site

Despite the threat of deportation to the United States for trial, the man who started the controversial Megaupload filesharing service says he is working on a replacement. Kim Dotcom also says his new filesharing service will work in a way that will ... keep him safe from the long arm of the law. Megaupload allowed users to store files online, and also to access and download the files through either a private or public link. Not surprisingly, many people used the service to share copyrighted files, such as digital music and movies, without paying for them -- clearly a case of copyright ... (view more)

Controversial document-sharing site Wikileaks is now asking visitors for donations before they are allowed to view files. The move has reportedly angered some supporters, including the high-profile 'hacktivist' group Anonymous. Wikileaks holds ... millions of leaked government and corporate documents and makes them available for public viewing. The organization's database allegedly includes a quarter of a million diplomatic cables from US embassies. Its holdings and its use of them make Wikileaks, quite possibly, the most controversial website on the Internet right now. Wikileaks Facing Financial ... (view more)

On top of an existing jail term, one of the co-founders of The Pirate Bay website is facing even more legal trouble in his native Sweden. Meanwhile, Google has taken additional steps to make The Pirate Bay website less visible. Gottfrid Svartholm is ... one of four men convicted of copyright-related offenses linked to The Pirate Bay. Although it doesn't host any content, the website allows users to search for torrent files, which can then be used to share copyright protected data files. Svartholm Charged with Piracy, Hacking Prosecutors said The Pirate Bay site owners profited from illegal ... (view more)

Google has announced it will punish websites accused of piracy by moving them lower in its search results rankings. However, there are some questions flying around the Internet about whether Google's own YouTube video site will get special ... treatment. The changes include a minor tweak to the way Google decides how high or low specific sites should appear in a search results list. The search giant says its automated system considers more than 200 factors, but doesn't say how much emphasis it gives to each one. The new ranking method takes effect this week. Afterwards, search results will ... (view more)

Facebook's business model is based on advertising. But one disgruntled advertiser claims 80 per cent of the "people" clicking on its advertisements aren't humans at all. Limited Run is a website that lets musicians create an online store in which ... they can sell both physical CDs and digital content. Like many businesses, Limited Run created a promotional page on Facebook and then began advertising on the social networking site to attract visitors to its own home page. According to the company, however, it became suspicious that something was amiss when the details associated with the number of ... (view more)

Attempts by British courts to stop illegal file-sharing by blocking access to The Pirate Bay site appear to have failed. A major Internet Service Provider (ISP) has revealed that the amount of Pirate Bay file-sharing returned to typical levels just ... a week after the block took effect. Issued just over two months ago, Britain's court order to block access to The Pirate Bay was highly controversial. It was only the second time a UK court had ordered such a block on copyright grounds, and came despite the fact that The Pirate Bay does not host any actual files. The key to the case was that while ... (view more)

Hackers have posted a list of some 453,000 Yahoo user names and their passwords. Although those responsible say they are merely trying to highlight weak security, observers say that some users could indeed be at risk. The log-in details that were ... stolen appear to come from Yahoo Voices, a site that is set up so users can post their own blogs and articles. Some of these posts earn their authors a small up-front payment, while those that attract a lot of visitors can earn the writer significant bonus payments. The hackers apparently gained access to the site's log-in database by means of a ... (view more)

Google has announced it will finally close its original video hosting service, Google Video, and will keep both YouTube and its video search site running. The decision, along with the closure of four other services, is part of Google's ongoing ... program to ditch ideas that didn't work out. The search giant says it has abandoned more than thirty programs since fall, 2011. Google Video was first unveiled in 2005. It was originally designed to host videos for users who didn't have their own web servers or couldn't cope with the traffic, if a lot of people watched their clips. After buying the ... (view more)

Hackers have claimed responsibility for an attack that sent social networking site Twitter crashing twice on Thursday, June 21, 2012. The hacking group UGNazi told CBS Atlanta that it was behind Twitter's forced outage. Whatever the source, the ... attacks took Twitter offline twice between 9 AM and 11 AM, US Pacific Time (PT). The site was restored to full functionality within an hour after the first attack, but then failed a second time. When down, Twitter was entirely unavailable across all platforms, including mobile apps. Twitter Blames Internal Error for Outage Initially, Twitter said the ... (view more)

An Australian retailer claims it will charge Internet visitors an extra 6.8 per cent tax if they buy from the vendor while browsing its site with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Not surprisingly, it appears users may not actually have to pay this fee. ... Visitors to Kogan.com who are using Internet Explorer 7 will see a special pop-up screen reading: "It appears you or your system administrator has been in a coma for over 5 years and you are still using IE7. To help make the Internet a better place, you will be charged a 6.8 percent tax on your purchase from Kogan.com. This is necessary due to ... (view more)