Over the past couple of weeks, a mystery trader purchased more than 50% of all the copper stocks on the London Metals Exchange, valued at over $1 billion. There were rumors that whoever it was is trying to corner the copper market.

As it happens the mystery bank is JPMorgan Chase (JPM), The Wall Street Journal reported, citing The London Daily Telegraph. The bank bought some of the copper for clients. But the bank owns a large chunk, estimated at 175,000 metric tons.

Several weeks ago, AOL admitted it "screwed up" by releasing 20 million search records of over 600,000 AOL users. Yesterday the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission asking the FTC to investigate AOL's breach of consumer privacy. The complaint also wants the FTC to require AOL to strength its privacy protection policies in light of the inadvertent release. The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains that there was enough information released to allow a few individual users to be identified.

AOL removed the data set from the website intended for academic research purposes, but the information had already been copied and possibly circulated by the time AOL acted. AOL spokesperson Andrew Weinstein stated "AOL did not provide any personally identifiable information to a third party," according to Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post. The Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a confidential brief to the FTC asserting that AOL did just that. In addition to the complaint regarding invasion of privacy, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also lodged a complaint against AOL for deceptive or unfair trade practices.

Apple's case against PowerPage and AppleInsider has now been dropped. The original case stemmed from Apple's suing the two news sites for publishing "trade secrets" regarding an upcoming product code-named "Asteroid" and requesting the identity of their sources. The trial judge ruled in Apple's favor citing that when "trade secrets" are published by a journalist, the source's first amendment rights are nullified.

The case was appealed, and on May 26, 2006 the State of California Court of Appeal 6th Appellate District ruled in favor of the journalists, citing that indeed the sources' are indeed protected by the First Amendment.

The news today is that Apple has dropped further appeals on this case, and the EFF confirmed that Apple filed documents that it would not pursue the case further.

Apple's case against ThinkSecret is still pending as is the legal battle between the Beatles' Apple Corps and Apple.