Author: Jennifer Baker

The sale of a computer equipped with pre-installed software isn't an unfair commercial practice because most customers prefer to buy a laptop they can use straight away, Europe’s top court has ruled in a victory for Sony.

"Failure to indicate the price of each item of pre-installed software" isn't misleading, the Court of Justice of the European Union added in its ruling (PDF) on Wednesday.

The CJEU was asked to intervene after French citizen Vincent Deroo-Blanquart took Sony to court for failing to reimburse the cost of pre-installed software—Windows Vista Home Premium operating system—that he did not wish to use on a laptop.

Enlarge (credit: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images)

A 22-year-old Russian blogger and Pokémon Go fan could end up being jailed for up to five years, after it was alleged that the man had insulted "religious sensitivities" by playing the game in church.

Ruslan Sokolovsky regularly used his video blog on YouTube to make political comments about secularism and freedom in Russia.

On August 11, he filmed himself playing Pokémon Go in a Yekaterinberg cathedral. The stunt resulted in police searching his home and finding evidence of "incitement to hatred and attacks on the liberty of faith," Russian authorities claimed.

Enlarge (credit: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images)

Irish ministers confirmed on Friday, after days of talks, that they will appeal against the European Union's Apple tax ruling.

Earlier this week, Ireland was ordered by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, to reclaim €13 billion plus interest in back taxes from Apple.

The issue initially threatened to split the government with independent ministers saying they were reluctant to challenge the decision.

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BRUSSELS—A war of words has erupted between Europe’s competition chief and Apple CEO Tim Cook after Ireland was ordered to reclaim €13 billion (£11.1 billion/$14.5 billion) in back taxes from the company.

Cook, in an interview with the Irish Independent, labelled Brussels' competition chief Margrethe Vestager’s decision as “total political crap.” He claimed Ireland was being "picked on" and that he hoped to see the Irish government launch an appeal against the ruling.

On Tuesday, Vestager said that the European Commission’s two-year investigation had found Apple guilty of receiving illegal state aid from Ireland thanks to so-called sweetheart tax deals in 1991 and 2007. She said that Ireland allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of one percent on its European profits in 2003, down to as low as 0.005 percent in certain years.

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BRUSSELS—Europe’s competition chief has ordered Ireland to reclaim €13 billion in back taxes from Apple.

It comes despite the US treasury department warning last week that it would “consider its options” in such an eventuality.

Speaking at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, Margrethe Vestager said: “Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies—this is illegal under EU state aid rules."

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Apple's battle with the European Union’s competition watchdog has been backed by the US government, which on Wednesday waded into the complaint over the iPhone maker's tax arrangements.

The US treasury warned in a white paper that Brussels' ongoing investigation into Apple’s tax deal with Ireland could “create an unfortunate international tax policy precedent.” On Thursday, the European Commission responded that there was “no bias” against US companies.

After two years of investigations, antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager is expected to issue a decision on allegations of tax dodging by Apple in the autumn.

Enlarge (credit: The Last Ship, Warner Bros Television)

A massive leak of documents on India’s new military submarines from French shipbuilder DCNS is the result of a hack, the country's defence minister said on Wednesday.

Manohar Parrikar claimed, according to local reports, that the entire designs of its Scorpene submarines hadn't been disclosed. “First step is to identify if its related to us, and anyway its not all 100 percent leak,” he was quoted as saying.

The documents were made public by The Australian on Tuesday, which described the breach as an “Edward Snowden-sized leak.”

Google’s appeal against an antitrust ruling over its Android operating system in Russia was tossed out by Moscow’s ninth arbitration court on Wednesday.

The ad giant was fined 438 million rubles (£5.25 million, $6.85 million) by the country’s competition watchdog, the Federation Antimonopoly Service (FAS) last week. FAS found that Google had imposed restrictive contracts on mobile phone manufacturers who want to use its Android operating system, forcing them to pre-install other Google services, while blocking those of rivals.

As well as the fine, FAS ordered Google to mend its ways and floated the possibility of an out of court settlement. However, the two sides failed to strike such a deal, FAS said on Tuesday. Today, the court rejected Google’s appeal against binding obligations to resolve the case.

Google has been fined more than £5 million (438 million rubles, $6.8 million) and told to slacken limits it places on device makers by Russian authorities who found that the search and ad giant had breached competition rules with its Android mobile operating system.

On Thursday, the country's Federation Anti-monopoly Service (FAS) said that Google forced mobile phone manufacturers to include Google search on the home screen of all Android devices and bundling other services with Google Play, while preventing manufacturers from pre-installing competing services.

The case was opened in February 2014, when one of those rivals, Yandex, filed an official complaint against Google. Last year, the authorities decided that it had broken Russian competition law. The ruling was upheld again in March, when Google lost an appeal.

(credit: Paramount)

Next Tuesday is the day Australians must fill in—correctly—their census forms, or face a fine. However many may be willing to take that risk as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), rather extraordinarily, will be storing personal names and addresses in addition to the usual census results.

In the past, census forms have collected this information, and respondents were allowed to opt-in to having personally identifiable information retained. This time, the ABS wants to keep the information on record until 2020. This has provoked both privacy and security concerns. The bureau's former chief statistician Bill McLennan called it “the most significant invasion of privacy ever perpetrated on Australians by the ABS,” and even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak weighed in saying the data retention plans were “unethical.”

Others claim the ABS cannot adequately protect that sensitive data. According to reports the ABS has had 14 data breaches since 2013.