Linda Rosencrance

Probable cause isn't necessary for the government to obtain a warrant allowing it to use a person's cell phone to track past movements, the result of a court ruling in Massachusetts. According to the ruling by the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, law enforcement officials only need to show the information is "relevant to an ongoing investigation."

Google Inc.'s Street View application, which has raised privacy concerns because of the street-level images of locations it provides, will respect the local laws of the countries wherever it is available, the company's privacy counsel said yesterday in a company blog.

A visiting cyberlaw professor at the University of Michigan helps organize a global series of events that underscore the impact of online activity. Find out what the U.S. and Canada are doing

In a new trademark dispute, Google Inc. finds the shoe is on the other foot -- and it seems to be pinching a bit.

A telecommunication union's report shows quick downloads compared with our neighbours south of the border, but other countries are doing even better. Check out the complete ranking

Citing federal and state law prohibition, MySpace.com is refusing to provide the names of registered sex offenders found using its Web site to a group of state attorneys general. "We are doing everything short of breaking the law to ensure that the information about these predators gets to the proper authorities," said Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer at MySpace.com, in an e-mail to Computerworld.

MySpace has been asked by attorneys general in eight states to turn over the names of potentially thousands of registered sex offenders who may be members of the social networking site. They asked MySpace to tell them how many registered sex offenders they've identified on the site and what the company is doing to remove them.

Over the past three years, 490 laptops were lost or stolen from the Internal Revenue Service, according to an audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Between Jan. 2, 2003 and June 13, 2006, a "large number" of the laptops were stolen from the vehicles and homes of IRS employees, according to the report released last month, while 111 were stolen from IRS facilities, the report said.