U.S. Patent Office rejects subdomain patent

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:08:39 +0000

If you have ever had a website with more than few pages, you have probably created a subdomain. Instead of pointing visitors to www.internetblog.org.uk/coolguy, you might want to emphasize your coolness first and have your URL read: coolguy.internetblog.org.uk. Suddenly, you have something close to a new domain, called a subdomain. Now imagine that twenty days after creating your fabulously cool subdomain, you receive a cease and desist letter, ordering you to either pay royalties to an unknown company or face litigation.

A company named Hoshiko made the claim with the U.S. Patent Office that the concept of creating subdomains on the fly, as opposed to creating new DNS entries for each one, was their idea and was worthy of a patent. Although the patent was approved in 2004, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fought back, arguing that there were plenty of open source projects, including Apache web server, utilizing this technology prior to the original 1999 filing. The patent office agreed and nullified the patent.

“This patent was particularly troubling because the company tried to remove the work of open source developers from the public domain and use it to threaten others,” EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said in a statement. “Ironically, the transparent open source development process gave us the tools to bust the patent!”

Over the past several years, companies have begun patenting everything from the double click to web site one-click shopping carts. The EFF and other organizations struggle against software patents through legal channels. It looks like cool guys everywhere can relax.

Source: Ars Technica
Photo: Flickr

EFF tracks policy changes on Facebook, YouTube and others

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:52:46 +0000

TOSBack is a new site created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that tracks terms of service (TOS) agreements on major websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, Apple, and WordPress. In the past, some major social media sites have instituted TOS agreements that alarmed users and raised questions about their right to privacy. All of the sites in question frequently collect sensitive user data that most users expect to be protected from advertising, unwanted disclosure and fraud.

With this new website, the EFF gives users the ability to see changes in policies via a real-time feed, including side-by-side comparisons of the agreements with the changes highlighted.

‘Terms of Service’ policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information,” the EFF said in a statement. “But most web users don’t read these policies–or understand that the terms are constantly changing.”

Usually, a website will send mass emails to their users whenever a policy change takes effect, but most users do not bother to read the often complicated and lengthy documents. Earlier this year, Facebook made a change to its policy that allowed it to use deleted user content whenever and for as long as it wanted. When users protested, the company backed down from the change. The EFF hopes to put other major Internet services under the same scrutiny to ensure user rights are protected.

Source: CNET
Photo: Flickr

eff – Internetblog.org.uk

U.S. Patent Office rejects subdomain patent

EFF tracks policy changes on Facebook, YouTube and others