Wikipedia and several other sites including Reddit and Boing-Boing will go dark on Wednesday as a form of protest. What they’re protesting is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Critics of the act say that it supports wholesale censorship with no recourse for even accidental offenders. At the root is the concept that the government can block any website that carries pirated materials. Obviously, this would be a big problem for eBay, YouTube, Facebook, pretty much any website that allows users to upload content.

A lawsuit against Facebook regarding their use of likenesses and more for advertising purposes is being allowed to continue despite Facebook’s attempts to stop it.

According to Bloomberg

Facebook Inc., the world’s most used social-networking service, can be sued by people who claim showing advertisements that their friends apparently like violates a California law regarding commercial endorsements.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose rejected Facebook’s bid to dismiss the lawsuit on Dec. 16, ruling the plaintiffs may pursue claims that the company’s sponsored ads violate state law and are fraudulent. Koh granted Facebook’s request to dismiss a claim that it unjustly enriched itself with the sponsored ads.

The Canadian Supreme Court has decided that publishers who link to libelous material cannot be found liable themselves for the spread of that material. It’s a rare legal protection for online publishers who are often treading on very unstable ground when it comes to this area.

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Hyperlinking is fundamental to how information spreads on the web—it’s the reason why traffic spikes on some sites and also explains why false information can funnel outward so quickly. One question that publishers and lawyers have long wrestled with is whether sites are legally liable for the accuracy of material they link out to. In a major ruling today, a court offered an answer to that.

Tweety bird should have seen this one coming. According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter is about to gain possession of the word “Tweet” and birds all over the world are angry .

Twitter has been trying to trademark the word for a while now but has consistently been blocked by the US Patent and Trademark Office because two other companies had already applied for variations of the term.

Back in September, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Twittad, a company that arranges for people to get paid to Tweet. But instead of a long drawn out battle, it turned into a short fight. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies have come to an agreement. Twitter will withdraw their lawsuit and Twittad will give them the trademark on the word “Tweet.”

While this is an admittedly small sample size and may not be representative of antitrust lawyers on a more widespread basis, a poll taken at an American Bar Association event at Stanford University reveals that nearly 3/4 of the antitrust lawyers present didn’t feel that Google was hurting competition.

The event was a debate and polling before the debate had attendees of the debate set at 61% not feeling that Google has hurt competition.

Those on the other side of the debate? Before it got underway 19% felt that Google was hurting competition and that number lowered slightly to 17% following the exchange.

So what’s this prove? Well, nothing really. Since this group of lawyers is more likely to be from the Silicon Valley region there could be more bias toward protecting one of the biggest players not only in the region but the entire planet.

In yet another example of where the legal barriers that pop up are often more disruptive than technology itself, Facebook’s rollout of its Timeline service may be delayed until a court gives them the all clear.

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A federal judge refused late on Friday to grant a temporary restraining order to Timelines.com, a Chicago company that says Facebook’s timeline service may “eliminate” it. In return, Facebook has promised to limit access for now and to hold back on a full launch.

In refusing to grant the temporary restraining order, Judge Edmond Chang noted that Facebook has pledged not to broadly launch the feature before the parties appear in court again on Tuesday.