Outside the scope of domains, but definitely in the larger world of intellectual property, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said today, that they had reached agreement on key elements of a bill to revise U.S. patent law. Current law allows for patent infringement to be punished by payment of the entire market value of the product, but some high-tech companies say that is unfair, as just one … [Read more...]

Yesterday we reported how the Attorney General of New Jersey wants to regulate social networking sites. Today we find, Illinois considering new legislation,  the "Social Networking Website Access Restriction Act", that would require social networking sites to obtain parental consent before allowing minors to create accounts. The bill also requires that sites give parents full access to their … [Read more...]

A lawsuit filed this last week, points out you need to be careful when you post comments in social networking sites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com and MySpace.com Simply put, when you make a post or comment on these sites, they are written words and therefore subject to a claim of libel,  and depending on the harshness of the comments, many  other claims. In a case filed last week, Former … [Read more...]

According to a blog post om sex.ie, the registry for .ie (ireland) country code, refuses to allow the registration of the domains porn.ie or pornography.ie on the basis of morality. The author of the post claims he has been trying to register the domains for about four years. but each time the registry for the .ie extension, the Irish Domain Registry (IEDR) refuses his application because "the … [Read more...]

Today, Richard Branson announced on his blog that he was holding a contest, where entrepreneurs can submit a 2 minute video pitching their idea, and every month he will select 5 winners who will have their video presented on Virgin Atlantic flights where it can be seen not by Richard, but by all those who fly on the airlines, including many successful businessmen. Cool idea, only problem is … [Read more...]

Google announced today on it's company blog that is was launching a $100 Million venture capital fund, "to support innovation and encourage promising new technology companies." The fund will be run by managing partners William Maris, a former entrepreneur, and Rich Miner, a former executive in its mobile unit. The partners said there would be very few companies within the fund's core sectors … [Read more...]

New Jersey lawmakers are considering new legislation, entitled the "Social Networking Site Safety Act",  that would require Facebook, MySpace and others social networking sites to police every post to determine if it is "offensive". Under the proposed law social networking sites would face potential consumer fraud lawsuits if they failed to take down an offensive post. The bill's definition … [Read more...]