Consumers may now have to share the burden of policing the internet after TalkTalk and BT lost their recent bid to stop legislation designed to combat online piracy, The Independent reports. TalkTalk, BT and other UK internet service providers (ISPs) will now have to warn customers engaged in illegal file-sharing that they are infringing copyright, provide lists of alleged infringements, and shell out 25% of the costs of enforcing the new system. Many expect that the costs will ultimately be passed onto customers.
Although similar measures have seen a large decrease in illegal file-sharing in other countries, a legal expert has warned that music and movie sites could see a rise in hacktivist denial-of-service attacks. On the flip side, the creative industries say the legislation is necessary to help stop activity which causes them an estimated £400m a year.
See the full story on Independent.co.uk
Champion clay pigeon shooter and leading member of the Great Britain shooting team Nicola Heron has recently settled in a High Court libel case she filed against the sport’s governing body. Heron claimed that Terry Bobbett, the director of the sport’s governing body, wrote two defamatory emails about Heron which said she was both a bully and not to be trusted to communicate with the association’s staff members. 
If you’ve seen the commercials for the Siri function on Apple’s iPhone 4S which answers questions about current Paris weather and locates family members with just a few words, you might have thought it was the future of technology. It might very well be, but for some users, the feature isn’t quite up to snuff. 
Already having to pay out for last year’s huge PlayStation Network breach, Sony is in the spotlight again after the entirety of Michael Jackson’s back catalogue was stolen from the company by hackers. The cyber attack saw the illegal download of around 50,000 music files belonging to the singer, including some unreleased material. The files were estimated at around £160m making this the biggest attack on a music company ever. 
Since 2004, the California Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) has required online services that collect certain types of data from Californian users to post a privacy policy which descibes how the information will be used. If they collect this data, Apps fall under this category, but a recent report has found that only about 5% have the appropriate privacy policies in place. 
What exactly is Twitter? Well, that depends. In a recent Australian court battle concerning the social networking giant, there is some question as to whether Twitter is akin to a publisher of information, like a newspaper, or whether it’s more like a phone company which simply allows the transmission of messages. It’s no doubt a combination of the two, but with the legal landscape around social networking sites struggling to keep up with their enigmatic nature, it means there’s no clear answer when it comes to lawsuits. 