Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItContact tracing is critical for limiting the spread of a contagion like COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it’s inventive to compare people’s locations using their smartphones. Rather, it’s all the more important to protect the basic methods of public health from bogus patent claims.The CDC contact tracing for close contacts of any “confirmed or probable” COVID-19 patients. But doing the job has been left to state and local public health officials. In addition to traditional contact tracing by public health...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItContact tracing is critical for limiting the spread of a contagion like COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it’s inventive to compare people’s locations using their smartphones. Rather, it’s all the more important to protect the basic methods of public health from bogus patent claims.The CDC contact tracing for close contacts of any “confirmed or probable” COVID-19 patients. But doing the job has been left to state and local public health officials. In addition to traditional contact tracing by public health...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe coronavirus dominated the news cycles, and our personal lives, in 2020. Scientists around the world raced forward to create a vaccine. Alongside that massive effort to create a critical new invention, we saw a renewed debate about patents and their role in helping, or hindering, innovation.  At EFF, we’ve been the watchdog for years when patent owners abuse their monopolies. Unfortunately but predictably, some patent owners actually saw the rise of the COVID-19 health emergency as a business...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe coronavirus dominated the news cycles, and our personal lives, in 2020. Scientists around the world raced forward to create a vaccine. Alongside that massive effort to create a critical new invention, we saw a renewed debate about patents and their role in helping, or hindering, innovation.  At EFF, we’ve been the watchdog for years when patent owners abuse their monopolies. Unfortunately but predictably, some patent owners actually saw the rise of the COVID-19 health emergency as a business...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOne nice thing about democracy is that—at least in theory—we don’t need permission to speak freely and privately. We don’t have to prove that our speech meets the government’s criteria, online or offline. We don’t have to “earn” our rights to free speech or privacy.Times have changed. Today, some U.S. senators have come to the view that speech in the online world is an exceptional case, in which website owners need to “earn it”—whether they intend to carefully moderate user content, or let users speak freely. In...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItOne nice thing about democracy is that—at least in theory—we don’t need permission to speak freely and privately. We don’t have to prove that our speech meets the government’s criteria, online or offline. We don’t have to “earn” our rights to free speech or privacy.Times have changed. Today, some U.S. senators have come to the view that speech in the online world is an exceptional case, in which website owners need to “earn it”—whether they intend to carefully moderate user content, or let users speak freely. In...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItShare ItFormer EFF intern Shashank Sirivolu contributed to this blog post. Social media users who have sued companies for deleting, demonetizing, and otherwise moderating their content have tried several arguments that this violates their constitutional rights. Courts have consistently ruled against them because social media platforms themselves have the First Amendment...In a new round of talks this week to formulate a , EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItShare ItFormer EFF intern Shashank Sirivolu contributed to this blog post. Social media users who have sued companies for deleting, demonetizing, and otherwise moderating their content have tried several arguments that this violates their constitutional rights. Courts have consistently ruled against them because social media platforms themselves have the First Amendment...In a new round of talks this week to formulate a , EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe International Trade Commission, or ITC, is a federal agency in Washington D.C. that investigates unfair trade practices. Unfortunately, in recent years, it has also become a magnet for some of the worst abusers of the U.S. patent system. Now, there’s a bill in Congress, the Protecting America’s Interest Act (), that could finally get patent trolls out of the ITC—a place they never should have been allowed in the first place.Patent owners can ask the Commission to investigate an allegation of infringement, in...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe International Trade Commission, or ITC, is a federal agency in Washington D.C. that investigates unfair trade practices. Unfortunately, in recent years, it has also become a magnet for some of the worst abusers of the U.S. patent system. Now, there’s a bill in Congress, the Protecting America’s Interest Act (), that could finally get patent trolls out of the ITC—a place they never should have been allowed in the first place.Patent owners can ask the Commission to investigate an allegation of infringement, in...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe past few months have seen of to undermine Section 230, the law that makes a free Internet possible. But now we’re seeing one from a surprising place: the California League of Cities.To be clear, the League of Cities, an association of city officials from around the state, doesn’t have the power to change or any other federal law. But if Congress were to actually follow their lead, the policies that the League is considering approving would be disastrous for the freedom of California residents.Section 230 states...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe past few months have seen of to undermine Section 230, the law that makes a free Internet possible. But now we’re seeing one from a surprising place: the California League of Cities.To be clear, the League of Cities, an association of city officials from around the state, doesn’t have the power to change or any other federal law. But if Congress were to actually follow their lead, the policies that the League is considering approving would be disastrous for the freedom of California residents.Section 230 states...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe dangerous EARN IT Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, and now it’s been introduced in the House of Representatives.We need your help to stop this anti-speech, anti-security bill. Email your elected officials in both chambers of Congress today and ask them to publicly oppose the EARN IT Act.The EARN IT Act would allow all 50 state legislatures, as well as U.S. territories and Washington D.C., to pass laws that would regulate the Internet. By breaking Section 230 of the Communications Decency...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe dangerous EARN IT Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, and now it’s been introduced in the House of Representatives.We need your help to stop this anti-speech, anti-security bill. Email your elected officials in both chambers of Congress today and ask them to publicly oppose the EARN IT Act.The EARN IT Act would allow all 50 state legislatures, as well as U.S. territories and Washington D.C., to pass laws that would regulate the Internet. By breaking Section 230 of the Communications Decency...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen people get sued by patent trolls, they can fight back in one of two places: a U.S. district court or the Patent and Trademark Office. But the Patent Office is putting its thumb on the scale again in favor of patent owners and against technology users. This time, the Office is relying on specious legal arguments to shut down patent reviews at the Patent and Trademark Appeals Board (PTAB).The procedure that’s being undermined at PTAB is a procedure called inter partes review, or IPR. Congress created IPRs in...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItWhen people get sued by patent trolls, they can fight back in one of two places: a U.S. district court or the Patent and Trademark Office. But the Patent Office is putting its thumb on the scale again in favor of patent owners and against technology users. This time, the Office is relying on specious legal arguments to shut down patent reviews at the Patent and Trademark Appeals Board (PTAB).The procedure that’s being undermined at PTAB is a procedure called inter partes review, or IPR. Congress created IPRs in...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe day before a committee debate and vote on the EARN IT Act, the bill’s sponsors replaced their bill with an . Here’s their new idea: instead of giving a 19-person federal commission, dominated by law enforcement, the power to regulate the Internet, the bill now effectively gives that power to state legislatures. And instead of requiring that Internet websites and platforms comply with the commission’s “best practices” in order to keep their vital legal protections under for hosting user content, it simply...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItThe day before a committee debate and vote on the EARN IT Act, the bill’s sponsors replaced their bill with an . Here’s their new idea: instead of giving a 19-person federal commission, dominated by law enforcement, the power to regulate the Internet, the bill now effectively gives that power to state legislatures. And instead of requiring that Internet websites and platforms comply with the commission’s “best practices” in order to keep their vital legal protections under for hosting user content, it simply...WW…

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare Itreadwhich involves copying all the data on a phone bit-by-bit,When the FBI says it’s “going dark” because it can’t beat encryption, what it’s really asking for is a method of breaking in that’s cheaper, easier, and more reliable than the methods they already have. The only way to fully meet the FBI’s demands would be to require a backdoor in all platforms, applications, and devices. Especially at a time when police abuses nationwide have come into new focus, this type of complaint should be a non-starter with...…Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare Itreadwhich involves copying all the data on a phone bit-by-bit,When the FBI says it’s “going dark” because it can’t beat encryption, what it’s really asking for is a method of breaking in that’s cheaper, easier, and more reliable than the methods they already have. The only way to fully meet the FBI’s demands would be to require a backdoor in all platforms, applications, and devices. Especially at a time when police abuses nationwide have come into new focus, this type of complaint should be a non-starter with...WW…