Main Page - Techrights. Mozilla Firefox. June 28, 2010 03:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time BRUSSELS & NEW YORK & ZEIST, Netherlands --(BUSINESS WIRE)--A draconian proposal to retain all Internet search traffic, known as "Written Declaration 29," was adopted by the European Parliament last week. Framed as a measure to crack down on paedophiles, the controversial Declaration calls on the EU to require that search engines store all search traffic for up to two years for possible analysis by authorities. Search engine Ixquick (www.ixquick.com), widely regarded as the world's most private search engine, has built a strong privacy reputation by storing no search data on its users. The company believes it has been singled out by the data retention proposal, and it has vowed to strongly oppose the measure becoming law. "Since Google, Yahoo, and Bing already retain users' search data, this proposal is clearly aimed at Ixquick and our English-language subsidiary Startpage (www.startpage.com)," said Robert Beens, CEO of Ixquick.
Mr. ACLU of Northern California : Technology. ACLUNC dotRights | Appeals Court Rules Against Secret Police GPS Tracking | Threat Level. A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the police can’t covertly track a suspect’s car using a GPS device for an extended period of time without getting a warrant. The ruling in the D.C. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of a suspected cocaine dealer, saying that the use of a secret GPS tracking device on the man’s vehicle for one month violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a friend of the court brief supporting the challenge. The government argued that a 1983 Supreme Court case U.S. v. Knotts, which allowed police to put a tracking beacon in a container to follow a driver to a secluded cabin, made it clear that GPS tracking was allowed without a judge’s approval.
But the court found otherwise in its ruling (.pdf), drawing a distinction between short term monitoring that’s not much different from a police tail and ongoing, secret and ubiquitious tracking. See Also: GPL scores historic court compliance victory. High performance access to file storage Open sourcers have scored a major victory in a US court over violation of the GPL. The Software Freedom Conservancy has secured $90,000 in damages for willful infringement of GPLv2, plus nearly $50,000 in costs from Westinghouse Digital Electronics over its illegal distribution of the Unix utility BusyBox. The company has also been ordered to stop shipping product loaded with BusyBox. It's the first time a US court has awarded an injunction ordering a GPL violator to permanently stop distribution of out-of-compliance GPL'd software. It might not be the last. Westinghouse was pulled up for copying, modifying, and distributing BusyBox in firmware for its HDTV products and in software intended for use in HDTV without complying with the GPL license.
As part of the settlement, SFC has also secured the right to compel Westinghouse to hand over all unsold products loaded with BusyBox for donation to charity. Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending Freedom in the Digital World. Public Knowledge | Fighting for your digital rights in Washington. Right to know.