A U.S. federal judge has given a Chicago company the go-ahead to sue Facebook over its use of “timeline”.
The company, which itself is called Timelines, sued Facebook soon after the world’s largest social networking site launched its “Facebook Timeline” feature.
In a 23-page ruling, U.S. District Judge John Darrah said that Timelines can sue Facebook over its “timeline” trademark even though Facebook thinks the word is too generic to be trademarked.
The judge reminded Facebook …

Paul Ceglia’s fight for a large stake in Facebook may soon be nearing its end as a federal judge has proposed that his lawsuit against the world’s largest social network be dismissed.
The recommendation came from U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio on Tuesday, according to a report from Reuters.
Ceglia has been claiming he owns half of Facebook based on a transaction between him and Facebook cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2003.

The New York wood chip salesman says Zuckerberg agreed …

Twitter, the world’s most beloved microblogging service, is facing a $50-million criminal lawsuit in France as a consequence of its resistance to handing over personal user data to the French government.
According to the groups which have filed the lawsuit, they have asked for $50 million because Twitter seems to be acting with impunity.
Back in January, a French court ordered Twitter to give authorities in the country personal user information for account holders who tweeted anti-semetic …

In what a Canadian judge calls a change that should be taken to reflect our current society, arrested suspects should be allowed to look for a lawyer on Google.
Judge H.A. Lamoureux of the Provincial Court of Alberta said in a ruling that internet access should be provided by the police to accused persons in order for them to exercise their right to access a lawyer.
In a ruling for the case of a certain Christopher McKay, the judge said that the world is “at an unprecedented time in human …

An administrative court in Germany has upheld the Facebook real name policy in the country letting the social network insist that users should not use pseudonyms for their profiles.
The decision is contrary to an order handed down by the Schleswig-Holstein Office of the Data Protection Commissioner which said Facebook should allow users use aliases for their Facebook accounts.
That previous order was based on the German Telemedia Act which protects people’s rights to use nom de plumes …

A student who was expelled from the Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minnesota over Facebook comments is suing the college.
Gull Lake-resident Craig Keefe has taken the legal action to force the school to let him continue in the school’s nursing program.
The man is just a semester away from graduation.
Apart from being allowed to finish his course, the 37-year-old man also wants damages from the defendants.
The man says that he was not given any specific explanation for his discharge. He …

The Facebook “Like” function may not be an all original idea from Mark Zuckerberg and company. That is if a new lawsuit against the world’s largest social networking site is to be believed.
Filed in a U.S. District Court in Virginia, the lawsuit says that Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer had the original idea for a “like” button and that he patented it well before Facebook was born.
Van Der Meer registered Surfbook.com but the site was never really launched (if …

Remember MySpace? It was the most popular social network before Facebook became the overlord of the landscape.
Look at it this way: there was Friendster, then MySpace, then Facebook. You don’t remember Friendster either? It’s the failed social network that’s now a social gaming network which owns some basic patents on social networking owing to them being pioneers in the field.
Anyway, like Friendster, MySpace has declined very rapidly over the years, to put it mildly.
How much has …

In the future, the controls of a deceased person’s social media accounts may be handed down to their families in New Hampshire.
Representative Peter Sullivan of the New Hampshire House of Representatives has filed a bill with the intention of making it easier for families to take control of the social media accounts of their relatives who have passed away.
The Democrat says that his bill stems from wanting to make it clear what happens to social media accounts of the deceased.
He tells WMUR 9 …

New laws in the states of California and Illinois beef up protection of privacy for social media accounts.
The new laws come in the wake of a new law signed in Michigan that also intend to keep access to social media accounts only to their owners.
In California, two laws will take effect tomorrow that prevent companies and schools from requiring social media account access information such as usernames and passwords from their applicants, employees and students.
Social media accounts protected …