October 22, 2011 - In handing down its decision yesterday in Wayne Crookes and West Coast Title Search Ltd. v. Jon Newton, the Supreme Court of Canada struck an important blow for certainty as far as Canadian internet publishers and users are concerned. The case, appealed from the British Columbia Court of Appeal, concerned a website operated by Newton. An article he posted on it contained hyperlinks to other websites, which in turn contained information about Crookes. Crookes sued Newton alleging that two of the hyperlinks connected to defamatory material, and that by using the hyperlinks, Newton was himself “publishing” the defamatory material. Read more...
As the latest episode of the continuing Wikileaks saga explodes across the Web and our newspapers, one wonders what else might be in store.
The whistle-blowing site has published 219 documents from its trove of 251,287 secret diplomatic cables so far. The new “Secret U.S. Embassy Cables” section of the WikiLeaks site is an expanding archive of the documents that can be searched in several ways, including by subject, country or topic.
The White House Press Secretary and assorted other US Administration mouthpieces bluster and threaten with the same words they used over the leaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that anyone takes any notice. Who among us is going to take any notice of Robert Gibbs when we can pore over the juicy tidbits about who said what to whom. Which countries were bribed to take prisoners from Guantamo? And with how much? One guy, a million bucks. Two, meet the President. Red-faces there will be in plenty. And in governments other than just that of the US. Although it’s the US that will get the most attention. There’s nothing like a good dose of Schadenfreude.
Titillating as it is to see the US Administration red-faced, the question must be asked – what next? Exposing the diplomatic and other shenanigans of the US and its erstwhile Allies is one thing. But wouldn’t it be interesting to see the correspondence of, say, the Chinese Politburo? Or the private emails of Imadinnerjacket? Or the personal files of North Korea’s increasingly weird Kims? Who wouldn’t want to see the secret files of Hezbollah? Does the Pope use email? Or, hey, surely there’s a potential leaker in Israel’s IDF. Wouldn’t it be interesting to read the memos that went back and forth when everything hit the fan over the Mavi Mamara.
Of course, none of this means that governments are going to behave better. It’s going to be a boon for the cyber-security and security vetting industries though.
Since the weekend is soon to be upon us, we thought that you might enjoy some light entertainment! We feel justified in posting these because they are, technically speaking, cyber-related…this week we’ve adopted the “social media” cartoon theme. We would like to extend our special thanks to the authors who created these posts and put smiles on our faces! Enjoy!
We have all heard a story about some unfortunate personal injury lawyer who forgot to remind his client that ‘what happens in Vegas stays on YouTube’. Personal injury and family lawyers are becoming highly attuned to the crucial role that social media websites can play in civil litigation.
Yet when it comes to cases involving property damage, it appears that lawyers and other subrogation professionals have overlooked the potential utility of these sites in advancing their case. This post highlights some important ways in which YouTube can play a role in a subrogated claim for property damage.
1. A Search Engine for Video Evidence
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. As of March, 2010, twenty-four hours of video was being uploaded to YouTube every minute. To put this in perspective, consider that more video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all three major news networks have created in 60 years. [1] What does this mean? If you have a property damage claim, stop for a minute and think about whether it was an event that was likely to warrant a second glance. Were there flames? An explosion? Did a massive wall of water sweep over the property, obliterating all before it? In that case, it is likely that someone not only had taken that second glance, but pulled out his or her cell phone, recorded a video clip, and posted it on YouTube. Check it out. Simply enter the loss date, location and a one-word description into YouTube’s search engine and you may discover valuable evidence that can provide crucial insights into the loss.
A “trend” is generally defined as a general course, drift or prevailing tendency. In the battle between the potential privacy rights of a social networking site user and the desire of a lawsuit party to have full access to the private portions of that user’s profile, the trend favoring full and unfettered access has become clearer with a decision just issued by the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas in the case of McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, Inc.
In McMillen, the plaintiff was injured during a stock car race, and sued for damages after being rear-ended during a cooling down lap. He alleged significant physical injuries and overall loss of general health and vitality, as well as an “inability to enjoy certain pleasures of life.” During the lawsuit, the defendants requested that plaintiff identify the name of all sites to which he belonged, and to identify his user name(s), login name(s), and passwords. Plaintiff responded by stating that he belonged to Facebook and MySpace, but he refused to give the other requested information based on confidentiality and privacy grounds.
It’s that time of year again! On June 9-10, 2011, our very own Richard Bortnick will be co-chairing the 2nd Annual NetDiligence Cyber Risk & Privacy Liability Forum at The Union League, 140 South Broad Street in Philadelphia, PA.
Topics include:
• State of the Cyber Nation
• State and Federal Regulatory Update
• Coverage Analysis: GL vs. Network Security
• Liability Surrounding Social Media Sites and Tools
• Design and Implementation of an Incident Response Plan
• Claims, Claims, Claims: A Privacy Breach Dissected
This is a story about Beverly Stayart and her efforts to sue Yahoo! and other search engines for linking her name to online content that she felt was offensive.
Although this lawsuit is rather striking, the case record does not reveal any particularly striking or unusual facts about Beverly, herself.
She is not a celebrity, or at least, was not one when she started this litigation. She has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, she has written a few papers about genealogy research that appear on the internet, and she is passionate about the environment. She is interested in the plight of wild horses, wolves and baby seals and has vigorously protested against their mistreatment. She has published two poems about baby seals on a Danish website.
Like many people, Beverly was curious about what she would find when she put her name into Yahoo’s search engine. To her chagrin, upon running a search of her name in 2008, she discovered that in addition to the expected search results, Yahoo! returned results that linked her name to online pharmaceutical companies promoting sexual dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, pornographic websites that contained spyware, and links that directed her to other websites promoting “sexual escapades”.
On October 9, 2010, the Google Blog announced that Google has developed technology for self-driving cars and that these cars have already been put on the California roads and driven over 140,000 miles. How and why did Google develop these cars and what does it mean for the average driver and for the insurance industry in particular?
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is the most prominent research branch of the U.S. Department of Defense. It is responsible for the technological superiority and safety of the United States. As such, its mission is to maintain the nation’s ability to surprise its adversaries as well as to prevent surprise by those same foes in all matters related to computing and other forms of technology. In 2004, DARPA, as authorized by Congress, offered a one million dollar prize to the first unmanned “autonomous robotic ground vehicle” to complete a 300 mile on- and off-road course which had been cleared of other vehicles. This contest was repeated in 2005 and again as an urban challenge in 2007.
As the latest episode of the continuing Wikileaks saga explodes across the Web and our newspapers, one wonders what else might be in store. 
