Paul K. Kim, a graduating senior in a suburb outside Seattle,
Washington, was severely sanctioned by his principal for publishing a
lampoon of his school (Newport High School) on the Internet, including
links to Internet sites with sexually-explicit material. The
principal withdrew support for Kim as a National Merit Scholarship
finalist and faxed letters to seven universities to which he applied,
informing them that the school was withdrawing its support for Kim as a
National Merit Scholar and any recommendations the school
may have given him. (New York Times, 5/28/95, p.10.)
A New York judge cleared the way for a libel suit by Stratton Oakmont,
Inc., an investment bank, and its president against Prodigy Services
Company, ruling that the computer online network may be viewed as a
publisher of information posted on its "Money Talk"
bulletin board. (New York Times, 5/26/95, C4; San Jose Mercury News,
5/26/95, 1G.)
The Better Business Bureau has filed suit against Mark Sloo, dba Clark
Publishing, for acquiring registration of "bbb.org" and "bbb.com"
allegedly to elicit money from the Bureau (which has used the BBB
acronym for years) when it decides to use the Internet. (San
Jose Mercury News, 5/12/95, 1C.)
A New York court held that the Delphi computer online service is to be
treated as a news disseminator in a suit brought by Howard Stern,
dismissing allegations that Delphi's use of his name and photograph
violated the New York Civil Rights Law. __Stern v. Delphi
Internet Services Corp.__, 1995 N.Y. Misc. Lexis 197 (N.Y. Sup. Ct.
5/20/95).
The Commerce Department approved the export of Cybercash Inc.
encryption technology, which only encrypts a small section of a
transaction message. Tight restrictions on encryption for "bulk"
messaging remain. (San Jose Mercury News, 5/9/95, 3E.)
An anti-terrorism law proposed in the wake of the bombing of the
Federal Building in Oklahoma City would permit the Government to obtain
a wiretap to investigate any suspected Federal felony and would lower
legal barriers to the use of eavesdropping evidence in
court. The law would also require telephone companies to help Government
wiretappers gain access to digital telecommunication lines under court
orders. (New York Times, 5/9/95, A8.)
Microsoft Windows 95 reportedly includes a Registration Wizard routine
that interrogates each system on a network to determine what products
are loaded (including products by competitors), creates a complete
listing, and reports this listing back to Microsoft
when a customer signs up for Microsoft Network Services. The routine can
be disabled. (InformationWeek, 5/22/95, p.88.)
The Federal Communications Commission established national rules for
"Caller ID" under which callers may block their numbers from being seen
by dialing *67 before each call or by special request to the phone
company. Phone numbers of those who have unlisted
numbers will be displayed if they do not take either step. In
California, where the service is not offered, Pacific Bell will be
required to send callers' numbers out of state by December 1, 1995. (San
Jose Mercury News, 5/5/95, 1A.)
A misdemeanor complaint was filed against a Los Angeles man, David
Luera, on charges of possessing child pornography that prosecutors
allege he obtained from the Internet. Luera faces one year in jail and a
fine of up to $1,000. The Los Angeles Police
Department's Sexually Exploited Child Unit began to investigate Luera
after he placed an ad in Loving Alternatives magazine, allegedly seeking
to have an "open relationship" with couples interested in family nudity.
(New York Times, 5/19/95, A8.)
IBM won a repetitive stress injury case brought by a former
supermarket clerk in New York who claimed she had been injured by using
keyboards developed by IBM and NCR Corp. (San Jose Mercury News, 5/3/95,
3G.)
The Federal Communications Commission will allow the market to set
prices on cellular phone service beginning in August 1995. (San Jose
Mercury News, 5/12/95, 1C.)
Texas Instruments Inc. won a $51.8 million judgment against VLSI
Technology Inc., Cypress Semiconductor Corp., and LSI Logic Corp. for
infringing TI's patent on a technology known as plastic encapsulation,
used in packaging semiconductors. (San Jose Mercury
News, 5/11/95, 1F.)
The Federal Communications Commission will not enforce a ruling by its
Common Carrier Bureau that would have required telephone companies to
raise the price of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) service.
The Bureau had said customers would have to
pay a "subscriber line charge" according to the capacity of their ISDN
connection, measured in equivalents to ordinary telephone lines. (New
York Times, 5/31/95, C4.)
The International Trade Commission will investigate low-power hard
disk drives imported by IBM. Conner Peripherals Inc., alleging that IBM
is infringing Conner patents, asked the Commission to issue a permanent
exclusion order barring the import and sale within
the U.S. of the drives. (New York Times, 5/9/95, C8.)
The California Public Utilities Commission ruled that Pacific Bell
violated state law by restricting use of its Centrex system. The PUC
ordered the company to allow businesses to make local toll calls on
competitors' lines without dialing five-digit prefixes. At the
beginning of this year, the PUC had opened the market for local toll
calls -- those more than 11 miles from within one of the state's 11
local call regions. (San Jose Mercury News, 5/11/95, 3F.)
Microsoft announced it is abandoning plans to acquire Intuit Inc. The
announcement came a day after the Justice Department accused lawyers for
Microsoft and Intuit of acting in bad faith, and requested delay of the
trial scheduled to begin on June 26. (New York
Times, 5/21/95, p.1.)
The California State Senate passed a bill that specifically includes
computer data and related information (including programming
information) within the scope of civil discovery.
CyberLex (tm) is published solely as an educational service. The author,
a California attorney, is Executive Editor of LEXIS COUNSEL CONNECT
CALIFORNIA. He may be contacted at jrosen03@counsel.com or
cyberlaw@cyberlaw.com. Questions and comments
may be posted on America Online (go to keyword "CYBERLAW") or CyberLaw
World Wide (http://www.portal.com/~cyberlaw/), made possible with
support from Portal Communications Co. (ph. 408/973-9111). CyberLex is a
trademark of Jonathan Rosenoer. Copyright
(c) 1995 Jonathan Rosenoer; All Rights Reserved.