http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1156855191646 By Michael Booth New Jersey Law Journal August 30, 2006 A Philadelphia-based patients' advocacy company agreed last week to settle its claim that a West Coast Web page archivist improperly secured copyrighted pages and thereby made them vulnerable to a third party's hacking. But Healthcare Advocates Inc.'s suit against the alleged hackers -- at a Valley Forge, Pa., law firm, Harding, Earley, Follmer & Frailey -- will proceed, says the plaintiff attorney, Scott Christie. "We will continue to vigorously pursue the Harding, Earley lawyers responsible for this outrageous conduct and hold them accountable for their actions," said Christie, of McCarter & English in Newark, N.J., in a statement announcing the settlement. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, charges that one or more Harding Earley employees violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking into databases at San Francisco's Internet Archive 92 times, using an application known as the "wayback machine," in attempts to retrieve material that Healthcare Advocates had asked to be removed. Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, told Healthcare Advocates about the searching and said it would take steps to protect those pages. The suit claimed that Internet Archive did not follow up on that promise but that claim was settled last week. In a statement, Healthcare Advocates president Kevin Flynn said the company is satisfied with security measures taken by Internet Archive to ensure that protected pages are no longer retrievable. The suit will continue against Harding, Earley and its client, Health Advocate Inc. of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., a competitor of Healthcare Advocates. The suit accuses Health Advocate of misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, tortious interference, breach of contract, fraud, trademark and service mark violations, and unjust enrichment. Under federal law, Harding, Earley could be fined $30,000 for each proven violation, which could amount to a total of $2.76 million. Harding Earley partner John Earley III did not return a telephone call last week, but said after the suit was filed last year that while a firm employee did view Healthcare Advocates Web pages in the Internet Archive databases, no one at the firm was guilty of wrongdoing since they were freely available and that there were no copyright violations. "Once they're out there, they're public," Earley said last year. "If they had been trade secrets, they were made public at one point and they're no longer trade secrets and they're not protected." Copyright 2006 ALM Properties, Inc. _________________________________ HITBSecConf2006 - Malaysia The largest network security event in Asia 32 internationally renowned speakers 7 tracks of hands-on technical training sessions. Register now: http://conference.hitb.org/hitbsecconf2006kl/
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