Online dating giant eHarmony is required to create a new online dating site for same sex couples under the terms of a settlement with the State of New Jersey’s Civil Rights Division. The new service will be called Compatible Partners (not “Compatable Partners”, as some sites are reporting, which is a mis-spelling.

How many of us have gotten the same email from Classmates.com? “6 Classmates are Looking for You!” – “See Who has Visited your Profile!” Well, according to a lawsuit brought by Anthony Michaels against Classmates, the online reunion giant is lying.

A German court has ruled that an IP address is not afforded the same privacy protections that Internet users enjoy for their names and other personally identifying information, even though a user may have a static IP address which is directly linked to the user alone.

Internet classifieds giant Craigslist is cracking down on advertisers who use the Craiglist “erotic services” section to pimp themselves or others.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all signed on to the Global Initiative Network, pledging to protect the privacy of their users around the world, including – perhaps particularly – users in countries such as China, where demands that ISPs rat out their users are routinely made.

The FBI has announced that they have taken down a group of cyber criminals known as “Dark Market”. The bust was the culmination of a two-year undercover operation, with an FBI agent who called himself “Master Splyntr” infiltrating the Dark Market.

Authorities in the U.S. and New Zealand have coordinated to take down big time male enhancement and supplement spammers Lance Atkinson and Jody Smith, and their Target Pharmacy, Canadian Healthcare, Inet Ventures, Tango Pay, Click Fusion, and TwoBucks Trading spam operations. Lance Atkinson and Jody Smith were the muscle behind what Spamhaus has called “the biggest spam gang in the world,” and they recruited countless affiliates to send their spam through a spam affiliate program called Affking.

A teenaged girl is facing felony child pornography charges after sending nude cell phone pix (a practice now known as “sexting”) of herself to classmates. The teen, from (really, we couldn’t make this up) Licking Valley High, was charged with, among other things, illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material (the cell phone pics), as well as possession of criminal tools.

Under a law which takes effect next week, Nevada businesses must start encrypting their email, or face a penalty.

This week sees a lawsuit between the City of Chicago and the owner of the Chicago2016.com domain, between the RIAA and anti-RIAA blogger Ray Beckerman over his blog “Recording Industry v. The People”, and between the EFF and Bush and dog in Jewel v NSA. And for good measure, while not Internet-related, a lawsuit to keep both Obama and McCain off the Texas ballot.

Last year Jennifer Reisinger of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, was ordered to remove a link from her website to the Sheboygen police department. Reisinger, who runs Brat City Web Design, had linked to the Sheyboygen PD from her community spirit site, Sheboygen Spirit. Despite the fact that the link to the Sheboygan police department was among several other links to various Sheboygan public service sites, the Sheboygan city attorney demanded that the link to the police department be removed – and, the demand was made via a Cease and Desist letter. Then the Sheboygan police department started a criminal investigation into the link! All because, Jennifer Reisinger alleges, she supported an effort to recall Sheboygan Mayor Juan Perez.

Whenever somebody starts ranting about “the damn lawyers”, of which I’m one, mind you, I’m fond of saying “you know, 95% of the lawyers out there… make the other 5% of us look really bad.” It’s tongue-in-cheek, of course, because people expect the message following the “…” to be that 95% of the lawyers are good, and it’s the small 5% that are the bad apples. And, of course, in reality usually the numbers do flow in that direction. But unfortunately, sometimes, it’s all to true. But even I, jaded though I am, was stunned when this little gem – this blog comment spam – advertising the firm of Gersowitz, Libo & Korek – landed on the Internet Patrol today.

The Internet is all abuzz today with a line from Google’s response in the invasion of privacy lawsuit filed against Google by Aaron Boring and Christine Boring of Pennsylvania. That line is “Complete privacy does not exist.” There’s only one problem – Google didn’t actually say it.

Prolific spammer Eddie Davidson was arrested last year, and, in April was sentenced to twenty-one months at the Federal prison in Florence, Colorado – about 3 hours north of Denver. This past Sunday, Davidson escaped from Florence Prison, and is at large.

The rise in social media sites such as Facebook and Myspace has been a boon for prosecutors, who are finding incriminating pictures on such sites – pictures which have been admitted as evidence in court, and used to increase penalties, sentences, and prison time!