UBS and the Swiss government, rocked by months of embarrassing details about bank secrecy and guilty pleas for UBS clients, agreed to settle a tax-evasion probe with US authorities. The agreement appears to signal that thousands of US client accounts, hidden in offshore shadows, will be turned over to US revenue agents. The settlement, announced…
Privacy v transparency
If you sign a petition supporting a controversial ballot referendum should your name and address be publicized (posted online) in the interests of transparency? Do you have a right to privacy or relative anonymity when you engage in political advocacy that trumps the public right to know your identity? These difficult, increasingly familiar questions are…
MS+Yahoo merger and privacy
When Internet giants team up, civil-liberties advocates tend to worry that their consolidated power will end up hurting the privacy of average users. An agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo to work together on Web search is no different. But at least one expert thinks it could re-energize a three-year trend that has delivered to consumers…
Tenenbaum hit with $675,000 fine for music piracy
In another big victory for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a federal jury has fined Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum $675,000 for illegally downloading and distributing 30 copyrighted songs. In finding Tenenbaum guilty of willful copyright infringement, the Boston court’s jury fined the 25 year-old doctoral student a sum of $22,500 for each…