Associated Press

Google must face a class action lawsuit alleging the Internet giant violated federal wiretap law when its Street View vehicles collected data from private Wi-Fi networks.

The US Supreme Court said that it would not consider Google's challenge to the class action lawsuit. The federal Wiretap Act bans the interception of electronic communications.

Google had argued that it was not illegal to collect radio communications or any "form of electronic communication readily accessible to the general public."

But a San Francisco federal judge and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree and refused to dismiss the class action. The class action was filed on behalf of individuals whose information was collected from unsecured Wi-Fi networks when Google's Street View cars rode past unsuspecting households.

A federal judge has affirmed the legality of the US government's bulk collection of phone and e-mail data from foreign nationals living outside the country -- including their contact with US citizens -- in denying a man's motion to dismiss his terrorism conviction.

It was the first legal challenge to the government's bulk data-collection program of non-US citizens living overseas after revelations about massive, warrantless surveillance were made public by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden. The program also sweeps up information about US citizens who have contact with overseas suspects. This type of surveillance played a key role in this case.

Lawyers for Mohamed Mohamud, a US citizen who lived in Oregon, tried to show the program violated his constitutional rights and was more broadly unconstitutional. US District Judge Garr King denied that effort.

YouTube will launch a new subscription music service, the company acknowledged after being dragged into a public dispute over royalties that will result in the blockade of some independent artists' music videos.

The Google-owned video site said that it is "adding subscription-based features for music on YouTube" and that "hundreds of major label and independent artists" have signed on. The paid service -- to be launched soon -- will likely allow playback of videos without ads and allow for offline playback on mobile devices.

The people familiar with the matter also confirmed that a small number of independent artists who had not agreed to new deal terms will have their videos blocked in some countries starting in a few days, even on the free version of YouTube.

YouTube will block the music videos so users of the test version won't be confused about which content they can access for free and which features require payment, the people said. Allowing free streams of music by certain artists while not offering them on the paid service would erode the value of the paid plan, one person said.

The move also adds pressure on those labels to sign, because not being on YouTube altogether will result in less advertising revenue and exposure.

The World Cup kicks off in Sao Paulo with home team Brazil going up against Croatia in the opener of the world's most popular sporting event.

All 64 soccer matches will air in English in the United States on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC. Univision and its associated networks -- UniMas, Galavision and Univision Deportes -- will broadcast the games in Spanish.

Here are some media questions heading into the World Cup:

• Will the World Cup be profitable for ESPN?
• Who will turn into TV combatants?
• Is social media ready for the World Cup?

Europe’s moves to rein in Google -- including a court ruling ordering the search giant to give people a say in what pops up when someone searches their name -- may be seen in Brussels as striking a blow for the little guy.

But across the Atlantic, the idea that users should be able to edit Google search results in the name of privacy is being slammed as weird and difficult to enforce at best and a crackdown on free speech at worst.

“Americans will find their searches bowdlerized by prissy European sensibilities,” said Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for policy at the US Department of Homeland Security. “We’ll be the big losers. The big winners will be French ministers who want the right to have their last mistress forgotten.”

Google says it’s still figuring out how to comply with the European Court of Justice’s May 13 ruling, which says the company must respond to complaints about private information that turns up in searches. Google must then decide whether the public’s right to be able to find the information outweighs an individual’s right to control it -- with preference given to the individual.

The judgment applies to all search engines operating within the European Union. But in practice that means Google, given that 90 percent of all online searches there use Google’s search engine.

Messages posted on Facebook and Twitter or sent in e-mails can be tasteless, vulgar and even disturbing. But just when do they cross the line from free speech to threats that can be punished as a crime?

As the Internet and social networks allow people to vent their frustrations with the click of a mouse, the Supreme Court is being asked to clarify the First Amendment rights of people who use violent or threatening language on electronic media where the speaker's intent is not always clear. Most lower courts say determining a true threat depends on how an objective person would understand the message.

A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law.

A government document indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits. The final number affected could well be higher.

According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through the federally administered HealthCare.gov website and call centers. The government signed up about 5.4 million people, while state-run websites signed up another 2.6 million. For consumers, a discrepancy means that the information they supplied, subject to perjury laws, does not match what the government has on record.

France dropped restrictions on live video coverage of ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, ensuring that millions of viewers across the world will be able to watch the event as it unfolds.

Host broadcasters France Televisions and TF1 this time offered news agencies unfettered access to live coverage of the main international ceremony, where President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II and other world leaders will join aging veterans to honor those who fought to liberate Normandy from Nazi occupation.

"Because of the exceptional character of the event and at the request of the president's office, the signal will be available for free," the broadcasters' note read.

Movie and music piracy thrives online in part because crafty website operators receive advertising dollars from major companies like Comcast, Ford and McDonald's.

That's the conclusion of several recent reports that shed light on Internet piracy's funding sources.

Content thieves attract visitors with the promise of free downloads and streams of the latest hit movies, TV shows and songs. Then they profit by pulling in advertising from around the Internet, often concealing their illicit activities so advertising brands remain unaware. Pirate websites run ads that are sometimes covered up by other graphics. They automatically launch legitimate-looking websites as pop-up windows that advertisers don't realize are associated with piracy.

At the end of the day, the pirate website operators still receive a check for serving up a number of views and clicks. The illicit activity is estimated to generate millions of dollars annually. That's only a small portion of the roughly $40 billion of online ad spending every year. Yet it is helping to feed the creation of millions of copyright-infringing websites that provide stolen content to a growing global audience.

Once again, media company CEOs are among the highest paid executives in the nation, occupying six of the top 10 earning spots according to an Associated Press/Equilar study.

Compensation experts say a variety of factors are at play, including the gain in media stocks, the intangible value of talent in a hit-or-miss business, the control of shareholder power in very few hands, and the decline of the financial sector.

1. Stock Outperformers: Outsized stock growth boosts the value of stock and option grants. Media companies' shares have rebounded strongly since the 2008 recession, mainly because advertising spending grows in tandem with a growing economy. That means higher-priced ads and higher-priced execs.
2. Talent Quotient: Making it big in media means generating hits. And while top executives may not be hands-on with every decision, they are where the buck stops.
3. Voting Power: Control of voting power by a single shareholder can dilute the impact of "say on pay" advisory votes, experts say. A major shareholder can override other shareholders' concerns.
4. Other Industries' Decline: Lists in previous decades might have had more financial and banking executives. Since the Great Recession punished those companies with government bailouts, bank collapses, accounting revisions and writedowns, they have dropped in the pay rankings.
5. All Boats Rise: When one company boosts pay, others compensate to remain competitive.