Facebook just bought the rights to nearly everything you do online. And it cost them only $47.5 million. Facebook’s purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform, is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown to everybody else. It’s a sleek application that acts as…
Court orders sheriff to turn over password
We’ve seen a few cases in the past few years where someone was ordered to turn over a password to a computer system or the encryption key. But now a dispute over the security of a law enforcement database has two county agencies in Maricopa Arizona battling in court and a judge threatening the sheriff’s…
AU vehicles forced to carry a tracking device
An innovative way to unclog our roads or a Big Brother plan to keep watch over motorists? That is the debate sparked by a paper recommending vehicles be forced to carry a tracking device so they could be charged extra for driving on main roads and during peak hour. The proposal to introduce so-called telematic…
NSWLRC recommends privacy cause of action
The NSW Law Reform Commission in a report released [Thursday] ( but dated April) recommends the state adopt a civil action for breach of privacy, but only as part of national law reform, so privacy law would be uniform throughout Australia. The report clarifies when an individual should be able to claim compensation and places…