Stories by Loek Essers

Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 patents, Apple says

Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 Apple patents, according to a court filing by Apple.

WikiLeaks' donations barely enough to keep the servers running

Donations to WikiLeaks since January have only been enough to cover expenditures in essential infrastructure, such as servers, according to a transparency report.

Banking privacy prevails over copyright enforcement, Dutch court rules

Privacy laws protecting bank account holders are more important than providing information to aid in copyright enforcement, according to a Dutch court ruling this week.

German case on embedding YouTube videos referred to EU court

Embedded YouTube videos don't infringe copyright under current German law, but they could violate European rules, the German Federal Court of Justice said on Thursday.

German online copyright law to take effect in August

A German online copyright law that will give publishers the exclusive right to the commercial use of their publications on the Internet will come into effect on Aug. 1.

Syria disappears from the Internet again

Internet traffic to and from Syria, a country engulfed by civil war, again came to a halt on Wednesday, according to Internet monitoring company Renesys.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde to run for EU parliament

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is planning to run for the European Parliament in 2014.

Google has to delete offensive autocomplete results, German federal court rules

Google has to remove search suggestions from autocomplete in Germany if the results are offensive, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ruled Tuesday.

Spamhaus DDoS suspect extradited to the Netherlands

A 35-year-old Dutchman suspected of participating in a large DDoS attack on antispam organization Spamhaus was extradited from Spain to the Netherlands on Monday evening, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said Wednesday.

Consumer service lawsuit looms for Google in Germany

A lawsuit against Google's customer service practices in Germany is looming after the company declined to sign a document promising German consumer organizations to start answering customer emails individually.

Apple's privacy policy violates German data protection law, Berlin court rules

Apple violates German data protection law by asking for users' broad, overall consent in its privacy policy, the Regional Court of Berlin ruled.

Operator of German file-sharing site sentenced to almost four years in prison

A 33-year-old man was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison by a German court for running the torrent site torrent.to between December 2005 and April 2008.

EU says Motorola abused its position by seeking and enforcing injunction against Apple

Motorola Mobility abuses its dominant position in the E.U. by seeking and enforcing an injunction against Apple in Germany on the basis of its mobile phone standard-essential patents (SEPs), the European Commission said in a preliminary antitrust review of the case on Monday.

Systems manager arrested for hacking former employer's network

A 41-year-old man was arrested for allegedly disrupting his former employer's network after he was passed over for promotions, leading him to quit his job and take revenge, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

Dutch bill seeks to give law enforcement hacking powers

The Dutch government today presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems -- including those located in foreign countires -- to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data.