Simon Singh in court to appeal against ruling over Guardian article
,----[ Quote ]
| The science writer Simon Singh is in court
| today to appeal against a preliminary libel
| ruling over a Guardian article in which he
| criticised the British Chiropractic
| Association (BCA).
`----
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/23/simon-singh-appeal
MagicJack dials wrong number in legal attack on Boing Boing
,----[ Quote ]
| Gadget maker MagicJack recently lost a
| defamation lawsuit that it filed against
| Boing Boing. The judge dismissed its case
| and ordered it to pay us more than $50,000
| in legal costs.
|
| The Florida-based VOIP company promotes a
| USB dongle that allows subscribers to make
| free or inexpensive phone calls over the
| internet. I posted in April 2008 about its
| terms of serviceâwhich include the right to
| analyze customers' callsâand various iffy
| characteristics of its website.
|
| We had no idea that it would file a
| baseless lawsuit to try and shut me up,
| that CEO Dan Borislow would offer to buy
| our silence after disparaging his own
| lawyers, or that MagicJack would ultimately
| face legal consequences for trying to
| intimidate critics.
`----
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/23/magicjack-dials-wron.html
Red Bull, Verizon Tweets Run Afoul of Olympics Rules
,----[ Quote ]
| Neither Red Bull nor Verizon Communications
| is an Olympic sponsor, but both have posted
| items about the Vancouver Games on Twitter
| and Facebook.
`----
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/22/red-bull-verizon-tweets-run-afoul-of-olympics-rules/
Serious threat to the web in Italy
,----[ Quote ]
| In late 2006, students at a school in
| Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a
| video to Google Video that showed them
| bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video
| was totally reprehensible and we took it
| down within hours of being notified by the
| Italian police. We also worked with the
| local police to help identify the person
| responsible for uploading it and she was
| subsequently sentenced to 10 months
| community service by a court in Turin, as
| were several other classmates who were also
| involved. In these rare but unpleasant
| cases, that's where our involvement would
| normally end.
|
| But in this instance, a public prosecutor
| in Milan decided to indict four Google
| employees âDavid Drummond, Arvind Desikan,
| Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (who left
| the company in 2008). The charges brought
| against them were criminal defamation and a
| failure to comply with the Italian privacy
| code. To be clear, none of the four
| Googlers charged had anything to do with
| this video. They did not appear in it, film
| it, upload it or review it. None of them
| know the people involved or were even aware
| of the video's existence until after it was
| removed.
`----
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/serious-threat-to-web-in-italy.html
Recent:
Tyranny of the Olympics
,----[ Quote ]
| In the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics,
| the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
| defended its choice of China by arguing
| that the Games could contribute to the
| democratisation of an authoritarian regime,
| making a closed society more open and
| bringing the force of international law to
| bear on the hosts. As we now know, the
| record proved less impressive than the
| claims. In fact, there is a stronger case
| to be made for the obverseâthat the
| Olympics can contribute to the coarsening
| of democracy. The 2010 Winter Olympic
| Games, which start on 12th February in
| Vancouver, is a case in point.
`----
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/sporting-life-4/
|
|
