McMansion Hell Responds to Zillow’s Unfounded Legal Claims
Update 5:00pm: Zillow has released a statement saying the company has "decided against moving forward with legal action." EFF is pleased that Zillow has withdrawn its threat and won't be seeking to take down any of the posts on McMansion Hell. We hope that other companies seeking to shut...
Copyright Office Proposes Modest Fixes to DMCA 1201, Leaves Fundamental Flaws Untouched
The U.S. Copyright Office just released a long-awaited report about Section 1201, the law that bans circumventing digital restrictions on copyrighted works. Despite years of evidence that the social costs of the law far outweigh any benefits, the Copyright Office is mostly happy with the law as...
Let's Encrypt Has Issued 100 Million Certificates
This evening, the Let's Encrypt certificate authority issued its hundred millionth digital certificate. This is a remarkable milestone in just a year and a half of public operation; Let's Encrypt is likely now either the largest or second-largest public CA by volume of certificates issued.Let's Encrypt was created by...
Top Canadian Court Permits Worldwide Internet Censorship
A country has the right to prevent the world’s Internet users from accessing information, Canada’s highest court ruled on Wednesday.
In a decision that has troubling implications for free expression online, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a company’s effort to force Google to de-list entire domains and...
More than 40 ISPs Across the Country Tell Chairman Pai to Not Repeal Network Neutrality and Maintain Title II Enforcement
Many Small ISPs Support Real Net Neutrality
One excuse FCC Chairman Ajit Pai regularly offers to explain his effort to gut net neutrality protections is the claim that open Internet rules have harmed ISPs, especially small ones. During a speech earlier this year, he stressed that 22 small...
Liveblogging Today’s Senate Judiciary Hearing on Section 702
Another group of lawmakers is starting the debate over whether and how to reauthorize an online surveillance power set to sunset at the end of the year.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this morning on Section 702, as enacted by the FISA Amendments Act. That is...
EFF to Supreme Court: No Real-Time Cell Phone Tracking Without a Warrant
Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review a troubling ruling that allows police to obtain—without a warrant—location data from people’s cell phones to track them in real time.EFF, joined by the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Constitution Project,...
How the STRONGER Patents Act Would Send Innovation Overseas
Senator Chris Coons introduced a bill this week called the STRONGER Patents Act [PDF]. The bill contains many terrible ideas. It would gut inter partes review (a valuable tool for challenging bad patents). It would overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay v. Mercexchange (thereby allowing patent...
Small Business Fights for its Life, Wins with Alice
Michael Skelps was celebrating on New Year’s Eve with family and friends when he got a strange email from a lawyer. It said that Michael’s company, Capstone Photography, had just been sued for patent infringement. Michael went from celebrating to worrying about whether his small company would survive.
Capstone...
The Patent Troll and the Scavenger Hunt
Ken Cooper runs a small business out of his home. Unfortunately Ken’s business was not so small that it avoided the notice of a patent troll.
Ken has been writing code since 1973. His life in programming has ranged from small personal projects to founding a software company that...
