Technology Info

A federal judge today sided with the Bush administration in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit related to missing White House e-mails. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is probably most familiar to Ars readers for her role in the Microsoft antitrust case, held that the White House’s Office of Administration was not a federal agency as that term is defined by the FOIA and was therefore not obligated to respond to FOIA requests.

The ruling represents a setback for the plaintiff, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which was also behind the White House e-mail lawsuit we covered in April. That lawsuit was heard by a different judge, was directed at a different federal agency, and was filed under different federal statutes: the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act. The White House has denied wrongdoing in that case, and the case is still being litigated. (link)

Another day, another class-action wireless consumer lawsuit. This one is big, though, naming six mobile-phone carriers and a top mobile virtual network operator as defendants in a complaint filed in Mississippi federal court.

“This action seeks recovery for actual and compensatory damages sustained by plaintiffs and others similarly situated. At this time, plaintiffs are specifically seeking recovery against the defendants for unauthorized charges, wrongful collections and unjust enrichment,” the stated the 12-page suit filed by attorneys with the Graves Law Offices P.L.L.C. in Jackson, Miss.

The allegations, among other things, focus on charges for unsolicited text messages received by subscribers “without offering its customers the opportunity to avoid such charges by opting out of text messaging and refusing to disable its customers’ text messaging service.” (link)

One thing the Internet has taught us: if you want to see a defamatory/embarrassing/ridiculous claim about yourself or your business cleaned from the tubes, the one thing you don’t want to do is file an ill-advised lawsuit against a site like Wikipedia. What once was known only by a few is suddenly known by the world. Barbara Bauer, who runs the Barbara Bauer Literary Agency, looks like she’s set to learn that lesson the hard way after suing Wikipedia for an article that called her the “Dumbest of the Twenty Worst” literary agents and said that she had made no book sales at all.

The controversy stems from a few brief statements regarding Bauer’s track record (none of which remain on the site at this time). These statements weren’t simply dragged from the ether; Bauer was included on a list of the twenty worst agents back in 2006 and that list was widely circulated in the blogosphere. The controversy was discussed at the time by writer Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who called Bauer a “well-known scam agent” and the “dumbest of the twenty worst.” Even before that, writers were complaining about her agency in various discussion forums. (link)

Barely three weeks ago, Seagate CEO Bill Watkins simultaneously pronounced solid state drives (SSDs) to be toys for a niche market and then threatened to start suing people if it appeared that flash-based storage might become a threat to the magnetic storage industry. That date has apparently arrived. Seagate filed suit against US-based STEC today, claiming that the SSD manufacturer is in violation of four patents covering solid-state memory storage, memory backup, and a drive’s ability to scan/test itself in order to check for errors.

Watkins has already issued a statement “reassuring” the public that this is simply a case of Seagate moving to protect its unjustly infringed IP. STEC, unsurprisingly, has a somewhat different take on the situation. According to STEC, Seagate has never attempted to open communications regarding any patent infringement. Furthermore, as reported by CNET, STEC believes it can prove Seagate’s patents invalid and inapplicable. It’s all standard stuff in patent litigation. (link)

A Pennsylvania couple sued Google Inc., saying pictures of their home that appear on the website’s “Street View” feature violated their privacy, devalued their property, and caused them mental suffering.

Aaron and Christine Boring bought the home in Franklin Park, a Pittsburgh suburb, in October 2006 for a “considerable sum of money,” according to their 10-page lawsuit filed Wednesday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

“A major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy,” the lawsuit said.

The suit targets the company over images on its website, which allows users to find street-level photos by clicking on a map. To gather the photos, Google uses vehicles with mounted digital cameras to take pictures up and down the streets of major metropolitan areas. (link)

An iMac owner is suing Apple claiming the 20-inch iMac desktop computers can’t display the “millions of colors” Apple promises in promotional materials.

The lawsuit claims California-based company touts that ability on its website and other marketing material even though it knows iMac monitors can display only 262,144 true colors.

The suit says users are fooled into seeing many more colors because the monitors use technological tricks that involve showing many similar shades at high speeds to create the illusion of the desired shade. (link)

The family of a teenage girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on MySpace.com asked a U.S. appeals court Monday to revive their lawsuit against the social networking website.

A federal judge in Austin, Texas, dismissed the US$30 million suit in February 2007, rejecting the family’s claim that MySpace has a legal duty to protect its young users from sexual predators.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks also ruled that interactive computer services like MySpace are immune from such lawsuits under the Communications Decency Act of 1996. (link)

Apple has quietly settled a lawsuit over its advertising practices in connection to the displays used on the MacBook and MacBook Pro. As usual, the terms were not disclosed, but the circumstances make it appear that Apple wasn’t the only party trying to make the lawsuit go away.

The plaintiffs, Fred Greaves and Dave Gatley, originally brought the suit against Apple in May of 2007, alleging that Apple’s displays were “grainy” and “sparkly,” and that some customers had observed banding (when the display shows you bands of different shades when it is supposed to display a smooth gradient). Their proof, aside from their own observations, were pages of printed discussion threads from Apple’s support forums. The lawsuit alleged that customers who complained about the displays were allegedly told that they were being too picky or that they were imagining the problems. (link)

A movie producer with the rights to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead movie sued Dead Rising developer Capcom on Monday after talks between the two parties failed.

As we reported earlier this month, Capcom sought an injunction against the MKR Group to prevent it suing the games company. But it seems it didn’t get what it wanted.

“Both works are dark comedies,” the complaint filed by MKR reads. “Both works provided thoughtful social commentary on the ‘mall culture’ zeitgeist, in addition to serving up a sizable portion of sensationalistic violence.”

There’s more than a healthy link between Dawn of the Dead and Dead Rising, but the crux of the lawsuit appears to be that they both feature zombies in a mall. (link)

The saga of one crazy suit began with Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell’s purchase of a laptop computer from a local Best Buy store in the D.C. area. A Best Buy staffer talked her into buying a $300 extended warranty. The warranty includes coverage by Best Buy’s service technicians — “Geek Squad” — for three years, and replacements of defective hardware free of charge.

Her laptop indeed experienced hardware malfunctions within a year when her on/off switch broke. At that point, Campbell breathed a sigh of relief that she purchased the warranty and took her laptop in to Best Buy. She turned in her laptop in May and was told that it would be up and running within two to six weeks. This was a major inconvenience to her, as she was a frequent business traveler, but she figured she just should stay optimistic that it came as soon as possible.

In July an ‘Agent David Goodfellow’ told Campbell that the laptop would be “ready within days”. A call several days later informed her that the laptop was not ready, and was in fact still at the repair center. The rest of the month concluded with continued assurances that it was going to leave the repair center in no time. (link)