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Policy Fugue by Kenneth Corbin (bio)

Tracking the loveless marriage of technology and government

November 19, 2009, 12:15 PM

Schmidt, Otellini join tech lobby

The chief executives of Google and Intel have joined the executive committee of TechNet, a lobbying group representing the technology industry.

TechNet announced the appointments of Google's Eric Schmidt and Intel's Paul Otellini along with word that Rey Ramsey would be taking over as the group's CEO in January.

Ramsey has been serving as chief executive of One Economy, a nonprofit that focuses on delivering technology training and Internet access to low-income people.

In his role at One Economy, Ramsey has figured prominently in the broadband policy discussion, frequently appearing at FCC proceedings and congressional hearings.

Cisco CEO John Chambers, who co-founded TechNet and currently co-chairs the group, called Ramsey's selection "an inspired choice."

Schmidt and Otellini will join tech luminaries such as EMC CEO Joseph Tucci, Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson and Symantec President on CEO Enrique Salem on TechNet's executive committee.

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 16, 2009, 6:07 PM

Obama takes Internet freedom message to China

In a town hall meeting with university students in Shanghai Monday morning, President Obama tried to strike a diplomatic tone when asked about his views on China's less-than-stellar record on Internet censorship.

"I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said. "This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions."

The question was submitted, fittingly, through the Internet, as the town hall meeting was also available as a live-streaming Webcast.

In defense of a free and open Internet, Obama referred to his success as a candidate organizing supporters online, and alluded to his support for Net neutrality rules, citing everyone's favorite example of the proverbial garage startup that changed the world.

"If it had not been for the freedom and the openness that the Internet allows, Google wouldn't exist," he said.

(more) |

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

November 13, 2009, 6:29 PM

Lawmakers to probe broadband, privacy, cybersecurity

government_capitolhill3.jpgNext week is shaping up to be a busy one for the tech industry on the Hill, with at least four hearings slated to examine a variety of issues, some with bills attached, others with legislation still being drafted.

Tuesday morning kicks off the festivities. Then, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to consider a bill the Universal Service Reform Act, a measure introduced by Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) that would revamp the fund the FCC administers to subsidize phone service for low-income Americans to include broadband.

Boucher and Terry's bill revisits legislation they had introduced in previous sessions of Congress, and follows a similar USF reform bill authored by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) earlier this year.

At the same time, and the other side of the Capitol complex, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are set to take up cybersecurity, specifically looking into the terrorist threat. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) is scheduled to chair the panel, which has lined up officials from the Department of Justice, FBI, NSA and Department of Homeland Security to testify.

(more) |

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 13, 2009, 4:59 PM

Groups mount preemptive strike against Comcast-NBC

There's not even an official merger yet, but already an opposition coalition is preparing for a big fight.

Taking aim at the widely anticipated but still-unannounced merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, media-reform group and Washington busybody Free Press today hosted a press call to kick off its preemptive protest against the deal.

"We've never seen this kind of consolidated control over so many platforms," Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver told reporters, referring to the players' leading positions in broadcast and cable TV and the Internet.

(more) |

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 4:59 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 11, 2009, 6:53 PM

Kerry backing bill to boost electronic medical records

Sen. John Kerry is continuing his push to accelerate the adoption of electronic medical records.

The Massachusetts Democrat on Tuesday introduced legislation to spur family doctors and small-scale practitioners to migrate their paper records to digital format, a goal that most everyone agrees would improve care and lower costs, but one that entails a significant initial expense.

"Electronic medical records and prescriptions are the common sense solution to restricting costs, reducing errors and reforming a broken system," Kerry said in a statement. "Doctors don't need convincing -- they've seen the results."

Kerry's bill, the Small Business Health Information Technology Financing Act, would make small-scale doctors eligible for grants from the Small Business Administration to move to electronic records.

"This legislation helps small practices acquire the technology that will allow them to be more efficient and to focus on patient care," Kerry said.

(more) |

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 6:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Share

November 9, 2009, 5:33 PM

Google's revised Book Search agreement coming Friday

lawsuit_technology_keyboard.jpgFor parties concerned with the outcome of the Google Book Search saga, today was supposed to be a big day.

But alas, the high drama that was expected to accompany the release of a revised settlement agreement with authors and publishers will have to wait till the end of the week.

In a letter to the federal judge in New York presiding over the settlement, an attorney for the parties said the new settlement agreement would be delivered on Friday, not today, which had been set as the original (albeit soft) deadline.

Attorney Michael Boni said that the parties had convened multiple meetings with lawyers at the Department of Justice, including one last Friday, and took Judge Denny Chin up on his offer of delaying submission of the update agreement.

(more) |

Posted by Kenneth Corbin at 5:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Share

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.

(more) |

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.

(more) |

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.

(more) |

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."

(more) |

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.

(more) |

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.

(more) |

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

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