Hasta La Gadget!

Twitter has been criticized in the past for not being as vigilant as other social networks as far as removing offensive content, and it looks like a French court is taking matters into their own hands by ordering Twitter to hand over the usernames and information of users who post racist and offensive tweets.

The French court ruling follows a legal complaint from back in October by the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF), where they argued that a number of tweets were being ignored by authorities that had broken French law prohibiting racial hatred. The group has criticized Twitter in the past, and the social network eventually removed some of the tweets, but the UEJF is still taking legal action against Twitter.

The French court today said that Twitter must hand over the usernames of the offending tweeters “within the framework of its French site,” so the ruling doesn’t affect other countries. Twitter says that they do not monitor content, but they review reports that are sent in consisting of content that may be illegal or against its policies.

The court also ordered Twitter to set up an “easily accessible and visible” system that would allow users to alert the site of illegal content specifically for “crimes against humanity and incitement to racial hatred.” Back in October, Twitter removed a neo-Nazi group that would post racist tweets on the site, but only after German police stepped in.

French court orders Twitter to identify racist users is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week Google is releasing an new report on what they’re able to share about official Government requests for data across the second half of the year 2012. This is not the first report Google has done on such data, this type of report spanning back (in one way or another) to their first in 2010. What we’re seeing in this newest report is a rather sizable increase in the number of requests Google is getting from the government, but an ever-so-slight decrease in the percentage of these requests Google ends up filling.

This Transparency Report shows that 68 percent of the requests Google receives from government entities are subpoenas issued under the ECPA. That’s the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and are requests for user-identifying information. Google notes that these are “the easiest to get because they typically don’t involve judges.” Next on the list for most-requested are orders from judges under ECPA, that taking up 22% of the whole – these requests are based on “probable cause” that, “certain information related to a crime is presently in the place to be searched.”

The final 10 percent comes in under what Google suggests are from orders under the ECPA that are simply difficult to categorize. The total amount or requests received by Google for information about users was 21,389, this amount sitting between the months of July and December of 2012. The amount of users those requests regarded was 33,634 – this letting us know that some requests (quite a few, actually), were about several users at once.

The summary you see above shows that the number of requests has gone up since the last reporting period – 12/31/2011 that is, but the percentage of requests where Google produced data in response has gone down – now a lot closer to 75% than the near 90% they were at back at the end of 2010. It’s also important to note that these requests do not include those made to remove data, only to view data – takedown requests are a different situation entirely!

[via Google]

Google Government data requests leap up in late 2012 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple‘s Steve Jobs allegedly threatened Palm with a patent nightmare if the company’s execs didn’t agree to a no-hire talent poaching policy, new court filings suggest, with Google, Intel, and others all cited as implicit in the pact. Jobs’ proposal, detailed by a legal filing quoting former Palm CEO Edward Colligan, was made back in 2007, with the Apple co-founder concerned about employees switching between the big names in tech at the time, and heavily suggesting that Palm should opt in to a no-hire treaty, or face a potential firestorm of patent lawsuits.

“In 2007, I received a call from Steve Jobs, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple. In the months before the call, several employees had moved between the two companies. On the call, Mr. Jobs expressed concern about employees being hired away from Apple by Palm. As a solution, Mr. Jobs proposed an arrangement between Palm and Apple by which neither company would hire the other’s employees, including high tech employees. Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringements of Apple’s many patents” Edward Colligan, ex-CEO, Palm

The threat was detailed as part of a civil lawsuit by five in the technology industry, who claim Apple, Intel, Google, and a number of other firms all secretly collaborated to keep wages down. According to emails sent from Colligan to Jobs, the Palm CEO refused to agree to the pact, describing it as “not only wrong” but “likely illegal”; he also counter-threatened with patent lawsuits of his own.

That didn’t apparently worry Steve Jobs, who in reply made reference to the difference in legal budgets between Apple and Palm – writing “I’m sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies” to counter Colligan’s argument that the only outcome of a patent fight would be richer lawyers – as well as belittling Palm’s patent strength itself. “My advice is to take a look at our patent portfolio before you make a final decision here” Jobs concluded in his email.

Elsewhere in the case, Google’s Eric Schmidt will be questioned by lawyers in February, after supposedly telling the company’s human resources director to keep no-hire agreements off the books so as to avoid legal headaches down the line. Asked about whether Google should share details of the agreements with others in the industry, “Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared ‘verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?’” according to a filing.

Today, Google maintains that it has “always actively and aggressively recruited top talent,” while Apple has not yet commented on the claims. Palm owner HP is also yet to comment.

[via CNET; via Apple Insider; via Reuters]

Apple’s Jobs patent firestorm threat revealed in no-hire lawsuit is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

PayPal is the biggest, most popular, and most widely used online payment processor in the world today. The problem with PayPal for many users is that company has a history of incredibly overreaching fraud filters that ensnare legitimate users who are doing no wrong, leaving them unable to access their money. PayPal put fraud filters in place to be sure criminals weren’t abusing its digital payment system.

If legitimate users were caught by the fraud filters proving that you weren’t a scammer involved significant amounts of time and paperwork. PayPal has recently announced that it will be rolling out a major overhaul to its system over the next several months. The company isn’t offering much in the way of details on what exactly it will be doing.

PayPal senior director of communications Anuj Nayar promises, “these are aggressive changes.” Nayar wouldn’t go into specifics reports CNN, but did note that transparency will be a major focus. He promises that PayPal will be clearer about how people can get their frozen funds and explaining why the freeze actions were taken.

Anyone who dealt with PayPal in a frozen fund situation knows that typically the only information you’re given is that fraud was suspected. PayPal freezes funds and accounts for 21 days if they think there’s a fraud risk. PayPal can also extend that for up to 180 days. Often one of the requests by PayPal to be able to unlock the frozen funds would include several months worth of sales records. However not all legitimate sellers keep sales records.

[via CNN]

PayPal promises to overhaul overbearing fraud filters in the coming months is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Emails that were sent between executives at Apple, Google, and Intel show that there was a real financial benefit to refrain from poaching employees from each others’ companies, according to Judge Lucy Koh, who recently led the trial between Apple and Samsung. The CEOs from each company; Tim Cook, Eric Schmidt, and Paul Otellini, will be required to appear before the judge and give a deposition.

During a hearing earlier today, US District Judge Lucy Koh ordered the three CEOs to four hours of questioning each, pertaining to the pacts that the three companies entered in to not recruit one another’s employees. Currently, the three tech companies are trying to avoid a class action lawsuit by employees, and Koh’s job is to decide whether the lawsuit is worthy enough to proceed as such as lawsuit.

If the case is escalated to class action status, the damages could be high for the three companies — possibly around hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the attorneys of the plaintiffs, and it’s said that the employees have some killer evidence that the three companies wouldn’t have a chance of fighting.

Originally, the lawsuit was settled in 2010, and it accused the three companies — along with Intuit, Pixar, and Genentech — of creating non-poaching pacts with one another. However, a civil lawsuit was filed by several employees right afterward, who claim that their salaries were wrongly lowered because of the agreements, and Judge Koh is currently in the process of deciding whether or not to escalate the lawsuit. Stay tuned, as we’ll no doubt see a lot of action come out of this.

[via AllThingsD]

Image via Flickr

Apple, Google, Intel CEOs ordered to discuss no-poaching deal with judge is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.