A California lawmaker has unveiled a bill to amend the anti-hacking law at the center of the charges against Aaron Swartz, a Web activist who committed suicide last week. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) says she will propose amending the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to make clear that people don't commit a crime simply by violating a private company's terms of service.

AT&T today loosened its restrictions on FaceTime by saying it will allow iPhone users with tiered data plans to use the video chat app over the data network. But advocacy groups say that AT&T needs to go further and make FaceTime available on its data network to all users -- including those who are grandfathered into unlimited data plans.

Instagram riled users last month when it issued startling new terms of service. Among the most surprising changes, the service said it reserved the right to license users' photos to advertisers. Many users responded by saying they planned to defect from the service, which was recently purchased by Facebook. Faced with the uproar, Instagram quickly withdrew the new terms and sent its lawyers back to the drawing board. Instagram then came out with another round of revisions that no longer contained the controversial language about licensing people's photos to advertisers. But those terms still aren't as user-friendly as the original …

The suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz on Friday has sparked a new debate about how the legal system should treat alleged computer crimes.

More than one week after the Federal Trade Commission announced it had unanimously decided not to pursue antitrust charges against Google for so-called "search bias," the decision is still raising eyebrows.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has issued new mobile privacy recommendations for app developers, ad networks and platform providers.

Barry Diller's cord-cutting service Aereo is fighting for its life in court. But not even the threat that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will shutter the service has stopped the company from raising an additional $38 million in order to expand into 22 new cities. Of course, investors have funded riskier companies than Aereo before. But in this case, it's not clear whether Aereo can ever be profitable even if it survives the legal challenge it's facing.

Back in 2009, Capitol and other record labels sued Vimeo over "lip dubs," or videos featuring people lip synching to famous songs. The labels argued that the clips infringed copyright. The case stalled for a few years, but litigation is now heating up again in federal court in New York, Hollywood Reporter recently reported. Vimeo, now owned by IAC/Interactive, is arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed on the theory that it's protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbors.

Late last year, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a privacy bill by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) that would give smartphone users more control over their data. The proposed law would require app developers to obtain users' explicit consent before collecting or disclosing their geolocation data. Franken intends to reintroduce the bill this year. But not everyone thinks the proposed law would mark a change for the better.

The Federal Trade Commission said this week that it had cleared Google of violating antitrust laws by promoting its own services in the search results. That decision makes a huge amount of sense from a practical point of view, if only because no one needs government officials trying to regulate the proper placement of search engine results.