Wires Crossed #105 – October 31

Ashley Cole Twitter Fine – All In A Week’s Work

Ashley Cole Twitter Fine – All In A Week’s Work
Chelsea and England footballer Ashley Cole is never far from controversy, and he was made to pay for his views when he was fined $145,000 for a tweet he made against the English Football Association. It related to a saga of fellow team mate John Terry who was found guilty of racially abusing Queens Park Ranger defender Anton Ferdinand. Cole was a witness for Terry over the incident, however the tribunal didn’t find Cole’s evidence credible and thus the guilty finding for Terry. Incensed, Cole tweeted "Hahahahaa, well done (hash)fa I lied did I”, which has since being removed. The English Football Association took umbrage and charged him with misconduct and bringing the game into disrepute, which resulted in the fine. Two things: Don’t feel too sorry for Cole, the fine is not even a week’s salary; and what about free speech, FA?

Google Threatens French Government
The Gallic sense of fair play is causing an issue between the French Government and Google. The French have decided that if a Google search for a news item turned up links to French news site then Google has to pay a commission to publishers of the aforementioned site. Google has said “Non” to the idea and says it will drop French media sites from searches if the government tries to enforce the move. This type of thing has been mooted before by none other than media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and as he has a much bigger empire – with tentacles in the UK, USA and here in Australia. He will no doubt will be watching with interest as to the outcome. Google execs and French politicians have already met, but the results of the get-together are unknown.

Foxconn Under Scrutiny From Nintendo
Chinese-based factory, Foxconn, is under investigation by Nintendo, which uses the Yantai-based company to assemble its products. Nintendo is acting upon information from the US-based pressure group China Labor Watch that claims the company is employing underage interns as part of its labour force. Foxconn says it is investigating the allegations, but claims it knows nothing about the alleged breaches. This is not the first time the company has come under scrutiny. Over the past decade there have been claims of employee abuse, mostly related to its factories that assemble Apple products like iPhones and iPads.

Class Action PS Network Lawsuit Update
In April 2011 the PlayStation Network was hacked, resulting in the personal information of millions of users being exposed to cybercrims. In typical American style, a class action lawsuit was launched against Sony alleging the company didn’t put in enough safety precautions – firewalls etc – to protect users. US District Judge Anthony Battaglia dismissed a large portion of the claim for varying reasons including because the “plaintiffs freely admit, plaintiffs' personal information was stolen as a result of a criminal intrusion of Sony's Network. Plaintiffs do not allege that Sony was in any way involved with the Data Breach." Fair enough. However Judge Battaglia has given the plaintiff’s leave to refile their claim. This has a long time to run.