With more people constantly connected to the Internet, technology companies are becoming massive repositories of sensitive and personal information. Our communications with family and friends now sit stored on servers belonging to Google or Facebook. Cell phone companies keep track of our location by recording every time we connect to...

The government has decided to return two domain names it improperly seized and held in its possession for well over a year, without so much as an explanation. This time, it was Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org, Puerto 80’s popular sports streaming sites, which the government seized back in February 2011.
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Last Friday, the District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling that clarifies that the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”) applies to online video. The court thereby confirmed what EFF has been arguing for quite some time: that this law protects...

A day after we filed an amicus brief arguing law enforcement needs a search warrant in order to obtain cell phone tracking data from wireless carriers, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reached the opposite conclusion yesterday (PDF), killing privacy protections for a large swath of the...

Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the warrantless wiretapping case, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama, on the technical legal basis known as sovereign immunity.
Essentially, on a complex statutory analysis, the court ruled that the only claim left in the case, for money...

Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Flava Works v. myVidster, a case that raises questions about embedded videos and copyright infringement. Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the opinion, has a reputation for producing memorable and influential ruling, and this one is no exception....

Frivolous, abusive legal attempts to intimidate and silence online critics are hardly rare. From school superintendents to developers to mayors to businesses, bogus lawsuits are often tempting tools for those looking to expose and embarrass critics or simply intimidate them into silence. While we've seen many...

Should the police be allowed to warrantlessly collect and index the DNA of people merely arrested for a crime, while they are still cloaked in the presumption of innocence and have not been found guilty of anything? Over and over again, we've warned courts throughout the...

Co-authored by EFF Fellow Jon Eisenberg, who also authored EFF's amicus letter.
When a judge forces you to "consent" to a disclosure of your private electronic communications, have you really consented? No.
EFF today asked the California Supreme Court to review a decision of a lower court...

A new international treaty will add another layer of legal restrictions on audiovisual performances by giving the performers—actors, musicians, dancers and others—a new copyright-like right that will exist alongside copyright.
On June 24, 2012, the World Intellectual Property Organization Diplomatic Conference adopted the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual...