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HP's former CEO Mark Hurd was forced out in the wake of a scandal which may or may not have involved a romantic relationship with a contractor. What it did involve was filing bogus expense reports. Hurd left, and got a pretty smashing severance package. HP may have been planning to let things lie, but with the news that Hurd intends to join Oracle, HP is willing to go to court. 

HP claims that Hurd signed agreements to protect HP's trade secrets, and his work at Oracle would break those agreements. HP's complaint reads in part, "In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others."

This story is still developing, but it looks like it won't be smooth sailing for Mark Hurd after all. It is common for companies to enforce so called "non-compete" agreements when high-level executives leave. Check out the source link to download the full documents if you fancy some legal reading.

 

Google has agreed to pay $8.5 million (US) to settle a privacy lawsuit filed over its Buzz social networking service, and as usual only the lawyers are going to get rich on this one. The exact terms of the settlement are still pending approval from a federal court judge, but for a company that is earning $6.5-$7 billion per quarter we are guessing they probably won’t lose too much sleep over it.

The proposed settlement involves 30 percent of the funds being set aside to cover legal fees, and the seven named plaintiffs receiving approximately $2,500 each. The remainder of the cash will be earmarked for organizations devoted to Internet privacy policy or education. Google has also been asked to do more to help educate the public about the privacy of Buzz, something Google claims has already been done.

A legal ruling against the search giant is a bit of a black eye for its “do no evil” company motto, but we are guessing the whole Buzz thing in general didn’t go over as well as they had hoped. 

Anyone out there still using it?

We all knew it was a distinct possibility that at some point that Google could be looking at a viable antitrust investigation. It's not clear if this is the day for it, but we do know that the Texas Attorney General is investigating the search giant to see if they are violating antitrust laws. At issue here is the accusation from some companies that Google is manipulating its paid search results in a way designed to disadvantage competitors.

Google has confirmed that the official investigation started in July, and more information would be coming soon. The companies known to have filed the complaint are three vertical search engines (meaning they provide categories to click through to filter results). They allege that Google is keeping them down because they perceive a threat. 

None of the complaining companies are large enough for Google to pay attention to, let alone discriminate against. Still, you never know what an AG investigation will turn up.

 

As Google puts it, their privacy policies are, "long, complicated and lawyerly." We'd say that's probably accurate. Have you ever tried to read one of those things? Google is looking to change that by updating their privacy policies with less jargon, less volume, and more clear language. The Google blog post does go to great pains to point out that this is not an excuse to sneak less favorable policies into the mix, this is just about making things more readable.

Google will first be reducing the total number of privacy documents they maintain. Most products are covered by the main Google privacy policy, but some products have their own. So 12 of these sub-documents will be going away. For example, Gmail, Docs, Talk, and Calendar will use the same policy, since they are all governed by Google Contacts.

The Big G will also be rewriting the more legalistic parts of the main policy so average people can read and follow more of it. There is also a lot of repetition that is currently in it for the lawyers' sakes. That should all go away. Google expects all the changes to be done by October 3. Then at least you'll be able to figure out just how Google is spying on you. Have you ever read the Google privacy policy? Will you now?

 

A few months back, Voltage Studios (the indie studio that made "The Hurt Locker") began legal proceedings against those seen illegally sharing the movie online. 5,000 "John Doe" lawsuits were filed by the film's producers. Voltage Pictures has now started moving ahead with the next phase of the legal process. Several ISP customers have received notices that their provider has been subpoenaed, and must turn over their names to Voltage's lawyers. 

A number of small movie studios have been working with the law firm of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver. This firm is managing the cases in exchange for a portion of any settlements of judgments that result. The ACLU and EFF have both strongly opposed this action. Some ISPs have even objected due to the huge number of subpoenas they are likely to get.

Some alleged infringers have already been offered settlement offers of several thousand dollars. When faced with the possibility of huge legal fees, many individuals may choose to settle. This strategy didn't work out so well for the RIAA, do you think the producers of The Hurt Locker have a better chance of success?

Image Credit: Voltage Pictures

 

A Florida man has filed suit against Google in response to the Nexus One's 3G signal issues. Nathan Nabors is seeking unspecified damages and class action status for the suit. Manufacturer HTC and original carrier T-Mobile are not listed in the filing. The allegation is that Google  made misleading claims about the Nexus One's capabilities, then failed to adequately resolve issues when they cropped up.

Google started selling the Nexus One direct to consumers in early 2010. At the time, the phone had only T-Mobile US 3G bands. Consumers reported issues in getting, or holding on to, 3G frequencies in areas that other phones had no problem. After a software update, Google declared the problems fixed, saying that any further issues were on T-Mobile's end. 

It's unclear if a judge will eventually grant class action status to the suit. If so, Nexus users might get a check for $10 in 2-3 years. The lawyers managing the case however, will probably do much better. If you have  a Nexus One, let us know how your 3G is these days.

 

Quick, someone go grab a patent for starting up a computer, because believe it or not, the intellectual property for shutting down is now taken, and it belongs to Microsoft.

"A user interface and scheme is provided for facilitating shutting down and operating system," the patent abstract reads. "Aspects include the operating system receiving a command to initiate shut down, and automatically terminating graphical user interface (GUI) applications that delay shut down which do not have top level windows. Also, aspects provide a user, through a graphical user interface, the ability to automatically terminate all running applications in response to determining that a running GUI application has a top level windows."

The above patent was awarded to Microsoft on August 31, 2010, but apparently it wasn't an easy decision. Microsoft first filed for the patent back in August 2005.

As power users, we sometimes find ourselves taking certain things for granted, like the basics of overclocking and how to avoid falling prey to common malware schemes. It's good to go over the fundamentals every once in awhile, both as a refresher, and as a helping hand to those just getting into the game. That said, do we really need to remind people that posting on Facebook what you learned during jury duty is just plain boneheaded?

Sadly, the answer is yes. Hadley Jons, a 20-year-old out of Warren, Michigan, inexplicably went and posted on her Faceball wall that it was "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty" during a day off from the trial and before the case was over.

"You don't know how disturbing this is," Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski reportedly told Jons the next day shortly before replacing her.

Druzinski went on to say that she'd like to see Jons "get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight. This is a jury system. People need to know how important it is."

Prior to flipping the power switch, nervous Nellies feared that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would spell doom for our home planet as it goes knocking protons into each other. One Hawaiian dude named Walter Wagner even took the concern to court by suing to have the project shut down. He failed, of course, but wasn't finished working the legal system.

An appellate judge for the United States District Court in Hawaii has again disappointed Wagner by denying his appeal, saying he failed to show "credible threat of harm." The judge also said that the U.S. doesn't control the Collider, so our legal system would be powerless to stop it anyway.

"The European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) proposed and constructed the Collider, albeit with some U.S. government support," Senior District Judge Helen Gillmor explained. "The U.S. government enjoys only observer status on the CERN council, and has no control over CERN or its operations. Accordingly, the alleged injury, destruction of the earth, is in no way attributable to the U.S. government's failure to draft an environmental impact statement."

Gillmor went on to say that even if the court ruled in favor of Wagner, the decision would have no impact on CERN or Collider operations, "and would not afford Wagner the relief he seeks."

So in other words, if the LHC does destroy the earth and all of mankind, Wagner will have to take his lawsuit international.

Craig Smallwood, a 51-year-old man from Ewa Beach, Hawaii, will have his day in court. U.S. District Judge Alan Kay made sure of it when he dismissed half of Smallwood's eight charges against NCSoft related to alleged videogame addiction, leaving four charges still to be resolved.

According to Hawaii's Star Advisor rag, Smallwood claims he has a tough time bathing and even waking up in the morning because of "phenomena of psychological dependence and addiction" to the game "Lineage II." Smallwood further alleges that the game caused "extreme and serious emotional distress and depression."

None of us here have a degree in medicine, but it seems like Smallwood could have avoided these claimed ailments by spending a little less time plugged into Lineage II's network. Naturally, the plaintiff disagrees.

"NCSoft is a discretionary and discriminatory in its applications of the rules," Smallwood said in his original October complaint. "Often they will allow certain players to break rules ... while they enforce these rules on others."

The Judge threw out claims of misrepresentation/deceit, unfair and deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and punitive damages. The charges that remain include defamation, negligence, gross negligence, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Let the comments begin.