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The Courts

Submission + - Lawsuit says Google's Sale of Keywords is Illegal 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Google encourages advertisers to purchase other companies' trademarks as targeted search terms and they're expanding the practice into 190 countries so when Audrey Spangenberg typed the name of her small software company, into Google and saw the ads of competitors that had paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark, she was furious. This week her company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court in Texas, saying that Google had infringed on her company's trademark and challenged Google's policies on behalf of all trademark owners in the state. Legal experts said it was the first class-action suit against Google over the issue. Google's acceptance of such competitive uses of trademarks has irked many other companies, including the likes of American Airlines and Geico, which have filed suits against Google and settled them. Many brand owners say the practice abuses their brands, confuses customers and increases their cost of doing business. "I know of several companies spending millions of dollars a year in payments to Google to make sure that their company is the very first sponsored link" on searches for their own names, said Terrence Ross, a partner at Gibson Dunn, who represented American Airlines in its suit against Google. "It certainly smacks of a protection racket.""
Data Storage

Submission + - Hacker destroys avsim.com along with its backups

Submitted by
el americano
el americano writes: "Flight Simulator community website Avsim has experienced a total data loss after both of their online servers were hacked. The site's founder, Tom Allensworth, explained why 13 years of community developed terrains, skins, and mods will not be restored from backups, "Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers between our two servers. The hacker took out both servers, destroying our ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation.""
Earth

Submission + - Surprise Surprise...This won't Rise. That much. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new analysis halves longstanding projections of how much sea levels could rise if Antarctica's massive western ice sheets fully disintegrated as a result of global warming. The flow of ice into the sea would probably raise sea levels about 10 feet rather than 20 feet, according to the analysis, published in the May 15 issue of the journal Science. The scientists also predicted that seas would rise unevenly, with an additional 1.5-foot increase in levels along the east and west coasts of North America. That is because the shift in a huge mass of ice away from the South Pole would subtly change the strength of gravity locally and the rotation of the Earth, the authors said.
The Courts

Submission + - SPAM: FTC targets massive car warranty robocall scheme

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Robocalls are a scourge and the Federal Trade Commission today took action against one outfit by asking a federal court to shut down companies that have been bombarding consumers with hundreds of millions of allegedly deceptive robocalls in an effort to sell vehicle service contracts. According to the FTC, the robocalls have prompted tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the Do Not Call Registry or asked not to be called. Five telephone numbers associated with the defendants have generated a total of 30,000 Do Not Call complaints. Consumers received the robocalls at home, work, and on their cell phones, sometimes several times in one day. Businesses, government offices and even 911 dispatchers also have been subjected to the calls, the FTC said. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
It's funny. Laugh.

PETA Using Games To Spread Its Message 477

Posted by Soulskill from the looking-for-a-new-audience-to-harass dept.
Cooking Mama is a series of games for the Wii and the DS in which players go through a number of steps to prepare meals using a variety of recipes. Last week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) created their own Flash-based parody of the game, highlighting the use of meat products by having a more bloody-minded Mama do things like pull the internal organs from a Thanksgiving turkey. Cooking Mama's maker, Majesco, issued a light-hearted response, pointing out the vegetarian meals in the game. PETA then said they plan to continue making parody games as a way of "engaging the public."

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