Alan Erwin reports:
A Co Antrim schoolboy arrested over the cyberattack on TalkTalk has settled his claim for damages against Twitter.
The 15-year-old’s privacy action was resolved on confidential terms, with no admission of liability by the social networking service.
Meanwhile, his lawyers are seeking permission from the High Court in Belfast to serve proceedings on Google at its headquarters in the United States.
The internet giant is resisting the move, which is believed to involve a world-first attempt to sue it for negligence.
Read more on Irish Times.
Why did Twitter settle, and does that set any kind of bad precedent?
It’s hard to fathom how this teen – and his mother, who gave an interview to media – could possibly profit over this because a UK paper identified him. Yes, perhaps he should be able to collect from UK media, although the law on the publication of a minor suspect’s name is not crystal clear – but to be able to sue U.S. entities? This doesn’t seem like something we’d want to tolerate without a firm fight.
I wonder what they want from Google. A search for “15 y/o TalkTalk hacker” will lead to the youth’s name, which is still online from all the sites that linked to/excerpted The Telegraph’s story that outed him in their report and in the url for their story. In fact, a Google search will suggest his name under “searches related to…”
So what do they hope to accomplish here? Have Google not suggest the related search on his name? Have Google de-index the over 700 sites that still report his name?