Senators took another stab at moving spyware legislation forward, reissuing a call to expand the FTC’s authority to enforce existing online privacy laws and allow the agency to coordinate with foreign law enforcement to prosecute deceptive Web activities. FTC Chmn. Deborah Majoras told the subcommittee overseeing her agency that the biggest problem is finding those responsible for the scourge and punishing them, particularly through civil action. “They obviously can hide behind the Internet, they can skip town or skip the country,” she said, indicating global cooperation is key.
A defendant in an RIAA case is countersuing the industry for accessing her computer without permission and causing health problems. Tanya Andersen, a 42-year-old single mother in Tualatin, Ore., was sued by RIAA in June on copyright infringement allegations in U.S. Dist. Court, Portland, Ore., after several months of settlement efforts.
The International Trade Administration (ITA) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have issued notices, each initiating automatic five-year sunset reviews on the above-listed antidumping (AD) duty orders.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) appears to have recently posted to its Web site a memorandum which provides guidance on the classification of festive articles, in light of CBP's June 2005 proposal to limit the court decision in the case of Park B. Smith, Ltd. v. U.S (Park) to the entries litigated.
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has initiated an antidumping (AD) duty changed circumstances review of the AD duty order on certain cased pencils from China at the request of M.A. Notch Corporation (Notch), which is requesting that a large novelty pencil be excluded from the AD duty order.
COLOGNE, Germany -- Boundaries in legal and judicial systems still help spammers, said representatives of law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies from the U.S. and Europe at the German Anti-Spam Summit Thurs. Despite several international antispam networks -- like the London Action Plan and the European Contact Network of Spam Authorities (CNSA) -- there are still considerable barriers to the exchange of information, they said. “What’s the meaning of having cut Dutch-language spam by 85% since we started prosecution, if we cannot catch spammers abroad?” said Wout de Natris of the Dutch regulatory body OPTA, which set up a spam task force last year.
The National Assn. of Realtors (NAR) was slapped with a Justice Dept. antitrust suit alleging its policies bar online brokers from offering better services and lower costs to consumers. The complaint was filed in U.S. Dist. Court, Chicago, after 2 years of negotiations over a digital divide between old-school real estate agents and colleagues who embrace the Internet. Simultaneously, NAR unveiled a revised policy that “continues to discriminate against innovative brokers and does not resolve the department’s concerns,” the govt. said. “The purchase of a home is one of the most significant financial decisions a family can make, and NAR’s policy stifles competition to advantage some of its members at the expense of home buyers and sellers across the country,” said Assistant Attorney Gen. Bruce McDonald: “Consumers benefit when real estate brokers are free to compete vigorously by offering innovative services.” In most markets, brokers share listings via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) -- a joint venture among competing brokers, Justice said. Using a local MLS lets a broker show clients all properties for sale in a community. Lately, to make buying and selling property more efficient, some brokers have begun giving customers password-protected access to MLS databases. But, Justice said in its suit, NAR throttles competition by requiring NAR-affiliated MLS listers to let brokers withhold listings from other brokers’ sites via an “opt out.” This enables more traditionally minded brokers to block competitors’ customers from seeing all MLS listings, officials said. Justice wants to ensure NAR policy doesn’t let old-school agents deprive consumers of benefits that would flow from technology-aided competition. NAR said its policy is “fair, pro-consumer, pro-competitive and accommodates innovation.” After months of negotiations with Justice, the group said it, can’t understand why Justice still filed suit. Changes incorporated into the revised policy respond directly to concerns the govt. raised, the group said. NAR called its revised policy a win-win for buyers and sellers. The court will determine a pretrial schedule once NAR files a response to the govt. suit, Justice said. The NetChoice Coalition, which includes trade groups, e- commerce firms and consumers, applauded DoJ’s suit against NAR. “This is a case of the big brokers using their state licensing leverage to restrict the competition, innovation, and discounting made possible by the Internet and new technologies,” Exec. Dir. Steve DelBianco said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a trade update regarding Hurricane Katrina, highlights of which are provided below:
The International Trade Administration (ITA) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have issued notices, each initiating automatic five-year sunset reviews on the above-listed antidumping (AD) duty orders.
In what could be an early landmark case for blogging liability, a search engine optimization (SEO) blogger is being sued by an SEO firm on charges of disclosing the firm’s trade secrets, making defamatory claims in his own posts and publishing defamatory comments by others. In June, Traffic Power sent a cease & desist request to Aaron Wall, who runs SEOBook.com, named after his e-book on SEO tactics sold through the site. Last week a suit filed in Clark County, Nev. Dist. Court followed, demanding Wall remove all mentions of Traffic Power from the site and seeking damages exceeding $10,000.