There is an interesting guest post on Techcrunch  Europe by Richard Leyland, an entrepreneur who started WorkSnug, a location-based service for mobile workers. His company has launched in sixteen cities and may be considered a global company.

What is unique about his company is its committment that none of his employees will fly in the course of its business.  His employees travel via cars and trains.  The reason: climate change.  According to Mr. Leyland flying is far from the only factor causing climate change, but as an example of our wasteful fossil fuel addiction it really takes the biscuit.

So how is his company doing? The first thing they have done is take to the trains. He reports that trains are more difficult to book, more expensive and a longer journey. But trains are excellent for concentrated work, they drop his employees in the middle of cities and airport stress is relieved.

Worksnug also relies on technology.  Like 37signals, another innovative startup, Worksnug has interviewed and hired employees using Skype. They also report using social media tools, such as Twitter to stay connected with their employees.

Mr. Leyland admits that there is nothing revolutionary happening at his company.  After all, you do all these things too.  The simple act of  abandoning the plane is unique.

What do you think?  Is it possible for your company to forgo air travel?

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If you are a heavy user of Twitter, nothing is worse than trying to find an important link that is buried in your feed. Check out Twitter Archives.  If you think the interface to the Google homepage is stark, wait till you take a look at Twitter Archives.

One big problem with the site is that you cannot conduct any type of search. Let’s say that you are really ichin’ to find my post on Legal Problems of Social Networks.  You would be SOL. The site simply lists your Tweets page by page, which is still better than the Twitter website.

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Protecting intellectual property from a cyber attack is something that all companies need to be concerned about. Google recently released information about a targeted attack on their intellectual property and data that occurred in December, 2009. The attack came from China and according to Google, resulted in the “theft of intellectual property from Google.” Apparently they were not the only company that was under a cyber attacks. At least 20 other corporations were hit, including a law firm that was suing China.

Google explained the cyber attack as follows:

The route attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks.

E-mails were targeted at individuals in each company that were made to appear as that they were coming from other people at each company. They attempted to get their target to click on a link or attachment.

Potential Legal Consequences of a Breach

If your company has been subject to a cyber attack and data has been breached, your company may be subject to litigation. There have been an increase in the number of  lawsuits commenced by customers and clients whose data have been compromised. For example, there is currently a lawsuit in Pennsylvania against Heartland Payment Systems, which claims that the company waited to tell consumers about a data breach and failed to protect sensitive information.

Businesses also need to be aware of compliance laws such as Sarbanes Oxley when they lose the personal information of their customers.

Potential Legal Consequences of an Intellectual Property Breach

Cyber Attacks, like the one inflicted against Google, often attempt to steal Intellectual Property.  Trademarks, patents, copyrights and trade secrets, are big targets for cyber criminals.

What companies from selected industries can do to protect their data

• High-tech: Need to protect source code and engineering design documents.
• Banks and Financial Companies: Confidential customer information.
• Pharma and Bio-Tech: Trade secrets such as research and the manufacturing of drugs.

If you have any questions or if you wish to discuss this issue further, please don’t hesitate to contact me at The Law Office of Frederic R. Abramson at 212-233-0666.

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Both TechCrunch and Mashable reported on the launch of iSites, a new service that makes it really easy to launch both an iPhone and Android app for your website in 10 minutes.  As a side note, too bad all the cool lower case i legal names are taken. Perhaps I should rename my firm  iAbramson Attorney at Law.

iSites will transform your data and RSS feed  into a real iPhone and Android app. The cost? $25.  An absolute steal!  How cool is that?

With most people expected to access the Internet through mobile devices in the next few years, transforming your site to mobile is a must do. The $25 price tag makes it a no brainier.

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