Google faces a $660,000 fine after a French court ruling that the company is abusing its dominant position in mapping by making Google Maps free. According to The Economic Times, the French commercial court "upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses." Bottin Cartographes provides mapping services for a cost, and its website boasts several business clients such as Louis Vuitton, Airbus and several automobile manufacturers. The French court ruli [...]

Related Topics: Google: Legal | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US | Legal: General | Top News

Google has confirmed to several media outlets (initially CNET) that it will join other prominent websites tomorrow, including Wikipedia, in protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills. While Wikipedia has said it will go dark, Google will link to anti-SOPA information on its homepage. Still, that information will be seen by millions who otherwise might not know about the legislation. SOPA and PIPA are supported by a range of corporate entities and media companies that elicited these draconian bills from Congress to address global IP piracy, copyright violati [...]

Related Topics: Legal: Censorship | Legal: Copyright | Legal: General | Legal: Regulation

paidContent reports the lawsuit brought against Google in 2008 over quality of ads showing on parked or error message web pages has been thrown out by the court. On Thursday, January 5th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila turned down the class action suit brought against Google. He said he would not allow the suit because "it was more appropriate for companies who had bought the ads to show any alleged harm on an individual basis," according to paidContent. Here is the 25-page court document with the ruling: Google Parked Domain Class Actionvar docstoc_docid="110404116";var docstoc_t [...]

Related Topics: Google: AdSense | Google: AdWords | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Legal: General

China has historically been the land of copyright and trademark infringement of Western software, goods and other intellectual property -- and Chinese websites such as Baidu and Taobao its willing handmaidens. In February of this year the US trade authority named Baidu one of the world’s “notorious markets” because it was seen facilitating copyright infringement. Here's what the US Trade Representative said in February: Baidu exemplifies the problem of online services engaged in “deep linking,” which provide links to online locations containing the allegedly infringing materials [...]

Related Topics: Baidu | Legal: Copyright | Legal: General | Legal: Regulation

There's a multi-pronged assault on the internet going on now. It comes from over-zealous legislators, the US executive branch and individual judges. There's an effort on multiple fronts to grant over-broad powers to copyright owners to instigate domain seizures, cut-off funds and de-index "rogue" websites if found guilty of "infringement," where that concept is very expansively defined with potentially disastrous consequences for free speech and legitimate internet operations. As you've no doubt read there are two pieces of anti-piracy legislation before the US Congress: SOPA and the P [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Legal: Copyright | Legal: General | Legal: Regulation | Legal: Trademarks | Top News