Oprah Winfrey Australia visit prompts possible legal battle

http://m.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/megastars-visit-turns-into-legal-soap-oprah-20110106-19gz3.html

Regards

Mark Bender

Consumer Affairs Victoria - NewsAlert - 2010-12-24 - Download our new MyShopRights iPhone app - Alert

http://www.consumer.vic.gov.au/CA256EB5000644CE/page/Listing-NewsAlert-2010-12-24+-+Download+our+new+MyShopRights+iPhone+app+-+Alert?OpenDocument&1=~&2=~&3=~&REFUNID=~

iPhone app covering consumer rights under the 'new' ACL

Misleading Conduct by Real Estate Agents

Good to see some enforcement action.

http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/real-estate-agencies-ads-misled-buyers-20110103-19duj.html#poll

Obviously the polls that accompany these articles are not necessarily statistically valid (carrying the following disclaimer: These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate) - but I can't recall seeing result at this level (94% this morning) ver often.

SiNApSE blog

http://www.sinapseblog.com/

Some interesting content on this blog - including some Indian perspectives.

Telstra loses appeal on phone directories case

The decision upheld a February Federal Court decision that copyright did not subsist in Telstra's White and Yellow Pages directories

The unanimous decision by Chief Justice Keane, Justice Perram and Justice Yates was delivered in three separate judgements, all in general agreement with Justice Gordon's first instance decision. Chief Justice Keane observed that "in my respectful opinion, the decision of the trial judge was correct". [95]

Chief Justice Keane holding that the White and Yellow Pages "were compiled, not by the individuals engaged to facilitate the process, but by a computerised process of storing, selecting, ordering and arranging the data to produce the directories in the form in which they were published."

Full decision available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2010/149.html

Regards

Mark Bender

Local telco's allegedly misleading and deceptive conduct

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/optus-takes-vodafone-to-court-over-misleading-ads-20101214-18vq3.html

Seems that many commonplace forms of marketing conduct in that industry are questionable at best - one of the most outrageous must surely be the constant use of 'cap' and 'capped' - in relation to plans that do not have an upper limit.

$2 million penalty in SMS spam case

HTTP://acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_312374

Defamatory Tweets?

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/to-sue-or-not-to-sue-the-aus-frets-over-defamatory-tweet-20101130-18exl.html

UK High Court rules in copyright headlines case

The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) and its members won a copyright case against a media monitoring service and the Public Relations Consultants Association (representing users of the service). The High Court found that some of the headlines put forward in the case were independent literary works, other headlines were considered to form part of the articles to which they relate.