Google flays governmental curbs on Internet, terms them as trade barriers - November 16, 2010
Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has condemned restrictions on the Internet by China, Vietnam and other countries. It has termed them the 'trade barriers of the 21st century' and made a case for new trade rules and talks. In a policy paper issued by… Read More
EU announces plans to overhaul data protection law - November 8, 2010
The European Union is planning an overhaul of its data protection law which applies in all EU countries. High on its list of priorities is an intention to give consumers more control over how personal information is collected and used. The new data protection strategy… Read More
McGraw-Hill Construction admits paying third parties to access RCD’s trade secret information - October 28, 2010
Construction information provider Reed Construction Data (RCD), US, a division of Reed Business Information, has announced that McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge (MHC), a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. has admitted to some of the most serious allegations made in RCD's 2009 federal lawsuit. In the lawsuit,… Read More
Better transparency needed on medical journals’ competing interests, says research - October 27, 2010
This week's PLoS Medicine has published a research article by Andreas Lundh and colleagues from the Nordic Cochrane Centre. The article concludes that journals need to develop policies to handle the inevitable competing interests that arise when they publish papers that may… Read More
Researchers examining extent of scientific publication plagiarism practices - October 26, 2010
Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech and collaborators have reportedly shown that a computer-based text-searching tool is capable of unearthing questionable publication practices from thousands of full-text papers in biomedical literature. The first step in the process is to find out what is… Read More
Google breached Canadian privacy law, says Canada privacy commissioner - October 20, 2010
Internet search services provider Google Inc, US, contravened Canadian privacy law when it inappropriately collected personal information from unsecured wireless networks in neighbourhoods across the country, an investigation has found. The Privacy Commissioner's investigation also concluded that the incident was the result of an engineer's careless… Read More
Harvard researchers retract stem cells research paper published in ‘Nature’ - October 15, 2010
Scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have retracted a paper published in the journal Nature in January 2010. This follows the lead author, Amy Wagers, obtaining information that 'undermined' her confidence in the data. Wagers is a researcher at the Harvard-affiliated Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. The Nature paper,… Read More
STM expresses concern over Canada’s proposed Copyright Modernization Act - September 30, 2010
The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has expressed serious concern about Canada's Copyright Modernization Act (Bill C-32). STM says that if enacted, the provisions of the bill would seriously prejudice STM publishing, Canadian publishers, authors and rightsholders generally. Moreover, the provisions, if… Read More
US technology firms reach settlement with Justice Dept. on poaching issues - September 27, 2010
The US' Justice Department has reached an agreement with six major Silicon Valley companies to settle allegations that they colluded to stifle competition for employees by restricting the way they could poach workers from each other. The settlement, filed in the US District Court for the… Read More
Czech data protection authority bans Google Street View - September 23, 2010
The Czech data protection authority has reportedly banned Google from collecting data for its Street View service. According to a statement issued by the Czech data protection office, Google was invading privacy by using high-level cameras capable of taking shots that go beyond the extent of… Read More
