Tech Daily Dose

American Cable Association Revs Its Lobbying Engine

The American Cable Association sent its annual pre-conference swag bag to reporters this week and it's a fun one. In 2007, the trade group embraced a baseball theme but this year, the April 7-9 summit will be racing inspired. Goodies included a seat cushion, key chain, toy race car, soda/beer cozy, and tote bag.

The conference tagline is "Going the Distance to Connect Hometown America" and the program has cutesy phrases like: "Grab the wheel and fast track your policy concerns." While visiting Washington, ACA members will canvass Capitol Hill and "lift the hood" to reveal the secrets of lobbying success, according to the booklet.

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As Heidi Says On "Project Runway," Auf Wiedersehen

It looks like there are going to be quite a few farewell parties taking place across the federal government as several high-ranking officials announce their departures. CongressDaily's TechCentral has all the details:

NTIA Chief To Leave As Criticism Mounts Over DTV Shift
For the second time in four months, a Commerce Department official overseeing the shift to digital television transmission is stepping down.

Majoras Departure Leaves Successor, Timing In Doubt
The departure of FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras will leave the commission with two Republicans, one Democrat and an independent, and an unclear timeline for a replacement.

Senior Bush IP Official To Step Down, Start New Firm
The U.S. coordinator for intellectual property enforcement, is moving on amid an increased focus on IP protection domestically and globally.

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DHS Officials Grilled On Cyber Plans

Lawmakers had some tough questions for Homeland Security Department officials on Thursday about plans to expand the federal government's cybersecurity infrastructure. Read more about the House Homeland Security Committee hearing in CongressDaily's PM edition and watch the CapNews.net video above to whet your appetite.

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Buzz Building Over Web Safety Task Force

From CongressDaily's PM edition on Wednesday:

A key player in the online safety community rejected an invitation late Tuesday to participate in a task force announced last month by 49 state attorneys general and the social-networking site MySpace. The Internet Education Foundation, a group that coordinates the work of the advisory committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus, said its workload is too large to take part.

The foundation said in a statement that it also fears the efforts of the multi-stakeholder panel will be overpowered by age-verification technology companies. "From the outset we expressed our concern with financial interests of vendors clouding the sober judgment of this important work," IEF said. "We sincerely hope that the task force will be able to conduct its research in a civil and sober manner."

An announcement about the task force's membership is expected Thursday, sources said. Internet businesses, nonprofits, academics and technology firms have been asked to participate.

Check CongressDaily for more details...

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A Musical Afternoon On Capitol Hill

You never know what you're going to see on Capitol Hill on any given afternoon. The musicFirst coalition held a lengthy jam session in the House Judiciary Committee hearing room that inspired North Carolina Republican Howard Coble (pictured left) to clap along. That's RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier on the right.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., stopped by with Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson-Lee a short time later to schmooze with BeBe Winans and Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown . Former "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington also did some hand-shaking. He was visiting Capitol Hill to lobby members of the Congressional Black Caucus on an unrelated issue.

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PTO Director: Gym Bunny, Multitasker

I'm so happy to hear that I'm not the only intellectual policy watcher who enjoys hitting the gym regularly. I'm prone to reading congressional testimony on the elliptical machine or catching up with e-mails while I'm stair-stepping but when Patent and Trademark Office Director Jon Dudas gets a workout -- he's a true multitasker.

At a House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee hearing on PTO oversight, Dudas told members that he likes to chat with employees at his agency's fitness center about ways to improve examiner productivity and contentment. The PTO has been criticized for its backlog of patent applications and employee retention problems.

After ticking off a number of complaints about working conditions at the agency, veteran examiner Robert Budens got a good-natured ribbing from Michigan Democrat John Conyers, who chairs the full committee. "Would going to the gym more with Mr. Dudas help you?" Conyers asked. "One look at me says it may help me in some ways… but I’m not sure it would help improve our relationship," responded Budens, who is heavyset.

Read more about the PTO hearing in CongressDaily's AM on Thursday.

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Copyright Scholar Backs Radio 'Performance Royalty'

A performance-right for recording artists whose music is played on AM and FM radio would "correct a needless exception in U.S. copyright law," according to the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Tom Sydnor. The digital property pundit weighed in on the issue that has created a major rift between the music industry and broadcasters.

In a paper released Wednesday, Sydnor says passage of legislation that has been introduced in the House and Senate "would harmonize U.S. copyright law with those of other countries, benefiting both U.S. recording artists and the U.S. economy." He counters two often cited arguments for the discrepancy: promotional value for the recording artist and the public interest obligations put on broadcast platforms.

Read more of Sydnor's thoughts here. Meanwhile, supporters from both camps are canvassing Capitol Hill this week. On my way back from a morning hearing, I encountered a swarm of National Association of Broadcasters members brandishing buttons that urge lawmakers to oppose the so-called "tax" on local radio.

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Domain Name Feuds Surged In 2007

An international mediator of Web address squabbles reported Wednesday that it presided over a total of 1,805 domain name disputes in 2007, up from 1,658 disputes in 2006. Cases filed with the National Arbitration Forum are heard and decided by independent panelists with specialized domain name, trademark, copyright and/or e-commerce experience.

According to the group, domain names with common extensions like .com, .net, and .org accounted for 1,775 filings and Web addresses with the .us extension accounted for 30 filings. Of the 1,805 disputes, panelists heard 1,391 cases; parties worked together to settle many others, officials said.

"Our dispute resolution program is available to deal quickly with the core problem: a domain name registered and being abused by a party who cannot claim legitimate rights to it," NAF's Kristine Dorrain said. Since the forum began taking cases in 1999, there have been 9,916 domain name complaints filed.

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'Wikileaks' Case Gets EFF, ACLU Backing

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Project on Government Oversight on Tuesday filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit where a federal judge ordered the disabling of a domain name associated with "Wikileaks," a Web site that gives whistleblowers a public online forum for posting materials of concern.

In early February, Swiss bank Julius Baer filed suit against Wikileaks for hosting 14 allegedly leaked documents regarding personal banking transactions of the company's customers. Wikileaks' domain name registrar Dynadot was also sued. Later in the month, the court issued a permanent injunction, disabling wikileaks.org.

"Dynadot's private agreement to disable access to its customer's domain name -- and the court's endorsement of that agreement -- raise serious First Amendment concerns," EFF's Matt Zimmerman said in a press release. The injunction "should remind everyone who hosts critical information on the Web that such information may only remain accessible as long as your service provider or registrar is willing to stand up for you."

The EFF, ACLU, POGO, and a Wikileaks user asked the court for permission to intervene in order to dissolve the injunction disabling the wikileaks.org domain name. A San Francisco judge will hear arguments Friday regarding a related issue: whether to extend a temporary restraining order aimed at preventing the distribution of the disputed Julius Baer documents.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition also weighed in on the case. "A court order disabling access to an entire Web site goes far beyond what the First Amendment permits," CDT General Counsel John Morris said.

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Newspaper Association Names 'Digital Edge' Winners

The Newspaper Association of America named the winners of its 2008 Digital Edge Awards this week. The ceremony took place on Monday at the NAA Marketing Conference in Orlando, Fla. The competition drew more than 200 entries from U.S. newspapers of all sizes.

Each entry was judged on strategy, creativity, impact in the local market and adaptability to other markets, according to the NAA. Judges name winners in three groups based on the newspaper's print circulation size. This year's Online Innovator Award went to Dan Shorter for his work at PalmBeachPost.com.

And the winners are (drum-roll please) ...

Best Overall Newspaper Web Site
LJWorld.com, The Lawrence Journal-World/The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)
Knoxnews.com, Knoxville News Sentinel (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)
PolitiFact.com, St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly (circ. > 250,000)

Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site
Lawrence.com, The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)
Austin360.com, Austin American-Stateman (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)
Vita.mn, Minneapolis Star Tribune (circ. > 250,000)

Read the full list of honorees here.

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Hollywood Writers Ratify New Contract

Television viewers, rejoice. The Hollywood writers' strike, which ended earlier this month, is now officially, totally, completely over and done with. Here's the proof -- a statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers:

"The members of the Writers Guild of America have ratified their new labor agreement. Now that our industry is back in business, our goal is to collaborate with everyone in the industry - writers, directors, actors and stagehands alike - to produce the highest-quality entertainment products without any further interruption."

Read CongressDaily's coverage of the strike's conclusion here.

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Musicians Canvas Capitol Hill

Gospel music legend Bebe Winans and Godfather of Go-Go Chuck Brown will be on Capitol Hill stumping for legislation that would provide artists royalties for their songs played on AM and FM radio. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., will host the pair at an afternoon gathering of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Earlier in the day, a group of artists and musicians (instruments in hand) will kick off the day of lobbying on behalf of the musicFirst alliance -- a group backed by digital royalty collector SoundExchange, RIAA, and other music industry groups.

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Winehouse Weighs In On Royalties, NAB Pushes Back

There's a new development in the vicious feud between music industry interests and broadcasters over AM/FM radio -- 6,000-plus artists from more than 15 countries plopped a petition on Congress's doorstep urging the prompt passage of legislation to close a legal loophole that exempts radio stations from paying performance royalties. Read about that effort here.

I got a call from the folks at the musicFirst coalition who pointed out that the eccentric, high-haired Grammy award-winning Amy Winehouse was among the signatories. So were crooners Elton John and popular up-and-coming solo artist James Blunt.

Winehouse's involvement in the effort made me want to watch her hilarious, rambling acceptance speech from the awards show all over again. She took home five trophies at the Feb. 10 ceremony. I scoured the blogosphere for clips but it seems that the videos were stripped from the Internet due to copyright claims. Sigh.

"To my mom and dad, for my Blake, my Blake incarcerated, and for London!" Winehouse shouted after a performance of “You Know That I’m No Good” and “Rehab.” Blake is her husband who is currently awaiting trial in a London jail. Gosh, that was a good speech. Maybe we'll have to reenact it in the newsroom so I can get my fix.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Broadcasters unveiled a print ad on Tuesday opposing the initiative they have deemed a performance "tax." The ad, which reads, "Are record labels leaving artists holding the bag?" points out what NAB believes is the ironic move by the RIAA to rally artists in support of "fairness," while one of their largest members faces litigation for allegedly "cheating" artists out of royalties. See that ad here.

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Lawmaker Back In Action Thanks To American R&D

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger on Tuesday praised American ingenuity in the medical arena for getting him back on his feet fast after undergoing a serious surgery. The Maryland Democrat is a member of the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, which held its first budget hearing of the year on the Bush administration's FY09 science and technology portfolio.

He told White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger, who testified at the hearing, that he did not expect to be back to work so soon after experiencing a spinal fusion procedure. "Thank goodness for research and discovery and they're able to fix your back," Ruppersberger said. Read more about the hearing in CongressDaily's PM edition.

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What's New At TechCentral?

Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for these stories and more:

Royalty Fight Between Broadcasters, Music Industry On Tap
A months-long lobbying blitz surrounding the music industry's push to eliminate an exemption granted to over-the-air radio stations, which allows them to broadcast music without paying royalties, ramped up as broadcasters from around the country arrived in Washington for their annual leadership conference.

Martin Says FCC May Move Against Broadband Operators
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told a packed hearing that his agency may take action to keep telecom giants from acting as gatekeepers of the Internet.

Stanford Prof Lessig Opts Against Bid For Lantos' Seat
Just days after he revealed he was considering a bid for Congress, Stanford University Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig announced that he would not run for the seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.

FTC Passes On Probe Of TV Copyright Warnings
The FTC will not pursue a formal investigation into a complaint lodged last summer by the Computer and Communications Industry Association that alleged professional sports leagues and media giants misrepresent their legal rights through deceptive and threatening statements, CongressDaily has learned.

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Gingrich To Open Silicon Valley Shop

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich might be spending more time in sunny California now that his American Solutions for Winning the Future announced that it will open a new office in Silicon Valley to serve as the organization's technology headquarters. Gingrich made the announcement (appropriately enough) on YouTube.

"We're excited to be in Silicon Valley and to learn from the best of the private sector so we can utilize the latest technological breakthroughs to fundamentally transform government from the world that fails to the world that works," Gingrich said. David Kralik, a veteran of online grassroots campaigns, will manage the West Coast operation.

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Google: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea?

Google has joined a consortium of six companies that have agreements to build a high-bandwidth sub-sea fiber optic cable linking the United States and Japan. The construction of the new Trans-Pacific infrastructure will cost an estimated $300 million, according to a Tuesday press release.

The new cable system named Unity will address broadband demand by providing capacity to sustain the growth in data and Internet traffic between Asia and America. The TeleGeography Global Bandwidth Report showed that trans-Pacific bandwidth demand grew by nearly 64 percent annually between 2002 and 2007 and is expected to continue to climb through 2013.

The consortium is a joint effort by Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, Google, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel. Unity selected NEC Corporation and Tyco Telecommunications to construct and install the system. That work will begin immediately, with initial capacity targeted for the first quarter of 2010.

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Phishing Crusader Lauds Senate Bill

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Stevens joined with Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on Monday to introduce a bill aimed at curbing the practice of fraudulent e-mail addresses or fake Web sites to lure recipients into providing personal or financial information. See CongressDaily's AM for more information on the "phishing" proposal.

Anti-Phishing Working Group Secretary General Peter Cassidy told Tech Daily Dose after deadline that "the global e-crime crisis requires technological, forensic and legislative innovation commensurate with the threats to the civil order posed" and the bill is a step in that direction. The bill updates and consolidates the spirit and letter of a number of laws already on the books spread across a number of statutes, Cassidy said.

"They're available but hardly specific to the crimes at hand in phishing scams -- like spoofing a domain name to imitate a trademark. Hopefully, prosecutors would find useful tools in this legislation should it pass into law," he said.

According to the latest report by APWG, which examined October statistics, 31,650 unique phishing reports were submitted to the group -- a decrease of nearly 7,000 from the previous month. October saw a major hike in hijacked brands to 120, up from 92 in September, the report stated. Read more about the report here.

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, whose members include Dell Computer, Eli Lilly, Hilton Hotels, and other intellectual property owners also lauded the legislation. The group's president, Josh Bourne, said the bill is "timely and necessary" to protect consumers and businesses alike from the latest batch of fraudulent and deceptive Internet practices.

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Patent Tracker Unmasked

Patently-O reports: "After learning that Ray Niro paid $10,000+ for information leading to his actual identity, the Patent Troll Tracker has revealed his identity -- Cisco IP Director Rick Frenkel." Until now, the frequently cited compiler of patent stats was known only by an online bio that read: "Just a lawyer, interested in patent cases, but not interested in publicity."

"I got an anonymous email, from the guy who probably collected the bounty, telling me I better tell everyone who I am (and he clearly knew), or else he would take care of it for me," Frenkel wrote on his blog. "The clear threat in the email is that he would do it in a way I wouldn't be happy about. I don't know what that means, but as I have been growing weary of anonymity anyway, here I am."

The blogger began his IP career more than 10 years ago as a clerk at Lyon & Lyon in Los Angeles then he litigated patent cases for several years at Irell & Manella. Two years ago, he moved to Silicon Valley and joined Cisco Systems. Cisco is a champion of legislation currently before Congress that would make sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system.

"My blog fulfilled a long-felt need - the need for people to share information about who are the entities out there asserting patents," Frenkel wrote. "I never expected the blog to get quite the following it did. It has brought new information to me, in the many emails from people alerting me to this, that, and the other." Read more here.

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EBay Boycott Ends Today; Impact Disputed

A massive boycott by eBay sellers will conclude Monday after causing auction listings on the popular Web site to drop by as much as 13 percent since the strike started Feb. 18, according to third-party tracking firms. A company official told USA Today that internal statistics showed the boycott "has had no impact on our listings."

The protest was in opposition to pricing changes, which fluctuate seasonally and sometimes unpredictably, the newspaper reported. EBay announced that the cost to list items will be cut by 25-50 percent, but the commission that eBay charges for completed sales increased, starting last Wednesday. Read the article here.

During the last big boycott in 2005, sellers had little choice but to crawl back to eBay, TheStreet.com reported. Now, however, the marketplace is much broader, and sellers can push their wares on sites like Amazon or Google, the Web site said. That story can be found here.

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What Ever Happened To…

Technology Daily assistant editor Theresa Poulson? She'll be starting work Monday at nationaljournal.com as a staff writer/producer. Poulson is a New Jersey native who graduated from Rutgers University in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in art history and painting (and she happens to crank out some darned good artwork in her spare time).

She came to Tech Daily last January -- after working as a reporter, designer and editor for a weekly newspaper group -- with a strong interest in multimedia and will be involved in efforts to expand NJ's online multimedia capabilities. At TD, Theresa created a number features, including a package on the presidential candidates' tech policy views and an issue page on the Internet tax moratorium.

Want to know where my other former colleagues landed? Go here and here.

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Happy One-Year Anniversary, Sirius/XM Merger Bid

The Wall Street Journal's "Deal Journal" blog has an interesting post that reflects on the one-year anniversary of the pending merger of satellite radio giants Sirius and XM. I wrote about this issue in Wednesday's CongressDaily [click here to read the story].

WSJ blogger Stephen Grocer contacted the folks at FactSet MergerMetrics to help put in perspective how long the proposed pairing has been blowing in the wind. A few samples:

349 -- The number of transactions announced involving the full acquisition of a U.S. publicly traded company in which a definitive agreement was reached since the XM/Sirius announcement.

230 -- The number of those deals that have been completed. That includes Whole Foods’s acquisition of Wild Oats, which took roughly six months and one embarrassing lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission before it was completed.

97 -- The number of those deals still pending. That doesn’t include Google’s purchase of DoubleClick, another high-profile deal that received regulatory scrutiny. That deal is awaiting European regulatory approval, but received FTC approval in December.

Read the full rundown here.

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House GOPers Slam Dems In New Web Video

The House Republican Conference put out a new Web video on YouTube and GOP.gov on Thursday titled "America Is At Risk." The minute-and-a-half clip urges lawmakers to pass the Protect America Act, which they claim House Democrats have let expire. See the full video above.

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Yahoo To Condi: Promote Web Freedom In Asia

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is headed to Asia this weekend and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang wants her to take the message of Internet freedom there with her. A letter from Yang to Rice obtained by CongressDaily urges the U.S. government's top diplomat to help alleviate "the plight of political dissidents who have expressed their views over the Internet in China" and have been jailed. Yahoo took a beating at a high-profile November hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the company's connection to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist. Read more in the PM edition.

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Analysts Warn Of Tax Time Scams

With tax season looming, Americans have returns and refunds on their minds and scammers are taking advantage of that yet again, computer security firm MessageLabs warned in an e-mail blast on Thursday. This year, authenticity is the scammers' modus operandi as they have concocted fake Web pages that mimic those on IRS.gov.

January saw a spike in this type of spam, when the volume increased to 10 times the normal level and the percentage of IRS-related malware increased to 6 percent, the firm said. If a recipient clicks on a link and completes the form requesting personal and financial information, the site then redirects to the actual IRS Web site, which is unlike similar scams, MessageLabs analyst Paul Wood said.

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Microsoft Opens Up Amid Market Changes

Microsoft unveiled a set of sweeping changes to its technology and business practices on Thursday to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice.

The changes are organized into interoperability principles and corresponding actions: 1) ensuring open connections; 2) promoting data portability; 3) enhancing support for industry standards; and 4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities, according to the software giant's Web site.

"These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. For 33 years, the company has shared "a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners" but this announcement represents a key expansion "toward even greater transparency," he said.

The Association for Competitive Technology's Jonathan Zuck said the move "will undoubtedly put IBM and the rest of the ECIS [European Committee for Interoperable System] companies back on their heels." ACT is backed by Microsoft and other tech companies.

"Microsoft broadened its commitment to interoperability to include all of its high volume products, leaving these competitors with little if anything left to complain or sue about," Zuck wrote on ACT's blog. "After years of hounding Microsoft in the courts and in front of governments, these competitors are now confronted with the reality that Microsoft has raised the bar on interoperability, and they too might have to measure up."

High-tech attorney Andrew Updegrove wrote on ConsortiumInfo.org that there are "a number of promises" made by Microsoft that he likes but the devil is in the details. The supporting documents "will be extremely significant, especially as regards the open source community, where subtle differences in legal terms can permit use under some open source licenses, but not others," he said.

The declaration provides "clear evidence of the effects that multiple market forces are having on Microsoft," Updegrove said. Those pressures include EU antitrust investigations, pressure of those supporting open document format, and increasingly popular Web-based alternatives from rivals such as Google and IBM.

The European Commission took note of the announcement but said it "does not relate to the question of whether or not Microsoft has been complying with EU antitrust rules in this area in the past." In January, the Commission initiated two formal antitrust investigations against Microsoft – one relating to interoperability, one relating to tying of separate software products.

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Obama Web Traffic Trounces Clinton

New data from Web analysis firm comScore reports that traffic to Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama's campaign Web site grew fivefold to 2.2 million in January and traffic to Hillary Clinton's site more than tripled to 1.1 million in the build up to Super Tuesday.

According to MediaPost, Obama also has a lead on social network sites: Facebook supporters (589,224 to 120,216 as of press time), MySpace friends (287,715 to 185,709), and YouTube views (21.1 million to 7.6 million). Obama has been able to use the Internet as a key fund-raising tool. Of the $32 million his campaign raised in January, $28 million came from mostly small donors online.

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NYT: McCain, Telecom Lobbyist Controversy

An article posted on The New York Times Web site on Wednesday evening calls into question Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's relationship with Vicki Iseman, a partner with Alcalde & Fay. Iseman is a seasoned telecommunications lobbyist who represented corporations before the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chaired twice.

According to her bio, Iseman worked on the landmark 1992 and 1996 communications reform bills and helped secure cable access for broadcast television stations. She also has worked on the digital television conversion; satellite regulation and telecommunications ownership.

The NYT story has more details about Iseman's work in the communications arena and her alleged dealings with McCain.

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Lessig Might Run For Congress

Stanford Law School professor and former Wired magazine columnist Larry Lessig said Tuesday he will decide by March 1 whether to enter the race for the 12th District seat of the late Democrat Rep. Tom Lantos. Lessig released a video on his Web site -- www.lessig08.org -- to declare his goal of tackling the influence of money in politics. In the video, he asked members of Congress to form a coalition and pledge three things: Do not take PAC money, ban earmarks and agree to public campaign financing.

"[I thought about politics] lots when I was in high school," Lessig told CongressDaily. "Since 1980, never, till these past couple weeks." Lantos died in this month. Three weeks before his death, he endorsed state Sen. Jackie Speier as his successor. The district is heavily Democratic and so the winner of the special Democratic primary April 8 should be favored in November. Two other Democrats -- Robert Barrows and Jason Lee Jones -- are seeking the nomination while the Republican nomination is being sought by Rodney Edenfield and Mike Moloney.

Read the full CongressDaily story here at TechCentral. Read Lessig's own blog posts on the topic here and here.

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Survey: More Consumers Filing Taxes Online

As tax season looms, an increasing number of people plan to file their federal taxes online, according to The Conference Board. Forty percent plan to file online, up from 34 percent three years ago and more than two-thirds of consumers report having filed online for three years or more, up from less than 55 percent in 2005.

"Given the many online tax filing alternatives and payment options, such as IRS E-file, Free File and direct deposit options, it’s not surprising that every year an increasing number of consumers are filing electronically,” said Conference Board Consumer Research Center Director Lynn Franco. “Once they file online, they tend to stay online.”

The think tank's survey showed that more consumers are comfortable filing their taxes online, compared to other financial transactions. Half are "extremely concerned" when banking or paying bills on the Web while 44 percent express similar concerns when filing taxes online. Read more here.

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Blogger Wins Polk Award For Legal Reporting

Long Island University has announced the winners of the George Polk Awards, which recognize media coverage that exposes corporate and government misfeasance, and a popular political blogger is among the honorees. Polk was a CBS reporter who was slain while covering the civil war in Greece in the 1940s.

The Polk Award for legal reporting will go to Joshua Micah Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo. His writing "led the news media in coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country," according to a university press release. Marshall and his staff "connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush administration's bidding."

As part of the prize, Marshall will take part in the annual George Polk Seminar on April 16 alongside other winners. The panel will explore the topic: "Strategies – Old and New – for Groundbreaking Journalism." The official awards luncheon will occur the following day. Read more about the award (and winners) here.

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'Internet Predator' Stereotypes Debunked?

Most Internet sex offenders are not adults who target young children by posing as another youth, luring children to meetings, and then abducting or forcibly raping them, according to new a new study by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

The bulk of online sex offenders are adults who target teens and seduce victims into sexual relationships. They take time to develop the trust of victims, so the youth see the relationships as romances or sexual adventures, according to the analysis published in the new issue of American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association.

This topic was front-and-center in the 109th Congress when the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a series of hearings on Internet-related crime during which members heard testimony from a host of government officials, industry experts and other child advocates.

Youth most vulnerable to online sex offenders have histories of sexual or physical abuse, family problems, and tendencies to take risks both on- and offline, researchers said. The study was based on three surveys -- two involving phone interviews of 3,000 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 and one involving 612 interviews with federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

"To prevent these crimes, we need accurate information about their true dynamics," lead author Janis Wolak said in a press release. "The things that we hear and fear and the things that actually occur may not be the same. The newness of the environment makes it hard to see where the danger is."

In spite of public concern, the authors found that adolescents' use of popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook do not appear to increase their risk of being victimized by online predators. Rather, it is risky online interactions such as talking online about sex to unknown people that increases vulnerability, the study showed.

Additionally, researchers concluded that educational efforts focused on discouraging children from giving out or posting personal information online, warning about deception on the Internet, and urging parents to monitor their children's Web surfing habits may not be effective. Wolak and her colleagues said more effort should be directed at helping teens realize the inappropriateness of romantic relationships with adults.

Read more about the study here.

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'King Of Porn' Slams Google, Yahoo At Yale U.

Steven Hirsch, the self-titled "King of Porn," planned to tell an audience at Yale University on Saturday that responsible companies in the adult industry have gone to great lengths to deter minors from accessing inappropriate content but major search engines have not.

"None of the search engines and portals, but particularly Yahoo and Google, has taken any significant steps in this direction," the co-founder of adult film studio Vivid Entertainment said in a press release previewing his speech.

Hirsch also said encouraged Internet service providers to "more vigorously promote their filtering and age verification programs to their subscribers." ISPs as well as payment systems and adult content producers "all need to be more responsible with regard to allowing X-rated material to be obtained by non-adults," he noted in lecture remarks.

Vivid became one of the most famous adult studios in the world by making a concerted effort to become more accepted by mainstream media and by capitalizing on advances in technology, he said. "We always believed it was important to stay on top of all new technologies," he said.

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IP Crusaders: ABBA, Prince & The Village People

This is going to sound like a bad joke but soul sensation Prince and costumed crooners The Village People are teaming up… to sue the popular torrent site Pirate Bay, Slashdot reported on Sunday.

The Web Sheriff law firm, which specializes in protection of copyrights and trademarks, has also asked the Swedish glam band ABBA to join the action. The suit is seeking "millions of dollars" in damages, although it is still uncertain to whom the charges will be directed, Slashdot said.

What's next? Perhaps ABBA, Prince and The Village People will come together to do a benefit concert to raise funds for their legal battle. Now that would be something to see.

Posted by Andrew at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Web Trend: Single Serving Sites

Jason Kottke muses on his blog about the abundance of Web denizens building "single serving sites," which he defines as sites "comprised of a single page with a dedicated domain name and do only one thing."

Some fun and interesting examples provided by the blogger:
Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue
Is Lost a Repeat?
D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y
Are We At War With Iran?
The Abe Vigoda Status Page
Is Paris In Jail Right Now?
Am I Awesome?

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WashTimes: Meaningful Patent Reform

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Utah Republican Orrin Hatch made a major pitch for patent reform in the pages of the Washington Times on Friday. Here's an excerpt:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has committed to taking up S.1145 as early in the new year as possible, and we welcome the continued dialogue on how best to perfect it. Unfortunately, some would like to play political football with the bill to pursue other agendas. We are united in our view that these reforms are far too important to fall prey to such partisan tactics from either side.

As legislators, we know we are headed in the right direction when everyone is complaining that the entire bill is not going their way. We see this as a necessary, albeit somewhat difficult, part of the legislative process. But we welcome it. But at the end of day, we are confident that we will resolve the remaining issues in ways that should make everyone comfortable and will ensure final passage.

Read the full editorial here.

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Guess Who's Making Big Bucks?

Kyle McSlarrow, the president and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, was the highest paid executive in the communications and information technology association sector in 2006, National Journal magazine will report in its issue, dated Saturday. He received a total compensation package, including benefits and allowances, of $1.75 million. Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the United States Telecom Association and the Consumer Electronics Association president and CEO, Gary Shapiro, received a boatload too. Let's not forget about the entertainment industry -- the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. Click here for those juicy tidbits.

Posted by Andrew at 06:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Music Publishers File Class Action Suit

From a National Music Publishers' Association press release:

Several members of the National Music Publishers’ Association today filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of music copyright owners against MediaNet, which operates an online music service, seeking damages, a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to put an end to MediaNet's willful and ongoing copyright infringement.

“It is critical to the future of music that creators take a stand against free riders such as MediaNet that earn profits on the backs of others’ work,” said NMPA President and CEO David Israelite. “The case of MediaNet is particularly egregious because it offers copyrighted musical works to its partners and consumers knowing that it does not have permission to do so and that it is not compensating the copyright owners.” [Read more]

Update: Digital Media Association chief Jon Potter, whose trade group represents MediaNet, issued the following statement in reaction to the lawsuit: “Music publishers are suing a company that lawfully distributes music to consumers and pays millions of dollars to creators. This strategy will eventually leave only illegal music services available. How does that benefit publishers and songwriters?”

Posted by Andrew at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FTC Reaches $2.9 Million ValueClick Settlement

Online marketing firm ValueClick has agreed to a $2.9 million settlement with the FTC but did not concede that it broke any laws, according to the company's fourth quarter earnings report. The FTC alleged that ValueClick employed deceptive marketing practices and as part of its deal, the company and commission agreed on a new set of standards to govern its business going forward.

The FTC had been examining ValueClick's lead-generation practices, including its use of advertisements that reportedly falsely promise free gifts to consumers for participating in an activity. "We ended 2007 on a strong note and we are pleased to announce a settlement with the FTC," ValueClick CEO Tom Vadnais said in a press release.

Posted by Andrew at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Valentines Day, I Love/Hate You

In the fourth season of MTV's popular show, "The Real World," one character (a lead singer in a punk-rock band) receives a pig's heart pierced with nails on Valentine's Day. If they could get away with it, the National Association of Broadcasters and the music industry might swamp similarly morose gifts -- but instead, they opted for a lighter approach.

The NAB, which opposes a congressional effort to end a longstanding performance royalty exemption for AM and FM radio stations, will run ads in several papers on Thursday highlighting the "love affair" between record labels and America's radio broadcasters. Click here to see the ad.

The musicFirst coalition, backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, royalty collector SoundExchange and others, issued a response to the ads that asks: "Why does NAB refuse to pick up the tab on Valentine’s Day… or any other day for that matter?"

"It is ironic on Valentine’s Day - of all days - that NAB would highlight how they don’t pick up the check on dates. It really is a sad story of unrequited love," alliance spokesman Tod Donhauser said. "Artists love radio, but radio doesn’t love artists enough to compensate them for their intellectual property."

Posted by Andrew at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

U.K. Web Piracy Proposal Raises Concerns

From CongressDaily's AM:

News that Internet service providers in the United Kingdom might be legally required to take action against computer users who access pirated material raised concerns on Capitol Hill Tuesday and among those who track U.S. intellectual property policy. The British newspaper The Times recently reported a leaked proposal that calls for those suspected of downloading illegitimate movies or music to get an initial warning e-mail, followed by a suspension for a second offense, then a termination of their service contract for a third offense. [Read the full story]

A spokesman for the U.K. Internet Services Providers' Association told Tech Daily Dose after deadline that the trade group is "currently in talks with the Motion Picture Association of America and liaises with government on this issue." ISPs are "mere conduits" of information and bear no liability for illegal file-sharing since the content is not hosted on their servers, the official said.

"ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the post office is able to open every envelope," the spokesman said. "ISPs deal with many more packets of data each day than postal services and data protection legislation actually prevents ISPs from looking at the content."

In the United States, ISPs also have "a strong record of responsibility and cooperation when it comes to protection of intellectual property online," said Dave McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association. He pointed out that American laws differ from those abroad. "Here in the U.S., we must balance our desire to support content companies with the mandates of fair use, state and federal privacy laws, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," McClure said.

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Take The New Tech Daily Dose Poll!

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High-Tech 'Potomac Primary' Coverage

Polls will close soon in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia -- a special day we like to call the "Potomac Primary." Up to 2 million voters could turn out to award 358 delegates (239 Democratic and 119 Republican) to candidates in this region, according to a story in the Washington Post.

The cable news networks as well as the local stations in the area are finding all sorts of interesting ways to cover the big event. FOX 5/WTTG, for example, planned a Web-streaming experiment. Beginning at 8 p.m., the Weekend Anchor Will Thomas will host a two-hour live special with an intriguing line-up of guests.

They include: Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet's director Julie Barko Germany; Judd Kessler, a local lawyer and McCain songwriter; Sherry Moeller and Jayne Sandman of Capitol File magazine; American University professor Lenny Steinhorn; Rock the Vote Executive Director Heather Smith; and pollster Shawnta Walcott.

The station is also letting viewers get in on the conversation with live online chat and a community of blogs. Click here for more information. Meanwhile, NBC 4/WRC will have regular cut-ins on the Web and segments on-air that will be simulcast on the Internet.

(Thanks to the teams at FOX 5 and NBC 4 for the news tips)

Posted by Andrew at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Berman Remains Head Of IP Panel -- At Least For Now

When Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., succeeds the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the coming weeks, Berman also will remain chairman of the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, an aide said.

Under House Democratic Caucus rules, Berman can hold both chairmanships for the remainder of the current 110th Congress. But, assuming Berman is re-elected in November and the Democrats retain control of the House, he would have to give up the Judiciary subcommittee chairmanship next January – when the 111th Congress is sworn in.

Read the full story at CongressDaily's TechCentral.

Posted by Andrew at 06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

IP Task Force To Focus On Small Business

The multi-agency task force responsible for coordinating the federal government's intellectual property enforcement efforts will increase its focus on IP protection for small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, according to a report sent to Congress on Monday.

The National IP Law Enforcement Coordination Council will develop and market programs to help those firms protect and enforce IP domestically and abroad. NIPLECC will seek to identify sources to assist SMEs to finance foreign IP registrations and evaluate assets through IP audits, the report said. CongressDaily has more coverage of the council's annual report here.

House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., said that in seven years, President Bush "has done little to help small firms." Making them an IP priority this year "is a start, but we should be much further along." Small firms are "at the core of the nation’s competitiveness" and protecting their IP is essential to strengthening the economy.

Ranking Republican Steve Chabot of Ohio said innovation "is the heart and soul of this country" and IP rights have enabled U.S. businesses, large and small, to flourish. At the same time, innovation has also brought theft, counterfeiting and piracy, he said.

While the Bush administration's report demonstrates progress, IP theft continues to threaten businesses and jeopardize the health and safety of Americans, Chabot said. In his home state, businesses lose tens of millions of dollars annually to counterfeit and pirated goods -- not to mention the risks posed to each resident, he said.

The National Small Business Association's Molly Brogan also commended NIPLECC. Small firms produce 13 times more patents per employee than their large counterparts and generate five times more patents per R&D dollar than large companies, she said. Since small firms typically lack attorneys on staff or sufficient enforcement resources, "combating intellectual property theft can be a nightmare," she said.

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What Ever Happened To…

Former Technology Daily writer Heather Greenfield? She has hopped the journalism fence to try her hand in the public relations world. Greenfield, a former AP writer and broadcaster, joined the staff of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. The trade group represents Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo and many other high-tech firms. Meanwhile, Technology Daily alum Aliya Sternstein has landed at CQ where she will write about agriculture.

Posted by Andrew at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

463 Brings On New Partner, Hani Durzy

The high-tech PR gurus at 463 Communications have hired a new partner for the bicoastal company's San Francisco office. Hani Durzy joins Sean Garrett who has been holding down the fort all by himself on the West Coast as the D.C. operation has grown and grown.

Garrett wrote on his blog that "once we got past Hani's obnoxious Red Sox Nation-isms, we knew that he would be the perfect compliment to our team and a great asset as we grow in the Bay Area." Durzy was most recently eBay's communications director, which prompted this e-mail exchange:

To: Sean Garrett
From: Andrew Noyes
Sent: Mon 11/02/2008 2:09 PM
Subject: Good get!

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What Ever Happened To…

Former Technology Daily editor Danny Glover? He landed a sweet new gig as executive producer for Eyeblast.tv, an online video Web site with a conservative twist. The site, a project of the Media Research Center, makes him "officially part of the vast right-wing conspiracy" -- or at least that's what he joked in a Monday e-mail.

Eyeblast, which is in the soft-launch phase, lets users post content, rate videos, make comments, create profiles and groups, join groups, send messages, store favorite videos and more. My former boss tells me that an official launch and marketing blitz is a few weeks off.

Not only has Danny been keeping busy with that, he spent the better part of three days at the Conservative Political Action Conference, speaking and networking. GOP bloggers, rejoice. Liberal bloggers condemn. He seems to have found an exciting new venture and we wish him all the best. Although, his rant about "liberal newsrooms" is a bit much.

Posted by Andrew at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1.8 Mil. Pages Of Case Law Put Online For Public Use

High-tech activist Carl Malamud, who wants to force the federal government to make government information widely available to the public, has partnered with the Creative Commons to put 1.8 million pages of U.S. case law online.

The files are all marked with the new Creative Commons "CCØ" label, indicating that the contents are works of the federal government and are free of copyright or other restrictions for dissemination and reuse. The papers had previously only been accessible in law libraries or through subscriptions to Thomson and LexisNexis.

Monday's release covers all Supreme Court decisions and all federal appeals court decisions from 1950 through the present. The release is equivalent to 1,858 volumes of case law in book form, a stack of books 348 feet tall, according to a press release on Malamud's public.resource.org Web site.

Former Justice Department special trial counsel David Boies, who supported the project, said "practical access for all Americans to legal cases and material is essential to the rule of law." The initiative is "an important step in reducing the barriers to effective representation of average citizens and public interest advocates," he said.

The cases made available to Web developers will be used in a variety of ways, Malamud said. Free legal search engine AltLaw will incorporate the data and Creative Commons and public.resource.org are donating a copy of the data to the Government Printing Office for their archives.

The initial release of the data will undergo a 30-day request for comment period, during which the XML format, the CSS markup and other aspects of the formatting and packaging will be discussed and tested, he said.

Posted by Andrew at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MoveOn Making Money For Obama

Liberal grassroots group MoveOn.org has raised more than $500,000 in online donations for White House hopeful Barack Obama, less than two weeks after endorsing the Democratic candidate. Over the weekend, the group also passed 500,000 personal endorsement e-mails and Facebook messages from MoveOn members to friends and family, asking their personal networks to support Obama.

Officials said MoveOn also e-mailed "get out the vote" messages to nearly 2 million members in states that have voted so far -- making sure they knew where to vote, how to caucus, and why other MoveOn members were supporting Obama. Hundreds of thousands of MoveOn members voted online to endorse the Illinois senator before Super Tuesday.

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House Foreign Affairs Chairman Lantos Dies

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos has died, his office announced Monday. Lantos, 80, had earlier announced his decision not to seek re-election this year after revealing he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

The California Democrat and Holocaust survivor was a passionate crusader for international human rights and held a high-profile hearing in November to condemn Yahoo executives for the firm's connection to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist. Read that story here.

Technology Daily reported last month that Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, has expressed interest in assuming the foreign relations post in the 111th Congress. That article can be found here.

Posted by Andrew at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Grammy Night Goof

The 50th annual Grammy Awards aired on CBS on Sunday night, live from Los Angeles. But it looks like someone over at the Recording Academy's Web department was asleep at the switch. About 30 minutes into the show, I visited Grammy.com and was surprised to see the site looking a little empty. The team must've been updating the site to reflect the evening's winners, but next time maybe they should do their tinkering with a page that isn't live.

Posted by Andrew at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Striking Writers Get Closer To Web-Streaming Deal

The Associated Press reports that the Writers Guild of America "moved swiftly Sunday toward a resolution of its three-month-old strike, with guild leaders deciding to recommend the contract to members and ask them to vote on a quick end to the walkout." Membership meetings will be held Tuesday in New York and Los Angeles.

Under the proposed contract, film and TV writers, who previously got nothing for content streamed online, will get a fixed residual payment of $1,200 a year for one-hour shows in the first two years of the new contract. In the third year they would get residuals equal to 2 percent of the revenue received by the program's distributor, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"This is the best deal this guild has bargained for in 30 years," said Patric Verrone, president of the guild's West Coast branch. See the summary of the tentative contract here.

Posted by Andrew at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ICANN Digs, Finds More Space On The Net

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has found a little breathing room in the existing address space known as IPv4 with its recovery of a block of 16 million addresses. The IP addresses recovered were once used to connect older protocol packet-data networks with the fledgling Internet, according to a press release.

A small percentage of the addresses had been assigned, most more than 15 years ago. The assignments were so old that finding people who knew about them was a lengthy process. Nearly 50 organizations worked cooperatively with ICANN staff last year to confirm that the 984 registrations were no longer in use.

While the reclamation of the IPv4 space is a temporary fix, Barbara Roseman of ICANN's Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, said "the real and lasting solution is the technical move to IPv6 -- the protocol that will make 340 trillion trillion trillion unique IP addresses available."

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'Microhoo' May Not Happen

Congressional antitrust crusaders might be able to cool their jets for a while. The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Yahoo's board of directors plans to reject Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6 billion acquisition offer. The decision apparently came after a series of meetings during which Yahoo's board decided the offer "massively undervalues" the Web firm.

The Journal cited an unnamed person familiar with the deal. Similar reports appeared later in the New York Times and the Washington Post. A letter from the Yahoo board formally rejecting the deal is expected to be issued Monday, the Post reported in its Sunday edition.

Posted by Andrew at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lawmakers Urged To Fight Telecom Immunity

As CongressDaily reported on Friday, three leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter to fellow members today asking them to reject retroactive immunity for telecommunications firms that reportedly aided the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. They said they should not be forced to legislate "in a factual vacuum" and said "serious and substantial questions" still must be answered.

Electronic Freedom Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston told Tech Daily Dose that senators who are about to vote on the topic in conjunction with a foreign intelligence reform bill, should heed the warning that "tying the question of telecom immunity to that of FISA reform is unnecessary and dangerous."

"Instead of helping the administration cover up its illegal spying and bail out the phone companies, the Senate should stand firm with the House and refuse to be railroaded by this overreaching president." Read the lawmakers' full letter after the jump.

February 8, 2008