Google has reached a settlement on a class-action suit regarding its Buzz social-networking feature.

The company agreed to pay $8.5 million, which – after attorneys' fees and expenses are covered – will be donated to Internet privacy and education organizations.

The case dates back to February, when two law firms filed suit against Google in California district court on behalf of 24-year-old Harvard Law School student Eva Hibnick. "They opted me into this social network and I didn't want it," she said at the time.

Google introduced Buzz in February. It added a "news feed" feature to Gmail and was also incorporated into Google's mobile offering on Android phones and the iPhone. Amidst concerns over what information was displayed publicly, however, Google soon tweaked Buzz to give user more control over their settings. This did not appease all users, however, and a class-action suit was born.

According to court filings, Google held a formal meeting at its headquarters April 21 with attorneys from the opposing side. After a day-long discussion about Buzz and the class members' concerns, both sides agreed to a formal mediation. They met again on June 2 and after a 14-hour discussion, agreed on a settlement.

The federal government lacks the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance, a class action claimed Tuesday in Federal Court.

People V. Us, Independent American Party of Nevada, the Nevada Eagle Forum and several individuals claim in a 55-page lawsuit that "the United States Constitution gives Congress no legal authority to, and the Bill of Rights disarms the federal government of, any power to compel citizens who have not purchased, and do not wish to purchase, health insurance."

They say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in March, "exceeds the powers of the United States," and that "Congress has no enumerated power ... to compel plaintiffs herein to purchase with after-tax dollar a particular product, here health insurance."

They also say the law violates their right to privacy because it forces Americans "against their will, and without legal authority, to divulge highly personal and confidential information," through the likely creation of a database that will store health care information.

They also say the law doubles as involuntary servitude "because it involuntarily creates a debt and coerces plaintiffs herein to work off the debt by threat of legal sanction." They also claim the law is tantamount to a federally sponsored religion by "promoting and compelling participation in the secular religion of Socialism."

Plaintiffs want the courts to determine the law unconstitutional, and to ban its enforcement.

An attorney says Ford Motor Co. has settled a Mississippi lawsuit over damages sought from a 2001 rollover crash that killed a New York Mets prospect in the Florida Panhandle.

Tab Turner, an attorney for the family of Brian Cole, told The Associated Press the settlement Thursday came after the jury in Jasper County awarded $131 million in actual damages to the family and before it was to consider possible punitive damages.

Turner said the settlement amount and terms were confidential.

A Ford spokeswoman blamed speeding and reckless driving for the accident.

Cole died from injuries he suffered when his Ford Explorer overturned as he drove home on March 31, 2001, from spring training in Port St. Lucie, Fla., to Meridian, Miss.

All bets are off at Betcha.com, a Seattle-based online bookmaker that couldn't skirt the state's gambling laws by making it optional for losing bettors to pay off wagers.

In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the Washington state Supreme Court said Betcha.com qualified as an illegal bookie because it arranged bets and took a percentage of the action as a fee.

Since that definition of professional gambling fits the company's activities, justices said they didn't have to decide whether optional payments by bettors would allow Betcha.com to technically escape the state's gambling restrictions.

"Under the statutory definition of bookmaking, it is immaterial whether or not Betcha users were engaged in gambling activity," Justice Tom Chambers wrote for the court.

In a blog post, Betcha.com founder Nicholas Jenkins said the court's reasoning "didn't pass the giggle test."

"Never in a million years did I expect an opinion like this one," Jenkins wrote. "The court's error is so obvious that I wonder if a single justice even cracked our brief, let alone the Revised Code of Washington."

Washington state allows some forms of non-tribal gambling, including cardrooms that offer poker, blackjack and other games with relatively low stakes. Online gambling and bookmaking fees, however, are specifically outlawed in the state. Internet gambling also is illegal on the federal level.

A federal appeals court has ruled against the Baltimore Ravens and the National Football league in a copyright dispute over the team's original logo.

A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled Thursday that the commercial use of the "Flying B" logo in old game films infringes on amateur artist Frederick Bouchat's copyright.

The panel sent the case back to federal court in Baltimore to determine whether an injunction should be issued.

However, the court says the Ravens can use the logo in a team history display at their headquarters.

A jury ruled in 1998 that the Ravens stole the logo idea from Bouchat, but refused to award damages. The logo was used from 1996 through 1998.

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The latest in a tangled series of state and federal court decisions has halted New York state's plan to collect taxes on cigarettes sold by Native American retailers to non-Indian customers.

A state appellate court judge in western New York on Wednesday restored an order stopping the collections, Gov. David Paterson's office said. An earlier order had been lifted Monday by a state judge, a decision appealed by the Seneca and Cayuga nations.

Those tribes won a separate federal court order Tuesday temporarily barring collections against them. But the state had said it would start imposing the $4.35 per pack levy on other reservation retailers starting Wednesday.

"We are disappointed today that the appellate division has stayed the implementation of our statute and regulations with respect to licensed stamping agents," Paterson spokeswoman Jessica Bassett said. "Despite this ruling, we believe the state's legal arguments are sound and we believe that ultimately the state will prevail in this matter."

The Indians' challenges are in multiple courts because they're attacking the taxation on several levels. The Senecas' federal court suit, which the Cayugas joined, seeks to invalidate the state tax law by arguing New York lacks jurisiction to regulate Indian nations within their territories. The tribes' state court challenge, meanwhile, opposes the expedited way New York tax officials chose to adopt the regulations to implement the law, not the law itself.

Attempts to collect the tax in the 1990s resulted in sometimes-violent protests and fires on Seneca territories, which at one point shut down the New York State Thruway where it bisects the Senecas' Cattaraugus reservation. State officials have been reluctant to push the issue since.

But with New York facing a fiscal crisis, the governor and state lawmakers vowed in June to go after what they view as a potential $200 million revenue source by requiring cigarette wholesalers, effective Sept. 1, to prepay the sales taxes before supplying reservation stores.