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I don’t know, maybe don’t do this? A Tarrant County man is suing Dallas County and a sheriff’s deputy after he says his personal information was revealed to more than 100 people after the deputy livestreamed a traffic stop through TikTok. So, there’s a lot going on here, most of it in favor of the […]

Last week, Congress failed to shake off corruption and buckled to a telecom industry’ smear campaign to scuttle the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the FCC. This week, the government body shifted from corruption to ordinary incompetence, after it failed to renew the FCC’s Spectrum Auction authority for no coherent reason. The FCC is in […]

Back in the early days of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, one of the most captivating stories was that of Snake Island, a small island in Ukrainian territorial waters. Under constant radioed threats from a Russian cruiser, Ukrainian border guard Roman Hrybov uttered his now iconic response to the warship: “Russian warship, go fuck […]

Another FOIA lawsuit has paid off for the ACLU. But there are no real winners here, since the documents pried from the government’s grasp detail a bunch of stuff we all wish the government wouldn’t be doing with its time and our money. Here’s Drew Harwell with the details for the Washington Post: The FBI […]

The AT&T Time Warner and DirecTV mergers were a monumental disasters. AT&T spent $200 billion to acquire both companies thinking it would dominate the video and internet ad space. Instead, the company lost 9 million subscribers in nine years, fired 50,000 employees, closed numerous popular brands (including Mad Magazine), and stumbled around incompetently for several years […]

For years, we’ve written about the many, many, many ways in which people are wrong about the 1st Amendment, from trotting out the “fire in a crowded theater” line (for which we have a t-shirt, mug, pillow, and notebook) or how people falsely believe that hate speech is not protected by the 1st Amendment (it […]

Massive sports events tend to make everyone crazy. The NFL has turned the Super Bowl into The Game That Must Not Be Named (without express written [and paid] permission) by unapproved advertisers and promoters. The Olympic Committee has abused pretty much every available IP law to ensure the Olympic brand remains known as… a massive […]

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There has been some back and forth over the past week regarding Walgreens and how it’s handling the distribution and dispensing of the pharmaceutical Mifepristone, which is prescribed by doctors for early term abortions. In February, a bunch of anti-abortion Attorneys General sent Walgreens a letter threatening the company if it chose to make the […]

It’s time once again to play: “things that probably wouldn’t happen if the U.S. wasn’t too corrupt to pass a decent internet-era privacy law.” Last week, The Washington Post revealed that a group of conservative Colorado Catholics spent millions of dollars to purchase user location data to single out priests that had used gay dating […]

For the most part, police unions are a net negative for both the police and the policed. They tend to excuse the worst behavior of their members while showing genuine disdain for anyone who dares to question an officer’s actions. Police unions have actively contributed to the mess US policing is and not a single […]

It was a couple of weeks back when we highlighted the story of how one game, Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, was suffering as the victim of very clear DMCA abuse. If you don’t recall the post, you can get all the details in the link. The short version of it is: a fan of […]

In 2015, the Supreme Court finally addressed reality: people were carrying around computers in their pockets capable of accessing, storing, and maintaining far more information than could be expected to be found in their physical houses. The government sought to compare cell phones to pocket contents or whatever might be found in the trunk of […]

When Elon Musk moved to take over Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who endorsed the deal, talked to him about making the site more open, specifically turning it into a protocol that anyone could build on. This would have been a good plan. Indeed, it’s one that seems to now be gaining traction for basically every company […]

Everybody agrees child sexual abuse material is a serious problem. Unfortunately, far too many supposedly serious people are coming up with very unserious “solutions” to the problem. Pressure applied by lawmakers and law enforcement led to Apple deciding to get out ahead of the seemingly-impending mandates to “do something” about the problem. In August 2021, […]

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We were already expecting a lawsuit to be filed against DoNotPay, the massively hyped up company that promises an “AI lawyer” despite all evidence suggesting it’s nothing of the sort. Investigator and paralegal (and Techdirt guest author and podcast guest) Kathryn Tewson had already filed for pre-action discovery in New York, in the expectation of […]

Back in 2016, we noted how Florida utilities had resorted to creating fake consumer groups to try and scuttle legislation aimed at ramping up solar competition and adoption in the state. The tactic is generally used to create the illusion of support for shitty, anti-competitive policies, and it’s been a common tactic in the U.S. […]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Stephen T. Stone with a comment on our post comparing Twitter’s alleged help for democrats to Murdoch’s real help for Trump: On top of “every accusation, a confession” being a thing, what Republicans do when they make these accusations is create a worldview where […]

Last week, we had the first of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927, and the spotlight was on Best Remix winner Lucia. This week, we’re taking a look at the winner of the Best Visuals category: Urbanity by […]

Los Angeles may have a gang problem. But so does its sheriff’s department. What’s already toxic about law enforcement culture has been embraced, cultivated, and amplified by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and its leaders, a steady string of shitty sheriffs willing to give deputies the longest of leashes. Still, sheriffs pretend there isn’t a […]

Scientists say that low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations like Starlink continue to pose a dire threat to astronomy and scientific research, and that too little is being done to address the issue. Last fall, scientists declared satellite constellations an “existential threat for astronomy.” In short, the reflection and light pollution (Musk claimed would never happen in […]

A couple of months back, we discussed YouTube pulling a Twitch and changing up its content policies for its streaming community in a way that was not well-announced nor understood by that community. The new policy made a number of changes, all of which had an impact on how monetization of content was to be […]

As we’ve been covering, there are a slew of laws across the country (and around the globe!) looking to required websites to “age verify” their visitors. And, it seems to be something that has support from all around the political spectrum, as “protect the children” moral panics know no political boundaries. Just recently Utah passed […]

Over the past couple of years, we’ve covered the UK’s “Online Safety Bill” extensively. And for good reason, seeing as it has the potential to effectively outlaw end-to-end encryption, and create an unworkable mess for any service (and it’s pretty much all of them) engaging in content moderation. The bill was originally called the “Online […]

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Over the last couple of weeks there have been a number of interesting developments regarding protocol-based, decentralized social media, and each time I plot out an article about it, something else pops up to add to the story, including Thursday evening as I finally started writing this and news broke that Meta (parent company of […]

Under the dull roar of our great TikTok moral panic I’ve been trying to make the semi-nuanced point that while TikTok does present some legitimate privacy issues, a ban won’t fix the actual problem. Largely because U.S. policymakers and businesses don’t want to fix the actual problem. They don’t even want to acknowledge what the […]

For years, Stingray devices (the most famous brand name for cell site simulators) flew under the radar. Law enforcement had them and used them, but often hid their use under court orders and subpoenas designed to obtain phone records, rather than the precise location of phone owners. Once information about Stingray devices went mainstream, the […]

This took a bit longer than I expected, but the dirty tactics are starting to come out between Microsoft and Sony over the former’s desire to purchase Activision Blizzard. While we’ve been talking about the $69 billion mega-deal for some time, the conversation more recently has focused on three regulatory bodies that have expressed varying […]

I’m a latecomer to the whole “podcasts” phenomenon. I didn’t start listening to them until 2020, when the pandemic suddenly gave me the free time and the incentive to get out of my small apartment and go on long walks. That’s my excuse for only recently discovering “Maintenance Phase,” a terrific podcast that “debunks and […]

Copyright seems to be a fixture of our legal, economic and social systems. For 300 years, it has formed the backbone of the structures used to incentivize and remunerate creators. During that time, copyright has been extended repeatedly in length and breadth. The original term of the 1710 Statute of Anne – 14 years’ monopoly protection with […]

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Amazon’s doorbell surveillance acquisition, Ring, has spent most of its time, money, and energy courting cops. If law enforcement agencies are willing to forgo a little dignity and autonomy, the company will given them cameras free of charge, allowing cops to expand their surveillance capabilities by outfitting homes with recording devices. The free cameras come […]

We’ve noted for a while now how most of the outrage surrounding TikTok isn’t exactly based in factual reality. There’s no real evidence of the Chinese using TikTok to befuddle American toddlers at scale, and the concerns about TikTok’s privacy issues are bizarrely narrow, with many of the folks proposing a ban seemingly oblivious to […]

For months and months now, we have been talking about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The $68 billion mega-deal had drawn narrow glares from several regulatory bodies, including in America, the UK, and the EU. While the FTC in the States and CMA in the UK have thus far not come off some very […]

Yesterday, Karl wrote about the absolutely ridiculous situation in which the person perhaps most qualified to be an FCC commissioner, Gigi Sohn, had to withdraw her nomination, which had languished over nearly two years, mostly due to a bunch of absolute ridiculous bullshit lies from telecom and media giants who hated the idea of her […]

At some point, you have to wonder if judges are going to start slapping sanctions on former Representative Devin Nunes and his SLAPP-happy vexatious litigator, Steven Biss. We’ve covered their many escapades in filing highly questionable defamation cases against basically any major media organization that so much as lightly criticizes Nunes (and also… a satirical […]

Back in September 2021 Techdirt covered an outrageous legal attack by Sony Music on Quad9, a free, recursive, anycast DNS platform. Quad9 is part of the Internet’s plumbing: it converts domain names to numerical IP addresses. It is operated by the Quad9 Foundation, a Swiss public-benefit, not-for-profit organization. Sony Music says that Quad9 is implicated […]

One of the NSA’s most powerful spying tools is up for renewal at the end of the year. The problem with this power isn’t necessarily the NSA. I mean, the NSA has its problems, but the issue here is the domestic surveillance performed by the FBI via this executive power — something it shouldn’t be […]

Nibble is an educational tool disguised in the shape of a retro game console. It’s a new and improved version of MAKERbuino that makes learning about electronics and programming fun! With a build guide, assembling the kit will be easy peasy. This DIY console comes preloaded with 4 retro games inspired by cult classics — […]

Back in the fall we were among the first to highlight that Elon Musk might face a pretty big FTC problem. Twitter, of course, is under a 20 year FTC consent decree over some of its privacy failings. And, less than a year ago (while still under old management), Twitter was hit with a $150 […]

The relentless push to make every last feature in every tech device you own part of a subscription service shows no sign of slowing down. Fitness companies like Fitbit have increasingly shoveled basic health monitoring features into their subscription plan. Companies like BMW have increasingly tried to make basic concepts like heated seats a subscription-only […]

On Monday, I saw Elon Musk tweet the following, and initially thought that he might have actually made a good policy decision for once, and planned to write up something about Elon doing something right (contrary to the opinion of some, I’m happy to give him credit when it’s due): Punching back against DMCA abusers […]

Telecom and media giants (News Corporation, AT&T, and Comcast, mostly) have spent big bucks to scuttle the FCC nomination of popular reformer Gigi Sohn. That’s involved seeding all kinds of bullshit claims in the press (with the GOP’s help) about how Sohn hates rural America, police, puppies, and freedom. Some of the most recent attacks […]

Last week, we announced the winners of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927! We strongly encourage everyone to go check out all the submissions, but as in past years, I sat down with Mike and our game design partner Randy Lubin for an episode of the podcast all about the […]

Bear with me here, because this is going to take some explaining as a matter of throat-clearing for this post, which is actually the entire problem. Back in 2021, several film studios filed a lawsuit against ISP RCN, accusing it of ignoring piracy conducted by its customers. That suit mostly followed the same bullshit playbook […]

The DMCA lends itself to abuse. The intent of the law was to limit copyright infringement on services hosting user-generated content by providing safe harbors for service providers who made good faith efforts to respond to DMCA complaints. In practice, the law has forced providers to side with complainants and do very little in the […]

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