Australian software developer Dan Nolan claimed in a February 13 blog post that Google shares personal information without the proper consent of users who download applications. The information sent to app developers includes the full name, location, and e-mail address of users.

Sharing such information may be useful for developers to directly handle customer service issues, as developer Barry Schwartz points out. Google also claims that developers can only use account information for “limited purposes” for which they’re received permission from users.

However, others such as Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Joel Ridenberg, Director of the Center of Law and Information Policy at Fordham School of Law, have expressed their concern that users may not have been informed properly and given a chance for meaningful consent.

Nolan added that if he wanted to, he could use the information available to him through Google’s checkout portal to track down and harass users who left negative reviews or refunded the app purchase.

Google, on the other hand, denied that Google Play’s handling of personal information violated its 2011 agreement with the FTC to ask users before sharing their data with outsiders. In 2012, Google had to pay $22.5 million, the largest penalty the FTC levied on a company, to settle charges for bypassing the privacy settings of millions of Apple users.

In other news, EU privacy regulators decided to take action on Google, alleging various privacy violations.

Egypt’s Telecom Ministry Appeals 30-day YouTube Ban

Egypt’s telecom ministry filed an appeal to halt a February 9 court mandate to ban YouTube within Egypt’s borders, claiming that the mandate was not enforceable.

According to a statement issued after talks between ministry officials and the telecoms regulator,

“[b]locking YouTube would affect the search engine of Google, of which Egypt is the second biggest user in the Middle East,” which would cause losses to the economy of up to tens of millions of dollars and affect thousands of jobs.

The 30-day ban was issued earlier this month after public outrage and more than 50 casualties in the Middle East over the 14-minute video “Innocence of Muslims” posted on YouTube last July. Judge Hassouna Tawfiq of the Cairo administrative court described the video as “offensive to Islam” and to the Prophet Muhammad, violating the new constitution that includes a ban on causing insult to “religious messengers and prophets.”

Electronic Arts and Zynga Settle Copyright Violation and Employee Recruitment Lawsuits

Electronic Arts and Zynga settled competing lawsuits against each other on copyright violations and employee recruitment.

Electronic Arts, the second biggest U.S. video game publisher and developer of the famous Sims series, filed suit last August against Zynga, claiming that Zynga cloned “The Sims Social,” an Electronic Arts game on Facebook, in creating its game “The Ville” with the help of former Electronic Arts executives who knew how “The Sims Social” was developed.

Zynga, the biggest developer of games played on Facebook, countersued Electronic Arts for trying to improperly stop employees from switching companies. Zynga said this violated a 2011 agreement between the companies over employee solicitations.

The two companies agreed to permanently drop all claims and counterclaims raised in litigation since last August in San Francisco federal court.

AT&T Price-Fixing Suit Reinstated

AT&T’s price-fixing suit against AU Optronics Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. was reinstated in the 9th Circuit after partial dismissal at a lower court for insufficient ties to California state antitrust law. The court ruled that “A defendant cannot reasonably complain that the application of California law is arbitrary or unfair when its alleged conspiracy took place, at least in part, in California.” Full opinion of the case, AT&T Mobility LLC v. AU Optronics Corp, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 11-16188, is available here.

In late 2010, Anonymous launched Distributed Denial of Service (“DDoS”) attacks[E1] on several websites, including those of PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa. The attacks, known as Operation Payback or Operation Avenge Assange (named after founder and head of WikiLeaks Julian Assange), were a response to those companies’ suspension of the accounts WikiLeaks[E2] used to receive donations. A strong opponent of Internet censorship, members of Anonymous aligned themselves with WikiLeaks, a self-proclaimed non-profit media organization that publishes leaked documents online. Anonymous claimed that the operations were protests against what the group considered an “affront to Internet freedom.”[E3] (Interestingly, Anonymous recently declared it will sever ties with WikiLeaks, denouncing WikiLeaks for making leaked documents available only to people who donate to or promote WikiLeaks on social media.)

WikiLeaks and Operation Payback / Avenge Assange spurred a flurry of legal debates, relating to freedom of expression – for example, should publishing leaked documents be protected under the First Amendment? But it also reignited a far-reaching Fourth Amendment question – how far should searches and seizures go in the digital age? In the present Anonymous case, U.S. v. Collins, 11-471, defense counsel demanded that files irrelevant to the case be deleted from the copies of files that were extracted from seized computers by the government. Prosecution, on the other hand, claimed that deleting files was unduly burdensome and could run the risk of corrupting evidence.

More than a year since the Anonymous hacktivists were arrested,the gridlock was broken earlier this month, when Judge Delwen Lowell Jensen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California ordered the prosecution to hand over the seized files to the court. Judge Jensen explained that this was to prevent prosecutors from accessing private information irrelevant to the case, such as personal e-mails or medical information, while ensuring that all evidence collected in the investigation was preserved. As the latest in a string of cases on the scope of searches and seizures, it is yet to be seen if other courts will take similar stances.

U.S. v. Collins illuminates a common problem for criminal and civil litigators alike – how do we identify relevant electronic evidence? Just like prosecutors cannot seize and retain all documents, adversaries in civil litigation cannot require the other party to produce and hand over infinite information. While the days may be fewer (or entirely gone for some) when first year associates sifted through mounds of documents in warehouses for relevant information, sifting through electronic documents can also be a costly and time-consuming task. Several tactics exist to reduce the costs of e-discovery, including limiting its scope and managing information effectively, which may be applied to some criminal cases as well.

The U.S. v. Collins development poses another question –is it the fact that prosecutors or opposing counsel can see private information the actual problem? Or is it that someone – regardless of who it is – other than the owner [E4] will be able to see it? As a practical matter, especially in criminal proceedings, some privacy may have to give way. In U.S. v. Collins, the court has already stated they will oversee discovery so that prosecutors will not abuse their power over extraneous information. But who will oversee the court? Until new software can be developed to go beyond text searches to accurately single out relevant information– for example, image content detection for child pornography cases or tools to detect files relevant to hacking programs – eventually someone, courts or not, will have to go through the data to check its relevance. If other courts use their discretion in holding and dispensing evidence, such practice will require stronger rules for guidance and accountability.

(For an interview of Jay Leiderman, counsel for Anonymous, see: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/hacktivists-advocate-meet-the-lawyer-who-defends-anonymous/263202/.)