For desk jockeys everywhere, it has become as routine as a tour of the office-supply closet: the consent form attesting that you understand and accept that any e-mails you write, Internet sites you visit or business you conduct on your employer's computer network are subject to inspection. That X-rated message from your boyfriend? You keep it on Gmail. Your thinly veiled Web diary of soul-crushing corporate tedium? It's crafted on the MacBook your mom bought you last year. Simple enough. But commonplace communication—texting, instant messaging, Twittering, telekinesis (prove me wrong)—is evolving faster than corporate policy, and the best practices of the e-mail age are becoming antiquated. Computer-privacy advocates celebrated this month after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a potentially precedent-setting ruling that makes it more difficult for employers to sniff around in workers' electronic communications. Jennifer Granick, civil-liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights advocacy group, called the ruling "a great decision in support of communication privacy."

When he was fired, Scott Sidell was angry enough. Then he found out that his former employer was reading his personal Yahoo e-mail messages, after he had left the company.

In a lawsuit that he filed in May against Structured Settlement Investments, the finance company he used to run, Mr. Sidell claims that executives at the company went so far as to read e-mail messages that he had sent to his lawyers discussing his strategy for winning an arbitration claim over his lost job.

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In addition to concerns about privacy in the workplace, Mr. Sidell’s claim involves communications between a lawyer and a client. “It’s a nice set of factors that are all compacted into this,” said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney in the San Francisco office of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties organization that seeks to protect privacy rights online.

Bill Hogan was returning home to the U.S. from Germany in February when a customs agent at Dulles International Airport pulled him aside. He could reenter the country, she told him. But his laptop couldn't.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said he had been chosen for "random inspection of electronic media," and kept his computer for about two weeks, recalled Hogan, 55, a freelance journalist from Falls Church, Va.

Fortunately, it was a spare computer that had little important information. But Hogan felt violated.

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Said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "People keep their lives on these devices: diaries, personal mail, financial records, family photos. . . . The government should not be able to read this information."

A US federal district court has ruled that selling promo CDs on eBay does not infringe copyright. The court ruled against Universal Music Group which had sued Troy Augusto, who regularly sells promo CDs on eBay.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the San Francisco law firm of Keker & Van Nest took Augusto's case to fight for the proposition that a copyright owner can't take away a consumer's first sale rights just by putting a 'promotional use only' label on a CD. His lawyers argued that "first sale" guidelines allow him to resell the material without permission from the copyright holder.

The president of a Chicago suburb has dropped his attempt to obtain the identity of an anonymous MySpace user after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an amicus brief detailing how the petition violated both the First Amendment and a federal statute that protects the privacy of online users.

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"We are grateful that Mr. Dominick has chosen to abandon his misguided attempt to unmask a critic through the use of the legal system," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "While litigants may pursue claims against speakers who have truly engaged in defamatory speech, it is not enough -- especially for an elected official -- to walk into court and demand the identity of an anonymous speaker supported with nothing but a vague allegation of wrongdoing."

Universal Music Group's case against Troy Augusto, fought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been dismissed by a federal judge. UMG sued Augusto, the owner of Roast Beast Music, over 26 eBay listings of promotional CDs. UMG argued that promo CDs distributed for free to radio stations, DJs and other industry insiders could not be resold; the discs usually carry a label reading 'For promotional use only, not for resale.' UMG asserted the doctrine of first sale does not apply, as the discs were not actually sold and therefore remained UMG's property. The judge ruled that the doctrine does apply because the discs were gifts. The labels indicate no expectation of their return.

In poring through the latest round of documents the FBI turned over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation about how the FBI legally plugs into the nation's telephone system, THREAT LEVEL discovered that the nation's secret spy court repeatedly questioned the FBI in 2005 and 2006 about whether the Bureau was exceeding its wiretap authority.

But there were other fine eavesdropping nuggets in those pages, including info on when the FBI learned to wiretap VOIP calls, how number portability messed with FBI taps, and a moment of candor from an FBI technician about how the FBI's wiretapping software could work with the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Q: I don't like seeing lots of entries pop up when I plug my name into online search engines. Can I privatize my name?

A: Not easily.

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"What you can get from a defamation law suit is damages (from the content poster)," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The service provider is not obligated to take down the material. Many do as a matter of courtesy and good citizenship, and they are immunized from liability."

If you've been wondering where all the telecom lobbyists went to lick their wounds after the House rejected retroactive immunity for wiretapping, the Electronic Frontier Foundation says it's found a bunch of them smack dab in the middle of John McCain's presidential campaign organization.

The group suggested Friday that the swell of current and former telecom lobbyists in the McCain camp might have something to do with the candidate's recent reversal on the legality of warrantless wiretapping. His most recent position "reads a lot like the talking points that a telecom lobbyist might employ," writes EFF senior staff attorney Kurt Opsahl.

News of a recent study that tracked the movements of cell phone users outside the U.S. has given a fresh case of the creeps to a society that is steadily growing accustomed to the likelihood that their every move is being tracked.

A team of researchers from Northeastern University in Boston, working in conjunction with an unnamed wireless carrier, tracked the movements of 100,000 subscribers using anonymized data from cell phone towers that handled their phone calls and text messages over a six month period. The researchers did not disclose the geographical location from which the data originated.

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The researchers appear to have made some dangerous presumptions in terms of deciding for others whether they should be concerned about the loss of their privacy, says Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco. "This wouldn't be legal in the U.S., the laws are fairly clear about doing that here," he said.

But given the increasing moves by research and marketing interests to find utility in personal data, and the fact that more personal data is being tracked than ever before, Zimmerman expects these types of issues to continue.

"As we get more gadgets that are more trackable, there will be more pressure from people to utilize the value that they see there. The question is, will there be a law to give people a say in how their information is used?" Zimmerman said.

It's not every day that record companies are accused of behaving like goblins in a book by JK Rowling.

But that is just one of the more colourful accusations being bandied around in a US legal battle that could have implications for many people's private CD and LP collections.

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"UMG seems to think that the promotional use only label somehow gives it eternal ownership over the CD," says the EFF.

"While this might make sense to a goblin living in Harry Potter's world, it's not the law under the Copyright Act."

Privacy groups are accusing Google of violating California law in its reluctance to provide a direct link to its privacy policy on its homepage.

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Google maintains that it already does and that its privacy policy can be found by going through its search engine or by clicking on "About Google".

In a conference call, a coalition of privacy organisations told journalists that was not good enough and it has written to Google.

The groups involved include the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, the World Privacy Forum, Consumer Action, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California.

Is there such a thing as a good hacker? Isn’t “ethical hacking” an oxymoron? Let me challenge your beliefs and the prevailing media message. Hackers are not evil; in fact, they generally want things to be safer and better for all. At this point, you’re probably ready to either label me as a lunatic, or give me a lesson about “hacker” vs. “cracker”. Let’s skip the historic definitions. The facts are simple.

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Without “hackers”, no one would have noticed that AT&T was cooperating with the NSA for illegal wiretaps, and there would be no Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to take them to court and protect individual rights. The list goes on.

YouTube has landed Google in a copyright confrontation with media giant Viacom that may cost it more than the $1.65bn it paid for the site in the first place.

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That the case is important, though, is not in doubt. Corynne McSherry, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fights for free speech on the web, says there will be a wide ripple effect across Web 2.0 companies – everything from local discussion forums up to the mighty Facebook, the social networking site whose users are increasingly swapping video.

"This goes to the basic question of what are the limits of the DMCA's safe harbour provisions," says Ms McSherry. "This case has brought it right to a head. Viacom has stepped up to the plate to push this issue, and Google has pushed right back. Viacom wants to say that YouTube is not within those provisions because it knows there is all this infringement going on and is doing nothing about it.