This Week In Techdirt History: June 12th – 18th

Five Years Ago

This week in 2017, while Diane Feinstein was calling for Section 702 reforms and the EFF was suing the FBI for withholding NSL guideline documents, UK Prime Minister Theresa May was trying to push forward with plans to kill encryption, she and French President Emmanuel Macron were both supporting internet censorship, and Australia's Attorney General was saying people will be fine with encryption backdoors. And of course, James Clapper was saying that backdoors would be safe if the nerds just nerd harder.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2012, there was a petition asking the White House to stop illegally seizing and shutting down websites, while plenty of people were noticing how outrageous the US prosecution of Megaupload was. The UK published its infamous snooper's charter", while Senators Wyden and Udall were blocking FISA amendments. But there was another story you might remember most: image aggregating site Funnyjunk threatened The Oatmeal and Matthew Inman with a defamation lawsuit, making lawyer Charles Carreon the internet's main character practically overnight, leading to Carreon lashing out and doubling down. And as you probably know, the saga wasn't over yet.

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2007, Google was pressing a new antitrust case against Microsoft, while also engaged in an ongoing fight with eBay. Special interest groups were doing everything in their power to shut down moves towards patent reform, while Congress was really exposing its lack of interest in the citizens it's supposed to represent. Meanwhile, AT&T decided to throw money away on an attempt to filter copyrighted content, the MPAA and RIAA followed up the creation of the Copyright Alliance by building yet another lobbying group, and we wondered why many in the press still considered it newsworthy that a movie was available on P2P networks.