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Diner sues IDF soldiers for defamation on Facebook

The owners of “HaTeymania Shel Nabi Musa” (loosely translated: Nabi Musa's Yemeni Eatery), the eatery adjacent to the IDF base near Ma’ale Adumim (a town nearby Jerusalem), recently filed a 1.5 million Shekels (approximately US$430,000) defamation suit against 17 of the military base’s soldiers. The couple that owns the eatery claim that several years ago, the soldiers opened a Facebook ...

Israeli authorities warn of risks in using Bitcoin

Following the lead of European banking regulators, as well as other countries, the authorities in Israel, led by the Bank of Israel (Israel's central bank), published a “Public notice regarding the potential risks inherent in distributed virtual currencies (e.g. Bitcoin)” (available here, in Hebrew). According to the announcement, the authorities, including the Israel Tax Authority, the Israel Securities Authority, ...

Facebook refuses to comply with Israeli court order

The District Court in Jerusalem recently issued an order requiring Facebook to release correspondences stored on its servers, which allegedly took place between a defendant indicted for rape and the alleged 17 year-old rape victim. The court issued the order to allow the defendant to prove his claim that the relationship with the minor in question was consensual. However, upon ...

Committee to review regulating TV content delivered over the Internet in Israel

The Israeli Minister of Communications, Mr. Gilad Erdan, announced the establishment of a public commission to examine the future regulation of commercial television broadcasts via broadband mobile and Internet (such broadcasts made possible by advanced infrastructures like Fiberoptic cables To The subscriber’s Home - FTTH). The committee will examine the desired regulatory adjustments, including the desired supervisory model, and related ...

Israeli Judges will be allowed to use Facebook, under conditions

After a year and half of deliberations, the internal committee established by the Israeli Judiciary recently submitted its report regarding recommendations and guidelines for judges’ use of social networks. The committee’s report includes a very long list of recommendations that will ultimately allow judges to use Facebook, subject to numerous restrictions designed to ensure the purity of the judicial process, ...

Billion Shekel class action suit filed against WhatsApp

Two months ago, a request to approve a one billion NIS (approximately 287 million US Dollars) class action lawsuit was filed with the District Court of Tel-Aviv, against WhatsApp, the California-based company that develops and distributes the popular texting app (recently acquired by Facebook). The application for approval of the class action suit alleges a number of causes of action, ...

New Israeli bill would require search engines to pay royalties

A private bill was submitted by nine members of the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) last week, seeking legislation that would require search engines to pay royalties to content creators, whose sites are among those included in the search results {Bill to regulate payments to content creators on the Internet, 5774-2014, available in Hebrew, here}.

According to the bill's explanatory ...

Palestinian hackers suspected of cleverly attacking computers in Israel

For several days this month, hackers were able to take control over a computer within the Israeli Civil Administration, by sending an email message made to appear as though sent by the Israeli Security Agency. The hack was committed in conjunction with the hacking of 14 additional computers, of companies that provide services to the Israeli security establishment. ...
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