... Critical to this conclusion is the fact that the sponsored link is displayed on the screen in response to a user's query which is made by the entry of selected key words. Thus, the user asks a question of Google and obtains Google's response. Several features of the overall process indicate that Google engages in misleading conduct. ...
Google supplies its advertising customers with the ability to select keywords which are expected to be used by persons making enquiries through Google's search engine. The ability of advertisers to select "broad match" keywords enables them to trigger sponsored links through Google's search engine based on known associations which are determined by Google's proprietary algorithm. Although the keywords are selected by the advertiser, perhaps with input from Google, what is critical to the process is the triggering of the link by Google using its algorithms. That is a further reason to conclude that it is Google's conduct as a principal, not merely as a conduit, which is involved in each of the four instances that form the subject matter of this appeal."
For Creators of Games, a Faint Line on Cloning
See Full Article
Google Play
Today we introduced Google Play, a new digital content destination available on mobile devices and on the web. With Google Play, users can buy and experience books, music, movies and Android apps, available across their devices. Google Play gives our partners and the ecosystem an integrated entertainment hub for Android and Google users. As part of this launch, Google eBooks and Android Market will become part of Google Play, and users will now get their ebooks from Google Play.
In addition, customers who go to the web ebookstore will be redirected to the Google Play store. While this doesn't change the way consumers read Google eBooks, it does provide a more compelling mobile purchase experience.
We are excited about the opportunities ahead to "play" together.
Google Play team
Helpful Resources:
Google Play overview - http://play.google.com/about
Google Play brand assets - http://www.android.com/branding.html
FAQs - http://support.google.com/books/partner/bin/answer.py?answer=2494942
Week 2: The Law of Google
Have a high level look at the following parts of the Google empire:
- Ten Things We Know To Be True
- Google Products
- Google Books
- AdWords and AdWords Help
- AdSense
- New Privacy Policy (and review material linked from this page)
Reading:
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Trading Post Australia [2011] FCA 1086 (22 September 2011), currently on appeal
- Financial Times: Google Privacy Policy Gets Public Airing (2 March 2012)
- Click Fraud
- Advanced Click Fraud
Additional Reading if you have time:
- Official Google Blog
- Google's Inside Search
- 40 Changes for February 2012
- Google Watch Blog
- Prior Blog Posts Concerning Google
- Google's Guide to having your website indexed properly in Google search results
Google Search Results Misleading
See Pacific Boating Group Pty Ltd v Freedom Boating Club Pty Ltd [2012] FCA 72 (8 February 2012)
Google Goggles
Several people who have seen the glasses, but who are not allowed to speak publicly about them, said that the location information was a major feature of the glasses. Through the built-in camera on the glasses, Google will be able to stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them. For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends. ...
“In addition to privacy, it’s also going to change real-world advertising, where companies can virtually place ads over other people’s ads,” he said. “I’m really interested in seeing how the government can successfully regulate augmented reality in this sense. They are not really going to know what people are seeing behind those glasses.”
See NY Times
New Google Privacy Policy
Faceless Net Giants
"Australians use them more than any other websites and to many they have become essential services, oiling the wheels of life and commerce at the click of a mouse.
Google Changes Search Algorithm to Make Results More Timely
The new algorithm is a recognition that Google, whose dominance depends on providing the most useful results, is being increasingly challenged by services like
It is also a reflection of how people use the Web as a real-time news feed — that if, for example, you search for a baseball score, you probably want to find the score of a game being played at the moment, not last week, which is what Google often gave you."
Full story in NY Times.
How should damages be assessed for privacy and cybersecurity breaches
Listen to this podcast where I discuss how damages should be assessed in privacy and cybersecurity lawsuits. The Lawyers Weekly Show host J...
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The United Nations intellectual property agency (WIPO) is the latest front in the US-China trade war. http://www.theage.com.au/world/sad-am...
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The issue of content regulation in China was mentioned in this blog last year . In the last few weeks, this issue has once again pushed into...
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Finally, what is called direct registration of domain names is coming to Australia. See https://www.auda.org.au/statement/australias-interne...