Phorm provides technology to monitor surfing patterns so that advertising can be more closely targeted to the surfer’s needs. Its recent deals with prominent UK ISPs have caused a good deal of concern about the privacy and data protection implications of using Phorm software. It seems that practically everybody wants to be Phorm monitor….
A press release from Bird & Bird reveals that the firm has been involved in successfully defending Yahoo! UK Ltd and its sister company, Overture Services Ltd (trading under the name ‘Yahoo! Search Marketing’), in what it describes as a groundbreaking trade mark infringement case concerning keywords and sponsored search results. The case was brought…
The Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification) Bill 2007-08 was introduced under the Ten Minute Rule Bill procedure by Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South. Although granted a Second Reading on 16 May and ordered to be printed, it has little chance of becoming law. However, this is said to be…
Brief but important note, via the Asociated Press: the EU Art 29 Working Party group working on privacy, DP and Internet search engines (notably Google) has issued an early press release. ‘Germany’s data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated…
Read More… from Blog Taster: IP Addresses are Personal Data – Official
On 13 December 2007 Ofcom published what it described as one of the most important decisions it has ever had to make: how it will award the valuable radio spectrum that will be made available by the switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting, otherwise known as the ‘digital dividend’. Over the next few years…
Pablo Cortés reviews the proposal for a Regulation establishing a European Small Claims Procedure, which is due to be implemented by January 2009…
From Roger Bickerstaff, Partner at Bird & Bird and SCL Trustee: www.twobirds.com 1. I predict an increasing focus on open source software in the business applications environment for major corporate users – not for cost or ideological reasons but more for vendor independence reasons. Open source gives major corporate users an opportunity to develop and…
In R v Harrison [2007] EWCA Crim 2976, Mr Justice Cranston, giving the lead judgment of the Court of Appeal, has dealt with what he described as a novel argument. The case concerned a conviction under the Protection of Children Act 1978, s 1 and the Criminal Justice Act 1988, s 160 – what might…
I don’t like the taste of straight vodka, however expensive. This can be a social obstacle while working in Russia, I’ve found. But apart from one’s particular taste in alcohol, I’ve found that there’s much to recommend outsourcing one’s software development there. The country is loaded with brainy, entrepreneurially-minded engineers who yearn for bigger and…
Read More… from Russian Software Development: A Personal View
From Roger Bickerstaff, Partner at Bird & Bird and SCL Trustee: www.twobirds.com 1. I predict an increasing focus on open source software in the business applications environment for major corporate users – not for cost or ideological reasons – but more for vendor independence reasons. Open source gives major corporate users an opportunity to develop…