Welfare
Divine Android Omniscience
Three websites have been restricted by the U.S. government due to their hosting of pirated Android apps, according to the FBI. The sites Applanet.net, Appbucket.net and Snappzmarket.com were the first websites of their kind to be shut down, it said.
The Department of Justice said these were the "first time website domains involving cellphone app marketplaces have been seized." The announcement came on Tuesday after the Justice Department took down the sites.
"The theft of intellectual property, particularly within the cyber-arena, is a growing problem and one that cannot be ignored by the U.S. government's law enforcement community," said an official FBI statement. "These thefts cost companies millions of dollars and can even inhibit the development and implementation of new ideas and applications."
GIzmodo notes that this DoJ effort to take down sites engaging in the piracy of mobile apps is unprecedented. The procedure of the takedown went similarly to how the government has handled issues of piracy when dealing with movies and music in the past.
The takedown was conducted by having "FBI agents downloaded thousands of copies of popular copyrighted mobile device apps from the alternative online markets," that were suspected of infringement, according to the FBI statement. "Nine search warrants were also executed in six different districts across the country today as part of the operation."
Well we still have 4shared....