Two months ago, in In re Bilski, the Federal Circuit rejected the notion that anything that produces a "useful, concrete, and tangible result" is potentially patentable. Instead, to be patent-eligible, an idea must be "tied to a particular machine or apparatus," or it must "transform a particular article into...

Earlier today, Yahoo! announced a new data retention policy providing for anonymization of search queries — as well as page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks — after 90 days.Google's response:Google takes privacy very seriously and we aim to strike the appropriate balance between protecting our users'...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) and ten other civil liberties organizations today sent an open letter today to Michigan State University (MSU) President Lou Anna K. Simon in defense of MSU student government leader Kara Spencer. Ms. Spencer was formally warned by MSU...

We'd like to share this animated holiday greeting titled the 12 Days of EFF to celebrate the season and thank our friends and supporters for a good year in the fight for digital rights.

Thanks and happy holidays!

Remember how shocked you were back in December of 2005 when you learned that the government was spying on Americans' phone calls and emails without warrants? The whistleblower who apparently kicked off that New York Times investigation has come forward, and his story is a timely lesson on...

As part of their commitment to transparent and open government, the Obama Transition Team is posting the lobbying agendas of the groups it meets with for public review and comment. One of the more interesting documents to be found there is the Motion Picture Association of America's "international...

Yesterday's scandal over the UK Internet Watch Foundation's attempt to censor a purportedly pedophiliac Wikipedia entry raises some important questions about unintended technical consequences of Internet censorship systems. The Wikipedia article was about a 1970s hard rock album called Virgin Killer [NSFW] by the German band Scorpions.
...