Featured News

EFF Sues AT&T to Stop Illegal Surveillance
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T Tuesday, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.
Full story, EFF case page
January 31, 2006

Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation
Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature.
Full story
Febuary 9, 2006

CD Copy Protection Firm Promises Fix for Software Problems
In response to an open letter written by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), SunnComm Technologies, Inc., has outlined what it has done and will do to address potential security problems caused by its MediaMax CD copy-protection software and to help protect against future vulnerabilities. Use of the software on CDs released by Sony BMG has received significant media attention, but many consumers are unaware that the software was also used by several independent music labels.
Full story
Febuary 2, 2006

Supreme Court Tackles Dangerous Patent Ruling
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the United States Supreme Court Thursday, asking justices to overturn a court ruling in a patent case with dangerous implications for free speech and consumers' rights. The Public Patent Foundation, the American Library Association, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the Special Library Association joined EFF on the brief.
Full story, EFF's Amicus brief, More on how bad patents affect the public
January 27, 2006

Nevada Court Rules Google Cache is Fair Use
A federal district court in Nevada has ruled that Google does not violate copyright law when it copies websites, stores the copies, and transmits them to Internet users as part of its Google Cache feature. The ruling clarifies the legal status of several common search engine practices and could influence future court cases, including the lawsuits brought by book publishers against the Google Library Project.
Full story, The ruling [PDF]
January 25, 2006

EFF Applauds Google Resistance to Government Subpoena
Yesterday, the Justice Department asked a federal court in San Jose, California to force Google to turn over search records for use as evidence in a case where the government is defending the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). Google has refused to comply with a subpoena for those records, based in part on its concern for its users' privacy. While EFF applauds Google for defending its users' privacy in this case, the current controversy only highlights the broader privacy problem.
Full story
January 19, 2006

Judge Grants Preliminary Approval for Sony BMG CD Settlement
A US District Court judge in New York gave preliminary approval Friday to a settlement for music fans who purchased Sony BMG music CDs containing flawed copy protection programs.
Full story, FAQ about the settlement, More on Sony BMG
January 6, 2006

EFF Calls on EMI to Permit Security Research on Copy-Protected CDs
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today sent an open letter to EMI Music — the record label representing artists including Paul McCartney and Coldplay — calling on it to agree not to pursue any legal action against computer security researchers who examine the copy-protection technologies used on some EMI CDs.
Full story, EFF's open letter [PDF]
January 4, 2006

EFF and Sony BMG Reach Preliminary Settlement over Flawed DRM
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined in a preliminary settlement agreement with Sony BMG this week to settle several class action lawsuits filed due to Sony's use of flawed and overreaching computer program in millions of music CDs sold to the public.
Full story, More on Sony BMG

EFF Defends Prisoners' First Amendment Rights
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of Prison Legal News told a federal court Wednesday that Georgia state prisoners should be allowed to receive material printed from the Internet through the mail.
Full story, The brief filed in the case [PDF]
December 16, 2005

North Carolina Sued for Illegally Certifying Voting Equipment
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Thursday filed a complaint against the North Carolina Board of Elections and the North Carolina Office of Information Technology Services on behalf of voting integrity advocate Joyce McCloy, asking that the Superior Court void the recent illegal certification of three electronic voting systems.
Full story, The complaint [PDF], More on E-voting
December 8, 2005

Government Still Pushing for Cell Phone Tracking Without Probable Cause
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked a federal magistrate judge in New York City to reject a Department of Justice (DOJ) request to track a cell phone user without first showing probable cause of a crime. In a brief filed in New York on Tuesday, EFF and the Federal Defenders of New York argue that no law authorizes the government's request, and that granting the order would threaten Americans' Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches.
Full story, The brief [PDF], More on cellphone tracking
December 7, 2005

North Carolina Illegally Certifies Diebold E-voting System
The North Carolina Board of Elections certified Diebold Election Systems to sell electronic voting equipment in the state yesterday, despite Diebold's repeated admission that it could not comply with North Carolina's tough election law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) believes that this raises important questions about the Board of Elections' procedures as well as the integrity of Diebold's bid for certification. Full story,
December 2, 2005

DMCA Triennial Rulemaking: Failing Consumers Completely
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today released a report entitled "DMCA Triennial Rulemaking: Failing the Digital Consumer," describing why the third triennial DMCA rulemaking, currently underway before the U.S. Copyright Office, does not effectively address the concerns of American digital media consumers. In light of the shortcomings of the DMCA rulemaking procedure, EFF will not propose any DMCA exemptions for the 2006-2009 triennial rulemaking period.
Full story, "DMCA Triennial Rulemaking: Failing Consumers Completely", More on why EFF won't participate, More on DMCA Rulemaking
December 1, 2005

Smart Card Research Threatened in DirecTV Case
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford University Law School filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday, asking judges to protect legitimate researchers from the heavy-handed tactics of the DirecTV Group, Inc., a worldwide provider of digital television entertainment, broadband satellite networks and services, and global video and data broadcasting.
Full story, Full brief filed in the case
November 30, 2005

EFF Convinces North Carolina Judge To Throw Out Diebold E-Voting Case
Responding to arguments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a North Carolina judge today told Diebold Election Systems that the e-voting company must comply with tough North Carolina election law and dismissed the company's case seeking broad exemptions from the law.
Full story, The brief EFF filed, More about E-voting
November 28, 2005

News Archives »