Tech Daily Dose

White House 2.0

The White House Web site has a new look this week. Visitors will find an updated design with improved access to information about the president's speeches, events and policies. Additional features include: news feed subscriptions, weekly e-mail updates, podcasts and on-demand video.

According to White House Web guru David Almacy, the upgrades were made to streamline the code, refresh the design and better highlight features. He's hosting an "Ask the White House" Q&A online on Thursday at 4 p.m. to discuss the new site.

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Tech Policy Summit Parting Shot

Sean Garrett at the 463 Blog offered some final thoughts on the Tech Policy Summit. His headlines: Just because you are wearing a tie doesn't mean that you aren't a techie. Tech Policy 1.0 exists, but there is no new beta version. People are too busy trying to get bought by Google to notice that they might get screwed. The older kids need to help the younger kids.

In an earlier post, his takeaway was: "The old-guard of tech policy (basically any company founded before 2001) is almost exclusively still using traditional communications platforms to get their point across in DC and other policy centers. While, those born after the bust like the four companies on this panel, almost exclusively use new media to get their viewpoints across."

Conference organizer Natalie Fonseca, whose team worked around the clock to pull off an excellent couple of days, also shared some thoughts after catching up on much-needed Z's.

ZDNet's Dan Farber complained on his blog that the Silicon Valley contingent was missing in action. "You would think that such a gathering of personage would be incredibly compelling, a kind of mini Silicon Valley Davos," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the only people who showed up were the speakers, many of whom didn't stay long, and a few journalists and interested parties."

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Social Media Magnates Speak

High-tech author Kara Swisher sat down at the Tech Policy Summit with some of Silicon Valley's most prominent social media tycoons to get their opinions on the technology policy issues of the day.

Swisher asked Jonathan Adelson, founder of content rating site Digg.com: "If you were an artist today, what would you do?" He said most musicians are "looking for exposure and if they can get exposure, the revenue will come." Fans are finding new artists through sites like MySpace and bypassing the old-world record label dependent model, he said.

"We will continue to see the coexistence of traditional distribution supply chains and dis-intermediated ones," Adelson said. There will be "a few survivors on the big media side but there will be a lot of new guys on the block," he predicted.

Technorati founder David Sifry echoed Adelson about the ease with which Internet users can create and distribute their own music. "We're leaving the world where you need to have a big production facility that presses lasers onto plastic and big distribution capabilities," he said.

On digital rights management, panelists said the technological protection measure will stick around for some time whether "fair use" activists like it or not. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of networking site LinkedIn, said DRM is "already irrelevant." Friendster creator Jonathan Abrams predicted that content creators will continue futilely to enforce it.

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AT&T Exec Lauds 'Vibrant Marketplace'

Communications policy pundit (and my former colleague at Technology Daily) Drew Clark posted an interesting item on his blog about remarks made yesterday by AT&T Senior Vice President Jim Ciconni. Ciconni said the telecommunications world is fundamentally different from 1968, when the FCC required AT&T to allow competing telephones onto its network. "Unlike 1968, we have a pretty vibrant market out there," he told the Tech Policy Summit. Read more at Drew's blog.

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Experts Debate Data Retention

Center for Democracy and Technology Policy Director Jim Dempsey and Lauren Gelman, associate director of Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society, weighed in on the hot-button issue of high-tech firms and data retention during a Tech Policy Summit panel today.

Dempsey said he believes some policymakers will continue to advocate for last year's controversial Justice Department proposal to preserve certain data on Internet activity. The good news, he mused, is that "Europe is further down the wrong road than the U.S. is."

As the momentum builds for Internet service providers to store data for law enforcement use, federal agencies "are drowning in information," Dempsey pointed out. "They are getting referrals from ISPs that they can't follow up on. Their response is 'give us more information so we can drown even quicker,'" he said.

As lawmakers and stakeholders contemplate how such a data retention mandate would be implemented, Gelman said it is important to realize that technology has changed over the years. "A lot of privacy protections we had 10 years ago were based on frictions in the system [that no longer exist]," she said. It used to cost more money to keep data for longer periods of time but "those disincentives have gone away," she said.

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More From The Tech Policy Summit

Coverage of the Tech Policy Summit continues in today's Technology Daily PM edition. Find out why Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas has a beef with critics of the U.S. patent system and see how much VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos thinks competitors spent trying to take down his company's lucrative .com deal on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, Jim Goldman, CNBC's Silicon Valley bureau chief has served as emcee for the conference over the past two days. This morning, he reported live from the event. You can watch the video here.

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'A President With No Strings'

The quote of the week in today's "People Column" (subscription only) is from Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a Democratic presidential candidate. But the quote -- "You need a president with no strings. No strings, no strings, no strings." -- is more telling if you see the actual video that prompted it, so here it is, as remixed by Jeff Jarvis of PrezVid:

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DRM Debate Continues

An afternoon panel on digital rights management at the Tech Policy Summit featured a familiar face-off -- a representative from the content industry (Dean Garfield of the Motion Picture Association of America) versus a "fair use" advocate (Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge). The San Jose showdown was similar to ones I've reported on back in Washington.

Garfield argued that DRM keeps Hollywood afloat by fighting high-tech pirates, which encourages investment in movies and music. Sohn claimed that DRM holds legitimate consumers hostage, blocking them from experiencing audio and video in new and innovative ways. DRM "doesn’t do a darned thing" to fight those who want to unlawfully copy and distribute content, she said. "If someone wants to steal, they're going to steal."

Sohn criticized the online video rental services that MPAA has endorsed for barring users from burning movies to digital videodisc or transferring the content to a platform other than the computer on which it was downloaded. Sites like Movielink are "destined to fail," she said.

But Garfield said it is "too early to judge" how successful MPAA-approved distribution services will be in the marketplace. Studio bosses are "smart people" and they are "not in the business of chasing away consumers." The industry is committed to giving consumers what they want but it has to be careful "not to end up in the same position as record companies where the expectation is that content wants to be free and all content should be free."

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Q&A: Mossberg & Schwartz

Fellow Tech Policy Summit blogger Sean Garrett of 463 Communications has written up a "drastically paraphrased" version of this morning's interview between the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Q: What is Sun's policy agenda?
A: Getting as many people online as possible.
Q: From a policy perspective, how do you go about this?
A: Washington needs to be educated in the role of tech as a social utility. First and foremost, government needs to develop standards for making sure that as many users can access the network as possible.

Read more here.

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Convergence Policies: 'A Mess Everywhere'

From a global perspective, how well are countries dealing with convergence? A pair of Tech Policy Summit panelists agreed the environment is complex and the climate varies nation-to-nation.

"Things are a mess everywhere," said Simon Wilkie, who runs the Center for Communication Law and Policy at the University of Southern California. "The regulatory structure is falling apart for the same reasons in every country," he said.

But the U.K. independent telecom regulator Ofcom is a good model, he said. Columbia Business School economist Eli Noam agreed, saying Ofcom has the requisite "intellectual leadership" to get things done and is "less driven by the political process."

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Ispen on Content Regulation

Content regulation should be approached by policymakers from the perspective of what is good for competition, investment and innovation, Cisco's Laura Ipsen said this afternoon at the Tech Policy Summit. "The problem is one that's political," she said, citing "entrenchment with different industries and incumbents." Ispen, who is the high-tech company's vice president for global policy and government affairs, said she thinks "it's an unnatural fit to apply broadcast rules on networking and Internet technologies."

With respect to the ongoing "network neutrality" debate in Washington, Ipsen said the market is the best barometer for broadband policy rather than "having government measures or indicators of what's working or not working." A successful strategy involves the government enforcing existing laws while ensuring that "they're watching the issue as the industry moves and as we innovate."

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In Today's Tech Daily

For more coverage of the Tech Policy Summit, be sure to read today's Technology Daily PM edition. There, you'll find Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., discussing his strategy for passing patent reform legislation and a key White House technology adviser talking about innovative ways to decrease America's dependency on foreign oil.

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Fazzino: Tech Has Too Many Trade Groups

Gary Fazzino, Hewlett-Packard's top lobbyist, complained this morning that the high-tech industry has made great strides in its Washington presence in recent years but "we still have a lot of challenges." "We're not as politically engaged as we could be… and we have far too many associations and far too many spokespeople" when compared to the pharmaceutical lobby or movie studios, which speak with a unified voice on Capitol Hill.

Fazzino pointed out that tech players, despite their involvement in numerous trade groups, have ralled together to push for policies that support American innovation and competitiveness. That issue is an easy one because it garners "a significant amount of agreement between Democrats and Republicans," he said.

A more complex matter that deserves high-tech's input is the national healthcare debate, Fazzino said. "We have to be sitting at the table," he said, noting that Silicon Valley cannot "hide behind" the fact that it consists of large companies that provide solid health benefits to employees.

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Tech Policy Summit Begins

Winter weather didn’t stop this intrepid Technology Daily reporter from making it from Washington, D.C. to San Jose, Calif. for the much-anticipated Tech Policy Summit today. Although it took 23 hours and a number of rescheduled flights, I'm here (minus my luggage) anticipating two days of top-notch sessions covering a host of hot-button high-tech issues. The agenda for the conference can be found here. So far, the breakfast chatter has consisted more of swapping nightmare travel stories than pontificating about policy... but I'm sure that will change once the conference gets going.

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Google's Role As A Grassroots Tool

This article -- written by Heather Greenfield, one of our senior writers at Technology Daily -- is being reprinted with permission of National Journal magazine.

The magazine article leads with an account of how bloggers and others also are using Google AdWords to attack the political candidates they oppose.

Information Wars
by Heather Greenfield

In a Senate race that hinged on 9,329 votes, 315,508 people saw a Web page with a Google ad that read "Learn about George Allen. Did George Allen use racial slurs?" Nearly 1,000 people clicked on that link, which took them to a CBS News article about the Virginia incumbent's alleged racism.

The ad was targeted to computer users in Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, and West Virginia, in hopes of reaching Virginia voters at home or at work. Although it's impossible to gauge whether the small advertisement that popped up in response to Google searches on "George Allen" played a role in the defeat of the Republican senator from Virginia last November, liberal blogger Chris Bowers is delighted with his $326 ad buy.

"I certainly think the money we put into the search-engine-optimization campaign was well spent, and other campaigns would be wise to [copy] it," said Bowers, a regular contributor to MyDD, a popular liberal blog.

Campaign consultants who specialize in so-called new media were aware of the tactic's potential even before the 2006 mid-term elections. Asked to identify the most effective tool or strategy that a candidate could use in the final weeks of a campaign, both liberal and conservative consultants cited search-engine ads tied to key words or phrases.

Mark SooHoo, vice president of Campaign Solutions, an online strategy company serving conservatives, said that buying Google AdWords or the equivalent on Yahoo or MSN reaches voters ready to pay attention. Advertisers choose key words and create ads around them. When people search online for information on that topic, the ads appear to the right of the search results.

"It's a good, low-cost, low-barrier entry, easy-to-set-up way to get involved," SooHoo said. Candidates get name exposure free of charge, he said, and their campaigns pay only for the number of times their ads are clicked on.

Another appealing feature, SooHoo said, is that campaigns can limit their ad word spending in advance to $100, $1,000, or any other amount. "It just turns off when you're done," he explained.

Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a think tank that publishes advice on new media for Democratic candidates, is equally enthusiastic about the effectiveness of ad words. "Very few politicians do buy those ads, so you can buy them very cheaply and be sure your site is seen," he said.

That Bowers spent just $326 to steer nearly 1,000 people to an article critical of Allen shows how inexpensive the tactic can be. The Allen race was one of about 50 that Bowers tried to influence using ad words. Total cost: $500. "We had something crazy, like 14 voter contacts [visits to pages containing his ads] for every cent we spent," Bowers said.

Bowers' efforts to influence the 2006 election went beyond purchasing Google AdWords. Using a technique known as Google-bombing, he also attempted to move certain news articles higher in the search results when computer users typed in the names of particular congressional candidates.

Bowers used MyDD to ask for readers' help in compiling negative mainstream news articles about 50 Republican congressional candidates. Next, MyDD posted a list pairing each of the targeted candidates with one negative article. Bowers then asked like-minded bloggers to create a link from their blogs to the chosen negative article for each candidate. (Conservative bloggers tried to counter Bowers's Google-bombing with a similar campaign that linked Democratic congressional candidates to negative articles.)

Search-engine operators object to efforts to manipulate search results, because they undermine the engine's credibility. But many businesses have tried for years to ensure that their Web site appears on the first screen of a relevant Google search. These companies pay consultants for what's known as search engine optimization; there's even a Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

SEMPO member Brian Easter, who is CEO of NeboWeb, helps companies raise their profiles in Google searches. But he says that only certain profile-boosting techniques are regarded as fair, or "white hat."

"Google-bombing is considered a 'black hat' search-engine-optimization practice," Easter said. "It's not considered one of the best practices, but a lot of people [use] that in short-term campaigns."

Easter said that one reason he would not recommend Google-bombing is that it can be traced and reported to the search engine's operator. And the bombardiers could find their company or client stricken from search results as punishment, he warned.

Easter added that in his line of work, "it is a lot easier to try to push a message forward on a search engine than to push something down."

The most famous case of successful political Google-bombing happened in late 2003. Washington state blogger George Johnston took credit for initiating a six-week campaign in which Internet pranksters successfully linked the term "miserable failure" to President Bush, so that Bush's official biography was the first result listed when anyone did a search on that phrase.

Once that connection was created, it survived until last month, when Google updated the formula it uses to produce search results. Now a Google search on "miserable failure" returns news articles about the infamous Google-bombing.

Blogger Tim Tagaris used the Web site GooglebombCT to launch a Google-bomb campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut before last year's Democratic primary. And other bloggers tied the surname of then-Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., to a scurrilous definition that gained the top spot on Google searches on "Santorum" weeks before the November election.

The MyDD Google-bombing campaign that began a little more than two weeks before the 2006 election was anything but the flop that some had predicted because of its late start.

When it was launched, only a few of its chosen articles ranked in the first 100 search results for any of the 50 targeted Republican congressional candidates. In less than a week, those articles appeared on the first page of the search results for 36 of the 50 candidates. In a report to fellow bloggers, MyDD's Lucas O'Connor called that achievement "mind-blowing."

According to Leyden, getting on the first page of search results is important because studies -- including one by the Pew Internet and American Life Project -- have found that most Internet users never reach the second page. And a more recent Pew study last September found that 26 million Americans, or 19 percent of the adult population, were using the Internet to get information on the upcoming midterm elections.

A Google-bombing campaign led by John Hawkins of Right Wing News tried to reach some of these potential voters by countering the MyDD-led attack. Right Wing News encouraged conservative bloggers to Google-bomb 45 Democratic congressional candidates about the same time that the liberal effort began. Less than a week later, conservatives reported that 35 of the 45 negative articles it was promoting were popping up within the first three pages of Google searches.

Google does not condone Google-bombing, but the company fears creating worse problems if it tries to block it. "Objectivity remains at the core of our mission, so we're reluctant to alter our results by hand in order to prevent items from showing up," said Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes.

The popularity of a given Web link plays a role in how high the link is listed in a search result. But, Reyes noted in an interview, other factors come into play, and a page connected to a mainstream news organization would rank higher than a blogger's.

Reyes said he is not convinced that the results reported by the bloggers mean that their Google-bombing succeeded in manipulating search-engine results because rankings change for many reasons. "We constantly update our search algorithms," he said. Reyes added that search engines will likely do more updates ahead of the 2008 election in an effort to keep search results objective.

In the meantime, a few bloggers are uneasy about Google-bombing, but O'Connor isn't among them. He insists that MyDD was performing a public service. "Fighting back is not inherently the same as fighting dirty," he said. "This is the system in which we've been forced to operate for the time being.

"If these legitimate and relevant issues were already being discussed in a press which was more concerned with facts than giving equal time to opposing opinions, this wouldn't be necessary, and I'd sit back and watch," O'Connor continued. "But reporting [by mainstream news organizations], by and large, is nothing more than he said/she said at this point. And that doesn't serve the public interest."

O'Connor is already strategizing for the 2008 election. He wants to release his next round of Google bombs earlier.

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More On Microsoft v. AT&T

Attorneys for Microsoft and AT&T who argued an international patent infringement case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday (see Technology Daily's P.M. edition) may be betting on different outcomes but they agree that the case's impact on innovation and the economy cannot be understated.

Minutes after the case was heard, Microsoft lawyer Theodore Olson and Seth Waxman, both of whom are former U.S. solicitors general, spoke with media on the high court's front steps. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith joined them.

Olson said the justices were "exceedingly well-prepared" to hear the case, which involved "highly technical questions." The statute at issue, which was incorporated into U.S. patent law in 1984, is an "important but complicated" one, he said. "They asked good, difficult, probing questions of all of us."

This was the latest in a string of patent cases heard recently by the high court, which historically has avoided them. That is a sign that Chief Justice John Roberts, who recused himself from this case, is "very concerned with the development of patent law" and realizes that patents are critical for the nation's economy, Smith said.

It is crucial that "U.S. courts apply U.S. patent law in the United States," he said. When copies of software are made overseas, companies should be governed by those countries' intellectual property laws, he added.

If the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against Microsoft is upheld, there would be greater incentives for American companies to move some of their research and development operations overseas. "It's not the kind of incentive that's going to serve our country well," Smith said.

AT&T's Waxman disagreed. If the high court accepts Microsoft's petition, "there will be no incentive to retain even high-value manufacturing jobs in the U.S.," he said. Software is a component of a computer "in every sense of the word" and the American economy is predicated on that kind of intellectual property, Waxman said.

Oracle's chief patent counsel Roger Kennedy, who sat in on the arguments, said the justices "asked questions that showed they really had a grasp on the issue." "They were trying to make sure they understood the ramifications of what they were going to do," he said, and that is "good for the software and tech industry."

Scott Bain, litigation counsel for the Software and Information Industry Association, predicted the court would "more likely than not" reverse the Federal Circuit's majority decision and come down closer to a dissent issued by Judge Randall Rader. Rader sided with the majority in ruling that software code can be a component of a patented machine but he disagreed with the conclusion that copying software is the same as supplying it.

In an e-mail, Stifel Nicolaus analysts said that based on their reading of the legal briefs, the court is more likely to side with Microsoft. After the oral argument, a closer analysis of the "head count" necessary for the software giant to prevail suggested the case could go either way, they said.

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Congressional Video In Vogue

Yesterday's buzz over the Republican Study Committee's allegations that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was infringing C-Span's intellectual property rights begged for a follow-up. So, Tech Daily Dose scanned some RSC members' Web sites to see what video sources they were using.

Keep in mind that no determinations were made about the legitimacy of the video being offered (For all we know, they might have received permission to post the clips). You should also know that the RSC backed off its claims later in the day.

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia and Florida's Cliff Stearns posted C-Span House floor footage, just like Pelosi. Rep. Connie Mack of Florida put a selection of CNN, CNBC and Fox News Channel interviews online. Colorado's Tom Tancredo also posted interviews from MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Bloomberg Television and CBS's "60 Minutes."

RSC spokesman Brad Dayspring said Friday that his office does not offer guidance to lawmakers on acceptable use of video "but if a member reached out and had questions we would do our best to put them in touch with the proper people who make those decisions."

A number of lawmakers, including Reps. Robert Aderholt of Alabama; Patrick McHenry of North Carolina; Tom Price of Georgia; and Lamar Smith of Texas, employ FedNet's reCap service. FedNet CEO Keith Carney said about 130 members of the House and Senate use his firm to post floor speeches on their official congressional sites.

Carney pointed out that lawmakers that contract with FedNet are barred from using the clips for political purposes, like on campaign sites or to besmirch other members. The footage also has technological protections that prevent it from being recorded or repurposed elsewhere like on video-sharing site YouTube.

Meanwhile, my editor posted blogger reactions to the Pelosi controversy at the Beltway Blogroll. Some conservative blogs, like Capital Briefs and GOP Bloggers, were quick to jump on the accusation bandwagon. Liberal blogs Daily Kos and MyDD blamed C-Span for the controversy.

Read more about this story in today's P.M. Edition.

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GOP Retracts Pelosi Piracy Claims

The House Republican Study Committee on Thursday accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of violating copyright law on her new Web log by posting video segments from C-Span but quickly retracted its statement after a C-Span official said the usage is legal.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly called the claim a "baseless attack by the Republicans" and "another desperate attempt to avoid focusing on the real issues that affect the American people." Lawyers for Pelosi and C-Span independently determined the video "is in the public domain and does not violate copyright law," Daly said.

The House and Senate floor footage "belongs to the American people," a C-Span spokeswoman said. "The content was produced using cameras owned by the government, not by C-Span. The video is not ours to claim a copyright on."

The RSC staffer that contacted C-Span "posed a very general question" about the network's IP protection policy and did not indicate that a press release was being issued, the spokeswoman said. "Had we known they were talking about House floor footage, we would have provided a more nuanced answer," she said.

A spokesman for RSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas would not discuss why the staff questioned the integrity of Pelosi's video or how it mistakenly concluded Pelosi was infringing. "Copyright and trademark law is very complex, [and] I'm not a lawyer," he said.

The first entry on Pelosi's blog, "The Gavel," dates back to Feb. 6, but it was not officially launched until this week. In its first release on Thursday, the RSC applauded Pelosi's efforts to adapt to new technology but said more than 16 entries were posted "on the very first day" that trampled the intellectual property rights of C-Span, a cable-industry-financed nonprofit.

The release also said the video was being used in a partisan way because Pelosi's blog only "shows Democrat after Democrat offering their views of the non-binding Democrat resolution on the reinforcement and realignment of American troops in Iraq."

The RSC noted that one of Pelosi's first decisions as the chamber's top Democrat was to deny a request by C-Span to be permitted to cover the House floor proceedings with its own cameras. Last month, Pelosi sent a letter to network CEO Brian Lamb, saying she believed "the dignity and decorum" of the House "are best preserved by maintaining the current system of televised proceedings."

Before the RSC debunked its own statement, Internet experts issued several reactions to the news that hit on the complicated nature of IP law.

John Palfrey, who heads Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said in an e-mail that creators need to be compensated for their work, "but so, too, must we make space in our society for serious debate and commentary." He added that "intellectual property law shouldn't be used to stifle that debate."

Julie Barko Germany, deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University, said Web video "truly has become the wildest west of the Internet. ... Everyone wants video" because it is seen as the medium of the moment, she said.

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Security Chief Defends Federal ID Mandate

Security
Homeland Security Chief Defends Federal Identity Mandate

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Tuesday defended a federal law that mandates nationwide standards for driver's licenses and identification cards. The Washington Times reports that Chertoff told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that he is “pretty adamant” that the so-called REAL ID Act can be implemented properly before a May 2008 deadline. “We don't want to keep kicking the can down the road," he said. Panel ranking Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who last week announced plans to introduce legislation that would give states two extra years to comply with the law, criticized Homeland Security for taking so long to issue guidance to the states for compliance. Chertoff said his department has taken so long largely to address privacy concerns. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said he is concerned about the financial burden of the law on states.

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Department Shelves RFID For US-VISIT System

Security
Department Shelves Tracking Tags For Immigrant System

Radio-frequency identification tags for tracking immigrants will not be used in the so-called US-VISIT system, which records fingerprints for all foreign visitors. Government Computer News reports. The Homeland Security Department determined through testing that systems to read the RFID tags did not reliably detect them while embedded in I-94 documents during a test. In other news, The Washington Post reports that Maryland Del. Doyle Niemann recently proposed legislation that would tag children with global-positioning chips as part of a truancy-reduction plan. Niemann, a Democrat, said, "It's going to be done unobtrusively. The chips are tiny and can be put into a hospital ID band or a necklace."

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Lawmaker Criticizes VA Over Data Security

Privacy
Rep. Buyer: VA Still Takes Lax Approach To Data Security

The ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on Monday said that recent comments by a mid-level Veterans Affairs Department official are a sign of a management culture that still fails to take data security seriously enough. GovExec.com reports that Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., publicized a recording of the comments made at a meeting in early January in response to the VA's latest data breach. Joseph Francis, the acting deputy chief research and development at VA, telling told his staff members that they did not need to "do an A-plus job" in responding to a congressional request for information on where the department keeps sensitive data. "If you want to know what's the real purpose of the data call, read Machiavelli. It's about power; it's about Congress saying, 'VA, you're accountable to us,'" Francis said. "We're not asking people to do an A-plus job on this report."

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Rep. Jefferson Sued Over Alleged Bribes

Crime
Rep. Jefferson Is Sued Over Alleged Role In Bribes

A former stockholder in a technology company on Tuesday sued Rep. William Jefferson, his wife and a former business associate, claiming that they engaged in a scheme to defraud stockholders by using business funds to pay bribes. CongressDaily reports that the suit alleges that the Lousiana Democrat, his wife Andrea, and Vernon Jackson, the former chief executive of the telecommunications firm iGate, engaged in an illicit scheme to funnel money to Jefferson, his family and foreign officials. IGate stockholder Daniel Cadle filed the suit in U.S. district court in Louisville, Ky., and is seeking unspecified damages on behalf of all iGate stockholders. The allegations mirror those in an ongoing federal investigation of Jefferson and his business dealings. Jackson is serving seven years in federal prison. Jefferson has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing, but court records and the lawsuit indicate that the FBI caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe.

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Former CIA Official Is Indicted In Fraud Case

Crime
Former Third-Ranking CIA Official Indicted In Fraud Case

The CIA's former No. 3 official and a defense contractor were charged Tuesday with fraud and other offenses in the corruption investigation that sent former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham to prison. CongressDaily, The Washington Post, The New York Times and AP report that the indictment named Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the executive director of the CIA until he resigned in May, and his close friend, San Diego defense contractor Brent Wilkes, according to two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because grand-jury proceedings are secret. In a separate indictment, Wilkes was charged with conspiring to bribe Cunningham, R-Calif., in return for government contracts. A man who was described as a co-conspirator in Cunningham's 2005 plea agreement, John Michael, also was charged.

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Candidates Wage Online Advertising War

Campaigns
Presidential Candidates Wage Online Advertising War

Presidential candidates of both parties have taken their campaigns -- and their advertising war -- to the Internet, The Wall Street Journal reports. Candidates are buying space on search engines, Web logs and other popular Internet sites. On the Democratic side, John Edwards, has been a very aggressive online campaigner. Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican, has run ads on conservative sites, including Townhall.com and National Review's "The Corner" blog. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took out ads this week on conservative blogs, including Captain's Quarters and Outside the Beltway. Candidates also are placing ads on Google and campaigning for online support. In other news, The New York Times reports on Intrade, a Web site that lets people bet on presidential campaigns and other current events.

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FTC Urged To Increase Internet Oversight

Broadband
Consumer Advocate Wants More FTC Oversight Of Internet

The president of a nonprofit group that focuses on communications law has called on the FTC to increase oversight of telephone and cable companies that offer Internet access, AP reports. Gigi Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, said at a workshop assembled by the FTC that her group wants the FTC to ensure that Internet providers are not discriminating against certain providers of video and other Web content. She also said regulators should require more disclosure from telephone and cable companies about the Internet speeds they say they will give consumers. Sohn's points concern the long and heated debate over network neutrality, or the concept that all online traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers. Robert Pepper, an executive at the networking equipment company Cisco Systems, said "new, detailed ... regulation would be counterproductive and instead the FTC should play a leadership role in protecting consumers and competition by exercising its authority ... on a case-by-case basis."

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Senate Panel Delays Vote On Security Bill

Security
Senate Panel Delays Vote, Fine-Tunes Security Bill

The Senate is planning to move legislation to implement unfulfilled recommendations of the commission that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks, but with provisions that appear to put the chamber on a collision course with the House, CongressDaily reports. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was scheduled to debate its sweeping bill Wednesday, but Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., on Tuesday night delayed the vote until Thursday. Although Lieberman blamed inclement weather for forcing the delay, aides are likely to use the extra time to fine-tune the draft. The bill addresses homeland security intelligence and information-sharing, grant funding for emergency responders, and efforts to create emergency communications equipment that works across jurisdictions.

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Experts Analyze Copyright Ruling Against Google

Intellectual Property
Experts Gauge Impact Of Copyright Ruling Against Google

A legal setback suffered by Google in Europe this week may influence courts in other countries examining similar cases, according to copyright experts. News.com reports that some legal analysts expect Tuesday's ruling in Belgium that Google cannot display snippets from certain newspapers on its news and search sites could affect the company’s legal standing in other countries. "Google has a very aggressive approach toward copyright law. ... The ruling should be a serious message to Google to rethink that approach,” said Lee Bromberg, a copyright and trademark attorney at of Bromberg & Sunstein. However, legal experts agreed that the ruling is not likely to affect Google’s operations in the United States, where caching of articles is permissible under copyright law.

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FBI System Tracks Wiretapping Requests

E-Government
FBI Launches System To Track Wiretapping Requests

The FBI is now using a new system to track requests for wiretaps to be reviewed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret, Government Computer News reports. Surveillance requests come from the bureau’s 56 field offices at different classification levels. In order to streamline the vetting process, the new system created by High Performance Technologies lets users access different levels of information based on their security clearances and decreases the processing time from 120 days to 60. An FBI official said of the previous system, "To give you an idea of their idea of connectivity, it was called Oasis [and wasn’t connected to anything]."

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Judge Orders Documents Back To Drug Firm

Courts
Drug Company Wins Fight Over Disputed Documents

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that confidential marketing documents of a best-selling schizophrenia drug that were leaked to a reporter and posted online be returned to the manufacturer. The Washington Post reports that U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein demanded that internal documents on Eli Lilly’s drug Zyprexa, which were leaked to a reporter at The New York Times, be returned to the firm. A court last week refused a request by Eli Lilly to ban Internet sites that had obtained the internal documents from publishing them. Eli Lilly has agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by 26,000 of the drug’s users.

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N.Y. Mayor Proposes E-Health Records

Health
N.Y. Mayor Sees Technology As Way To Health Revolution

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed using electronic health records, or EHRs, as a way to help keep costs down and to provide more preventive care, Government Health IT reports. This plan would extend beyond the city and state of New York, as he wants every hospital in the country that accepts Medicaid and Medicare to have EHRs, which could cost as much as $20 billion. He said he wants the records to be used to track patients’ health trends and treatments, as well as doctors’ performances. Bloomberg said using IT "gives you the right prescription for our ailing health care system." New York City is currently spending $43 million toward establishing EHR systems for doctors who treat New Yorkers at public expense.

Posted by Danny at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Risk Of ID Theft Increases In Some Cities

Privacy
Risk Of ID Theft Jumps In New York, Other Major Citiest

The risk of identity theft has increased in major U.S. cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles and New York, according to ID Analytics, a company that provides fraud intelligence services to businesses. News.com reports that people in Vermont, Montana and Wyoming have the lowest risk of identity fraud. "Moving is a very dramatic way to reduce your identity risk," Stephen Coggeshall, ID Analytics' chief technology officer, said in an interview. "It is more appropriate for people to understand the risk of their area and to take the appropriate precautions." Coggeshall said his company's research, which is slated to be published Wednesday, seeks to provide information for law enforcement. Complaints of ID theft accounted for 36 percent of the total 674,354 complaints submitted to the FTC and its external data contributors last year.

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Business Network Hit By E-Mail Scam

Cyber Security
Firms In Better Business Bureau Get Malicious E-Mail

Thousands of firms belonging to the Better Business Bureau network were hit by an e-mail "spoofing" scam Tuesday. The Washington Post reports that thousands of businesses received e-mails encouraging them to download a malicious computer program. The firms received e-mails that were doctored to look as if they were coming from the Better Business Bureau in order to notify them of a consumer complaint. Council of Better Business Bureaus spokesman Steve Cox said the program accessed the address books of the computers it infected and distributed the e-mail to more recipients. "It is the first time in recent memory where we've had an attack on this scale," Cox said. The e-mails were traced to a marketing firm in Georgia that had no prior affiliation with the organization.

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Cuban Defends Country's Internet Restrictions

Civil Liberties
Cuban Official Defends Country's Internet Restrictions

A senior Cuban official has defended his country's Internet restrictions, AP reports. Cuban Communications Minister Ramiro Valdes called Cuba's Internet policies, which include putting computers in schools but restricting anti-government material, both rational and efficient. He voiced concern about U.S. security measures and news reports that technology firms like Google and Microsoft have cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies. Valdes also said Washington is hurting Cuba's access to the Internet while U.S. military and intelligence services use it to attempt to undermine Cuba's government. Internet technologies "constitute one of the tools for global extermination," he argued. However, the technologies "are also necessary to continue to advance down the path of development."

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Finland Boasts High Tech Penetration

International
Finland Boasts High Levels Of New Tech Penetration

Most citizens of Finland have access to the high-speed Internet and half use so-called third-generation mobile technology, according to a new study published by the country's communications ministry. Australian IT reports that 96 percent of those in Finland have broadband access and more than 75 percent of people regularly or occasionally use the Internet, including 100 percent of those younger than 40. In Finland, four out of five municipalities offer broadband connections, and there is more than one mobile phone per person in the country of 5.2 million inhabitants, according to government statistics. In other news, BBC reports that a new rule in the United Kingdom that takes effect Feb. 14 will make it easier for customers to switch broadband providers.

Posted by Danny at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

'Open Source' Companies Form New Group

Business
New 'Open Source' Group Will Focus On Compatible Products

A number of companies that favor "open source" software is expected to announce Wednesday that they have formed a new group aimed at making products that can work together, News.com reports. Open-source products have code that can be viewed and altered by users. Founding members of the new Open Solutions Alliance include Centric CRM, EnterpriseDB, JasperSoft and SpikeSource. The group is looking to better meet the offerings of competing products from companies such as IBM, Oracle and Microsoft. "Some of the big proprietary vendors have a notion of full-blown suites and some promise of interoperability," said Michael Harvey, chief marketing officer of Centric CRM and one of the people who helped form the alliance. "None of the open-source application companies has fully built-out suites. We're going to work together to try to recreate some of that value for the user."

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Steve Jobs Annoys The Music Industry

Piece Of Mind
Steve Jobs: The Music Industry's 'Pain In The Neck'

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs is the music industry's "biggest pain in the neck," the Los Angeles Times said in an editorial.

His company's refusal to charge more for new tracks at the iTunes e-music store and less for old ones has caused executives frustration in the past, and then last week Jobs asked major recording companies to stop putting electronic locks on their downloadable songs.

Competing anti-piracy tools "could stunt the growth of the downloadable music business," the paper said. "Locks on 99-cent downloads are not the way to deter piracy" and such locks hurt e-music consumers, the Times argued. It said the industry should "concentrate instead on developing compelling new ways to discover and enjoy music."

The Times also opined on bloggers and presidential campaigns this week.

"By trying to gin up support from the blogosphere, candidates are bringing lots of folks into the campaign who've left long trails of (often intemperate) commentary online," so in addition to other Internet-related worries, candidates "may have to distance themselves from what their employees said before coming onboard," according to the paper.

A Boston Globe editorial, meanwhile, said safety questions related to nanotechnology should prompt more caution by industry and government.

The commentary was prompted by plans in Cambridge, Mass., to force companies that make or use nanoparticles to report the activity and known health risks. "Both the federal government and industry should heed the United Nations' urging and increase investment in [finding] the potential downside of super-downsizing," according to the paper.

Finally, a Baltimore Sun column argued that Congress should dump a requirement that states use their driver's licensing authority to combat illegal immigration and enforce a national identity program. The proposition could undermine both objectives, the column said.

-- Compiled by Winter Casey

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Editor's Note: Tech Daily AM Will Be Here Tomorrow

Due to the threat of inclement weather overnight, Wednesday's AM Edition will be published remotely to this blog. Unless the federal government closes, the full AM Edition will be posted to the regular Technology Daily site later in the day.

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Coming Soon...

The next big blogging event for Tech Daily Dose is the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Calif., Feb. 26-27. The Silicon Valley gathering is a new, invitation-only affair that brings together influential leaders from the private and public sectors to contemplate critical policy issues impacting technology.

In addition to my blogging and coverage for Tech Daily, I will also be moderating a discussion about the successes and challenges of the current U.S. patent system. Jon Dudas, the director of the Patent & Trademark Office is among several all-stars on the panel.

For more information on the conference, click here.

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Tough Tax Talk From USTA

Just in case you missed it, the Bush administration's 2008 budget request includes the repeal of the federal excise tax on communications services. The Internal Revenue Service stopped enforcing the toll portion of the tax in 2006 after several court defeats, the U.S. Telecom Association reported.

However, the remaining provisions still apply to customers who subscribe to standalone local phone service, the trade group said. The administration estimates that the cost for the repeal is $1.2 billion over the next decade, down sharply from the $4.5 billion estimated in 2006.

USTA President Walter McCormick called the tax "regressive and outdated" and said it should be abolished immediately. He said his group plans to work with Capitol Hill and the White House to make the proposed change a reality.

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The Benefits Of Health IT

The new budget requests continues to tout the benefits of health information technology. Here's a quote from the budget section titled "The Nation's Fiscal Outlook":

The administration continues to promote the use of health information technology to enhance the healthcare delivery system, including the availability of price and quality information to individuals. This would allow healthcare consumers to spend their healthcare dollars more wisely, and avoid unnecessary procedures and treatments.

Posted by Danny at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Budget Buzzwords

From the highlights of the fiscal 2008 request released by the White House today:
-- Reduce the deficit and balance the budget
-- Combat terrorism and protect the homeland
-- Low taxes
-- No Child Left Behind
-- Energy security
-- Affordable health care

Posted by Danny at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bush's Budget Message

Here are two tech-related excerpts from the preface to the fiscal 2008 budget of President Bush:

As commander in chief, my highest priority is the security of our nation. My budget invests substantial resources to fight the global war on terror and ensure our homeland is protected from those who would do us harm. We will transform our military to meet the new threats of the 21st century and provide the brave men and women on the front lines with the resources they need to be successful in this decisive ideological struggle. ... And [the budget] will continue to provide the tools necessary to keep America safe by detecting, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist plots.

To bolster public confidence in the government’s ability to manage taxpayers’ money successfully, Congress should adopt earmark reform. The earmark process should be made more transparent, ending the practice of concealing earmarks in so-called report language never included in legislation. The number and cost of earmarks should be cut by at least half by the end of this session.

What makes those comments tech-related?
-- Technology is a key aspect of fighting the war on terror, and disclosures about the electronic surveillance conducted domestically since the 2001 terrorist attacks has been one of the hottest topics of the past year. In the overview to the budget, Bush called particular attention to "high-tech screening capabilities," among other things.

-- Since the late 1990s, an increasing number of earmarks have been going to tech projects in lawmakers' states and districts. Tech Daily did an entire series on that issue in 2004, capped off by a detailed look at "tech pork."

-- The effort to bring more transparency to earmarks will include technology. Last year, Bush signed into law a bill that requires the creation of a federal budget database that is freely accessible to the public via the Internet.

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Blogging The Federal Budget

The White House released the fiscal 2008 budget today, and I'll be giving Technology Daily subscribers (and interested non-subscribers) a glimpse into the tech-related aspects here in advance of our two PM Editions about the budget. To see the numbers in perspective, check Tech Daily later today.

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SOTN: Remainders

Odds and ends from the State of the Net conference yesterday...

Google's senior policy counsel Andrew McLaughlin said his company routinely encounters countries' conflicting laws that force the Web giant to walk a legal and political tightrope. A recent example involved a user-submitted video on Google-owned YouTube, which the Indian government found "hugely offensive."

The video, posted by an Indian American comedian in New York, showed him pole-dancing while dressed as revered spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi. Indian leaders asked Google to remove the video even though the data was not located in India and YouTube does not have an official presence in the country, he said.

Despite Google's run-ins with foreign governments, McLaughlin does not think a U.S.-led global standard for take-down notices is feasible. "The best way to handle this is on a nation-by-nation, case-by-case basis," he said.

Meanwhile, Steve DelBianco of the Association for Competitive Technology spoke out about confusion over a proposal to designate a Web space for pornographic content. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is currently considering the scheme, can only approve and create a contract for administering the .xxx domain, he said. "There's nothing that ICANN can do to force the adult entertainment industry to put content there."

The .xxx debate underscores a misunderstanding that exists about the governance and the technical management of the Internet. ICANN and participating governments run in "parallel lanes," DelBianco said. "Every once in a while, the U.S. government swerves over into ICANN's lane and creates the perception that ICANN is more than a technical manager."

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