As Mike noted the other day, state after state has been playing “fuck around and find out” with all sorts of bills that fundamentally interfere with the First Amendment and Section 230. So far Florida has already wasted over $700k in taxpayer dollars trying to defend their indefensibly censorial law. And now Texas is setting […]
Ed Sheeran has made it onto Techdirt’s radar many, many times. What started as his reasonable views on how “piracy” actually kickstarted his career has unfortunately turned into several posts on how he’s been targeted himself or sticking up for others in copyright disputes. While Sheeran has settled such disputes out of court before, he […]
People often talk about some kind of “right to deletion” as an approach to fixing online privacy issues. This construct can create problems, as we’ve seen with Europe’s version, but newer proposals don’t seem to consider these lessons. A recent paper by law professor Tiffany Li looks at another angle on the issue: how data […]
We’ve noted for years that the adtech sector is a convoluted, unregulated hellscape, where consumer data is bought and sold with nothing remotely close to competent oversight. The end result is just about what you’d expect: a percussive parade of massive scandals in which location, financial, and other sensitive data is bought, sold, leaked, abused, […]
Rental car company Hertz has put the “hurt” back in, um, “Hertz.” The company recently declared itself bankrupt, something that presumably only referred to its balance sheet. But Hertz has more problems. In 2021 (the same year Hertz “emerged” from bankruptcy), the company was sued by a man who could have been cleared of murder […]
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We’ve talked about the many, many problems of the “SMART Copyright Act” from Senators Thom Tillis and Pat Leahy, and highlighted how a ton of public interest groups, academics, companies, and more have spoken out against the bill. Perhaps realizing that their dream of sneaking through legislation that will mandate upload filters is facing a […]
As Russia has faced a flood of sanctions for its brutal invasion of Ukraine, many telecom companies, like Lumen and Cogent, also stopped feeding and financing key Internet transit routes into the country. Other companies, like domain registrar Namecheap, made the choice to stop doing business with any current residents of Russia. While severing Russia […]
You may have heard that Stone Brewing Co., once a scion and protector of the craft beer industry, won a trademark lawsuit against Molson Coors due to the latter’s rebranding of its “Keystone” brand to more prominently feature the word “STONE” on cans and labels. We didn’t write about the case, though that doesn’t mean […]
A couple months back, Starlink and Elon Musk got several weeks of press adulation for shipping thousands of low orbit satellite terminals to Ukraine. The units, generally capable of 100 Mbps speeds with low latency, were likely a huge help to locals struggling to maintain Internet access while under Russian assault (with the small caveat […]
I’ll admit this recent decision sort of passed me by. My brief read of it suggested nothing more was happening than an affirmation of preexisting law via lots of procedural discussion. There are plenty of hoops people who have been falsely accused of crimes need to jump through before a court will even entertain their […]
George Galloway is a UK politician with, well, something of a reputation. Anyway, recently, he got very, very upset, because Twitter labeled his account as being “Russia state-affiliated media.” That tweet shows the addition by Twitter of the “Russia state-affiliated media” and then says: Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work […]
Some of you may recall that, back in July of 2020, there was one of those interminably long “tech CEO” hearings in front of Congress that appear to serve only to make politicians look foolish, out of touch, and technically illiterate. Among the most laughable moments was when Rep. Greg Steube wasted everyone’s time by […]
The Mac Madness App Bundle has 14 apps to help boost your Mac’s productivity. The apps can help you with file organization, converting audio, controlling smart bulbs and devices, budgeting, and more. It’s on sale for $20. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt […]
We may supposedly be a nation of equals but some people will always be more equal than others. The justice system has multiple tiers. This has always been the case, despite the best efforts of the founding fathers. Rich people view some laws as optional, since they can easily absorb the fines and fees. Laws […]
We’ve already noted how U.S. broadband maps aren’t just terrible, they’ve laid the foundation for terrible policy. When your maps falsely overstate competition and broadband coverage, it makes it easy to downplay or ignore the primary reason U.S. broadband stinks: regional monopolization and the state and federal corruption that protects and enables it. But the […]
This week, That One Guy takes both top spots on the insightful side. In first place, it’s a comment about Senator James Lankford’s stupid letter to Sundar Pichai demanding answers about the removal of CPAC videos: Maybe take the gloves off? At this point everyone should really stop treating people like Lankford as honest individuals […]
We’re nearing the end of our series of posts about the winners of the fourth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1926. So far, we’ve looked at The Wall Across The River, The Obstruction Method, Dreaming The Cave, and Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn! Today, we move on to the winner […]
Firewalls. You know, boring old IT stuff. So why are we talking about them at Techdirt? Well, one thing we regularly talk about is how companies tend to respond to exploits and breaches that are uncovered and, far too often, how horrifically bad they are in those responses. Often times, breaches and exploits end up […]
With Elon Musk now Twitter’s largest shareholder, and joining the company’s board, there have been some (perhaps reasonable) concerns about the influence he would have on the platform — mainly based on his childlike understanding of free speech, in which speech that he likes should obviously be allowed, and speech that he dislikes should obviously […]
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