On January 24th, Google announced a sweeping overhaul to its privacy policies that will take effect March 1, 2012. Rather than maintaining 60+ distinct privacy policies for its various properties, Google has created a single, unified privacy policy that will provide what Google describes as a ” beautifully simple and intuitive experience” across all of the company’s sites.

The company should be commended for rolling out these changes in a completely transparent way: it has advertised the changes across its properties, and given users over a month to review the changes prior to them taking effect. Google’s educational site does . . . [more]

Despite anecdotal evidence of jurors misbehaving when using the Internet and social media (for instance, the recent article on Slaw English Court Jails Juror Who Used Internet Search), a recent survey of members of the U.S. federal judiciary reveals that the problem appears less widespread than many assume.

The Federal Judicial Center was asked by a committee of the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States to survey federal judges on the issue (response rate was 53%).

The results, based on the responses of 508 responding judges, indicate that detected social media use by jurors is infrequent, and that

On Friday I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of lawyers at The Commons Institute‘s eCommerce and the Practice of Law conference in Toronto. I was given the large topic of using social media in a legal practice.

Below are the slides I started with in the discussion, but the real meat of it was the many excellent questions that were put to me by the group. I hope to blog more about those questions, either here or over on my personal blog (will let you know!). In the meantime, I hope these slides are helpful.

Here are just a few links to what seems the most thoughtful commentary on the aftermath of the Jan. 18 Blackout. Add more in the comments, if you got ’em.

• SOPA support in Congress
• PIPA vote postponed
• Why the strategy failed
• Whose daily life the blackout affected
• The significance of the effort
• The whole thing explained in 13 minutes

Also, using copyright laws to justify civil rights infringements is not over . . . [more]

The general public can already get legal information and/or advice from public legal education websites or from legal clinics and pro bono groups.

Some city councils in the United Kingdom are going one step further. Birmingham and Westminster are teaming up with videoconferencing firm Instant Law UK to offer free legal advice via webcam in public libraries:

“The plan is now to be in 100 locations within 12 months and 360 locations in 24 months. Though it will continue to place kiosks in those shopping centres which have already been identified – with three set to launch at

From an item I just posted on Stem’s newly launched blog The Greenhouse, a javascript library is now available called impress.js that replicates many of zooming effects found in Prezi.com. For those not familiar with Prezi, this web presentation tool delivers a number of cool 3D effects, zooming in and out of your presentation elements.

The impress.js library offers similar effects, but without the flash technology. Developed by Bartek Szopka, it is also open source, and utilizes CSS3 3D transitions found in newer webkit supported browsers — which means you’ll need Chrome or Safari to see the . . . [more]

On January 18, 2012 you will not be able to read anything from the English version of Wikipedia.
Building on Jack’s post yesterday, there is indeed a BIG fuss about SOPA. As Jack mentioned, Reddit and Boing Boing are also going dark in protest.

Wikipedia explains their blackout here, but I found this expert particularly interesting:

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on

Controversy and anger over the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has been gathering since the bill was introduced nearly three months ago.

Corporate supporters of the bill have been the targets of organized boycotts. GoDaddy, for example, was a supporter of SOPA until December 29’s “Dump GoDaddy Day” gained enough traction to force the company to reverse its position on SOPA.

Meanwhile, popular websites such as Reddit and Boing Boing will show their opposition to SOPA by “going dark” (i.e., shutting down) for one day on January 18th. Google and Facebook are being campaigned to undertake a . . . [more]

The 2011 Website Award of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) went to the Kenya Law Reports.

The winner was announced in December at an IALL meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Award seeks to recognise and promote free legal information websites that are authoritative, comprehensive, up-to-date, useful, and user-friendly.

Other nominees in 2011 included:

• Europeana
• Global Legal Information Network
• HuriSearch
• International Comparative Legal Guide Series
• Legifrance
• openDOAR
• RIS – Bundeskanzleramt Rechtsinformationssystem
• THOMAS
• War Crimes Research Office, Jurisprudence Collections
• WebLaw

A list of winners from previous years can be found on the IALL website. . . . [more]

Today AvoidAClaim posted about three new fraud scams that lawyers alerted us to. All were similar to other scams we have seen in the past.

• A commercial debt collection scam by Grenham Donal Falley
• A breach of contract scam by Chan Li
• A collaborative family law agreement scam by Michelle Eley

This goes to show that the frausters are always at work coming up with new names, new email addresses, and new variations of the same scam to keep ahead of our efforts to publicize the information. See our Fraud Fact sheet for all the information you’ll need to help . . . [more]

Over the last four days there has been a massive spike in bad cheque frauds targeting lawyers in across Canada (BC, Ontario and Quebec), the U.S. (NC, NY) and several other countries around the world (including Australia, Fiji, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K.).

Almost 300 lawyers notified us that they received an initial contact message on one of these frauds. As LAWPRO would receive reports on a fraction of the attempted frauds, it would appear that thousands of lawyers have been targeted over the last four days. Several thousand lawyers have visited the AvoidAClaim blog for more information . . . [more]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) offers a terrific suggestion for a New Year’s resolution that you might actually have a decent chance of keeping: enabling full disk encryption on all of your computers.

Full disk encryption means that if your computer’s hard drive falls into the wrong hands – because of theft, loss, or other causes – it remains unreadable until the correct “passphrase” is entered. If, for example, you lose your laptop full of sensitive client data while traveling, you can rest easy knowing that the data on your laptop is protected from prying eyes thanks to the . . . [more]