Oracle, SAP & Cybercrime

Just landed in Singapore and noticed that the Oracle –SAP imbroglio has taken a decisive turn. SAP admits that TN made some inappropriate downloads but claims that SAP never benefited from that. By clearly delinking TomorrowNow from that of SAP, it has created speculations about the future role of TommorowNow. The original complaint by Oracle went on to say,” SAP employees used the log-in IDs of multiple customers, combined with phony user log-in information, to gain access to Oracle’s system under false pretexts. Employing these techniques, SAP users effectively swept much of the contents of Oracle’s system onto SAP’s servers”. The charges appear pretty serious indeed. SAP’s response makes interesting reading. Oracle now
says that with SAP’s admission of inappropriateness, proved its case. Eric Goldman points to potential ramifications of this. I am not too sure of the nature of downloads and the possible usage of those. While I do not justify any illegal or unethical activity, somehow I feel that no materially significant advantage could have been accrued on account of TN’s downloads. Hopefully this does not get any more ugly.

Labels: Cyberlaws, Oracle, SAP

Important Laws For Bloggers

Blogs as part of the net movements fulfills an important objectives of the net by being a key means to fulfilling enhanced freedom and advocating free communication of ideas and opinion. These by itself becomes an end in itself. Along with this new found freedom comes in a whole host of challenges – in making sure that one is genuine and completely legal and ethical in leveraging the power of the net.

In the recent past, we have seen even forward looking organizations suing bloggers, for what they believe to be violation of certain laws – they may even be right about their positions.

Therefore, it becomes quite important for bloggers to know what’s right or wrong and this list of important laws for bloggers stands out.

While the Internet still retains some of the “wild wild west” feel, increasingly Internet activity, and particular blogging, is being shaped and governed by state and federal laws. For US bloggers in particular, blogging has become a veritable land mine of potential legal issues, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that the law in this area is constantly in flux. In this article we highlight twelve of the most important US laws when it comes to blogging and provide some simple and straightforward tips for safely navigating them.

The article covers issues ranging from deep linking to usage of images to domain name issues to ownership of user generated contents and a whole host of related issues.

Must read for all bloggers.

Labels: Bloggers, Cyberlaws