Topics: Internet Law - 27 results

Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Paypal, investment accounts, frequent flier miles, LexisNexis access — consumers today take advantage of a wealth of online services across a broad swath of industries. But what happens to all those accounts, filled with photos, memories, insights and money, after a person dies? The issue is doubly important for services like Paypal or online bank accounts that contain actual cash assets, but families can gain real or emotional value from the non-monied contents of Facebook or email …

Ever been tempted to use technology to spy on someone? Cell phone tracking software makes it easier than ever to do so – but it can also easily lead to criminal liability. Keeping tabs on your kids via their cell phones may be understandable and not likely to get you thrown in jail or sued. But tracking and listening in on people who have not consented is clearly illegal.   Suspicious Spying Take for instance Spybubble, one of many brands …

  When Venus the two-tone cat became an Internet sensation, her owner realized she should get a copyright lawyer. As reported by field producer Amber Statler-Matthews of Lawyers.com, the owner wanted to use the cat’s image to sell products and support animal rescue groups. She called intellectual property lawyer Nancy Flint of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Flint explains that once you create a picture, video or poem you hold the copyright. But you cannot enforce your copyright unless you register it …

If you thought your Gmail or Yahoo! mail accounts were safe from prying eyes, think again. The illusion of privacy in cyberspace took yet another hit on Oct. 10 when the South Carolina Supreme Court declared, in effect, that reading someone else’s Yahoo! emails doesn’t violate federal law. The Stored Communications Act is an archaic 1986 federal law that courts are still trying to apply to technologies that were never even imagined when the law was drafted. Judges are forced …

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 1 declined to review the felony criminal conviction of the son of a Democratic Tennessee state legislator who hacked into the email account of 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and posted her emails and login information on the Internet. David Kernell served a year and a day in federal prison in Kentucky and is currently on probation. Kernell’s case was “honored” on Oct. 3 as the biggest controversy in the history of …