Bloomberg broke the story and said that Google is the second company to fight back against NSLs. Challenges are rare — of 300,000 government-issued NSLs since 2000, only a handful of companies have resisted. The letters enables intelligence organizations to send secret requests to Web and telecom companies to gather data that is “relevant” to an investigation. They do not need a judge approval and come with a gag order, so people who receive the requests cannot talk about them.

Google filed a petition to “set aside the legal process,” citing a provision that enables judges to modify or deny NSLs that are “unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful.” It is unknown why Google received the request, but in a blog post earlier this month, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security Richard Salgado said the company has been “trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we get — particularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11,” and would include data about NSLs in their Transparency Report.

While civil rights groups aren’t always thrilled about how Internet companies use their customers’ private data, they are responding positively to Google’s stance against unwarranted government probes. The Electronic Frontier Foundations attorney Matt Zimmerman told Bloomberg “the people who are in the best position to challenge the practice are people like Google. So far no one has really stood up for their users.”

The FBI’s ability to issue NSLs was expanded under the Patriot Act. In 2007, the Justice Department found “serious misuse” of the FBI’s surveillance powers through its unlawful obtainment of information. Illston, Google, and others are taking steps to challenge the NSLs on the basis that they are “unreasonable, oppressive, and otherwise unlawful.”

Photo Credit: Cliff 1066/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Daddy’s definitely not happy. And he’s not sure he trusts what junior’s telling him.

Yesterday U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal ordered Apple to not only turn over more evidence in an ongoing iPhone privacy case but also to explain — in detail — exactly how it obtained the data. Apple had previously been ordered to turn over documents that relate to how its iOS mobile operating system tracked users’ location data, even when location services were ostensibly turned off.

Apple failed to turn over all the required evidence, according to the judge. And, according to Bloomberg, Judge Grewal says he no longer trusts what Apple is telling him.

“Luckily for the plaintiffs, Apple has provided more than enough evidence itself to suggest to the court that it has not fully complied with the court’s order,” Grewal wrote. “In light of Apple’s performance in this case, the court cannot rely on its representations that this time it really has or will produce all responsive documents.”

The trend of judges getting unusually peeved with Apple seems to be growing. In the UK, Sir Robin Jacob told Apple to apologize to Samsung publicly for claiming that Samsung had copied its designs and forced the company to redo the apology several times until it was acceptable. (The same judge is now working for Samsung, believe it or not.) Unfortunately, the company seems to be getting a reputation in legal circles for not complying fully, or minimally complying, very slowly, to judicial orders.

Speaking of slow, the iPhone tracking issue and subsequent legal battle has been ongoing for two years now. Apple blamed software bugs for the large databases of cell tower and Wi-Fi hotspot locations that some users found accumulating on their computers. When the issue received public attention, Apple limited the records to a trailing seven days of data.

Slow is not going to cut it in this current case, however. Grewal has requested the data today.

photo credit: &y via photopin cc

A Dutch court has ruled that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets do not infringe Apple’s design patents on its iPad tablet. This new judgement follows Apple’s UK spanking over the same issue, and the Dutch judge referenced the UK ruling in his judgement.

In a statement to Reuters, Samsung twisted the knife:

We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples.

While Germany has proved kinder to Apple’s design lawsuits, European courts in general have not been sympathetic to the U.S. corporations’ claims. And with U.S. courts having denied Apple’s calls for Samsung important bans, you might think that now would be a good time to seek patent peace.

Especially since Samsung unilaterally dropped all patent lawsuits against Apple in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and, yes, the Netherlands.

Apple has of course already buried the hatchet with HTC over its Android phones, and Samsung has won the right to see many of the details of that agreement. Now if only Apple and Samsung could come up with something similar, we could report more actual technology stories and fewer riveting (not!) courtroom dramas.

photo credit: mac morrison via photopin cc

Judge Gary W.B. Chang ruled Friday that online travel companies owe the state of Hawaii approximately $110 million in unpaid taxes and $40 million of interest on sales of Hawaii hotel rooms.

Between 2000 and 2011, sites like Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Priceline generated more than $2.7 billion in Hawaii hotel rooms. These companies collected enough money to cover the General Excise Tax (GET), but they never paid it to the state. Chang is now ordering that they fulfill their financial obligations, as well as seeking penalties for the companies’ failure to file tax returns and pay their due.

The ruling stated that the GET is a privilege tax imposed on businesses for the privilege of doing business in the State of Hawaii and should include the sale of hotel rooms. Governor Neil Abercrombie supports the ruling by the Tax Appeal Court, and he said in a statement that the asked the attorney general and the tax director to “aggressively and relentless go after these taxes that were due and owing.”

The additional revenue could amount to a further $20 million a year for Hawaii. This will have a significant, long-term economic impact on the state, which could use the money to bolster its budget in areas like infrastructure and schools.

However, the companies on the other end of this dispute will not accept this mandate lying down. In response to the judge’s decision, the Travel Technology Association, whose members include Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity issued the following statement:

“This ruling will significantly increase costs for all tour operators, travel agents, OTCs, and other travel intermediaries that facilitate travel to Hawaii.  Because demand for travel to Hawaii is acutely sensitive to price changes, this change in tax treatment will harm consumers and significantly reduce demand for Hawaii vacations.  Travel Tech members intend to challenge this ruling as well as work cooperatively with tourism leaders and lawmakers to minimize the ruling’s damage to the Hawaii tourism economy.”

The hearing is set for March 8, and a trial date set for April 15 to resolve any outstanding issues. Read the report from Hawaii’s attorney general. 

A couple of months after Oracle’s billion-dollar fishing expedition went bust when Google’s Android was found not to infringe on Java patents, the judge has asked both parties which bloggers they paid.

In judge William Alsup’s own words:

The Court is concerned that the parties and/or counsel herein may have retained or paid print or internet authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have and/or may publish comments on the issues in this case.

… each side and its counsel shall file a statement herein [clearly] identifying all authors, journalists, commentators or bloggers who have reported or commented on any issues in this case and who have received money (other than normal subscription fees) from the party or its counsel during the pendency of this action.

The case is basically over, and anything that surfaces as a result of this disclosure is extremely unlikely to change anything, but the results should be interesting.

The request may be related to Florian Mueller of FOSSpatents, who reported on the legal proceedings while also consulting for Oracle (and disclosing that fact).

According to Oracle, however, Google might have more to say. As an Oracle spokesman told The Verge,

Oracle has always disclosed all of its financial relationships in this matter, and it is time for Google to do the same. We read this order to also include indirect payments to entities who, in turn, made comments on behalf of Google.

Indirect payments? Curiouser and curiouser. We’re digging for more details.

[ update August 8 ]

Oracle PR returned my message with a short one-line comment:

Sorry. Can’t comment further.

So: speculation. It’s probably not about bloggers getting paid via AdSense … the word “entities” seems to indicate analysis firms, or larger corporate groups. Still digging.

Image credit: Ultrashock/ShutterStock