GeekSugar

26 Beauty Brands Sued Over Use of "Organic"

Jaime Richards — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:01:53 PDT

On Thursday, the Oakland, CA-based Center For Environmental Health (CEH) filed a suit against 26 cosmetic companies, claiming the beauty brands have been misleading the public with their misuse of the term "organic."

Even though the California Organic Products Act of 2003 states that any product with an "organic" label on the front must consist of 70 percent organic ingredients (and those with less than 70 percent organic ingredients can only use "organic" on the ingredients list), the CEH discovered that many were in direct violation of the act. (See the full list of claimed offenders here.) Find out what else was discovered when you keep reading.

Software Patents: Good Idea or Got to Go?

Kristen Hawley — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 07:00:11 PST

This week, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen revised a lawsuit accusing nearly everyone on the Internet of patent infringement. The lawsuit involves Android, AOL, Facebook, Flickr, Google, eBay, Netflix, and other companies that Allen feels infringed on several of his patents, including "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest." Allen and his legal team have even begun to call out each company by creating a presentation displaying exactly how each site infringes upon his patented ideas and programs.

Learn more about the suit and cast your vote after the break.

Did Apple Turn iPhone 3Gs to Bricks to Promote iPhone 4?

Kristen Hawley — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:45:02 PDT

Remember all of the issues that the iPhone 3G suffered after users updated to iOS 4.0? Phones became incredibly slow and buggy, and in some cases unusable. And, since it's not possible to downgrade your OS (at least, not in a way Apple recognizes), 3G users were stuck with slow and difficult-to-use phones. Now a new lawsuit alleges that Apple knew updating an iPhone 3G would cause problems.

The San Diego woman who filed the suit is hoping to have it elevated to class action status, which would mean that a large number of plaintiffs (i.e. all 3G users who updated to iOS 4) are eligible to potentially benefit from the case.

Find out more about the lawsuit after the break.

What Was That Buzz Email From Google All About?

Kristen Hawley — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:47:15 PDT

Yesterday, Gmail users received an email from Google that lead with: "Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an exception . . . " Apparently Google has finalized the settlement in the Buzz lawsuit filed earlier this year after some users complained that Google's Buzz violated user privacy.

Find out more about the disclosure, suit, and settlement after the break.

Supreme Court Rules: Workers' Texts Aren't Private

SavvySugar — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:00:59 PDT

You probably already know that the emails you send at work are subject to company scrutiny. Your employer has a right to track emails you send from your work account and that information isn't really private. But what about your cell phone? Well, if your employer covers the bill on your cell, it turns out the texts you send and receive on it aren't all that private either.

The case of City of Ontario v. Quon, a recent Supreme Court ruling decided that the text messages sent between Jeff Quon, a police sergeant in Ontario, CA, and his wife, were not private: "In a unanimous decision, the court decided, that Quon had no reasonable expectation of privacy in this particular case and that the city did not violate his constitutional rights." Still, while the ruling offers some food for thought, it doesn't go so far as to set a precedent, since the court also made clear that workers do have some right to privacy with regard to workplace communications.

As the digital age has already proven, it takes a little trial and error to make sense of technology in the workplace. We've seen Twitter, Facebook, and beyond influence employees and their employers. What comes next is more in the way of real life experimentation - employees and employers testing the boundaries of private, public, and Internet domain. So, what do you make of the ruling? If your company pays for your phone, are they entitled to the content on it?

Woman Sues Google Maps Over Walking Directions

GeekSugar — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:15:18 PDT

What's not to love about Google Maps? I use it frequently for driving and biking directions, though I've yet to use it to map out an unfamiliar walking route. Despite its usefulness, one Los Angeles woman is suing Google over walking directions it provided her during a recent trip to Utah. Apparently when she searched for walking directions between two relatively close points, it suggested a busy state route with no shoulder or sidewalk suitable for walking. The woman was hit by a car on that road and is now suing Google for its "careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions." Her attorneys claim that Google should have known that the road was unsafe for walking. Hear more about the case, and my thoughts, after the break.

Netflix Cancels $1 Million Contest

GeekSugar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:00:01 PST

Netflix just announced that they're cancelling their second $1 million prize amid privacy concerns. The contest was a successor to the company's first algorithm-improvement competition, which lasted three years. The current contest came under fire when a lawsuit claimed the first competition violated privacy laws. A woman sued Netflix in December for invasion of privacy, saying they disclosed personal information that wasn't anonymous enough.

The contest challenged competitors to develop a more efficient movie-recommendation algorithm for users, and gave them access to 100 million movie information and ratings from 480,000 subscribers, assigning each a unique ID. The contest lasted three years, and the $1 million prize eventually went to a team lead by AT&T researchers.

Netflix settled the lawsuit out of court and says it's reached an agreement with the FTC. It then decided not to pursue the second competition, which would have involved an improved ratings system. Apparently, movie rental histories are protected records in the US, something Facebook Beacon learned the hard way when it shared users' Blockbuster Video rental histories.

Source: Flickr User Mr.Thomas

Apple Suing HTC For Infringing on 20 Patents

GeekSugar — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:00:40 PST

Apple has thrown down the gauntlet to HTC today, filing a lawsuit claiming that the company is infringing on 20 of its patents, including the iPhone's user interface, hardware, and pretty much anything pertaining to its multitouch technology. It wasn't too long ago that Apple itself was involved in a legal battle regarding multitouch - only that time, another company claimed Apple was the one doing the infringing. However, Steve Jobs isn't letting HTC slide on this case. He says:

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

If Apple does win this case, it could mean that Google's new Nexus One (along with other Android handsets) would be pulled from the shelves, and the only new innovations in multitouch technology would be coming from Apple's camp in Cupertino.

Lawsuit Calls Jillian Michaels's Supplements "Worthless"

FitSugar — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 10:00:10 PST

I'll admit I was shocked when The Biggest Loser trainer and Fit favorite Jillian Michaels start endorsing a line of supplements. Many of you thought it could potentially damage her reputation, and it looks you might have been right.

Michaels and her supplements are now the target of a class action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles, claiming that the Jillian Michaels Maximum Strength Calorie Control dietary supplement is "worthless." "Telling people you take two magic pills and then eat chocolate cake all day is a deception," says Melissa Harnett, the lawyer on the case. According to TMZ, the court documents go on to say:

"Sadly, Michaels has decided to exploit her fame and goodwill by collaborating with Thin Care and Basic Research to promote a weight loss supplement that purportedly will cause weight loss by itself, without any additional effort on the part of the consumer."

What do you think of the allegations? Does this change your opinion about Michaels and her decision to endorse the products?

Should Hooters Waitresses Have to Pay For Their Own Uniforms?

SavvySugar — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Hooters is one of the rare establishments where the workers' uniforms are more famous than the food. In some states, employees are required to cover the bill for their orange outfits, but New York isn't one of those places. That's why two New York women are suing Hooters for forcing them to buy their own work wardrobes.

Gina Rosati and Amy Frederick say Hooters required them to buy the getup, and their lawyer says it's against state law to make employees purchase anything other than street clothes. The total for each uniform is $19.45, broken down below. What do you think; should the ladies be responsible for the job-related expenses?

$5.45 for orange hot pants
$6 for the Hooters embellished tank top
$3.25 for a pouch
$2.50 for "suntan" pantyhose
$2.25 for thick white socks