U.S. Federal Communications Commission member Jonathan Adelstein and several high-profile technology executives and industry advocates on Tuesday launched an initiative to make broadband access a national priority in the U.S., report Elizabeth Montalbano or IDG news service. At the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, Adelstein and others unveiled InternetforEveryone.org, a movement aimed at fostering a public dialogue among U.S. citizens to advise the government on how to set a national policy. more»
U.S. Senate bill aims at limiting spyware by seemingly allowing broadband providers, computer hardware and software vendors, financial institutions and other businesses to scan users' computers without authorization. "We think this language is overly broad and could protect activities which could be harmful to computer users," Butler told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. "It would, in effect, allow a software vendor to truly monitor everything that's on a user's computer, essentially setting [vendors] up as an ad hoc police force." more»
Gadi Evron at ZDNet discussing spam fighting via legalization, regulation and economics. He provides with case studies on where this worked, analyzing the underline causes. "Next door to our offices was a spam operation with roughly 30 employees. One day they weren't there anymore... It seems that whenever a certain wide-audience requirement is very costly, or illegal, snake-oil fraudsters will pick it up and create an underground economy for it. It is possible our next step in fighting spam should be to research and list these underground economies taking advantage of people by the use of spam, and fight the underline cause, the clients who traffic and sell the illegal goods, playing the economic game..." more»
The European Commission has adopted a raft of proposals that will see Europe's telecommunications infrastructure dramatically shaken up. At the heart of the proposals, which represent the biggest change in telecommunications regulation in five years, is the Commission's desire to see the European telecommunications market made into a more level playing field. The existing framework was set in place by the Commission in 2002. more»
The gap between broadband haves and have nots in the European Union has widened during the past year, a trend that might warrant price regulation similar to that imposed on the market for mobile roaming charges earlier this year, the European Commission said Monday. more»
Is Western Sahara a part of Morocco or is it truly independent? Never really settled in the real world, an old dispute now has repercussions on the Internet as two governments fight for one of the last unassigned country codes. Undelegated extensions -- ones that haven't been assigned to anyone yet -- are like 2 character .COMs: extremely rare... more»
The Federal Communications Commission voted to shake up the wireless market by approving a set of rules for the upcoming auction that would require the winner to make them accessible to any phone, other device or application. Regulators decided today that the winner of the valuable wireless airwaves the U.S. government plans to sell (by early next year) would have to permit consumers to connect using any device or software. more»
ICANN is seeking public input as it intends to revise its domain name registrar accreditation process. Changes include further protection of domain owner privacy. Dr. Paul Twomey, ICANN’s CEO and President says: "The need for this review is clear. The current RAA [Registrar Accreditation Agreement] is more than six years old. We've seen the number of accredited registrars grow to more than 900. And we've seen the incredible difficulties that can be unleashed with the collapse of a Registrar" -- referring to the RegisterFly debacle. more»
The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C., is confronting 'cybersquatting', or as defined in the report today, the fraudulent abuse of domain name registration that threatens the future viability of Internet commerce. From today's release: "To effectively combat cybersquatting, CADNA will work at the federal and international levels to make these fraudulent practices difficult to establish and unprofitable to maintain. Among the coalition's goals are to pursue congressional legislation that would increase the statutory damages set forth by the existing Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act..." more»
Google has announced today that it will bid at least $4.6 billion on the wireless airwaves that are to be auctioned off by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). However Google will only commit to its bid if the following conditions are met... Om Malik of GigaOM says that behind all the 'openness' of Google's proposal, there are likely hefty vested interests in play... more»
BBC is running a commentary by Bill Thompson today arguing that the Internet's core architecture should be kept open both technically and in terms of freedom of expression -- such as the introduction of new top-level domains. Giving every interest group, lobbying organisation and corrupt government a veto is what ICANN needs to avoid, says Bill Thompson. From the story: "ICANN is currently making some decisions that will have a massive impact on the net over the next few years, and we need to make sure that it takes into account the wider feelings of the whole community instead of responding solely to pressure from established interest groups..." more»
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released its report suggesting that concerns over threats to 'Net Neutrality' are a non-issue and that current anti-trust laws provide adequate protection against abuses of network power. more»
The U.S. is lagging behind other industrialized nations in the availability and use of high-speed broadband connections, according to a report released today by the Washington-based Communications Workers of America. The report, based on aggregated data from nearly 80,000 broadband users, found that the median real-time download speed in the U.S. is 1.9Mbit/sec., compared with 61Mbit/sec. in Japan, 45Mbit/sec. in South Korea, 17Mbit/sec. in France and 7Mbit/sec. in Canada. more»
"The future of the Internet will be front and center as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opens its 29th International Public Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Monday, 25 June 2007," says the ICANN press release issued today. Discussion will include issues such as new top-level domains and internationalized domain names. more»
The The Globe and Mail reports today that Canadians now pay for different levels of Internet speeds. Telecommunications companies say they need to raise prices in order to offset the hefty investments required by the network, which is increasingly used by consumers for activities beyond sending emails and surfing the Web. From the article: "Canada's biggest Internet service providers, including Bell Canada and Telus Corp. argued yesterday that new business models are necessary as users increasingly listen to music and watch videos online..." more»
