justice

Due to a block put in place by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, 30,000 people can’t use Wikipedia at work.  Yet, while it’s a bit startling to hear the development phrased like that, the move may not be entirely unreasonable.

Forget pipes—the Internet is all about postage and packages now. Just ask the U.S. Department of Justice. For some reason, they seem to think that the fact that the USPS “allows consumers to send packages with a variety of different delivery guarantees and speeds, from bulk mail to overnight delivery” means that the US government cannot legislate or enforce net neutrality.

Your Web activity may be scrutinized a little more closely in coming days, and records of it are going to stick around for longer than in the past. The U.S. Justice Department has asked giants AOL, Google, and Microsoft to hold onto accounts of their users' online actions for up to two years. The information is intended to help with investigations into terrorism and child pornography.

Companies like Google, Comcast, Verizon, and Microsoft have recently met with the Department of Justice and the FBI on the suggestions that those Internet companies retain user web activities for as long as two years to help fight terrorism and child pornography.

Google had complained to US and European antitrust regulators about Microsoft including a search box with MSN Search as the default in Internet Explorer 7, but the Department of Justice had no problems with the feature.

A legal brief filed with the US District Court in San Jose by Google's attorneys criticized the Department of Justice prosecutors involved in the federal government's grab for Google's search records.

The analysts who recently advised clients to sell Google have been proved prescient, as Google's now-public fight with the Department of Justice has led to a sell-off.

With a $3.4 billion acquisition of Macromedia pending, the two companies have to provide more information to DOJ.