Courts | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Mon, 09 Jul 2018 16:23:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Courts | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Nintendo might be landing itself in trouble over eShop refund policies https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/ryan-burgess/nintendo-might-be-landing-itself-in-trouble-over-eshop-refund-policies/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/ryan-burgess/nintendo-might-be-landing-itself-in-trouble-over-eshop-refund-policies/#respond Mon, 09 Jul 2018 16:23:35 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=379067 The Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) has been at the forefront of many battles against the world’s many platform holders. The NCC has taken on the likes of Valve, Sony, and EA for not doing their due diligence when it comes to pre-order policies. Now with the Switch gaining in popularity, the NCC has turned its …

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The Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) has been at the forefront of many battles against the world’s many platform holders. The NCC has taken on the likes of Valve, Sony, and EA for not doing their due diligence when it comes to pre-order policies. Now with the Switch gaining in popularity, the NCC has turned its attention towards Nintendo.

The NCC dropped its initial complaint back in February, calling on Nintendo to respond to avoid further legal action. At the time, a Nintendo representative offered the following statement in response to the NCC's questions: “The operation of Nintendo eShop in Europe is fully compliant with European laws relating to the statutory rights of consumers.”

It turns out that the NCC was not satisfied with Nintendo's reply and has since handed the case off to law enforcement, requesting that they investigate and potentially take action against Nintendo of Europe.

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The investigation has been handed over to German authorities, as Nintendo of Europe is based in Frankfurt, Germany. The NCC had previously asked Nintendo to offer a better explanation for its pre-order system. There were three questions posed towards the company: ‘Can consumers freely cancel or withdraw from a pre-order or pre-purchase before the release of a game? If yes, how does the consumer proceed to forward such a claim? If not, what is the legal reasoning?'

As Valve discovered a couple of years ago, a ‘no digital refunds' policy is considered illegal in some countries. Since then, Steam, Origin, uPlay and Microsoft have all put systems in place for digital refunds. At this point, Sony and Nintendo seem to be the furthest behind on that front.

If German authorities agree that Nintendo's policies fall against EU consumer protection laws, then the case could go to court.

KitGuru Says: It’s good to see the NCC still battling away to get consumers the rights they deserve. Do you think that Nintendo is in the wrong here?

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Brazilian judge turns off 100 million Whatsapp users https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/brazilian-judge-turns-off-100-million-whatsapp-users/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/security-software/jon-martindale/brazilian-judge-turns-off-100-million-whatsapp-users/#respond Wed, 04 May 2016 09:09:45 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=291631 Update: We've received a report that the ban has now been lifted, on the completion of the 72 hour block. Looks lie we were a little slow on this story guys. Apologies. Thanks to Tweakers (via Josh Jacobs) for the tip. Original Story: 100 million WhatsApp users in Brazil will need to find another way …

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Update: We've received a report that the ban has now been lifted, on the completion of the 72 hour block. Looks lie we were a little slow on this story guys. Apologies.

Thanks to Tweakers (via Josh Jacobs) for the tip.

Original Story: 100 million WhatsApp users in Brazil will need to find another way to communicate over the next few days, as following a judge's order, all telecoms companies in the country have blocked the encrypted chat service. This comes because WhatsApp refused to release keys to decrypt user messages related to a criminal investigation.

WhatsApp recently enabled end-to-end encryption for all users of its free service, making it impossible for it, or anyone else to access the content of those messages. Much like Apple and the FBI though, this has landed it in some difficult legal water. When the Brazilian courts demanded it decrypt messages and WhatsApp claimed that it couldn't, the judge announced that the entire service would be blocked for 72 hours.

This isn't the first time that this has happened in Brazil either, with the Telegraph reporting that WhatsApp was shut down in 2015 too, though only for a few hours, also for refusing to comply with a court case.

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Co-founder of Whatsapp Jan Koum, took to Facebook to announce his displeasure at this court's move, stating that millions of brazilians were being punished for the court's misunderstanding what information was actually available to the company. He took it as an opportunity to reiterate how hands off WhatsApp was being with customer communications.

Unfortunately for the authorities though, banning WhatsApp, even temporarily isn't having much of an impact. Fellow encrypted chat service, Telegram, said that more than a million people had signed up in the wake of the announcement.

Although this is fuelling a debate on encryption, personal privacy and the oversight of certain government and legal organisations, that's not the only reason that Brazilians use services like WhatsApp. Traditional phone calls can be rather expensive there, so circumventing the telecoms companies has been a real boon for many smartphone owners.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: WhatsApp might seem to be sticking to its guns, but in reality it's just put itself in a position where it cannot say yes. It can't decrypt the messages and doesn't store them, so it's hard to imagine what the courts want it to actually do.

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High Court rules Snooper’s Charter unlawful https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/high-court-rules-snoopers-charter-unlawful/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/high-court-rules-snoopers-charter-unlawful/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:32:41 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=259558 Theresa May will need to go back to the drawing board is she wants to try and force through the controversial Communications Draft Bill, otherwise known as the Snooper's Charter, as a High Court judge has ruled it unlawful in its current guise. The piece of legislation was said to be designed to help police …

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Theresa May will need to go back to the drawing board is she wants to try and force through the controversial Communications Draft Bill, otherwise known as the Snooper's Charter, as a High Court judge has ruled it unlawful in its current guise. The piece of legislation was said to be designed to help police forces combat terrorism, however in practice was a way to force ISPs and mobile providers to store data on their customers for up to a year.

Promised before the election and attempted to be delivered afterwards, the Snooper's Charter would have made it a legal mandate for broadband providers and mobile phone companies to store the content and metadata of every single user's emails, social networking messages, phone calls, gaming habits, texts and any browsing history for 12 months. May initially pushed for it during the last government, but the Liberal Democrats blocked it.

This time however the blocking comes from the Conservative former shadow home secretary, David Davis and Labour MP Tom Watson, who took the government to court over the matter. The pair were backed up by human rights lobby group Liberty, which has been beating the drum for greater privacy for citizens for some time now.

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Image source: Liberty

While the government and May have argued that repealing the act would reduce Britain's ability to protect its citizens, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Collins saw otherwise, ruling that the bill contravened the European Bill of Human Rights – something the EU Court of Human Rights has already done.

They ultimately said that the vague wording meant that there are no clear cut rules on when the data collection is allowed and who can view it. However, they fell short of calling for the bill to be scrapped and have instead said that DRIPA can be maintained until 31st March 2016, to give the government time to adjust its policies.

Davis was not perturbed by this, stating in the aftermath of the ruling that (via Guardian): “What this means is that access by the police and other agencies to everyone’s data is too easy. It can can range from a politician giving permission [to intercept communications] to anyone in the next office. That’s against the law and it’s not either in the interests of privacy or security.”

“It’s the right judgement. It’s a measured judgement,” he said. “It gives no risk to security because the government has plenty of time to sort it out.”

KitGuru Says: Nobody is suggesting that the police shouldn't be able to read people's communications, if proper channels are used. If a warrant is received from a court, there's accountability. At that stage, stick cameras inside people for all that it matters. Just make sure that permission is granted from a relevant authority first. Oversight is necessary when dealing with the potential invasion of people's rights.  

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Kim Dotcom wants to reclaim HK assets https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/kim-dotcom-wants-to-reclaim-hk-assets/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/kim-dotcom-wants-to-reclaim-hk-assets/#respond Thu, 30 Oct 2014 09:02:48 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=219285 Back in early January 2012, when Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was arrested after a raid on his home, his website shut down and his cars seized, the authorities also went after his liquid assets held in other countries. In Hong Kong for example, over $42 million (£27 million) of his money was frozen and now Dotcom …

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Back in early January 2012, when Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was arrested after a raid on his home, his website shut down and his cars seized, the authorities also went after his liquid assets held in other countries. In Hong Kong for example, over $42 million (£27 million) of his money was frozen and now Dotcom wants to get that back, claiming that justice officials at the time misled the court system to make it happen.

Dotcom has been trying to regain access to his assets in New Zealand for some time already, with a veritable tug of war taking place between the internet entrepreneur, the New Zealand government and the media lobbies, over what should be done with his money, his cars and his electronics (which one would expect at this point, are a little outdated). Back in April this year, the courts sided with Dotcom and agreed to hand everything back, but just a few short months later, that decision was overturned over fears that he could hide the money overseas, thereby making it harder for him to pay any compensation that was demanded of him.

megaupload

With the extradition trial not too far away at this point – having been delayed multiple times – Dotcom is now pushing to regain his HK assets, claiming that the courts treated him unfairly. Speaking with SCMP, Dotcom's legal team claims that due to the fact that Dotcom wasn't given a chance to defend his position at all, the justice department should have been more frank about its operation, which had it done so, might have made the order seem a little less legitimate than it did at the time.

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Meanwhile, Dotcom has been tearing it up in other parts of the galaxy

Dotcom's lawyers maintain that when the asset restraint order was placed, the prosecution deliberately withheld crucial information from the court, leading to a miscarriage of justice. Dotcom is now hoping to have that over turned.

While he'll need to wait about a month to find out if he's getting his money back, Dotcom could be in an interesting position should he win. On top of suddenly having many millions to help defend himself in New Zealand, a turn-around like that could open the government up for a massive lawsuit from the already embattled Mega founder.

Megaupload was once valued at two billion dollars. If he decided to sue anyone for its unlawful closure, he'd have an interesting fight on his hands.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While I doubt anyone would disagree that sites like Megaupload and Mega are used for copyright infringement by some people, Dotcom clearly became a scapegoat for the industry with his arrest and takedown.  

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Italy lifts ban on many ‘pirate’ sites https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/italy-lifts-ban-on-many-pirate-sites/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/italy-lifts-ban-on-many-pirate-sites/#respond Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:00:48 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=216022 Last year Italy dropped the ban hammer on a bunch of different sites, claiming they were heavily involved in media piracy. Some of these were file lockers like Mega, while others were webmail clients like Mail.ru. Since then however, the site owners have been appealing the decision and now after nearly a year of trying, they've managed …

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Last year Italy dropped the ban hammer on a bunch of different sites, claiming they were heavily involved in media piracy. Some of these were file lockers like Mega, while others were webmail clients like Mail.ru. Since then however, the site owners have been appealing the decision and now after nearly a year of trying, they've managed to have it overturned, meaning ISPs will no longer block them.

This is great news for those sites, but is unlikely to please the Italian media distributor that lobbied for the block order in the first place, Eyemoon Pictures.

Regardless of its protestations at the appeal though, the judge finally ruled that since the sites all had relatively robust complaint and takedown systems, that it was unnecessary to block them in their entirety. In some cases a settlement was necessary to achieve the overturn, but in almost all instances the courts were happy to allow the sites to be unblocked, since any copyright infringement that does take place, does so on individual pages, rather than site wide.

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“For Mega we negotiated a court settlement with the Office of the Prosecutor of Rome, which recognized the legitimacy of Mega’s activities and ordered the removal of the blockade. The same is the case for other hosting services,” the Mega lawyer told Torrentfreak.

This ruling could go beyond these specific sites however, as another regulatory body in Italy, the Communications Regulatory Authority, has the right to have sites blocked without a court order. It's now being looked into to see if that sort of power is in breach of human rights like freedom of speech and expression.

KitGuru Says: It's always nice to see freedom of information trumping over-the-top copyright protection. Yes, protecting your copyright is justified to some extent, but site wide blocks are far too sweeping. 

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