Many people cheered Apple's recent decision to start selling tracks at iTunes without the digital rights management software that hindered users' ability to transfer tracks purchased at iTunes to portable devices other than iPods. But Apple took a big step backwards this week with its high-handed move to prevent Palm Pre users from easily using iTunes to manage media.

Seems like Twitter is experiencing firsthand the pitfalls of cloud storage. "Hacker Croll" apparently gained access to Twitter documents by hacking into an employee's personal account and then downloading papers that had been stored in Google Docs. Hacker Croll then sent 310 formerly confidential documents to TechCrunch, which is now publishing some of them.

A proposal aimed at allowing prisons to jam wireless calls could end up opening the door to some very consumer-unfriendly activity, advocacy group Public Knowledge is warning.

n the 10 years since Napster first emerged, the record industry has devoted tremendous resources towards fighting file-sharing in court. The record labels initially took aim at file-sharing by suing Napster and other companies -- then, six years ago, the Recording Industry Association of America decided to target individuals. Thirty-thousand lawsuits later, the RIAA changed its mind and said it would bring new cases against non-commercial users. But the lawsuits already in the works are continuing -- and could have an impact on the industry for decades to come.

Like a growing number of social networking sites, Tagged asks users to provide their email addresses and passwords when they sign up. The company then sends messages to members' contacts, often with subject lines indicating that the member is personally requesting that the recipient join the site. This week, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he was gearing up to sue Tagged over the practice.

The ad industry's new behavioral targeting guidelines seem to be receiving a less than enthusiastic reception.

All states except one, Wyoming, have some form of a shield law that allows journalists to protect their confidential sources. Many were passed before the Internet era, but some state courts have recently said the policies apply to bloggers as well as to mainstream media, provided the bloggers are engaged in newsgathering and dissemination. But a judge in New Jersey has just made the questionable decision that blogger Shellee Hale isn't covered by that state's reporter's shield law, which allows journalists to protect their confidential sources.

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and Twitter have settled their differences about a fake profile. In court papers quietly filed last month, LaRussa agreed to drop his trademark infringement lawsuit against the site. The papers take the unusual step of specifying that Twitter didn't pay anything to LaRussa to convince him to dismiss the case.

In a rebuff to behavioral targeting company Phorm, the U.K. Internet service provider BT Group is backing off plans to deploy Phorm's platform.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has finally cleared Lori Drew in the emotionally charged MySpace suicide case. Judge George Wu dismissed the charges today, ruling that the prosecutor hadn't proven that Drew violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act beyond a reasonable doubt.