Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft‘s attempts to have a billion dollar anti-competition fine crossed off the books have been rejected, with the European Union only conceding to a smaller discount on the penalty. Microsoft had submitted an appeal to the General Court of the European Union over an €899m ($1.12bn) 2008 “penalty for noncompliance” with a ruling that it must make third-party compatibility with its server systems more broadly available.

Instead of dismissing the fine, the EU court knocked €39m ($49m) off it, after deciding that the original ruling had been insufficiently clear in laying out to Microsoft the urgency of the requirement to change its behaviors. However, the overriding judgement – that Microsoft had purposefully made integrating third-party code so expensive to do that it rendered it much the same as noncompliance in the first place – was deemed safe.

The court “essentially upholds the Commission’s decision and rejects all the arguments put forward by Microsoft in support of annulment” it said in a statement.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft itself isn’t as keen on the decision. “Although the General Court slightly reduced the fine,” it said in a statement, “we are disappointed with the Court’s ruling.” The company faced three separate fining incidents, dating back to 2004.

[via San Jose Mercury News]

Microsoft loses EU anti-competition $1.1bn fine appeal is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you have been following the tech world for a while, you may remember years back when courts in the European Union hit Microsoft with a gigantic fine of €899m. That fine was levied against Microsoft after the software giant failed to pay an original fine of $1.2 billion for overcharging customers to make servers interoperable.

Microsoft has always maintained that it wasn’t given enough time to mount an appeal and had never been informed of what was considered a reasonable rate to charge its competitors for interoperability. That claim didn’t sit well with EU courts. Microsoft appealed the massive fine, and this week the software giant lost that appeal.

Microsoft still has to pay a gigantic fine of €860M. The court did reduce the fine by €39 million based on a letter from the European Commission sent to Microsoft in 2005 that accepted Microsoft could restrict distribution of open-source products until the delivery of the court’s judgment in September 2007. Microsoft says it’s not happy with the judgment, but it will not appeal again.

“The General Court essentially upholds the commission’s decision imposing a periodic penalty payment on Microsoft for failing to allow its competitors access to interoperability information on reasonable terms,” the court said in a canned statement.

[via The Register]

European courts uphold Microsoft fine is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Hacking has become so widespread over the last few years that people are beginning to get more than a little jaded. Hackers are constantly attacking various businesses, government services, and financial institutions around the world. US law enforcement agencies have announced that they have charged 24 suspected hackers in a sting operation spanning four continents.

The sting operation targeted hackers trading in stolen credit card and bank information. The US FBI has spent two years on the investigation and posed as hackers on forums watching as other hackers swapped methods for breaching servers and stealing data. The investigators also listened in as the hackers talked about creating fake credit cards that would work for purchases in stores and online. Law enforcement agencies say that the probe prevented about $205 million in possible losses on over 411,000 compromised credit cards and debit cards.

Eleven arrests were made in the United States, and 13 others were made in other countries, including Britain and Japan. Searches were also made in Australia. There is no indication of which credit card companies or banks the hackers compromised during the investigation. The investigation saw the FBI create a “carding forum” the participants didn’t know was operated by law enforcement. The forum was called “Carder Profit” and was used as a place for hackers to exchange stolen credit card information. The investigation resulted in the arrest of 24 different men between 18 and 25 years old. Some of them could face up to 40 years or more in prison if convicted. They’re facing charges such as conspiracy to commit wire fraud and access device fraud charges.

[via Reuters]

US law enforcement charge 24 people for hacking is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple has won a preliminary sales injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the US, the biggest blow so far in the two company’s ongoing patent war. The ban on US sales of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 – not, though, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 we reviewed last month – granted by US District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday evening was justified by the similarity of the tablet’s appearance to iPad design patents Apple holds. Apple must post a $2.6m bond to enact the injunction.

“Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly by flooding the market with infringing products,” the judge’s order read, AllThingsD reports. “While Samsung will certainly suffer lost sales from the issuance of an injunction, the hardship to Apple of having to directly compete with Samsung’s infringing products outweighs Samsung’s harm in light of the previous findings by the Court.”

Unsurprisingly, Apple is happy with the decision. “It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we’ve said many times before, we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Samsung, meanwhile, is likely to appeal the injunction, and accuses Apple of being too narrow in its patent interpretation. “Apple sought a preliminary injunction of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, based on a single design patent that addressed just one aspect of the product’s overall design,” the company said in a statement. “Should Apple continue to make legal claims based on such a generic design patent, design innovation and progress in the industry could be restricted.”

Apple filed for the ban back in May, with negotiations between it and Samsung breaking down shortly after. The company has not said when it might enact the ban.

Apple wins US Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The National Association for the Deaf’s lawsuit against Netflix is heading to court. A federal judge has just denied the video streaming company’s motion to have the case dismissed. At issue is whether or not Netflix needs to abide by the Americans With Disabilities Act and provide closed captioning throughout its library of movies and TV shows.

Netflix’s argument was that it is not a public accommodation like a physical video rental store. Because its service is offered to people inside their homes, it feels like it is under no obligation to provide special services to people with disabilities. However, US District Court Judge Michael Ponsor said in his ruling, “This argument is unpersuasive.” The National Association for the Deaf says that what it’s asking for isn’t much.

The association’s chief executive said, “There’s no excuse for this, in our view, because movies already have captioning files. What excuse does Netflix have for not including it in their Internet streaming videos?” And it certainly isn’t a question of technological capabilities, because there are captions available on some of its titles. Netflix has not commented publicly on the case.

[via LA Times]

Closed captioning lawsuit against Netflix to go forward is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.