Internet

The White House is moving forward with a plan that will invite people to create online identities in order to streamline the online transaction process, combat identify theft and reduce the amount of personal information available on the Internet.

Information access groups are watching developments to see if the new system will have any negative affects on public access to information, particularly government-held information that identifies individuals.

A Florida federal judge has struck down the law that resulted in the arrest of an individual who published the contact information of a police officer in a website critique.

A New Jersey appeals court on Thursday affirmed a lower court's ruling that said a libel defendant could not use the reporter's shield law because not all bloggers are journalists, and the defendant was not engaged in journalism.

The plaintiff, Too Much Media, sued Shellee Hale in New Jersey after she posted comments stating that the company, which works with websites in the adult entertainment industry, was profiting from a security breach in its program.

As newspaper circulations drop and nightly news broadcasts garner fewer viewers, more people are getting their news online -- a medium not as likely as traditional media to spend the money to sue for access to courts, public records and public meetings, according to a report released last week by CQ Researcher.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing five different government agencies for refusing to disclose their policies on investigations using social networking websites.

A New York newspaper is engaged in a battle to quash a grand jury subpoena for the identities of some of its website commenters.

The Department of Justice earlier this year served and shortly thereafter withdrew a grand jury subpoena that sought information about all visitors to the journalism website Indymedia.us for one day, and also contained a gag order "not to disclose the existence of [the] request," CBSNews.com reports.

The Federal Trade Commission approved on Monday final revisions to new guidelines that will require manufacturers and bloggers who work for them to disclose the exchange of free merchandise.

The guidelines are meant to apply to those who are paid to promote products, not those who are engaged in journalism, but drawing a line between the two is often difficult, and ultimately will have to be decided by courts if the FTC chooses to prosecute a blogger who is engaged in journalism.

A recent story on a football game in the INDenver Times highlighted a Colorado University press policy that limits which Web sites are granted press passes to cover athetic games.

A New York judge has dismissed a former congressman’s defamation suit against a person who criticized him anonymously on a newspaper website, The Journal News in New York's Lower Hudson Valley reported. The court dismissed the libel claim under an anti-SLAPP statute, which protects speakers from "strategic lawsuits against public participation."