Google Facing $30 Million Lawsuit

Google has just opened its new French headquarters, but it seems that they won't be receiving a warm welcome in the nearest future. The reason is that the company has recently landed itself in hot water over the abuse of its dominant position one more time, facing a lawsuit that demands over $30 million for damages to some navigation software firm.

French company named NAVX is currently suing Google in the Paris Commercial Court over what it believes to be wrongdoing about blocking advertisements from the company. NAVX has appealed to the local antitrust authorities over its treatment by the search giant where it was discovered that competition legislation has been violated. The search giant was ordered to reinstate the NAVX’s advertising, as well as clarify the conditions of its Adwords service for further use. NAVX, which offers content for GPS and smartphones, confirmed that Google did agree to do so.

Nevertheless, the French firm acknowledged that it has lost out on a load of money because of Google’s meddling, so it has demanded damages of around $31 million. NAVX Chief Executive Officer Jean Cherbonnier has announced that the dominant position of Google on the advertising market connected with search engines can’t be disputed, particularly after the investigation carried out by the French Antitrust Authority that concluded a year ago that the search giant undoubtedly holds a dominant position.

NAVX is currently asking the Paris Commercial Court to hand down ruling saying that Google abused its dominant position. The company also hopes the court will order Google to pay damages. Meanwhile, such court case couldn’t come at a worse time for the international corporation. Its CEO has just met with European Commission antitrust boss in a kind of last ditch attempt to stop a formal investigation into the company landing the search giant with a statement of objection over its practices.

Truly, it looks like NAVX isn’t the only company out for Google’s blood after the latter allegedly mistreated them. Such firms as Ciao and Foundem are also enraged at Google’s activities and are currently pushing for intervention of European Commission into what they see as bullying and bullish behavior. In other words, it is very unlikely that some other companies making detrimental claims against the search giant while talks are ongoing do Google any favors.

Sony Criticized For Lack Of Cybersecurity

The recent hack at Sony has left customers angry and security experts wondering why the company didn’t make basic fixes to its stricken cybersecurity program.

Late last week the hackers managed to compromise a massive amount of users’ personal data from Sony Pictures’ site using a simple technique. Security experts pointed out that the leak indicated how poorly Sony protected its users’ information: its security was bypassed by a simple attack method. The experts say that any website worth its salt should be able to withstand attacks of this kind. Considering that Lulz Security effortlessly managed to steal a massive amount of personal data of over 1,000,000 Sony users, the hackers must be lining up to give Sony a kicking.

Meanwhile, Sony CEO acknowledged the latest intrusion last Friday, claiming that the company had taken steps to protect against further security breaches. In addition, Sony was reported to retain a team of experts tasked to conduct the forensic analysis of the attack. However, Sony didn’t detail what specific action was taken to prevent future intrusion.

Lulz Security uploaded the stolen data to The Pirate Bay to prove that Sony stored its users’ passwords in a simple text file, which can only be called “disgraceful and insecure”.

Affected users blame Sony for allowing the intruders compromise their personal data, saying that such attitude showed little respect to the customers. Moreover, the company even failed to notify the users about the breach, which occurred several days ago.

Experts of the Cyber Consequences Unit of the United States, a research group engaged in monitoring online threats, were emphatic when asked whether people’s passwords could be stored unencrypted: they simply replied: “Never”. Passwords should always be hashed, so the companies should use some kind of encryption. U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit’s experts, who have been critical of the company’s security earlier, claimed that it needed to revise the methods used to safeguard the users’ personal information. Both Sony customers and security experts recommend the company to press the reset button on their cybersecurity program before another breach happens.