As we near the midpoint of Trump's presidential term, White House renovations continue, including the erection of a glass-walled enclosure for stone-throwing.

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

According to White House counsel, this was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, Ivanka Trump wasn't aware of the rules governing the discussion of official government business on private channels. This would only be excusable if her father hadn'tspent a great deal of time calling for Hillary Clinton to be locked up for the same behavior.

Given the (still!) ongoing excoriation of Clinton by Donald Trump, you'd think his administration would have tried to lead by example and make sure everyone was on official channels from day one. Instead, his admin team did the same thing Clinton did, minus the setup of a private server.

And there are a few differences between Ivanka Trump's personal email use and Clinton's. Some commenters will make this part of the post redundant as they seek to find something hypocritical in Techdirt's coverage of this story or simply demand it be known Ivanka's actions were far more acceptable than Clinton's. Nevertheless, here we go:

It appears no classified information made its way into her personal email account. She also did not set up her own server to handle all official communications. She is also now apparently using her official White House email account after being informed of the rules -- a corrective effort Hillary Clinton never made.

Since I'm sure this short post pointing out the hypocrisy of the Trump Administration will be viewed as biased, here's Techdirt's history on government officials and private email accounts:

Techdirt criticizes Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server

Techdirt criticizes James Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation

Techdirt criticizes Jame Comey's reopening of the Clinton email investigation

Techdirt criticizes Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's use of a private email account

Techdirt criticizes New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's use of a private email account

Techdirt criticizes former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's use of a private email account

Techdirt criticizes VP Mike Pence's use of a private email account

If a government official has used private email accounts for official business, Techdirt has criticized them. Ivanka Trump doesn't get a pass and neither does anyone on the other side of the gaping political divide. She may not have known the specifics governing official communications but the Trump Administration has no one to blame but itself for the black eye it's now sporting.

HER EMAILS was a major plank in Trump's election platform. His administration team could have prevented this but was too busy keeping their own communications off the record to straighten out Ivanka Trump.

Over the last few years, telecom giants have increasingly been trying to claim that pretty much any effort to hold them accountable for their terrible service (or anything else) is a violation of their First Amendment rights. Historically that hasn't gone so well. For example, courts generally laughed off ISP lawyer claims that net neutrality violated their free speech rights, quite correctly highlighting that ISPs are simply conduits to information, not acting as editors of available speech through their blocking or filtering of available information.

Charter Spectrum, the nation's second biggest cable operator, has been trying to embrace this argument a lot lately as it fights off state lawsuits for terrible service. It recently tried to use the First Amendment card again in a legal battle with Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios Networks (ESN), which recently accused Charter of violating the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by refusing to carry TV channels run by the African-American-owned ESN.

While Charter tried to have the suit dismissed by claiming that the First Amendment prohibits such claims because an ISP enjoys "editorial discretion," the ruling (pdf) by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit didn't agree. The court noted that while ISPs and cable companies do enjoy some First Amendment protection, it doesn't apply here, just like it didn't apply in the net neutrality fight:

"As part of its defense, Charter had told the court that by choosing which channels to carry, the company was engaging in a form of editorial discretion protected by the First Amendment. Therefore, it said, the court would have to use a stricter standard to evaluate Entertainment Studios’ claim of a legal violation — a standard that might result in the claim being rejected.

The Ninth Circuit said otherwise, saying that just because Charter engages in corporate speech when it selects which channels to carry does not “automatically” require the court to use the tougher standard.

As a result, the court is letting the case move forward. For its part, ESN's discrimination complaint alleges that its complaint is based on more than just having its channel withheld from the company's cable lineup:

"The opinion on Charter’s motion to dismiss also marks a victory for the 25-year-old programming firm founded by comedian Byron Allen, which bought the Weather Channel in March and accused Charter executives in court of hurling racist insults at Allen and other black Americans in numerous encounters. In one alleged instance, Charter chief executive Tom Rutledge called Allen, who is black, “boy” at an industry conference and advised him to change his behavior, according to court documents. In another alleged example, the court said, Charter’s senior executive in charge of programming, Allan Singer, approached a group of black protesters outside Charter’s offices to tell them to “get off of welfare."

Consumer groups like Public Knowledge were quick to applaud the ruling, happy to see another effort to "weaponize" the First Amendment shot down. The district court will now proceed to determining whether Charter did engage in racially discriminatory conduct.

"Holding us accountable for absolutely anything violates our free speech" rights was historically something telecom lobbyists often just throw at a wall in a bid to see if it sticks. But these efforts have escalated in the last few years. For example FCC staffers under Ajit Pai, at this point nearly indistinguishable from big telecom lobbying efforts, have even tried to claim that community-run broadband (an organic, voter-approved response to terrible service) is a threat to free speech, a charge there's absolutely zero supporting evidence for.

It's a legal argument giant ISPs have also embraced more recently in large part because they hope that new Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who bought into some of these arguments during previous net neutrality battles, will ultimately be a deciding vote should many of these battles wind their way to the Supreme Court. So far, however, these efforts haven't worked out all that well, and while that's not likely to change when the net neutrality court fight kicks off next February, it could be an important issue should that fight make its way to the highest court in the land.

The "right of first sale" still exists. Not that Apple's happy about it. Apple's no fan of right-to-repair laws either, preferring to keep its revenue streams nice and deep by forcing customers to get their repairs only from Apple-approved vendors, no matter what the law actually says.

So, yeah, you still have the right to resell your Apple products. You're just not going to do it in the largest marketplace in the United States. This CNBC article delivers the bad news like it's good news.

In a new agreement between tech giants Amazon and Apple, shoppers will soon see a selection of the latest Apple products on Amazon.com, Amazon told CNBC in statement.

The agreement means the latest Apple products like the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max will be available on Amazon.

Both companies issued statements about improving customer experiences, but nothing about this sounds like a better deal for consumers. It's a paywalled garden guarded by Apple and Amazon that will keep all but a select few resellers from participating. Being an Apple reseller/repairer is pay-to-play.

First, Apple has to be convinced you'll do more for it than it will do for you. Then you have to pay for the privilege of being allowed to exercise your first sale rights.

Independent shops pay Apple a fee in return for "authorized" status, which gets them exclusive access to Apple training and guidebooks and the ability to buy parts directly from Apple. But authorized repair shops are only "authorized" to do a select few repairs; if a customer comes in with other easily fixable problems, the repair shop must ship the phone to Apple.

This "improvement" of "customer experience" means more old Apple products will be headed for landfills than other people's homes. Jason Koebler of Motherboard interviewed John Bumstead -- a reseller who buys old MacBooks from recyclers and, until recently, sold the refurbs on Amazon. Bumstead was just informed he was no longer welcome at Amazon, thanks to the new deal with Apple.

Bumstead had a good thing going -- something that worked for him and the environment. But Amazon's refurb program -- as modified by Apple -- only wants to deal with people who have the capability to feed a bunch of money to Apple before reselling used devices.

Amazon currently has its own “certified” refurbisher program called “Amazon Renewed” that will be unaffected by the new deal with Apple. But the requirements to sell Apple products under that program are impossible to hit for any small business: They must prove to Amazon that they spend at least $2.5 million dollars every 90 days buying Apple products “directly from a national wireless carrier or retailer with over $5 billion in annual sales (Example: Verizon, AT&T, or Target) or the manufacturer (Apple.)” This means that only big companies with direct relationships with corporate giants can meet the requirements.

This doesn't do much for customers seeking affordable Apple products. Apple continues to set the literal gold standard with its phone and laptop pricing. Severely curtailing the options Amazon customers have for affordable devices doesn't sound like an "improved customer experience," but those are the empty words both companies are using to sell this.

Now, Apple and Amazon are free to handle refurb sales however they wish. There may be a "right to first sale" just like there's First Amendment speech protections, but the actions of private companies don't infringe on that right. They're free to de-platform anyone for almost any reason. You can resell your Apple stuff. You just can't do it here.

I'd say it isn't wise for Apple to take such an antagonistic stance against its customers, but its aggressively anti-consumer efforts haven't made much of a dent in customer goodwill. It may attract the occasional attention of regulators, but not often enough to result in a softened stance on resale or repair. The problem is Apple's actions make things worse for customers who have never purchased its products. Homogenizing marketplaces rarely results in better prices and its anti-right-to-repair efforts are funneling customers towards a select few outlets and preventing device owners from enjoying the privileges of ownership.

With the ability to intelligently avoid obstacles, clean corners, and make dust disappear on any surface, we wouldn't blame you for thinking the POWERbot uses the Force to tidy up your living space. This Star Wars-themed vacuum combines Visionary Mapping technology with a FullView Senso to map the layout of your home and intelligently avoid obstacles. It boasts 20 times the suction power of its predecessor and automatically adjusts its suction power for any surface—all the while responding to commands with your favorite sound effects from the movies. The price has dropped from $372 to $350.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Facebook's new transparency report is up, and the company has released a baker's dozens of National Security Letters along with it. Thanks to the USA Freedom Act, companies finally have a way to challenge the indefinite gag orders the government attaches to its demands for user info -- a process it deploys thousands of times a year without having to run anything by a judge.

NSLs are gifts the FBI gives itself. With these self-issued pieces of paper, the agency can demand internet platforms turn over info about targeted accounts. What it can actually demand is fairly limited, although there appears to be no limit to the number of accounts the FBI can target with a single NSL. Many of the NSLs in this batch [PDF] cleared for release ask for data on multiple Facebook and Instagram users.

Only one of the released NSLs still carries the pre-Freedom Act boilerplate: the one that demands tons of info the DOJ's own internal legal guidance says the FBI can't ask for. That NSL contains a long list of things the FBI chose to consider "phone billing records" before being steered back to reality by legislation and leaked documents.

• Subscriber name and related subscriber information

• Account number(s)

• Date the account opened or closed

• Physical and or postal addresses associated with the account

• Subscriber day/evening telephone numbers

• Screen names or other on-line names associated with the account

• All billing and method of payment related to the account including alternative billed numbers or calling cards

• All e-mail addresses associated with the account to include any and all of the above information for any secondary or additional e-mail addresses and/or user names identified by you as belonging to the targeted account in this letter

• Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to this account and related e-mail accounts

• Uniform Resource Locator (URL) assigned to the account

• Plain old telephone(s) (POTS), ISDN circuit(s), Voice over internet protocol (VOIP), Cable modem service, Internet cable service, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) asymmetrical/symmetrical relating to this account

• The names of any and all upstream and providers facilitating this account's communications

The post-USA Freedom Act NSLs all carry identical demands for user info, which is far more limited than what's contained in this 2014 artifact.

[N]ame, addresss, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records…

The reason we're even seeing these NSLs published can be tied directly to the Snowden leaks, which led to the modification of several secretive government programs and policies with the USA Freedom Act. While these modifications may have altered how the government demands data and communications, it hasn't really slowed the government's roll. As Zack Whittaker notes for TechCrunch, the government is demanding more from Facebook more often.

The U.S. government’s demands for customer data went up by 30 percent, to 42,466 total requests, Facebook said, affecting 70,528 accounts. The company said that more than half included a non-disclosure clause that prevented the company from informing the user.

[...]

For its latest reporting period, Facebook also said that the number of other national security orders more than doubled year-over-year…

If it's data you're seeking, you go to where the data is. A platform with a billion users is a good start, especially when Instagram adds another 600 million user accounts to the mix. While it's good to see the uptick in demands is matched with an uptick in warrants and other orders that require the input of a court, the continued use of NSLs to acquire user info is concerning. These subpoenas -- issued and approved by the agency demanding user data -- more resemble fishing licenses than legal documents, which explains their continued popularity among FBI agents.

Props to French President Emmanuel Macron, who had a busy week last week, what with the observance of the World War I armistice centennial, the Paris Peace Forum, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and various other related events. All drew attendees and attention from around the world to his capital city, and all required his participation in some significant way, including through the delivery of several speeches that each surely required substantial preparation to deliver so capably. Techdirt has already covered a few minor aspects of the IGF speech: the announcement that France would embed officials with Facebook, and reference to the "Paris Call." But in terms of the major substance of the speech, there are few compliments that can be paid.

At best it was the sort of speech that someone completely new to tech policy might have come up with. Someone who, upon finding an imperfect situation, presumes that they are the first to notice the issue. And then takes it upon themselves to heroically step in to address the problem, despite the fact that their proposed "solution" reflects an incomplete understanding of the matter.

There are a number of ways this incomplete understanding infected his speech and undermined the quality of his recommendation. There was, for instance, his erroneous declaration that the Internet today is too much about content distributors not enough about content creators. This declaration alone suggests a very poor understanding of all the myriad ways people all over the world use the Internet to create and then disseminate their expressive works themselves. In and of itself it calls into question whether his overall suggestion is capable of being adequately protective of all this expression.

Because it appears not, and not just because of this limited understanding of how the Internet is used. It also ignores the critical countervailing concerns that have long deemed his proposed "fix" to be an unacceptable one. Because the "cure" he proposed — greater regulation of the Internet — is a dangerous one that would destroy all that he purports to want to protect.

We were off to a bad start with his initial skewering of net neutrality, a topic slated to be dealt with head-on by EU regulators next year. To summarize his general view on the subject: sure, we don't want certain ideas to be marginalized. We should defend people's access to the Internet, he said, but not always. He interprets the term "neutrality" to mean that all ideas have to be treated equally, but, in his view, some ideas are more equal than others. And this is what so offends him: net neutrality allows those who do not share "our values" to spread their ideas too.

This appeal to "values" was a recurring reference that underpinned his speech. Thanks to the Internet, Macron said, we saw an upsurge in democracy (i.e. Tahrir Square). Now, however, he complained, the Internet is being deployed by fringe elements to work against those democratic values. As he put it, in the name of liberty we are allowing the enemies of liberty to speak, and this, Macron insisted, needs to end through the imposition of regulation on the Internet and its actors.

Of course it's not that the values he champions are bad: liberal democracy and personal liberty are certainly worth defending. And he's right to recognize that the Internet can be a valuable tool for advancing those values. He's also right to observe that some use the Internet to advance contrary values. But any autocrat can make the very same argument about how regulation of expressive technology is necessary to preserve a society's "values," and nearly all do.

There is nothing magical about any particular set of values that makes regulation designed to enforce them better than regulation designed to suppress them. Regulation that gives someone the power to decide which values are the good ones and which are the bad is regulation that gives someone the power to suppress any values, including the ones you prefer. Indeed, that's the very point of the very values he champions, to ensure that no one gets that power. You simply can't create that power and expect it not to be used badly.

At some level Macron understands this problem. In the same speech he lamented the autocratic approach of "China Cyberspace" as being a poor choice for the Internet's future, and yet that's exactly the future he invites as he calls for the Internet to be as tightly controlled by his preferred regulators as China would want it to be by its own.

But Macron fears that the only other choice to the regulatory solution he proposes is "California Cyberspace," where California-based companies instead are the de facto regulators of the Internet.

Again, though, Macron misapprehends the current situation, in at least two significant ways. First, part of his objection to the Internet being "regulated" by California companies is that he didn't vote for them, and thus he fears that he has no way to ensure that they act in a way that he considers sufficient to protect the values he prefers. But installing governments, even elected EU governments, as regulators of the Internet provides no guarantee that these values will be any better protected. France itself has members of the far right making increased inroads into government, as does Germany. The democratically-elected government in Poland is busy attacking its independent judiciary for not being nationalistic enough, while Hungary's is currently attempting to ban protest. Just the day before Macron told the world how poisonous nationalism is, and yet the regulation he prescribes would give nationalists in governments the tools to cement their alternative values.

The other significant misapprehension upon which his proposal is based is that "California Cyberspace" is a lawless zone. But not all law must say no; the laws that have allowed the Internet to thrive in California and beyond have been laws that have said yes to innovation and expression and worked to protect them from interference, including Section 230, the First Amendment, and even, to a degree, the DMCA. All of these sorts of legal structures are what enable the actual protection of all those very same liberty values Macron says he wants to foster.

But that's not the sort of regulatory approach Macron proposes. He wants one that will say no to technology — and, importantly, the expression facilitated by this technology — when he believes technology should say no to expression. In his mind this is a modest proposal, one that simply calls for regulation by international consensus via organizations like the IGF. He said this was to help transcend the "rifts" caused by different nations' regulatory approaches. But given that next year's IGF has been scheduled over Thanksgiving week, thereby shutting out many of the American participants who would prefer to observe one of the most significant holidays in the American calendar with their family, as is traditional, rather than on their own, working to save the Internet a continent away, it hardly seems like international pluralism is really high on the IGF agenda.

Instead it seems that the goal is to empower his own government with the ability to decide for the world what the Internet can be used for. While his call for this regulatory crackdown may be packaged up in language touting freedom, democracy, equality, and international cooperation, it is still the cry of the censor keen for the power to refuse others' expression.

Like many cable operators, Comcast continues to slowly bleed cable TV customers to cheaper, more flexible streaming alternatives (aka cord cutting). The industry just saw its biggest ever quarterly loss of such subscribers in history, with Comcast losing 106,000 subscribers during the third quarter alone. It's a trend that's directly thanks to the industry's refusal to not only compete on price, but flexibility and openness.

You'll recall that Comcast (with the US Copyright Office's help) played a starring role in killing plans at the FCC to bring more competition and openness to the cable box. The cable industry hauls in $21 billion in cable box rental fees annually, so their motivation here should be obvious. The combination of limited cable box competition and the walled-garden approach to content also lets these companies keep would-be competitors at arms' length, helping to "protect" existing customers from the temptation of cheaper, more flexible programming options.

Realizing the company had to do something to address the rising streaming threat, Comcast has been doing things like adding Netflix to some cable boxes in the hopes that would keep its existing customers from cutting the cord. And, in last week's news, it emerged that Comcast would soon be launching a new streaming device for its broadband customers that actually lets users view not only Comcast's cable TV content, but that of some competitors. Again, the hope is that adding a few additional options will prevent users from fleeing to alternative options.

Of course this being Comcast, you won't actually be able to install whatever you like on it, just like a... cable box:

"The product isn’t quite a direct competitor to Roku or Apple TV because it won’t allow customers access to hundreds of apps, including streaming TV bundles like AT&T’s DirecTV Now or Dish’s Sling. Those services are direct competitors to Comcast’s video bundle, and Comcast wouldn’t be able to push its own video service to its broadband-only customers if it allowed them access to those bundled OTT services. Comcast hasn’t decided the exact number of apps that will be accessible through the device, said the people."

Comcast doesn't appear to have gotten the message that openness is the future. Streaming services now operate on an ocean of third-party hardware that (with some caveats like piracy) largely allows users to install whatever app or service they'd like. That's even more true of custom-built media center PCs. It looks like Comcast is attempting to justify the closed-nature of the device by throwing in some additional internet of things functionality (read: "we had to lock this device down for security purposes"):

"Rather, Comcast wants the device to be the hub to the connected home, they said. In addition to aggregating streaming apps, the device will also allow customers to control anything that’s connected to the Internet, including thermostats and smart-locks."

Still, a walled garden by any other name...

Granted this being Comcast, there's sure to be some additional caveats (like price or rental fees) at launch. Given Comcast's past actions on this front, it wouldn't be shocking to see Comcast exempt owners of its own hardware from broadband usage caps given the death of net neutrality rules.

Of course that brings us to Comcast's ace in the hole when it comes to battling cord cutting: limited broadband competition. Limited competition means bullshit usage caps and overage fees can be imposed on user lines without them being able to vote with their wallet. Such caps and fees not only let Comcast counter lost TV revenues with broadband price hikes, but simultaneously punish and profit from users who wander too far off-script to enjoy "non-sanctioned"competing products while using a Comcast broadband connection.

Between locked down hardware and the death of net neutrality, it's a good bet Comcast is hoping it won't have to compete quite as intensely on openness, flexibility, and price as the streaming wars truly accelerate.

Putting cops in schools often turns routine disciplinary issues into police matters. That's a problem. Cops -- given the friendly-spin title of "school resource officers" -- have a limited tool set for handling discipline. It involves shows of authority, deployments of force, and, in this case, adult handcuffs clamped onto an 8-year-old's upper arms. Tiny wrists can't be secured by adult cuffs, so up the arm they go until they more resemble an instrument of torture than a restraint device.

This cuffing was performed by Deputy Kevin Sumner of the Kenton County (KY) Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department claimed the deputy followed policy, but could not produce any policy relevant to the handcuffing of small children. Experts on force/restraint deployment said this cuffing didn't follow any protocol they were aware of. Sheriff Korzenborn insisted (without any evidence) this technique was proper and testified he did not order retraining of officers in child-restraint techniques following the incident.

Last year, a federal court declared this handcuffing to be excessive force. It pointed out the alleged "crime" did not justify the force deployed and, even if it had, the force used was far in excess of what was needed.

Applying the Graham factors, the severity of the “crime” committed by S.R. and L.G. — assault — weighs in their favor. While S.R. kicked a teacher and L.G. tried to and/or did hit a teacher, these are very young children, and their conduct does not call to mind the type of “assault” which would warrant criminal prosecution. Indeed, Sumner testified that “none of what they did was worthy of trying to file a criminal charge.”

The second factor, whether the children posed an immediate threat to themselves or others, weighs in S.R.’s favor. At the time he was handcuffed, S.R. had largely calmed down, Sumner had escorted him to the restroom without incident, and they had returned to the office. While Sumner testified that S.R. swung his elbow towards Sumner, such can hardly be considered a serious physical threat from an unarmed, 54-pound eight-year-old child.

A little over a year later, the two elementary school students will be receiving a payout from Kenton County taxpayers.

On Thursday, a sheriff’s office in Kentucky has agreed to pay more than $337,000 for the painful and unconstitutional handcuffing of elementary school students with disabilities. The two plaintiffs, both of whom were children of color and both of whom have disabilities, were so small that the deputy sheriff locked the handcuffs around the children’s biceps, forcing their hands behind their backs.

Despite the ruling and the settlement agreement, Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn remains unrepentant. He views this settlement as a cowardly capitulation by the company fronting the money for his deputy's misconduct.

In a statement released Nov. 5, Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn said he "never signed off or agreed to settle."

"My understanding is that the insurance company viewed that it was less expensive to settle the case than to continue defending it," he said.

Korzenborn also noted that the settlement came without "any admission of liability" on behalf of the sheriff's office.

Handcuffing children and causing this sort of reaction is just good school policing, according to the sheriff.

After the handcuffings, both children had repeated nightmares, started bed-wetting, and would not let their mothers out of their sight. Both families left the school district, and moved to areas where their children could receive the treatment and accommodations they needed.

This is what the sheriff considers to be a worthwhile punishment for an 8-year-old student who tried to punch his deputy in the arm: a painful, unconstitutional handcuffing followed by a few years of nightmares and family upheaval. It will happen again because Korzenborn believes he -- not the law, not policies, and not the federal court -- is right. He's a law unto himself, and that makes things dangerous for students in the county's schools. And he's a walking advertisement for personal indemnification.

While it is by no means the most litigious beverage company ever, Red Bull is not a complete stranger to trademark bullying. The last we heard from the iconic energy drink company, it was making legal arguments over bovines and their castrated status somehow rising to the level of trademark infringement. It seems that Red Bull typically likes to do its bullying during the trademark application status rather than in legal proceedings, but the universe is currently running an experiment to see just how hard and fast a rule this is for the company.

That experiment takes the form of Red Bull attempting, and failing, to oppose the trademark registration for a beverage company called "Big Horn" over the following logos.

Now, the link above is from a site dedicated to "brand protection", so all of the language in the post is of the variety that thinks Red Bull was totally right and the decision against the opposition was wrong. But, come on, how much public confusion is there really going to be over those logos? To be fair to that original post, it points out that Big Horn uses this logo on beverage cans that do call back to Red Bull's, but Red Bull didn't make that argument in its opposition. Instead, it simply argued that the logos were too similar. They're not, even when you try to parse things out with language such as:

Red Bull based its opposition on the registration of the two bulls logo, i.e. without the word Red Bull. If you compare this with the Big Horn logo they are quite similar, given that both depict two animals leaping towards each other with a yellow ball in the background.

"Yellow ball." That's the sun, actually. In the case of the Big Horn logo, it's the sun rising over mountains, which aren't present in Red Bull's logo. And the animals in question are different. As are the color schemes. Not to mention that Big Horn has their big name pasted in big letters over the logo. It makes perfect sense that EUIPO thought that Big Horn had enough of a case if this ever goes to a trademark lawsuit to defend itself, no matter how many citations of EUIPO making the opposite and wrong decision on Red Bull oppositions the original post can make.

So, we'll wait and see if Red Bull actually wants to take this trial. If that happens, I would think that demonstrating real or potential public confusion would be pretty difficult.

Data breaches occur daily, affecting thousands of people. And everyone shrugs and moves on with their lives, especially those running the affected companies. Why? Because nothing ever happens to companies which have carelessly exposed data, as Cory Doctorow points out:

Data breaches keep happening, they keep getting worse, and yet companies keep collecting our data in ever-more-invasive ways, subjecting it to ever-longer retention, and systematically underinvesting in security.

Why does this keep happening? Because it's affordable. In 2014, Home Depot breached more than 50,000,000 credit-cards; in 2016, they paid less than $0.34/customer in restitution.

There are longer-term reputational costs associated with breaches, but these are not generally factored into the quarterly-earnings-focused mindsets of corporate execs and strategists.

Two of the most damaging breaches in recent years involved millions of people who were given little or no choice in how much personal data of theirs was held by these entities. One was the Office of Personnel Management. Those seeking government jobs turn over a lot of info to the government, which then handles it carelessly.

The other -- Equifax -- was even worse, at least in terms of consent. There was none. No one voluntarily hands information to Equifax. It's gathered by Equifax which sells access to any number of companies seeking credit records. No one opts in and, more importantly, there's no way to opt out.

No one can hold these entities accountable, at least not to the extent it will deter future breaches. Because of that, the only thing we're guaranteed is more breaches. These companies and agencies will continue to exist, hoovering up even more personal data, and, eventually, leave it exposed where criminals can make the most of other people's finances.

From one wheelhouse to another, the same can be said for law enforcement agencies and police misconduct. In almost every case, a police officer sued for rights violations pays nothing for the wrongs committed. Neither does the agency employing the officer. This is from a study of police indemnification published by the New York University Law Review:

During the study period, governments paid approximately 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement. Law enforcement officers in my study never satisfied a punitive damages award entered against them and almost never contributed anything to settlements or judgments—even when indemnification was prohibited by law or policy, and even when officers were disciplined, terminated, or prosecuted for their conduct.

Officers are never made to personally feel the pain of a settlement. The officer often returns to work with only the minor black mark of a lost lawsuit on their record. Consequently, the violations continue because officers have nothing at stake. If they screw up, another government entity picks up the tab using taxpayer dollars.

The solution to this problem isn't as readily apparent as it might seem. Personal indemnification -- forcing officers to be held personally responsible for settlements stemming from rights violations -- seems like a good deterrent, but it has its downsides. Scott Greenfield has examined the issue and the flaws are right below the satisfying gloss covering the surface.

Often, the argument is that the solution to police violence is to make the cop personally liable for his conduct, shift the incentive system from the municipality, or more accurately its taxpayers, to the bad dude who did the dirty. Make him suffer.

The problem is that the cop may be judgment proof. If the cop has no wealth or assets, there is no fund from which to collect a judgment. You can’t get blood from a rock.

While this may be an effective deterrent, it doesn't do anything to make the plaintiff whole. Having a city cover the cost ensures the victim will be paid, but it lets the officer off the hook.

What's the solution? Perhaps it's a sharing of the burden. Officers could be made to carry their own litigation insurance. This would eliminate the free pass of outside indemnification by making every act of misconduct count. Get sued often enough and the insurance company will drop the officer. An officer without insurance is pretty much unemployable.

It's also a win for officers, who would no longer gripe about cities settling too easily with plaintiffs and other besmirching the barrel of apples by proxy. Sure, they won't be nearly as vocal about it when their own insurance coverage is on the line, but it will put their own insurance premiums where their mouths are, which would be small victory in and of itself.

Circling back outside to the original wheelhouse, what can be done to make companies actually care about data breaches? So far, nothing seems to be slowing the flow of carelessly exposed data. Doctorow has a suggestion, and it runs along the lines of the solution that (might!) work for law enforcement:

If companies were paying out damages commensurate with the social costs their data recklessness imposes on the rest of us, it would have a very clarifying effect on their behavior -- insurers would get involved, refusing to write E&O policies for board members without massive premium hikes, etc. A little would go a long way, here.

There are no perfect solutions. But we simply shouldn't settle for the status quo. Neither group will welcome increased accountability, but there's simply no reason we should continue to let them skate, either.