Out-law Radio

As Richard Thomas prepares to step aside as the UK's Information Commissioner and his successor is named, we ask: how good a job did he do?

How Elton John's failed libel action has introduced a US-style defence of parody into UK law, and one Dutch firm's holey solution to an eco-problem

We find out where all that cardboard from your online Christmas shopping goes, and whether it stops some recipients even getting their gifts

We talk to the lawyer who wants ad and search giant Google to pay out one thousand dollars a time for typosquatting sites that display its ads

We talk to the lawyer who wants ad and search giant Google to pay out one thousand dollars a time for typosquatting sites that display its ads

We look at some of the technologies companies can use to avoid becoming one of the shocking 92% of British firms which do not encrypt their precious data

We talk to the Danish lawyer who won a key ruling against the music industry from a court which said record companies have to prove that Wi-Fi users shared files

We hear from a US law professor who thinks that ISPs are in a position of unprecedented privilege and yet are preparing to invade our privacy for profit

We talk to an anti-piracy pro who says that content producers should stop trying to stifle piracy and concentrate on competing with it better

We investigate the legality of a rash of new competitions in which £25 tickets buy the chance to win a house. Are they competitions or illegal lotteries in disguise?

An expert in the byzantine field of database law explains why the protections given by Brussels to databases have been counter-productive

We hear from an academic who believes that intellectual property law could smother the very innovation it is designed to protect, leaving the economy in gridlock

We talk to the major players in the emerging moderation industry whose workers keep forum comments clean from bases in locations from Kiev to Senegal

We look at how two sites allowing customers to review doctors and lawyers plan on keeping themselves out of the courts

We talk to the woman who fought and lost a battle to keep the narnia.mobi domain name, which she said was bought for her son

We look at the esoteric world of software escrow to find out if it can give your company the edge in negotiating with suppliers

While privacy activists protest at Google and others' keeping of data about our searches, we talk to the man behind a Dutch search engine that almost instantly deletes users' data

We talk to the team behind an entertaining new fantasy news service about the legal hurdles they have had to leap to promote their business in the US

We look at the disastrous impact on big brands of ICANN's decision to allow any internet domain to be registered, and we explain why the EU wants more returns on university research

We investigate a new database of dishonest workers, and the pitfalls that could lie in wait for participating employers