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Policy Fugue by Kenneth Corbin (bio)

Tracking the loveless marriage of technology and government

November 5, 2009, 6:55 PM

Senate committee clears data breach bills

government_capitolhill3.jpgA pair of bills that would require businesses to notify consumers in the event of a data breach cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, moving on to the full Senate for consideration.

The Data Breach Notification Act, sponsored by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would authorize the attorney general to bring civil actions against firms that failed to notify people whose personal information had been compromised in a breach. It would also extend notification requirements to government agencies.

The more comprehensive Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, introduced by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and co-sponsored by Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and others, would also set notification requirements, as well as tighten criminal penalties for identity theft and willfully concealing information about a breach.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 28, 2009, 6:26 PM

Spectrum showdown: Broadcasters facing another fight

We're well accustomed to thinking of spectrum as a limited resource. You simply can't create more airwaves.

And if there's been one consistent refrain from the wireless industry in recent years, it is that the government agencies overseeing spectrum need to make more of it available to support the expansion of wireless data networks.

But, again, we're dealing with a finite resource, so that spectrum has to come from somewhere.

And that's where the fight will be.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 28, 2009, 10:29 AM

MySpace firing up the rumor mill

It's no secret that MySpace has been undergoing something of an identity crisis. The company that deserves credit as the first blockbuster social networking site has been overtaken by Facebook in terms of traffic and legitimacy, and Twitter by measure of rate of growth and hype.

So what do you do?

MySpace has thrown itself into the rumor mill this week, serving up a pair of cryptic news items offering scant details about discussions about content deals it's having with a couple online heavy hitters.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 27, 2009, 1:11 PM

FCC links to Digg-like comments on Net neutrality inquiry

When the Federal Communications Commission resolved last week to begin drafting Net neutrality rules, Chairman Julius Genachowski promised that the agency would go out of its way to invite comments from all interested parties and make its rule-making process one of transparency.

"An open Internet deserves an open process," he said.

In that spirit, the FCC has added some Web 2.0 bells and whistles to its OpenInternet.gov site, including a link to a third-party site hosted by Ideascale, which invites comments on the Net neutrality rule-making and allows visitors to vote them up or down with a Digg-like voting system. Following the link from the FCC's official site to brings up a disclaimer that the FCC doesn't endorse the content on Ideascale, but the comments posted there (except for anonymous ones) will be entered into the official record of the rule-making process.

In case you were wondering which way the site is trending, as of this writing the comment at the top of the page with the most positive votes is authored by Tim Karr, the campaign director of Free Press. Karr, as you might imagine, tells the FCC, "The public demands the strongest network neutrality rule possible, without loopholes."

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 1:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 23, 2009, 1:02 PM

Judge dismisses Illinois sheriff's Craigslist lawsuit

craigslist_prost3_200x180.jpgA federal judge has dismissed the case an Illinois sheriff brought against Craigslist to force it to remove its adult services listings.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart filed the lawsuit in March, calling Craigslist the "largest source of prostitution in America."

District Court Judge John Grady rejected Dart's claim that Craigslist is a "public nuisance" that plays an active role in facilitating unlawful activity.

"[Dart] alleges for example that Craigslist knowingly 'arranges' meetings for the purpose of prostitution and 'directs' people to places of prostitution. But these allegations strain the ordinary meaning of the terms 'arrange' and 'direct' unless Craigslist itself created the offending ads. There is no such allegation, and ... we cannot treat Craigslist as if it did create those ads," he wrote (ruling available as PDF here).

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 1:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 22, 2009, 7:57 PM

McCain lashes back with bill to block Net neutrality

net.neutrality.B.JPGI don't have any skin in the Net neutrality debate.

Of course, my livelihood depends on the Web, but I tend to fall somewhere in between the shrieking extremists of the argument who claim that Net neutrality rules or, variously, the lack thereof, will presage the end of the Internet as a free and open communications platform.

So it was with the pretense of detached objectivity that I recorded the events this morning at the Federal Communications Commission, where the agency voted to initiate a rule-making process that would seek to establish meaningful and enforceable parameters to hold ISPs to a standard of reasonable network management.

The same day, Sen. John McCain introduced a bill to block the FCC from doing just that.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 14, 2009, 3:39 PM

GOP opposition to Net neutrality builds

net.neutrality.B.JPGThe Federal Communications Commission has gotten another earful from GOP lawmakers who oppose Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to initiate a rule-making procedure to strengthen the commission's stance on Net neutrality.

In a letter dated Tuesday, 18 Senate Republicans prevailed on Genachowski to rethink his position on the issue.

"Broadband service providers have invested billions of dollars in building and upgrading their networks to better serve their customers," they wrote. "However, burdensome regulations will have a chilling effect on further private sector investment, at a time when the U.S. economy can least afford such an impact."

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 3:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 13, 2009, 6:00 PM

DoJ sues to force AT&T to divest Centennial assets

The Department of Justice's antitrust chief today offered another reminder that there's a new sheriff in town, and that this administration is going to take a much more active role in policing markets to keep them competitive.

The DoJ today said that it is requiring AT&T to divest the assets of Centennial in eight markets in Mississippi and Louisiana where the two firms are the primary wireless provider. The agency sued to block AT&T's $944 million acquisition of the smaller provider as originally proposed, but offered the alternative settlement to address the competition concerns.

"These divestitures are necessary to preserve the benefits of competition for wireless customers in these areas of Louisiana and Mississippi," Christine Varney, the assistant attorney general who heads the antitrust division, said in a statement.

The move is the latest signal that firms can expect closer scrutiny by the nation's consumer protection agencies, particularly when it comes the wireless sector, which has already come under the microscope at both the Federal Communications Commission and the DoJ.

The DoJ's filed its lawsuit jointly with the Louisiana attorney general.

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 12, 2009, 7:36 PM

FTC workshops a journalism bailout? Really?

The Federal Trade Commission's plan to hold a two-day series of workshops in December regarding the impact of the Internet on the news industry has drawn howls of protest from bloggers and other new-media merchants who resent the obvious significance of this event. That is, that the events of Dec. 1 and 2 will begin the heavy-handed incursion of government into journalism, where taxpayer dollars will flood in to prop up avaricious legacy institutions, free-wheeling bloggers will be regulated to the fringes as media and government become one, and our country will continue its inexorable march toward socialism.

What is to be done?

As it happens, the workshop has been on the FTC's public agenda since August. But the notice only recently appeared in the Federal Register, which, coupled with last week's alarming vote to approve rules that will require bloggers to make more meaningful disclosures about the payola they receive from the companies they write about, makes these early days in October as good a time as any to revisit the weary discussion of where the media is headed, and what policy prescriptions, if any, should be taken to steer its course.

Glenn Beck doesn't like it. Neither does Valleywag. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Glenn Beck is a barking loon, and that Valleywag has a consistent track record of taking a wrecking ball to any proposal to prop up legacy media, their fears are shared by many.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 7:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

October 9, 2009, 4:05 PM

FCC responds to complaints over Google Voice

That didn't take long.

The Federal Communications Commission has responded to criticism over Google's voice application, requesting information from the search giant about how the product works and, most importantly, details about why it doesn't connect calls in some rural areas.

The inquiry comes after receiving a critical letter from a bipartisan group of 20 lawmakers who complained that their largely rural constituencies should be able to access the service under FCC rules.

The situation gets complicated because Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) rightly points out that Google Voice is in a different regulatory category than AT&T's (NYSE: T) phone service, which is subject to common carrier laws that require it to connect all calls, even if they originate from or route to a local carrier that charges steep connection fees.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 4:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 30, 2009, 5:26 PM

P2P security bill clears House committee

A bill to protect users from inadvertently sharing files through peer-to-peer networks is headed to the House floor after clearing the Energy and Commerce Committee today in a markup session.

The Informed P2P User Act would require file-sharing network providers, such as Limewire, to provide clear and meaningful notice before making the files on users' computers available to share, and to make it easier for users to block or disable peer-to-peer software.

"Too many people aren't aware of the risks associated with using popular peer-to-peer file-sharing programs," Republican Mary Bono Mack, the bill's sponsor, said in a statement. "When users login to these P2P programs, they could be inadvertently sharing ALL of their personal information with everyone else on the network, including tax returns, financial records, personal messages and family photos."

The issue of inadvertent file-sharing gained prominence after it was discovered that the schematics of a U.S. warplane and information about a safe house for the president's family had surfaced on peer-to-peer networks.

The Lime Group has testified in Congress that it addressed the vulnerabilities Bono Mack's bill is designed to prevent in the most recent version of the Limewire application.

The bill would allocate enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission.

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 5:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 29, 2009, 6:07 PM

Google clears regulatory hurdle in On2 acquisition

Google has moved a step closer to finalizing its purchase of On2 Technologies, a firm specializing in video-compression technology that figures to improve the quality of its online video content.

The search giant announced today that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have each granted an early termination of the waiting period required under federal antitrust law.

The early wrap-up of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period removes one significant barrier to finalizing the $106.5 million deal, though On2 shareholders have filed at least two lawsuits in an attempt to block the deal.

On2 has said the suits are "without merit," and plans to contest them.

On2 will need to secure approval from its shareholders through a vote later this year before the transaction can close.

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 25, 2009, 6:52 PM

Matsui introduces USF reform bill to cover broadband

net.neutrality.B.JPGAt a House oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission last week, Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) announced her plan to introduce a bill to reform the agency's subsidy program for providing low-income Americans with telephone service to include broadband.

On Thursday, she made good on that promise.

The Broadband Affordability Act would expand the FCC's Universal Service Fund to include Internet service, advancing an idea that has been getting a lot of consideration in the broadband debates that have dominated the tech-policy scene throughout the year.

Bringing Internet under the fold of the USF would get at one of the stumbling blocks on the adoption side of the broadband equation.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 25, 2009, 6:14 PM

EFF scores a victory in campaign against telecom spying

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has scored a victory in its ongoing crusade to wrest information from telecoms about their involvement in the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

On Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the government to disclose lobbying records detailing the telecom industry's efforts to press for immunity about their participation in the program.

EFF attorney Marcia Hoffman praised the ruling as "a major victory for government transparency."

The court's decision upholds the EFF's Freedom of Information Act request seeking records about the lobbying campaign, which DoJ and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had sought to suppress under FOIA exemptions.

In an amendment bill updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act enacted last year, Congress upheld immunity for the telecoms, though a bill introduced in the Senate last week seeks to reverse that protection.

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

September 25, 2009, 5:32 PM

Obama names IP czar

white_house_tech4.gifPresident Obama today announced his pick to oversee copyright enforcement, putting an end to a nearly year-long guessing game in the intellectual property community.

Obama named Victoria Espinel, a lawyer and veteran Hill staffer with experience in the nonprofit and academic communities, to serve as the nation's first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a position created by the PRO-IP Act signed into law last October.

In the shorthand of the day, Espinel will be generally known as the "IP czar."

The role is designed to coordinate IP enforcement across the multiple federal agencies that have a hand in fighting piracy, including the Justice Department, the Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Trade Representative.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the PRO-IP Act, praised Obama's choice.

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Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 5:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

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