Techdirt

The Raspberry Pi and Arduino Bootcamp Bundle has 5 courses to help you dive into the world of hands-on programming. Courses cover Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and ROS2. It's on sale for $30. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The [...]

On Thursday, as expected, the Senate voted for cloture" on the extremely problematic Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The cloture vote is a procedural vote necessary to bring a full vote to the floor. Previously, attempts to move KOSA forward by unanimous consent" could be (and were) blocked by objections from at least one Senator [...]

With a unanimous 5-0 vote, the FCC says it is moving forward with plans that should make unlocking your mobile phone easier than ever. According to a new FCC announcement, the agency say it will begin crafting new rules that will require that wireless carriers unlock customers' mobile phones within 60days of activation. At various [...]

For the non-sports loving crowd out there, here is something of a necessary primer. Lamar Jackson is the reigning MVP of the National Football League. He plays for the Baltimore Ravens and wears number eight. Troy Aikman is a hall of fame former NFL quarterback that played for the Dallas Cowboys and wore, you guessed [...]

In 2023, Tennessee enacted a new law - one that rewrote part of its existing adult entertainment statutes for the sole purpose of making it easier to prosecute drag performers. Sure, legislators took care to talk around the issue when debating it on the floor, but the bill's language added male or female impersonators" to [...]

Call me crazy, but I don't think it's okay to go beyond what the law allows even in pursuit of good" intentions. It is consistently frustrating how this FTC continues to push the boundaries of its own authority, even when the underlying intentions may be good. The latest example is in its order against a [...]

The recent Supreme Court case, Moody v. NetChoice & CCIA, confronted a pivotal question: Do websites have the First Amendment right to curate content they present to their global audiences? While the opinion has been dissected by many, this post peeks behind the Silicon curtain to address the practical aftermath of tech litigation. Well before [...]

Italy continues to push its way towards shitshow as it's overtaken by far-right, fascism-adjacent politicians. There's nothing here that signals the country will try to move back towards the center. Having apparently learned nothing from history, the government continues to move further right while still (somehow!) dealing with a woke" court. Here's a brief recap [...]

Headway Premium is the revolutionary app designed to help you turn personal growth into a habit. With a lifetime subscription, you get unlimited access to a huge number of non-fiction bestsellers, summarized into 15-minute reads. Be it personal development, business strategies, or health insights, Headway has you covered. It's on sale for $60. Note: The [...]

Does anyone actually trust Elon to be honest about, well, anything? Last week he claimed that ExTwitter hit a new all-time high" on engagement, with 417 billion user-seconds globally" and that in the US it was 93 billion user-seconds." First off, what the fuck are user-seconds"? This is not a typical measure in the internet [...]

The utterly pointless, decade-long madness that was the Time Warner Discovery series of mergers has come to its pathetic conclusion. Basically announcing that the whole mess was a waste of time, company executives last week quietly announced they'd be untangling much of the partnership and try to pretend the whole thing never happened: The theoretical [...]

Huh. Here's something you definitely don't see every day. But before we get to the ruling, let's do a brief exploration of the ultra-weird legal landscape that has made it clear cop dogs and cops should be held to way different standards than regular dogs and regular people. And it's the regular dogs and regular [...]

As we've said before, it's quite easy to understand why there would be frustration, or even anger, when leaks over entertainment media occur despite every attempt to keep that content under lock and key. This happens with movies all the time. What continues to amaze me are two things, however. First, that movie studios' response [...]

It is extraordinary that within the copyright world it is accepted dogma that legal protections for this intellectual monopoly should always get stronger - creating a kind ofcopyright ratchet. One of the manifestations of this belief was theWIPO Copyright Treaty, signed in 1996, which extended copyright in important ways. A key element was the prohibition [...]

If nothing else, it appears the FBI has decided it's not worth fighting the compelled assistance" battle again. Several years ago, the DOJ went to court in hopes of forcing Apple to decrypt a phone belonging to the (dead) San Bernardino shooter. It didn't go well for the DOJ or the FBI, no matter how [...]

For years we've talked about the growing threat of SIM hijacking, which involves a criminal covertly porting out your phone number from right underneath your nose (quite often with the help of bribed or connedwireless carrier employees). Once they have your phone identity, they have access to most of your personal accounts secured by two-factor [...]

You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let's focus on the app. Right off the bat, let's be clear about one thing: When we say app" we don't mean that you're limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across [...]

Gather 'round, children, and let me tell you a tale of rate limiting, misinterpreted screenshots, and how half the internet lost its mind over a pretty standard Twitter error. This error was then interpreted through an extremely partisan political prism, leading previous arguments to flip political sides based on who was involved. The desire to [...]

Apparently the only time Congress can get together to agree to something, it's to give whoever is President the power to censor speech online. That's the only conclusion I can come to regarding the widespread support for KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act), which Senator Chuck Schumer has announced will be coming to the floor [...]

It's always frustrating to watch a trademark dispute occur when the marks in question are non-distinctive or generic in nature. Now, I want to be careful here, because the trademark in question here is one that has been applied in a way slightly different than the generic use of the term is typically used. An [...]

Augmented reality is on its way. The ability to layer media over top of the real world is, for the moment, a hardware problem. Our phones can do it - think Pokemon Go, or Snapchat's dancing hotdog - but a real-time heads-up display remains out of reach, for the moment. When such technology arrives, it [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. In this sponsored Spotlight episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, host Ben Whitelaw [...]

It sounds absolutely batty that there is a strong, bipartisan push to lock up aspects of our law behind copyright. But it's happening. Even worse, the push is on to include this effort to lock up the law in the must pass" National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This is the bill that Congress lights up [...]

Good news for phone owners. Perhaps a little less great for law enforcement, which presumably still doesn't have the capability to crack the latest cell phones. Not that it's all bad news for law enforcement. Whether or not compelled password production is a constitutional violation is still an open question. Those whose phones are secured [...]

In a stunning display of technocratic incompetence, the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) has effectively outlawed the very tool that online platforms have relied on for years to combat trolls: shadowbanning. Recent court decisions suggest that the DSA's (possibly?) well-intentioned but misguided Article 17 has created a troll's paradise, leaving websites in an impossible position [...]

The leading candidate to head the FCC should Trump win re-election is facing calls for an investigation into Hatch Act violations after he helped co-author the controversial Project 2025. Sixteen House Democrats have sent a letter to government officials arguing that Carr's involvement in the openly political Project 2025 is a clear violation of the [...]

Here's a fun one, coming to us via MLive, which at least let us know this exists, even if it couldn't be bothered to post the freely available decision posted at the Michigan Supreme Court's website. I can only imagine the amount of cop whining this will provoke. When cops don't have a legitimate reason [...]

Late last year, the FTC appealed the decision by the court to allow Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard to go through by denying the FTC's requested injunction against it. Since then, Microsoft appears to be running some sort of experiment to see just how completely it can prove the FTC's warning about the deal was [...]

Students have rights. That's something educators and (especially) administrators seem to forget. Schools also aren't immune from the same issues that negatively affect the outside world. Adding cops to the school discipline mix definitely hasn't helped anything. Biased policing is an everyday occurrence pretty much everywhere in the county. Just because the officer patrols halls [...]

The First Amendment is America's secret sauce. Far from a relic of the 18th century, the right to speak freely and question authority is a cornerstone of innovation, which thrives on pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. This freedom is why the United States consistently out-invents and out-performs other societies that do not prioritize [...]

StackSkills is the premier online learning platform for mastering today's most in-demand skills. Now, with this exclusive limited-time offer, you'll gain access to 1000+ StackSkills courses for life! Whether you're looking to earn a promotion, make a career change, or pick up a side hustle to make some extra cash, StackSkills delivers engaging online courses [...]

When tragedy strikes, it's human nature to search for answers. But when you're Fox News, it seems that the answer is always the same: blame video games, social media, or anything else that fits your preconceived notions, facts be damned. In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I idly wondered how long [...]

You might just start to detect a theme here. Consumer Reports' latest survey of the most popular ISPs in America is once again dominated by smaller providers and community-owned and operated broadband networks. Networks often built by locals that were tired of being ripped off by local monopolies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, or Charter. According [...]

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is That One Guy with a comment about Silicon Valley VCs lining up to back Trump and our supposition that it's because they cynically welcome chaos: Look, we put BBQ sauce on our faces and everything, so no snacking alright?' Either that or in the [...]

Five Years Ago This week in 2019, an opportunistic IBM sold out Section 230 while the Third Circuit joined the Ninth in denying its protections to e-commerce platforms, soon followed by the Sixth Circuit making a mess of it as well, so we wrote more about how Section 230 is not exceptional and is not [...]

Earlier this year, I brought to you an absolute bonkers trademark lawsuit filed in Turkey by Hermes, the luxury brand, against Hermes Sahaf, an itty bitty bookstore. There was never a reason to file this lawsuit, but it's an especially bad PR look for a massive company like Hermes to be going after an independent [...]

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderations Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice - or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week's round-up of the latest news in online [...]

Apparently, exceptions apply. The Thin Blue Line" is the supposedly united front of law enforcement that protects society against evil. But it's not unconditional. If you're a good cop, you get frozen out. And, if you're a woman, you get treated like most cops treat most women. The Blue Line" often seems to be the [...]

I'm curious how Republicans would react if AOC suddenly sought to hold a hearing questioning Elon Musk's bias in endorsing and promoting Donald Trump on ExTwitter. I imagine there would be apocalyptic outrage and nonstop cries of tyranny over such a blatant abuse of power to punish someone for their political views. And they'd be [...]

The Complete Cisco Training Bundle has 6 courses to help you get ready to become certified. Courses cover al you need to know as a CCNA, CCEA, and more. It's on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support [...]

This is not great news, even if the law pretty much aligns with case law. Nonetheless, this is concerning. Tennessee law enforcement agencies will continue to be able to use drones without a search warrant in various investigations following the approval of a bill earlier this year. In 2021, the Tennessee General Assembly approved a [...]

We've noted a few times that states will soon receive more than $42.5 billion in taxpayer funded broadband subsidies courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. A lot of that money will go to big giant monopolies with terrible track records on subsidy fraud. But a lot of it is also poised to go toward super [...]

Terms of Service are a reality we deal with all the time with digital goods and services. And by deal with", I mostly mean we don't read them and simply agree to whatever they say instead, assuming there is nothing crazy in them. But that also causes a lot of problems, with customers of these [...]

Last year bothGannettandSports Illustratedwere caught creating fake, AI" generated journalists to create fake, plagiarism and mistake-prone journalism." In both instances the kind ofbrunchlord executives that fail upward at these kind of dying media companiesthought it would be great to replace real human journalism with automated junk - without informing their actual human employees. AI" (not [...]

The city of Chicago's Inspector General is back at it, pointing out things are very, very wrong with the Chicago Police Department. Not that anyone needed any reminders. A long history of disinterest in disciplining misbehaving officers has led to everything from an off-the-books black site operation to more than 100 misconduct charges being racked [...]

It's pretty rare to see a judge disqualify a law firm from taking on a case. But Judge William Alsup has done just that, disqualifying the litigation powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel from representing ExTwitter in a big data scraping case. We wrote about this case back in May, highlighting both the importance and complexities [...]

Embark on the journey of language learning with the Rosetta Stone lifetime subscription for all languages. Rosetta Stone has been the go-to software for language learning for the past 27 years. With its immersive and intuitive training method, you might be reading, writing, and speaking a new language with confidence in no time. It's on [...]

Back in 2022, a federal court responded to a challenge of a geofence warrant with some good questions. But its ultimate ruling was a shrug. A geofence warrant obtained by investigators searching for a bank robbery suspect covered a whole lot of ground, subjecting hundreds of innocent people to a search of their geolocation records. [...]

A few years ago you might recall there was a three year news cycle about how the modern Trump GOP was somehow serious about antitrust reform this time." The party, which has never met a consolidated monopoly it didn't adore (see: airlines, telecom, pharma, health, energy), was suddenly getting credited in the press for being [...]

While the vast majority of what I get to read about when it comes to intellectual property law generally, and trademark law specifically, makes me roll my eyes, the concept of geographic indicator trademarks actually isn't one of them. The application of GI marks certainly does get my fur up often times, but the concept [...]