Amazon Must Face Trademark Lawsuit Over Wristwatch Search Results

A recent search on Amazon for “MTM Special Ops” results in several other military-style watches.

If Amazon doesn’t sell a specific product I’m looking for, should it simply tell me “Sorry, nothing here” or should it bring up a slate of other, possibly similar, competing products? To one high-end watchmaker that’s been involved in a four-year legal battle with Amazon, these questionable search results aren’t just an annoyance but constitute trademark infringement. And yesterday, a federal appeals panel said Amazon must face this trademark complaint in court.

In a 2-1 opinion [PDF], the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that Amazon would not have to go to trial over a trademark dispute with watchmaker Multi Time Machine Inc.

MTM first filed the lawsuit against Amazon back in 2011, claiming the retailer’s search results cause confusion for its potential buyers.

MTM sells its watches directly to consumers and not through other retailers, including Amazon.

However, MTM’s suit claims that when an individual searches for the military-style watch on Amazon the results turn up a list that includes several trademarked “MTM Special Ops” references in the search field and immediately below the search field, a list of similar products, and no indication that the online retailer doesn’t actually carry the products.

“Once the customer has clicked on a particular result, he will see the particular product’s brand name and the product title, which also shows the brand name (e.g., Luminox),” MTM contends in its suit. “On the top of the product detail page, the customer’s initial inquiry, ‘MTM Special Ops,’ will still appear in the search field. Nothing on either of the pages states that Amazon does not carry MTM products.”

According to MTM, these results could cause customers to buy from a competing watchmaker. The company says that other online retailers like Overstock.com and Buy.com do not subscribe to the same search methods and instead clearly state that no search result match a search for “MTM Special Ops.”

MTM asserts that even if shoppers knew they weren’t purchasing from the company, the list generated by Amazon could cause “initial interest confusion,” a point the appeals court’s opinion agreed with.

“The [Los Angeles] district court found Amazon’s use of MTM’s trademark created no likelihood of confusion as a matter of law,” the Appeals Court opinion states. “But we think a jury could find that Amazon has created a likelihood of confusion. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Amazon.”

In reversing the lower court’s decision, the appeals panel disagreed with Amazon’s defense that using “MTM Special Ops” as a search on the site didn’t constitute “use in commerce,” which means the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade.

“This court has held that use of a trademark as a search engine keyword that triggers the display of a competitor’s advertisement is a ‘use in commerce’ under the Lanham Act,” the opinion states. “We hold that the customer-generated use of a trademark in the retail search context is a use in commerce.”

In a dissent for the court, 9th Circuit Judge Barry Silverman wrote that Amazon’s search page clearly labels products with their manufacturer’s names, concluding that “there was no likelihood of consumer deception as a matter of law because no reasonable consumer could have been deceived by the label/advertisement at issue.”

Following the federal appeals court decision, the suit returns to the district court in Los Angeles.

Amazon must face trademark lawsuit over search results [Reuters]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

5 Dead Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time | Entrepreneur.com

5 Dead-Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time

February 10, 2014

Let me be very clear, when I talk about “hacking” SEO, I’m talking about saving time and doing things as efficiently as possible. I’d never encourage gray or black hat techniques to game the search engines!
So with that in mind, let’s look at a few ways to speed up the process of performing proper SEO on your site. SEO rules must be followed carefully, but that doesn’t mean that you need to waste time doing things the hard way. The following five hacks will cut back the amount of time you have to spend on SEO while simultaneously improving your natural search performance:
Hack 1: Get keyword ideas from your internal search data. When people search inside your site using your search bar, they’re doing so because the content they’re looking for isn’t immediately apparent. By tracking these searches, you’ve got a supply of fresh new keywords that you know your customers interests will seek. Building content around them automatically pays off in terms of SEO, as you’re helping to satisfy both visitors and the search engines.
Related: Your SEO Checklist: 4 Steps to Optimizing Your Website
The analytics programs of some sites will automatically return this data, but if you have a Wordpress site that doesn’t, take a look at the Search Meter plugin. It’s free to install and will automatically help you uncover the most popular search terms from within your very own website.
Hack 2: Find keyword suggestions using the Google Adwords Keyword Planner. Since most Google Analytics data has turned into “not provided,” you’ve got to get a bit more clever when it comes to getting keyword information from the search giant.

Log into the new Google Adwords Keyword Planner and select the “Search for keyword and ad group ideas” option. Then, enter your site’s URL into the “Your landing page” field, set the targeting option to your country and run your search. The “Keyword ideas” tab that appears will give you a series of phrases Google believes related to your site. Powerful options to target with onsite SEO and content campaigns if you aren’t already.
Hack 3: Add Google Authorship code to your site’s header. There are a few different ways that you can set up and claim Google Authorship (which you really should do for SEO purposes), but the easiest has to be the following:
If you have a Wordpress site, don’t worry about plugins or email confirmations. Instead, just plug the following code into the header.php file of your site (making sure to replace the profile link with your code):
Related: 5 SEO Trends Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know for 2014
Doing so ensures that your profile code will be propagated to all pages of your site – right where Google can find it and give you credit for your efforts.
Hack 4: Submit entire domains to the Disavow Links tool. When the Disavow Links tool first came out, SEOs were super cautious about submitting individual links only. Indeed, it made sense to be cautious before it was known exactly what impact the tool would have on a site’s performance. If the tool immediately devalued any links submitted, cutting off an entire domain could have an unnecessarily widespread impact -- taking down useful links, as well as bad.
However, in a June 2013 video, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of webspam, made it clear that webmasters didn’t need to be too picky about the links they submitted using the tool. Instead of offering individual links, Cutts recommended providing entire URLs -- saving tons of time for formerly nitpicky SEOs.
If a backlink analysis of your site’s inbound links reveals a few negative issues, don’t worry about being selective in your disavowal request. Submitting entire domains is a good SEO practice, and it’s a good time-saver as well.
Hack 5: Combine Javascript tags with Google Tag Manager. Google Analytics, Twitter and Google+ are just a few of the sites that request to install JavaScript code on your site to power certain functionalities. But unfortunately, every one of these snippets that you install slows down your site -- and it’s well-known that slow sites are bad for SEO.
To save the time of requiring your site to fire each snippet individually, take a look at Google’s free Tag Manager tool. Simply enter your code pieces into the tool’s tag generator and you’ll be provided with a site-wide tag that will fire each JavaScript file according to the rules you specify. Once this tag is installed on your site, you’ll see load times decrease immediately compared to your initial on-page configuration.
Related: Simplify Your SEO Program With These 5 Strategies

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5 Dead Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time | Entrepreneur.com

Google Giving Revenge Porn Victims A Way To Remove Pics From Search Results

(Joshua Leners)

This past spring a number of tech companies took steps to crack down on so-called revenge porn – the posting of nude photos or videos online without the consent of the subject. Today, Google announced it was joining those sites by honoring requests to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without the featured person’s permission from search results.

Google announced in a blog post Friday that it has created a “narrow and limited policy” that will treat the photos and videos in the same manner it treats other sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may appear in search results.

“Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web,” Amit Singhal, the company’s vice president for search, said in the blog post. “But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims— predominantly women.”

The company plans to accept requests for removal via a web form that will be available in coming weeks.

“We know this won’t solve the problem of revenge porn – we aren’t able, of course, to remove these images from the websites themselves – but we hope that honoring people’s requests to remove such imagery from our search results can help,” Singhal writes.

Some victims of revenge porn have been able to have images delisted from Google Search my making copyright claims on the images. But if the victim isn’t the copyright holder of a revealing photo — say it was taken by an ex or a friend — this method falls short. Google’s new policy may close such loopholes that allowed these search results to remain.

Revenge porn is an issue many social-based sites have been dealing with in recent years.

In March, Twitter outlawed revenge porn through new terms of service. Just days before that, Reddit banned revenge porn with an update to its privacy policy that prohibits the posting of nude and sexual images without the consent of the subject.

Additionally, sites that existed solely to publish such content have come under fire from lawmakers and federal regulators.

In January, the operator of one now-defunct site dedicated to revenge porn called “isanybodydown.com” was the focus of a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges he used deception to acquire nude content to post online, among other things.

He settled with the FTC and was ordered to destroy all images and personal contact information he collected from victims and people who knew them.

Shortly after that case, in February, the operator of a similar venture called yougotposted.com was found guilty of identity theft and extortion for running the site, which included thousands of sexually explicit images, mostly of women, that were published by anonymous users without the subjects’ consent or knowledge. He’s facing up to 20 years in jail as a result.

“Revenge porn” and Search [Google Blog]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Microsoft Now Accepting Requests To Remove Revenge Porn From Bing, Xbox Live & OneDrive

(Mike Mozart)

Microsoft joined the growing list of tech companies taking steps to crack down on so-called revenge porn – the posting of nude photos or videos online without the consent of the subject – by honoring requests to remove links to the images or the content from appearing in results on its search engine Bing and other platforms.

The tech company announced the move late Wednesday in a blog post, saying it was a first step to help “put victims back in control of their images and their privacy.”

Starting immediately, Microsoft says that once notified by a victim it will remove links to photos and videos from search results on Bing, and remove access to content itself when shared on OneDrive or Xbox Live.

Although the company allowed people to report such illicit content in the past, the new effort to address the problem of revenge porn included the creation of a dedicated reporting web page to make it easier for victims to let Microsoft know about particular photos and videos.

For now, the system is in English only, but the company say it will be expand to other languages in coming weeks.

“Clearly, this reporting mechanism is but one small step in a growing and much-needed effort across the public and private sectors to address the problem,” Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft’s Chief Online Security Officer, said in the post. “It’s important to remember, for example, that removing links in search results to content hosted elsewhere online doesn’t actually remove the content from the Internet – victims still need stronger protections across the Web and around the world.”

Revenge porn is an issue many social-based and search sites have been dealing with in recent years.

Back in June, Google announced it had created a “narrow and limited policy” that will treat the photos and videos in the same manner it treats other sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may appear in search results. As a result, the company said it would start accepting requests for removal via a web form.

Prior to accepting requests for removal, some victims of revenge porn have been able to have images delisted from Google Search by making copyright claims on the images. But if the victim isn’t the copyright holder of a revealing photo — say it was taken by an ex or a friend — this method falls short. Google’s new policy may close such loopholes that allowed these search results to remain.

In March, Twitter outlawed revenge porn through new terms of service. Just days before that, Reddit banned revenge porn with an update to its privacy policy that prohibits the posting of nude and sexual images without the consent of the subject.

Additionally, sites that existed solely to publish such content have come under fire from lawmakers and federal regulators.

In January, the operator of one now-defunct site dedicated to revenge porn called “isanybodydown.com” was the focus of a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges he used deception to acquire nude content to post online, among other things.

He settled with the FTC and was ordered to destroy all images and personal contact information he collected from victims and people who knew them.

Shortly after that case, in February, the operator of a similar venture called yougotposted.com was found guilty of identity theft and extortion for running the site, which included thousands of sexually explicit images, mostly of women, that were published by anonymous users without the subjects’ consent or knowledge. He’s facing up to 20 years in jail as a result.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Supreme Court: L.A. Hotel Owners Can’t Be Forced To Turn Over Guest Info Without A Warrant

(Chris Goldberg)

Should the police, without a warrant, be able to walk into a hotel and get the names, addresses, license plate numbers, and other information about any guest who stayed there in the last three months? And should hotel owners face criminal charges if they fail to comply? The City of Los Angeles thinks so, but this morning the Supreme Court disagreed.

Los Angeles Municipal Code §41.49 [PDF] requires hotel operators to maintain records for all guests for 90 days, and that this information “shall be made available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for inspection,” ideally at a “time and in a manner that minimizes any interference with the operation of the business.”

Additionally, if a hotel operator fails to make these records available to LAPD, they face a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

This case goes back to 2003, when a group of motel operators sued the City, alleging that the ordinance — and the threat of criminal charges — was a warrantless search in violation of their Fourth Amendment rights.

A trial court ruled in favor of the City, saying hotel owners lacked an expectation of privacy about these records, but that decision was reversed by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012. The panel held that these records are the private property of the hotel owners and that an owner has “the right to exclude others from prying into the[ir] contents.” The appeals court also found that the City ordinance was facially unconstitutional as it required owners to turn over this information, under penalty of law, without judicial review.

In appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the City argued that a facial challenge — an attack on a law itself, as opposed to a particular application — to a statute authorizing warrantless searches must fail because it will never be unconstitutional in every possible application.

The City also claimed that the ordinance itself was “an adequate substitute for a warrant. By explicitly requiring hotel owners to maintain certain records and to make the required records available for police inspection, it advises hotel owners that inspections are conducted pursuant to law and are not discretionary acts of law enforcement.”

In arguing that the ordinance is not unconstitutional in all applications, the City gave examples of police needing to access hotel records in emergency situations, or where the owner consents to turning over the info.

But in today’s 5-4 SCOTUS ruling [PDF], the majority noted that these examples miss the point.

To decide whether a statute meets the standard of being facially unconstitutional, “the Court has considered only applications of the statute in which it actually authorizes or prohibits conduct,” writes Justice Sotomayor for the majority. She was joined by Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan.

Thus, the above examples from the City are situations where the ordinance isn’t even required.

“[W]hen addressing a facial challenge to a statute authorizing warrantless searches, the proper focus of the constitutional inquiry is searches that the law actually authorizes, not those for which it is irrelevant,” writes Sotomayor. “If exigency or a warrant justifies an officer’s search, the subject of the search must permit it to proceed irrespective of whether it is authorized by statute. Statutes authorizing warrantless searches also do no work where the subject of a search has consented.”

Though SCOTUS has never prescribed the exact form that precompliance review of a search must take, the majority notes that it “has held that absent consent, exigent circumstances, or the like, in order for an administrative search to be constitutional, the subject of the search must be afforded an opportunity to obtain precompliance review before a neutral decisionmaker.”

With regard to the ordinance’s threat of criminal penalties for hotel owners who fail to comply, the opinion points to the 1967 decision in Camara v Municipal Court, in which SCOTUS held that the Fourth Amendment held that a San Francisco man’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he was arrested for refusing to allow repeated warrantless searches of his building.

Without some sort of opportunity for independent review, Sotomayor says the L.A. City ordinance “creates an intolerable risk that searches authorized by it will exceed statutory limits, or be used as a pretext to harass hotel operators and their guests. Even if a hotel has been searched 10 times a day, every day, for three months, without any violation being found, the operator can only refuse to comply with an officer’s demand to turn over the registry at his or her own peril.”

The majority doesn’t say that it’s unconstitutional for a hotel owner to face criminal charges for noncompliance, just that if the City is going to dangle that threat of arrest, the owner must have the chance to have the merits of their refusal reviewed.

Today’s SCOTUS ruling affirms the Ninth Circuit ruling. The LAPD halted enforcing the warrantless searches in 2014 pending the outcome of this case.

Chief Justice Roberts — along with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Scalia — dissented.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

U.K. Orders Google To Forget 9 News Articles About The “Right To Be Forgotten”

(frankieleon)

Although Europeans in 28 countries have the option to ask Google to remove Internet search results about themselves under certain conditions, Google is pushing back against a new “right to be forgotten” request — one that seeks to remove nine news articles about the “right to be forgotten” itself from its internet search results.

The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered Google to scrub the articles in question from the internet, because they mention a man who previously made a successful “right to be forgotten” request.

See, “the right to be forgotten” rule in the European Union says Google and other search engines have to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about a person if they request they do so. That keeps defamatory statements, arrest records for minor crimes and other information a person might like to keep hidden in their present from coming back to haunt them whenever their name is searched on the Internet.

Though Google complied and took down links related to a man’s conviction for a minor crime committed 10 years ago, ICO says news articles since then about Google doing so have mentioned the man’s name and details about that conviction.

Google declined the request, ICO says, arguing that the articles concern one of its decisions to delist a search result and that they were an essential part of a recent news story relating to a matter of significant public importance.

But ICO deputy commissioner David Smith wrote in a statement that the same “right to be forgotten” rules apply here, just as they did when Google agreed to take down the other web results for the man.

“Google was right, in its original decision, to accept that search results relating to the complainant’s historic conviction were no longer relevant and were having a negative impact on privacy,” Smith says. “It is wrong of them to now refuse to remove newer links that reveal the same details and have the same negative impact.”

Are those “right to be forgotten” stories about individual requests in the public interest? Yes, ICO says, but they shouldn’t show up on a Google search for that person’s name, as that completely defeats the purpose of having the other mentions removed in the first place.

“Let’s be clear,” commissioner Smith wrote. “We understand that links being removed as a result of this court ruling is something that newspapers want to write about. And we understand that people need to be able to find these stories through search engines like Google. But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant’s name.”

In July, a complaint filed here in the U.S. with the Federal Trade Commission by advocacy group Consumer Watchdog argues not just that Google should be honoring “right to be forgotten” requests stateside, but that the company’s refusal to do so is a violation of federal law.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

CFPB Asks Google, Bing & Yahoo To Help Stop Student Loan Debt Scams That Imply Affiliation With Feds

(thisisbossi)

The Internet is teeming with scammers, fraudsters, and hustlers determined to part consumers from their money, and as a $1.2 trillion venture, student loans often present an attractive avenue for these ne’er-do-wells. In order to better protect individuals from such schemes, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is enlisting the help of the country’s major search engines. 

In letters to Google, Bing and Yahoo, CFPB Student Loan Ombudsman Rohit Chopra expressed concern that debt relief scammers are using aggressive advertising through search products to sink their teeth into unsuspecting consumers.

While many of the search engines have their own policies in place to protect consumers against misrepresentations in advertisements, the CFPB urges the companies to work with federal and state agencies to ensure search products are not being used by debt relief companies to prey on student loan borrowers by implying an affiliation with the federal government.

“By more closely monitoring advertising on key search terms and helping to drive traffic toward unbiased sources of information, your users will gain greater value from your search products and scammers will be less likely to flourish,” the letter [PDF] to Google states.

These unscrupulous companies – many of which require large upfront fees to help student loan borrowers enroll in a plan that can be done for free – have increased in presence in recent years, the CFPB says.

The U.S. Department of Education offers numerous plans to borrowers with federal student loans to make payments more affordable. These include options that let borrowers set their monthly payment based on their income. Monthly payments under these plans can be as low as zero dollars per month for unemployed or very low-wage borrowers. The Department of Education does not charge any fees to apply for or enroll in these plans, for which many student loan borrowers qualify.

Last December, the CFPB released a special advisory warning consumers to be on the lookout for such scams.

According to the analysis of Google Trends, the CFPB believes that struggling borrowers are falling victim to these scams when searching for help using keywords such as “student loan default,” “student loan forgiveness,” and “Obama student loan relief.”

“This bears a close resemblance to the foreclosure crisis, where borrowers were given conflicting information about their options and found scammers who made false promises on loan modifications in exchange for upfront fees,” the letter states.

As a result, back in 2011, Google partnered with the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program to help stop scammers preying on homeowners in trouble.

 

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Should We Have The “Right To Be Forgotten” By Google In U.S.?

(saramarie)

Even those of us who didn’t grow up in the Internet age can still find traces of our much younger selves online, which can occasionally make for a fun trip down memory lane. But not everyone is pleased with the idea that every online mention of their name may be forever etched into Google’s search memory. In 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that people have a legal “right to be forgotten” by Internet search engines, requiring Google and others to consider such removal requests from residents of the 28 EU countries. A new complaint filed today with federal regulators is calling for a similar program in the U.S.

The complaint [PDF], filed with the Federal Trade Commission by advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, argues not just that Google should be honoring “right to be forgotten” requests stateside, but that the company’s refusal to do so is a violation of federal law.

Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits unfair and deceptive acts in interstate commerce, and the letter alleges that Google’s behavior with regard to privacy issues is deceptive.

“The Internet giant holds itself out to be committed to users’ privacy, but does not honor requests that provide a key privacy protection,” reads the petition, citing repeated statements by Google that privacy is “important to us,” that the company is “constantly working to ensure strong security, protect your privacy,” and other similar declarations.

Consumer Watchdog contends that if Google is indeed so committed to privacy, that it would honor requests from American users to be forgotten by irrelevant or outdated search results.

“Describing yourself as championing users’ privacy while not offering a key privacy tool – indeed one offered all across Europe – is deceptive behavior,” writes CW’s John Simpson, who also argues that Google’s offering of the forget-me tool to EU users and not U.S. users is an unfair practice int that is “likely to cause substantial injury to consumers that consumers cannot reasonably avoid themselves and that is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition.”

The letter gives multiple examples of cases where CW believes Google’s failure to forget things has resulted in negative consequences, including: the New York school guidance counselor who was fired from her job after photos of her as a teen lingerie model (a job she’d disclosed when she was hired) surfaced online two decades after they had been taken; a Florida doctor wrongly accused with aggravated assault by a violent boyfriend, but whose mugshot was the top Google result for her name; and the young car crash victim in California whose name brings up grisly, leaked crime scene photos when you search for her in Google.

CW says it isn’t trying to quash public records or have content removed from websites, but to bring back the long-established notion of “Privacy By Obscurity,” through which normal citizens can get beyond past transgressions by not repeating them and by living normal lives.

“Before the Internet if someone did something foolish when they were young – and most of us probably did – there might well be a public record of what happened,” writes Simpson. “Over time, as they aged, people tended to forget whatever embarrassing things someone did in their youth. They would be judged mostly based on their current circumstances, not on information no longer relevant… The Digital Age has ended that. Everything – all our digital footprints – are instantly available with a few clicks on a computer or taps on a mobile device.”

The Washington Post tried to speak to Google about the CW petition, but the company declined to comment.

Google is not required to grant every removal request. About 41% of such requests were recently granted in the EU, according to the company’s own transparency report.

While Google does not offer the “right to be forgotten” option here in the U.S., it did recently announce that it will give victims of so-called “revenge porn” a way to remove their images from search results.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Court Says Facebook Can’t Challenge Search Warrants For User Data

(Christoph Aigner)

If a company like Facebook receives a subpoena for user data in a civil lawsuit, it can make its case to the court about why it should not have to oblige. But when that information request is in the form of a search warrant in a criminal investigation, Facebook doesn’t have that option.

That’s according to a New York appeals court, which ruled earlier this week that Facebook lacks legal standing to challenge a batch of 381 search warrants seeking data on users related to a criminal disability fraud investigation.

Facebook went public with its fight against these warrants last year, saying the company had only agreed to comply with the warrants after facing contempt charges.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office was seeking detailed user data, including Facebook posts and photos, for more than 100 users, including some retired police officers and firefighters suspected of having feigned mental illnesses in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Because warrants have to go through the process of having a judge determine whether there is probable cause, their validity can not usually be challenged before the warrant is executed.

After a lower court found that Facebook lacked standing to fight the warrants, it appealed, claiming that because the warrants were served on Facebook and not directly on the users, they were no different than subpoenas and therefore eligible to be disputed in court before being executed.

But the appeals court labeled this a “distinction without a difference,” explaining that while “the manner in which the materials are gathered may deviate from the traditional, Facebook’s reason for seeking to quash the warrants does not. What Facebook ultimately seeks is suppression of the materials obtained from it, a determination that would necessarily impact the subsequent criminal actions.”

The court points out that if it were to accept Facebook’s argument, law enforcement would only be able to serve search warrants on physical locations. The inclusion of Facebook in the warrant process is necessary because the police have no other way of obtaining the evidence they seek to obtain for their investigation.

“It is… hard to imagine how a law enforcement officer could play a useful role in the Internet service provider’s retrieval of the specified online information,” writes the court.

Facebook also contended that the Stored Communications Act gives the company the right to challenge these warrants. However, the appeals court held that the SCA only gives Facebook the standing to fight subpoenas and court orders, and that the law “specifically distinguishes these disclosure devices from warrants.”

The court notes that an order or subpoena obtained pursuant to the SCA requires only that the government show “specific and articulable facts” that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” the information sought will be “relevant and material,” but a warrant requires the government to demonstrate probable cause.

“Here, a finding of probable cause was made by the reviewing judge, and thus the warrants are akin to SCA warrants, not SCA subpoenas or orders,” explains the court. “Thus, Facebook’s argument that it has the right to contest the warrants based upon the SCA is contradicted by the express terms of the SCA.”

The court acknowledged the spirit of Facebook’s attempt to challenge these warrants.

“Our holding today does not mean that we do not appreciate Facebook’s concerns about the scope of the bulk warrants issued here or about the District Attorney’s alleged right to indefinitely retain the seized accounts of the uncharged Facebook users,” reads the ruling. “Facebook users share more intimate personal information through their Facebook accounts than may be revealed through rummaging about one’s home. These bulk warrants demanded ‘all’ communications in 24 broad categories from the 381 targeted accounts. Yet, of the 381 targeted Facebook user accounts only 62 were actually charged with any crime.”

In a statement to Ars Technica, Facebook said it continues “to believe that overly broad search warrants — granting the government the ability to keep hundreds of people’s account information indefinitely — are unconstitutional and raise important concerns about the privacy of people’s online information.”

The company is exploring its legal options.

[via Ars Technica]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Google Begins Testing Buy Button On Select Mobile Searches

Google has finally made good on those reports that it would simplify the smartphone shopping experience by allowing users to simply hit a “buy button” to complete a transaction straight from sponsored search results, rather than toggling between retailer websites. Today, the company announced it is officially testing what it calls Purchases.

Mashable reports that Google updated several of its mobile shopping components on Wednesday, including the new buttons – which appear as either “Buy on Google” or “Checkout” – expected to increase the company’s rivalry with other online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.

Google says in a blog post that by testing Purchases on Google, it aims to help retailers boost engagement and sales through mobile devices. Currently, the company estimates that customers are two times more likely to make a purchase on a retailers’ website on a desktop computer versus a mobile device.

The new feature works when shoppers use their mobile device to search for a product. In Google’s example, the individual is shopping for a “women’s hoodies.” When the search results appear, the shopper may see an ad that includes the “Buy on Google” or “Checkout” option.

Once the ad has been clicked on, the consumers is taken to a retailer-branded product page hosted by Google. The checkout process can then be completed with saved payment information on Google Account.

While the entire transaction will take place on a Google page, the products will continue to be provided by and sold from actual retailers. Additionally, Google will provide customers the same option to opt into marketing programs – such as emails and discounts – that would traditionally be seen on the retailers’ website.

The tech company says that participating retailers will only pay for a clicks on the shopping ads to the product page; clicks and interactions made on the product page are free for the retailers.

“Although we’re still in early experiments with a limited number of retailers, we see Purchases on Google as a big step towards helping retailers drive more mobile conversions and win more customers,” the company says in its blog post.

In addition to adding buy buttons for select search results, Google has also begun working with a select group of global retailers including eBay, Flipkart and Zalando to encourage consumers to use their shopping apps.

Google will add “deep links to [partner] apps right in their shopping ads, driving people straight to their mobile app instead of their website.”

Google starts testing buy button [Mashable]
Winning the shopping micro-moments [Google]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Mozilla: Firefox Bug Could Secretly Search, Upload Your Files

(angela n.)

If you use Firefox on a PC, you should make sure you update your browser right now: Mozilla says Firefox user notified the company after spotting a bug that has the potential to search and download local files.

In a blog post yesterday, Mozilla said it released a security patch to fix the vulnerability, and is urging Firefox users on computers running Windows and Linux to update to Firefox 39.0.3 (you can do that by clicking here).

The company says a Firefox user found an ad on a general news site in Russia that was serving the bug up, which would then search for sensitive files and upload them to a server that appears to be in Ukraine.

“The files it was looking for were surprisingly developer focused for an exploit launched on a general audience news site, though of course we don’t know where else the malicious ad might have been deployed,” Mozilla notes.

At this point, Mozilla products that don’t contain its PDF viewer, like Firefox for Android, aren’t vulnerable. Mac users aren’t affected either, though they “would not be immune should someone create a different payload,” Mozilla adds. You also may be safe if you use ad-blocking software.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Amazon Ending Pay-Per-Click Ad Program That Took Shoppers To Other Retail Sites, Creates Text-Only Ads

Amazon will change the way it provides sponsored links, instead of showing photos, the company now provides simple text links.

Smaller retailers who pay to have ads appear on the bottom of Amazon search results will soon see less of their products and more text, as the e-commerce giant prepares to shutter a pay-per-click ad program that took shoppers away from its site. 

The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog, citing an email sent to Amazon advertisers, reports that the e-tailer will stop showing ads at the bottom of search results that when clicked takes shoppers to other small retailers’ websites starting on October 31.

Product Ads, as the former program was called, often directed customers to smaller retailers that offered specialized services but might not actually sell on Amazon.

According to Amazon, the company generally made anywhere between 10 cents and $2.05 in per-click fees from those advertisers.

But the company isn’t doing away with outside advertisements – and their revenue – all together. In place of Product Ads, which featured photos of products linked to outside retailer sites, Amazon will offer simple text ads running along side product searchers.

A spokesperson for Amazon confirmed the changes, nothing that the company is “constantly reviewing the services we offer partners to help them best reach our customer base.”

The company didn’t offer an explicit explanation for its change, but the Digits blog suggests the move might be a challenge to Google, which has placed a handful of links at the bottom of many Amazon.com search results.

Amazon has previously attempted to cut into Google’s online ad market share by introducing its own programs to place ads on sites other than its own.

The company’s new method, dubbed Text Ads, will likely push Google off Amazon’s site altogether, Digits reports.

Amazon Tweaks Ads On Its Site, in Possible Challenge to Google [The Wall Street Journal Digits Blog]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Google Can Now Show You The Best Time To Pick Up Your Dry Cleaning

Waiting in line is often an annoying, but unavoidable aspect of everyday life: grabbing lunch, picking up a prescription, cashing a check, just to name a few. Now instead of just telling you how much time it will take to drive from one place to the other, Google has used its skills (all that data it collects) to create a new feature that gives a little more insight on just how busy the coffee shop is at 8 a.m. (busy).

The new mobile search feature, unveiled in a Google+ post today, aims to help consumers save time by showing them the busiest times of day at millions of businesses around the world.

To utilize the feature – which doesn’t really have a name – people just enter the business they’re looking for in Google’s search box. The generated results will now not only include the store’s phone number, address, and hours, but also a scrollable bar graph that shows the fluctuations of foot-traffic for all days of the week at the location.

The example provided by Google in its announcement shows the changing traffic at a local coffee shop. The resulting graph depicts the busiest hours of day at the location, but doesn’t explicitly tell you how long you should expect to wait.

While it’s likely that this new feature will be helpful when trying to determine when might be the best time to sneak out of the office for lunch or head to the post office, the results aren’t foolproof.

Don’t count on using the information to see when that amazing hole-in-the-wall store is busy, as a spokesperson for Google tells TechCrunch that results generally only appear for places where users are “commonly curious about how busy it typically gets.”

[via TechCrunch]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

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Universal Studios Copyright Bot Stupidly Asks Google To Delist IMDb Page For “Furious 7″

Universal either has the stupidest copyright bot on the planet or it genuinely doesn’t want people going to the one website on Earth everyone goes to for basic information about movies.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it’s against the law to knowingly misrepresent a copyright infringement claim, and yet copyright holders and the automated bots they use to spit out these takedown and delist demands continue to make sweeping, obviously inaccurate claims without penalty. The latest example comes to us courtesy of Comcast-owned Universal Studios.

TorrentFreak.com noticed that Universal (through a third party) was sending out DMCA takedown notices for a number of the films it controls, and that some legitimate — and sometimes unrelated — sites were being caught up in these wide nets.

For example, this recently filed DMCA request with Google demanded that the company remove search results for a number of sites that allegedly infringed on the copyright for Furious 7 the latest film in the Fast & Furious franchise.

While many of the links included in the delist request were for sites with possibly infringing footage or links to illegal torrents of the film, one stood out: A link to the Internet Movie Database for this same film.

It’s an obvious error, and one that Google will undoubtedly catch because it cares more about the accuracy of these requests than the copyright automatons that file them. But it shows just how little these bots know of the actual Internet landscape if they can’t identify one of the world’s most popular websites as not being a source for pirated content.

And this isn’t the only error in this particular DMCA delist request. In France, Universal released the Michael Mann film Blackhat as Hacker, and among the various demands to delist sites allegedly infringing on the film’s copyright, the moronic copyright bot also sought to remove search results for this completely unrelated TechDirt article on hacking.

Again, Google will probably not oblige this delist request, but copyright holders need to be held accountable for making frivolous DMCA claims.

A Pennsylvania woman is still in the middle of an 8-year battle with Universal Music over that company’s overzealous use of the DMCA to have YouTube remove her 29-second clip of her baby dancing to a barely discernible Prince song.

“Unfounded and abusive takedown notices inflict real harms on [online service providers], Internet users, and copyright holders,” reads an amicus brief filed in that case by Google, Twitter, Tumblr, and Automattic. “Every time an unfounded takedown notice results in the removal of legitimate, non-infringing content posted by a user, it constitutes unjustified censorship of the user’s right to share speech with others and interferes with the OSP’s business of hosting and disseminating that user’s speech.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Subway Removes “Jared’s Journey” From Website Following FBI Search Of Spokesman’s Home

Subway.com still contains a link to Jared’s section on the site but clicking the link just takes you back to the homepage.

As you’ve probably heard, the Indiana home of famed Subway spokesman Jared Fogle was searched this morning by FBI investigators and that the search is somehow related to an ongoing child pornography investigation. While the sandwich chain has not said anything publicly disparaging about Jared or the situation, it appears to be distancing itself from Fogle on the Subway website.

While the Subway.com homepage still has a link to the Jared’s Journey section, in which Fogle detailed how he dropped 200 pounds, going to the link just redirects you to the homepage. [TMZ was the first to report this.]

On Twitter, Subway is only saying that “We are shocked about the news & believe it is related to a former Jared Foundation employee. We are monitoring the situation closely.”

The “former Jared Foundation employee” referenced in the Tweet is likely Russel Taylor, the former director of the foundation who was arrested in April on child pornography charges. Fogle and the foundation, which is not directly affiliated with Subway, cut ties with Taylor in the wake of the arrest.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Regal Cinemas May Now Check Theatergoers’ Bags Upon Entry

(Nicholas Eckhart)

You might already be used to having your backpack or purse searched upon entering concerts or sporting events, but now there’s one more venue that may take a look inside your belongings: Regal Cinemas announced it may search guests’ bags upon entry to any of its locations across the country.

The theater chain, which has about 7,300 screens in the U.S., added a new security policy to its website, noting that “security issues have become a daily part of our lives in America.”

“Regal Entertainment Group wants our customers and staff to feel comfortable and safe when visiting or working in our theatres. To ensure the safety of our guests and employees, backpacks and bags of any kind are subject to inspection prior to admission,” the policy reads. “We acknowledge that this procedure can cause some inconvenience and that it is not without flaws, but hope these are minor in comparison to increased safety.”

Entertainment Weekly notes that it’s unclear whether Regal will increase ticket prices to cover the cost of additional staff that might be needed to check moviegoers’ bags.

This might not cause even a ripple among movie lovers, however, as one analyst for entertainment research company Rentrak tells USA Today. Basically, it’s old hat.

“Moviegoers have become so accustomed to having these types of security measures enacted in all kinds of public spaces, from theme parks to sports venues and rock concerts,” Paul Dergarabedian explains. “Regal has decided to make a concerted effort to show their patrons that they’re aware of security issues.”

As for whether the increased security will hurt the box office, he doesn’t think it’ll many any difference whatsoever.

“I don’t think anyone is going to stay away from a movie theater because of increased security measures. If anything, they’re going to appreciate it,” he says.

The move comes after two unrelated shootings in movie theaters recently: in July a gunman killed two women and then himself at a theater in Louisiana, and in an attack at a theater in August near Nashville, a man went after a theater full of people with pepper spray, a hatchet and a pellet gun. He was killed by police.

Regal theaters may search bags at the door [USA Today]
Regal Cinemas begins checking bags at entry after theater shootings [Entertainment Weekly]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

10 Reasons to Start Looking for a Better Job

10 Reasons to Start Looking for a Better Job

How many years have you worked on your job? Are you satisfied with it? Maybe it’s time to find a new job which would meet your desires?Many people don’t change their current place of work because of being afraid of not finding better. But think about the time and efforts you spend doing something you don’t like and exhausting your mental and emotional resources. How long will you be patient? You deserve the best. You just need to believe in yourself and get rid of any doubt and fear! You’re not a tree planted in the ground. You are a human and have the right to change what you don’t like. Here are 10 main reasons which indicate that you need to consider looking for a new job that would better suit your interests and expectations.

1. You don’t enjoy your work

You wake up every morning without a smile because you have to go again in the place where you don’t want to be and do things you hate doing? Many people take up a vacant position only for money and don’t enjoy their work. This is the main reason to consider changing your job simply because there is no point of spending 1/3 of your life on something you don’t like.

2. Lack of understanding with your boss

Your boss often offends you or puts you in an awkward position? He/she is always dissatisfied and never appreciates your efforts? Don’t tolerate it! Quit and let him try to find such a valuable employee like you.

3. Bad working conditions and difficult schedule

Working conditions and the time schedule directly affect your ability to work and the quality of life in general. Often have to stay at work till late at night because your boss says so? Do you work all day and all week so that no time remains for yourself and your family and friends? Think about it.

4. Small wages

This is one of the most common reasons that make people change jobs. Do you feel that your work is not sufficiently appreciated and you get a small salary? Then, the decision to change your job is the most appropriate in this case.

5. Bad relationship with your colleagues

If the people you work with don’t support and don’t appreciate you, then there is no sense to continue working in a team without being a part of it.

6. Your work is underestimated

If you feel that you are working hard but nobody notices this, look for a place where your efforts will be appreciated.

7. Your opinion isn’t taken into account

Everyone feels important and necessary when his opinion is taken into account. But when a person’s initiatives are suppressed, he feels like being nothing. Do you feel this way? If yes, quitting your current job is the right decision.

8. Lack of career prospects

Everything in nature is constantly changing and developing. Human is part of nature, so he also tends to change and evolve. If the work doesn’t give you the opportunities to grow, do you really have to stay there?

9. Lack of personal development

This is as a result of the previous case. Career growth is an aspect of personal development, and when you don’t evolve as a personality, at some point you start feeling incomplete and stuck in your life.

10. Constant psychological stress and health risks

Maybe health is not the most important thing in life but without health everything is nothing! If your job threatens your life and health – both physical and mental – think twice whether you really need to stay there.
Don’t waste a minute on what isn’t your passion. Combat your fears and doubts and start looking for a decent job on a site for job search like trud.co.uk. This is a great system that contains job offers for different types of employment. This service offers a structured format of displaying ads and comfortable search engine.

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