Posts Tagged ‘law’

Calling all bloggers — ever had a run in with the law?

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

A friend of mine from the international mainstream media is looking for examples and stories of this for a feature he is researching on blogger liability. Or perhaps you know a case where someone has broken the law – published photos that don’t belong to them, or libeled someone. You can choose to talk anonymously or openly, but this is a subject that lawyers are trying to jump all over, so it’s important that bloggers have a say in this.

If you’d like to talk to him and possibly be featured in his piece, drop me a note and I’ll introduce you.

Saucy texts to land Scots in prison?

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

It looks like saucy text messages could land the Scottish in a whole lot of trouble. According to Out-law.com, the country’s new Sexual Offences Bill could see those convicted of sending an “unsolicited text message to someone else which a court finds was designed to give the sender sexual gratification or to humiliate, distress or alarm the receiver” landed with up to 10 years in jail.

The bill will introduce a new offence called communicating indecently, which will cover such unsolicited communications as well as others such as getting someone to look at an image of real or imaginary people having sex.

Out-law.com reckons the law could potentially cover work place flirting that goes too far and it will be up to judges to determine if flirty emails or text messages could come under the ‘communicating indecently’ banner. I expect there will be a lot of bosses revising their workplace communications policies right now.

Apple iPhone to break Aussie laws?

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Since the iPhone was first announced, Australia has been asking ‘when are we going to get it?’ While the country is no closer to finding out the answer to that question, it has discovered that a deal tying the device to a single operator would be illegal under the Aussie Trade Practices Act, according to a group of legal researchers from Queensland.

“If Apple enter into an exclusive agreement with any particular carrier then it would be a matter for the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) as to whether that agreement was anticompetitive and contravened the trade practices act,” The Australian quotes one of the researchers as saying.

Does this mean Apple could be end of the lawsuit if it decides to launch Down Under? Possibly not, if the company uses the iPhone model of iPhone selling as a template for Australia. There, consumers can buy a handset locked to T-Mobile or they can buy an unlocked device, and pay through the nose for the privilege. I’d say it’s more than likely the same idea will be recycled when the iPhone finally does make an appearance in Oz.


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