Ruth Taylor never expected that her hobby would get her sued for patent infringement. Her photography website, Bytephoto.com, barely made enough advertising revenue to cover hosting costs. The site hosts user-submitted photos and runs weekly competitions, decided by user vote, for the best. Ruth’s main business is her own photography....

UPDATE (August 10, 2017): The court hearing the case ordered [.pdf] the unsealing of EFF's letter brief, which you can read here [.pdf]. Because the case is entirely under seal, EFF had to file its brief under seal and could not immediately publish the letter.
In...

Can the government stop you from finding out it’s been looking through your private Facebook content as part of a “secret” investigation that’s not actually secret? That’s the question raised by an alarming case pending in the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals. Facebook has described the investigation as "known to...

There’s no need to make America great again.
America has been great since it became the first nation on Earth where a set of ideas became the ruling principles of governance.
America was great when it was established that authority did not come from divine right, or...

Lawmakers are getting serious about renewing the U.S. government’s Internet spying powers, so we need to get serious about stopping their bad proposals.
First out of the gate is a bill from Sen. Tom Cotton, an ardent defender of government surveillance. His bill would not just reauthorize, but make...

This month’s stupid patent, like many stupid patents before it, simply claims the idea of using a computer for basic calculations. U.S. Patent No. 6,817,863 (the ’863 patent) is titled “Computer program, method, and system for monitoring nutrition content of consumables and for facilitating menu planning.” It claims the...

What do they do when they can’t win the vote? Try to Stop a Vote.
Right now, politicians in Sacramento are holding up a bill that would restore your broadband privacy rights and directly reject Congress and the Trump Administration’s decision to side with Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.
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Back in 2014, we considered many possible ways of protecting net neutrality that would not rely on the FCC, including antitrust law. Unfortunately, U.S. antitrust law is not up to the challenge.
Antitrust law is an economic doctrine that gives little if any weight to freedom of expression and...

This week, the political heads of the intelligence services of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (the "Five Eyes" alliance) met in Ottawa. The Australian delegation entered the meeting saying publicly that they intended to "thwart the encryption of terrorist messaging." The final communiqué...