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Sep29
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On September 7, 2006, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) levied a fine in connection with alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Xanga.com, a social networking website, agreed to a consent order providing for a $1 million fine for violations of COPPA. This fine shows the focus the FTC places on protecting children's online privacy. The FTC charged that Xanga.com had actual knowledge that it collected personal information of children under age 13 without the consent of the children's parents or guardians.
Xanga.com acknowledged it failed to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting, using, and disclosing the personal information. Xanga.com indicated in its user agreement that children under age 13 could not join, but the website permitted such users even when they registered using a birth date showing they were under 13.
The FTC's prosecution suggests that boilerplate provisions contained in a website's terms of service may be inadequate to meet the regulations.
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Sep27
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On September 13, 2006, Prashant Shah of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, gave a talk in Mountain View, CA on open source business models. Shah is a principal at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Prior to his appointment, he was with enCommerce...
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Sep25
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On September 13, 2006, Fenwick & West, LLP hosted a discussion on methods for monetizing open source. The talk began with a layout of the different types of open source business models. There are some business that design products for...
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On September 13, 2006, Barry Klawans, chief technology officer, JasperSoft, Inc. (JasperSoft) gave a talk in Mountain View, CA on open source challenges and opportunities. He predicted that in two years, open source will be an offering for most software...
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Sep24
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On September 13, 2006, Ray Wu, who currently leads Hewlett-Packard's venture management organization to manage inbound technology evaluation, gave a talk in Mountain View, CA on open source business models. He began his talk on the duel license model. The...
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Sep22
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On September 21, 2006, Keith Kamisugi, a consultant on public relations for legal organizations, spoke in San Francisco, CA on marketing tools that resulted in business development for solo and small firm practitioners. He indicated that branding involved choices on...
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On September 8, 2006, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a final rule rescinding its Equal Opportunity Survey (Survey). The Survey requested contractors to provide information on personnel activities, compensation, tenure data, and affirmative action program. In...
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Sep19
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The following is not meant to be legal advice, and is provided for information purposes only. On September 7, 2007, the litigation committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel hosted a web cast on stock options backdating. The presentation featured...
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Sep18
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DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary hosted the New Tech September 2006 Meetup in East Palo Alto, CA on September 5, 2006. During the Meetup, a representative from Spy Media, Inc. gave a talk on the web site that allowed people...
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The following is for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. The U. S. Supreme Court interpreted Congress’ objective in the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (the “Act”) to be to achieve equality of employment...
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The attorney working in high technology may be seeing the term "Web 2.0" a lot these days. Coined in 2004, the term is often cited to signify harnessed collective intelligence. It represents the widespread use of the web as an...
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Sep16
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The following is for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. Companies often find themselves seeking writers for white papers and technical articles. What are the employee issues that arise in such situations. The Employment Development Department of...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice, and is provided for information purposes. From an intellectual property perspective, having a single entity own legal title to an entire group's intellectual property can be advantageous, regardless of where that...
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Sep15
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The following is for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. In confidentiality agreements, should confidentiality breach be carved out of the limitaion of indirect damages? When confidentiality is breached, are the only damages that results indirect damages? Compensatory...
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Sep14
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Many attorneys use the MS Word track changes feature when negotiating or drafting agreements. When using the track changes features, attorneys should be aware, especially in the latest version of MS Word, of the perils. Highlighting changes from prior drafts by...
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The following is not meant to be legal advice, and is provided for information purposes. There is a need for employers to retain employee records, but for how long. There is no single answer because it depends on the types...
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On September 13, 2006, Murugan Pal, co-founder and chief technology officer, at SpikeSource gave a talk in Mountain View, CA on open source business challenges. Prior to SpikeSource, Pal was with venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byer, and...
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Sep13
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On September 13, 2006, Fred Greguras, Of Counsel, Corporate Group at Fenwick & West, LLP moderated a discussion in Mountain View, CA on open source business models. Though open source is increasing in acceptance in operating systems, web servers, and...
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The following is for information purposes, and not meant to be legal or other advice. Application Service Providers (ASPs) promise up to date software, hosted reliability, and reasonable cost. Here are some items to ask when determining whether to engage...
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal or financial advice. Corporate bonds are debt instruments issued by corporations for capital. As an alternative to issuing stock, the corporation repays the loan at a specific...
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Sep12
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On September 12, 2006, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman, LLP sponsored a discussion on nanomechanics: fuel-cell muscle in Palo Alto, CA. Ray Baughman, a professor of chemistry and director of the NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas, Dallas spoke about...
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. In Olinick v. BMG Entertainment, 138 Cal. App. 4th 1286 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2006), the court held that choice-of-law and forum selection provisions contained in...
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Sep11
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When studying open source licensing, the attorney might take note of MySQL. MySQL was developed by MySQL AB, a Swedish corporation. MySQL is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and dual licenses. A dual license allows derived works...
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Sep10
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. On August 23, 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law AB2875. AB2875 bans confidential settlement agreements in "any civil action the factual foundation for which...
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Sep 9
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In United States v. Novak, 441 F.3d 819 (9th Cir. 2006), the court ruled that ERISA pension benefits can be garnished under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA). The defendant was sentenced to 24 months imprisonment and ordered to pay...
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Sep 8
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal or financial advice. What can a public company do when it generates too much cash? There are several possibilities: become an acquisition target, declare a dividend, buy...
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Sep 7
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In Carter v. California Dep’t of Veteran Affairs, 38 Cal.4th 914 (Cal. 2006), the court held that liability for harassment by non-employees was retroactive. The California Supreme Court decision revived the hostile environment claim of a former nurse that she...
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Sep 6
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In Smith v. Superior Court, 2006 Cal. LEXIS 8354 (Cal. July 10, 2006), the court ruled that separation from employment do not need to be involuntary in order to trigger the duty to pay at the moment of separation or...
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Sep 5
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (Act) impacts the administration of muliemployer plans. The Act establishes classifications for multiemployer plans that do not meet funding criteria....
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Sep 4
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The following is for information purposes and not meant to be legal advice. Here are some definitions of words commonly found in license contracts: ASP SERVICES: means Application Service Provider Services including access to software applications provided from a centrally...
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. On July 21, 2006 the “Financial Data Protection Act” (Act) was reported out of the House Financial Services Committee. If passed, this Act would impose a...
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. In Cooper v. IBM Personal Pension Plan, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that IBM’s cash balance plan did not unlawfully discriminate against older workers....
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Sep 3
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In Edwards v. Arthur Andersen, a California appellate court expressly rejected a “narrow restraint” exception to California’s non-compete statute. The narrow restraint exception is relied on by federal courts to enforce non-competes against California employees where the restraint excludes an...
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (Act) signed by President George Bush on August 17, 2006 impacts defined contribution plans, including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)....
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The following is provided for information purposes, and not meant to be legal advice. The EEOC announced in March 6, 2006 plans to dedicate time to enforcing disparate impact claims under Title VII, especially those alleging race discrimination. The EEOC...
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The following is provided for information purposes and not meant to be legal advice. On August 3, 2006, Congress passed the Pension Protection Act 2006 (Act). The pension reform law contains provisions relating to 401(k) and other defined contribution plans....
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Sep 1
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Employment Law Learning Technologies provides employee training on legal and ethics topics. Its solutions include courses on discrimination, harassment prevention, codes of conduct. Its solutions allow employers to implement web based trainings throughout their organizations worldwide by allowing employees to...
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