Google claims WiFi sniffing legal

Google's director of public policy, Pablo Chavez, in a letter to congressmen, says the company's harvesting of data from unencrypted wireless networks is legal in the US, states The Register.

“We believe it does not violate US law to collect payload data from networks that are configured to be openly accessible,” he wrote.

Google blamed the fiasco on the operation of a rogue software developer, and say the subject has been through internal disciplinary procedures.

VirnetX Holding, an Internet security software and technology company, has been in legal dispute with Microsoft due to patent issues, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has re-confirmed two of the company's key patents, which cover communications security and virtual private networking over 4G.

VirnetX plans on contacting companies using the technology covered by its patents to sign licensing deals for using its security technology.

Intel has agreed to talks with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the anti-trust issues in the technology market, says Silicon Republic.

The FTC is investigating Intel's practices, saying it wanted to prevent the company from using its dominance in the semiconductor market to remove graphics chip rivals Nvidia and AMD.

Intel has been successful in arranging a legal ceasefire with the FTC until 22 July, with the parties putting a hold on the filings related to the case.