For some potential investors, the hype over Facebook’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) was obvious, largely around inflated expectations over advertising revenues and business model.

Facebook is already facing a couple class actions in the U.S., directed against the funders of the IPO. But now Facebook is facing a series of Canadian class actions against Facebook itself.

A class action was filed this past week in Saskatchewan, with another being filed in Ontario tomorrow, and B.C. to follow thereafter. The class action allege that the bank analysts involved were privy to insider information regarding revenue expectations for the second . . . [more]

As traditional computers and laptops increasingly compete against mobile devices like Apple’s iPads and iPhones, every business that operates online will be forced to reevaluate the effectiveness of their delivery. Asking questions like, “How well have we replicated our web experience on mobile devices?” Or, in cases where the mobile interface has been completely re-engineered, “What’s missing when comparing the two experiences?”

Admittedly, the necessity for this kind of comparison is still in its infancy in the legal market. But probably not for much longer; higher percentages of mobile visitors may be here in as little as 12 to 18 . . . [more]

This year, at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR)s will be renegotiated. The ITRs are set of regulations set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations entity tasked with overseeing, well, international telecommunications standards. It has been widely rumored for some time now that the upcoming WCIT-12 will see a vote to amend the ITRs to expand their scope so as to more clearly include matters of Internet governance. An amendment of this nature would potentially create a new venue for international Internet law — one that operates very differently from existing . . . [more]

Further to the post earlier today about passwords at LinkedIn being hacked, LinkedIn has issued the following update:

Our security team continues to investigate this morning’s reports of stolen passwords. At this time, we’re still unable to confirm that any security breach has occurred. You can stay informed of our progress by following us on Twitter @LinkedIn and @LinkedInNews.

While our investigation continues, we thought it would be a good idea to remind our members that one of the best ways to protect your privacy and security online is to craft a strong password, to change it frequently (at . . . [more]

A post on the TheNextWeb site indicates that a Norweigan IT webite, Dagens IT, reported the breach. That site indicates that 6.5 million encrypted LinkedIn passwords have been posted to a Russian hacker site.
LinkedIn has responded that they are looking into the breach.
To be safe, LinkedIn users should change their passwords immediately.
For more passwords tips, see this article from Law Practice Magazine: Don’t Be Passé With Passwords: Best Practices for Staying Safe.

[Updated 3:30 pm Eastern]

Not a lot of info from LinkedIn on this so far today. Two earlier tweets indicating they are investigating . . . [more]

Others have talked about their contributions to lawTechCamp 2012 held in Toronto in May. I am sharing the slide decks from the presentation I did with fellow consultant Stephanie Barnes and the six minute demo I did the same day.

The first talk here is an introduction to Law Firm Knowledge Management. Included are some images developed by Stephanie, and some we have developed together, as well as content from other sources. . . . [more]

Abe Voelker recently authored a thought-provoking blog post on how version control systems used by software developers could potentially be used to rework the process of drafting legislation:

Imagine a public system like GitHub but instead of source code being tracked, legal documents such as bills/laws are tracked (and just like GitHub, versioned in git). Imagine if, before any bill is introduced to Congress, its contents were posted on this publicly available medium with adequate time before a vote?

What if any proposed amendments to legislation were posted publicly as pull requests?

What if anyone could write amendments to existing

Coming up in June, Commonwealth Legal is assembling a three city Canadian legal tech conference tour; landing in: Toronto (13th), Calgary (21st) and Vancouver (27th).

Session topics covered include:

• Litigation Management on a Global Scale
• 360° Review Management
• Technology Assisted Document Review
• Cloud Computing for the Legal Profession
• Social Media: The New ESI Frontier
• Data Reduction and Culling Techniques
• Shifting Technology Paradigms

Visit their website — technologyinpractice.ca — for full session details, speakers, and conference pricing. . . . [more]

I was asked to present this week at a special lunch session of the Toronto Association of Law Libraries as one of several speakers to discuss tablets and their apps. In my case, I will discuss the new iPad (or iPad3, as it is sometimes called).

If interested, set out below are my general comments on iPads along with a list of apps I most frequently use. . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has refused leave to appeal the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Tucows.com v Lojas Renner 2011 ONCA 548

That decision had held that Tucows.com could bring an action for a declaration of its rights to a domain name in an Ontario court, on the ground that the dispute involved “real or personal property located in Ontario”. In this case, Tucows.com was the registrar and the owner of the domain name Renner. com. The other party was a Brazilian company that owned the trade mark ‘Renner’ (though not apparently in Canada.)

The Court . . . [more]

Ever wonder how Google responds to copyright violations? Or, how many URL removal requests it receives from copyright holders? Take a look at Google’s Transparency Report.

The numbers are pretty interesting; and the site is probably worth a bookmark for anyone involved in IP law. You can see, for example, that BPI made 5X more copyright enforcement requests than the RIAA last month. You can also identify which domains are being taken offline, or which file sharing services are receiving the most attention.

An interesting window inside Google…

. . . [more]

The New York state legislature is reviewing two proposed laws that would seemingly make it mandatory for operators of blogs, websites, etc., to take down anonymous comments upon request “unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name and home address are accurate”.

Also included is an obligation for any website “where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages” must develop infrastructure and contact mechanisms for a.) allowing takedown requests to be submitted and b.) for contacting anonymous posters and seeking their . . . [more]