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News

• Senate committee approves bill targeting patent trolls

  A U.S. Senate committee has voted to approve a bill aimed at curbing abusive lawsuits by so-called patent trolls.

• Intel Security scares ransomware script kiddie out of business

  It was a textbook and criminal - software as a service: Grant access to a software kit that makes it easy to lock up the hard drives on victims' PCs, then skim 20% of the take from those who actually use the kit to extort payments.

• FBI calls for new wiretap law covering social media

  Encrypted social networking tools are hindering the FBI's ability to track terrorists and recruiters who are appealing to young people in the U.S., an FBI official told lawmakers.

• Facebook sued in US court for blocking page in India

  Facebook has been sued in California by a Sikh non-profit organization for blocking their page in India, reflecting the challenges U.S. social networking companies face in their expansion into countries with different laws on free speech and expression.

• WikiLeaks raising $100k bounty for a copy of the Trans-Pacific trade pact

  WikiLeaks wants to raise US$100,000 to offer as a reward for whoever leaks the full text of the controversial free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

• Disconnect files EU antitrust complaint against Google after app ban

  Disconnect.me, maker of an Android privacy app banned from the Play store, has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commssion accusing Google of abusing its dominant market position.

• Ellen Pao will appeal ruling in sex discrimination case

  Former venture capitalist Ellen Pao intends to file an appeal against a March decision in a sex discrimination lawsuit.

• Uber faces crisis again in India after driver accused of trying to kiss passenger

  An Uber driver has been accused of forcibly trying to kiss a woman passenger in Gurgaon, near Delhi, a case that has echoes of the alleged rape of a woman passenger by another driver of the ride-hailing service in the same city last year.

• Supreme Court: Violent Facebook posts not criminal

  A Pennsylvania man who posted violent rap lyrics and other comments on Facebook about his estranged wife, an FBI agent and nearby elementary schools is not guilty of making criminal threats, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided.

• Italy's architectural elite moves to rub out crowdsourcing design site

  Italian architects have called on the government and the Antitrust Authority to close down a crowdsourcing platform in a new round of the battle against disruptive technology.

• Silk Road mastermind Ulbricht sentenced

  The creator and chief operator of the Silk Road has been sentenced to two life sentences in jail for running the online drug marketplace, which federal prosecutors estimated facilitated the sales of more than US$213 million worth of drugs and other unlawful goods between 2011 and 2013.

• Man charged with selling fake discount coupons on Silk Road

  A Louisiana man has been accused of creating counterfeit coupons and selling them on the Silk Road underground websites, potentially defrauding businesses of more than US$1 million, the Justice Department said Thursday.

• Legal trouble in wearables business: Jawbone sues Fitbit

  The intense rivalry in the wearables market has spilled over into court with Jawbone accusing rival Fitbit of "systematically plundering" its employees, trade secrets and intellectual property.

• Judge classifies as class action an email scanning lawsuit against Yahoo

  A lawsuit that alleges Yahoo's email scanning practices are illegal can proceed as a class action complaint, a development that will shine the spotlight on the Yahoo Mail use of messages' content for advertising purposes.

• AdBlock Plus again declared legal by a German court

  For the second time in two months a German court has ruled that Adblock Plus, the browser extension for filtering ads, is legal.