December 2011

Top websites like Google and Facebook are considering a coordinated blackout to protest proposed anti-piracy bills, according to Fox News.
a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/28/hands-off-the-internet/#.Tv3YLttuljQ.twitter">The Washington Times, meanwhile, editorializes against Congress's anti-piracy legislation.

More of Today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

Digitimes digs up rumors that Apple will release two new versions of the iPad at an event in late January.

Critics of anti-piracy legislation are boycotting GoDaddy over its initial support of the measures, according to Huffington Post.

Nevada companies are lining up to take advantage of looser online gambling regulations, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

New Scientist describes one of the first wireless hackers -- in 1903.

More of Today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

Fresh off its failed attempt to sell T-Mobile to AT&T, Deutsche Telekom and a Hungarian subsidiary have agreed to pay the U.S. Justice Department millions to resolve corruption charges.

The German telecom company has been having a rough time with U.S. regulators. Earlier this month Deutsche Telekom gave up on its blockbuster deal to sell T-Mobile to AT&T after Justice Department lawyers went to court to block it.

Magyar Telekom and its parent company, Deutsche Telekom, will pay a nearly $64 million criminal penalty, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

Most of the payment will be shouldered by Magyar, which was accused of using bribes and other inappropriate measures to prevent Macedonian officials from liberalizing their country's telecommunications system. The company was also accused of underhanded deals in Montenegro.

Deutsche Telekom was fingered for failing to accurately record and report Magyar's activities, according to a Justice statement. The Justice agreement notes that the companies decided to disclose the violations, and to take steps to fix the problem.

In a statement on Thursday, Magyar said it "remains fully committed to responsible corporate behavior."

Magyar also paid more than $31 million to settle related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges.

Deutsche Telekom owns about 60 percent of Magyar, the largest telecom company in Hungary.

The New York Times accidentally spams 8 million people with false subscription notices.

A Washington Post commentator makes his 2012 technology predictions.

A recent copyright court ruling has modern artists rethinking the fair use principle, according to the New York Times.

More of today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., made a last push on Wednesday to get the international organization that helps oversee the Internet to reevaluate its plans to expand the number of top-level Web domain names.

Rockefeller asked Commerce Secretary John Bryson and Larry Strickling, administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to pressure the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to scale back its plans.

ICANN plans to roll out unlimited new generic top-level domain (gTLD) names that could include names of companies, such as .facebook, or even dot-baby and other general categories.

"Given that experts, the nation's chief consumer protection agency, and a substantial percentage of both the business and non-profit community agree that gTLD expansion should be implemented in a limited manner, I believe it is prudent for you to ask ICANN to reevaluate its current plan," Rockefeller wrote.

Major U.S. and international corporations and many nonprofits worry that the introduction of hundreds or even thousands of new domain names could cost them millions by forcing them to defensively register their brands. They also say it could increase Internet fraud and end up confusing consumers.

Rockefeller's letter echoes concerns he expressed during a Commerce Committee hearing on Dec. 8. At that hearing, and another hearing in the House a week later, ICANN officials gave no indication that they plan to revise the program.

"This process has not been rushed," Kurt Pritz, ICANN senior vice president, told the House House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee. "It's been seven years in the making. It's well thought out."

In a speech earlier this month, Strickling said he agreed with the concerns raised by lawmakers and said he plans to work with stakeholders to mitigate unintended consequences.

An NTIA spokeswoman confirmed that last week Commerce officials met with business leaders to discuss their concerns.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is leading an effort to block Taliban Twitter accounts, the Telegraph reports.

Slate notes that Apple appears to have patented multi-tasking smartphones.

A Utah woman and her son use Facebook to escape a hostage situation.

See the rest of today's e-Reads on our Tech page.

Don't you wish your boss would do this? VW gives staff a Blackberry break .

Santa's being nice to Amazon, Reuters reports.

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AT&T says it hopes to quickly finalize a $1.9 billion spectrum deal with Qualcomm after the Federal Communications Commission approved it on Thursday.

"This spectrum will help AT&T continue to deliver a world-class mobile broadband experience to our customers," AT&T Senior Vice President Bob Quinn said in a statement. "We appreciate the FCC Chairman, the Commissioners and their staff for completing its review before the holidays."

For just over $1.9 billion AT&T will buy 700 MHz spectrum licenses covering more than 300 million people. AT&T said the two companies will close the deal "in the coming days."

AT&T, which called spectrum the "lifeblood" of the wireless industry, had been seeking more spectrum resources through the Qualcomm deal as well as a mega-merger with rival T-Mobile USA.

The merger with T-Mobile fell through on Monday after regulators at the FCC and Justice Department moved to block it.

The Qualcomm buy was panned by groups that also opposed the T-Mobile merger. Free Press argued that by giving AT&T access to more of the high-quality 700 mHz spectrum, the FCC is potentially harming competition.

The Federal Communications Commission has a little holiday present for everyone -- it announced on Thursday that it has voted to move forward with media ownership rules that would ease restrictions on owning newspapers, TV, or radio stations in the same markets.

Similar rules, enacted in 2007, were struck down by a federal appeals court in July because the FCC did not allow enough time for public comment.

Among the proposed changes is a so-called "cross ownership" rule, which would lift some restrictions on owning a TV station and a newspaper in any of the nation's top 20 markets. Another proposal would do away with rules governing how many radio and TV stations can be owned in one market.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking approved by the commission is not a final order. Rather, it begins a 75-day period of public comments and responses. A final order would be drafted and voted upon after that.

All four members of the commission approved portions of the proposals, but Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps dissented on some parts that he said are based on too many assumptions about the power of new media.

"Simply put, what we currently have is an illusion of plenty," he said in a statement. "The barriers to self-publish have never been lower, but the majority of eyeballs and clicks are still focused on too few small players."

Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell, meanwhile, concurred with the proposals but said he was disappointed that the commissioner didn't loosen restrictions further; a sentiment echoed by broadcasters.

"Given the explosion of media outlets, we believe nearly 40-year-old ownership rules that restrict free and local broadcasting ought to be reformed to reflect today's hyper-competitive marketplace," National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said in a statement.

Free Press President Craig Aaron attacked the FCC for proposing rules that are "strikingly similar" to earlier controversial regulations.

"The FCC must be having a Yogi Berra-moment, because it's déjà vu all over again on the failed policies of the previous administration," Aaron said in a statement.. "Those policies were resoundingly rejected by the public, Congress, and the courts. The FCC should be working to remedy the mistakes of past administrations - not repeating them."

Thursday's vote was taken by circulation, rather than in a public meeting. Copps, who has been a vocal voice on media ownership issues, is leaving at the end of the year and would miss the next public meeting.

The proposed rules are a result of the 2010 quadrennial review of media ownership, which only recently concluded.

Not all of Hollywood is for the Stop Online Piracy Act. Actor Ashton Kutcher blogged about how the controversial anti-online piracy bill is "the problem and not the solution."

Despite concern from regulators and consumer groups, an AT&T-Verizon duopoly may be inevitable, Fortune argues.

The Air Force has decided to give up on a 16-year, $5 billion airborne laser project, Aviation Week reported.

The FCC has approved the first doohickey to use white space between TV channels, according to All Things D."> has approved the first doohickey that can use the white space between TV channels. AllThingsD reports.

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Two more wireless companies are defending their use of diagnostic software provided by Carrier IQ, saying they do not use it to collect personal information about mobile users.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., released responses on Wednesday from Motorola and T-Mobile to his letter expressing concerns about whether Carrier IQ software is used to collect personal information about smart phone users. Motorola noted that it installs the controversial software on certain smart phones at the request of wireless carriers and doesn't receive any data from Carrier IQ.

T-Mobile said it does not collect any personal information about its subscribers through Carrier IQ's software and only uses the software to help improve the performance of its service. This echoed responses Franken got last week from other wireless companies including AT&T and Sprint as well as Carrier IQ itself.

"The diagnostic software from Carrier IQ assists T-Mobile in improving our customers' wireless experience by capturing and analyzing a narrow set of data related to some of the most common issues our customers' experience: device/battery performance, application failures and signal strength," T-Mobile Senior Vice President Thomas Sugrue wrote in a letter to Franken. "Through Carrier IQ, T-Mobile collects this type of technical data solely to understand what is happening on the device and the network so that we can more effectively and directly troubleshoot" service issues.

Franken has voiced concern about reports that a bug in the Carrier IQ software resulted in some text messages being captured. "I appreciate the responses I received, but I'm still very troubled by what's going on," Franken said last week after receiving responses from other wireless firms. "People have a fundamental right to control their private information. After reading the companies' responses, I'm still concerned that this right is not being respected."

A Franken spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on whether her boss plans to seek more information through a hearing or offer legislation. Franken introduced legislation earlier this year that would require companies to obtain explicit permission from users before tracking their location information or sharing it with third parties.

Carrier IQ has denied reports that federal authorities are investigating the company over concerns raised about its software.

Verizon Wireless said its 4G LTE service was returning to normal after network outages were reported across the country early Wednesday morning.

On Twitter, customers complained that both Verizon's 4G and 3G data services were down, but in a statement the wireless company said 3G service was unaffected.

"Throughout this time, 4G LTE customers were able to make voice calls and send and receive text messages," the company statement said. "The 3G data network operated normally."

In San Francisco, writers for Endgadget confirmed that data connections were down. And TechCrunch reported that complaints also came from New York, Illinois, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, as well as other areas.

Verizon's next-generation 4G LTE network suffered a major outage just weeks ago on Dec. 7, as well as in April.

The US Justice Department is investigating Verizon's deal to buy $3.6 billion worth of airwaves from cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House Networks, the Washington Post reports.

But the Post says analysts have downplayed the significance of the investigation, saying the reviews by Justice and the FCC are both expected and perfunctory.

Yesterday, Verizon asked the FCC for permission to do the deal.

Amazon looked into buying BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, according to Reuters.

American officials are concerned about Somali militants' Twitter use, the New York Times reports.

For more of Today's e-Reads, visit our Tech page.

Sharp action by the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission to block AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile is likely to put a damper on future mergers, analysts say.

AT&T abandoned its bid for the smaller T-Mobile on Monday.

Despite considerable resources, AT&T often seemed caught off guard by the government response.

That, analysts say, could have implications for other mergers.

"I don't think we'll see another such merger under Obama," said Richard Brunell, director of legal advocacy for the American Antitrust Institute and a former trial lawyer for the Justice Department. While regulatory and law enforcement processes are relatively insulated from politics, "in close-call mergers, administrations can make a difference," he said.

For more on how AT&T's plans failed in the face of government opposition, visit our Tech page.

The embattled wireless startup LightSquared formally asked the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to rule that global positioning system manufacturers should be responsible for making sure their devices don't experience interference.

Repeated tests have shown that LightSquared's planned nationwide wholesale wireless network would interfere with GPS devices. The FCC has blocked the company from moving forward with its plans until the interference issues are resolved.

But LightSquared argues that GPS devices are not entitled to use LightSquared's spectrum because they don't own the licenses. On Tuesday it filed a petition asking the FCC for a declaratory ruling to confirm the company's spectrum rights.

"Commercial GPS receivers are not licensed, do not operate under any service rules, and thus are not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever,'' the petition said.

The Coalition to Save our GPS, a group of GPS manufacturers and users that oppose planned network, says LightSquared should be responsible for preventing potentially dangerous interference.

"...it is clear that LightSquared simply refuses to accept the overwhelming technical evidence on the interference issue and continues to try to 'define away' devastating test results," the coalition said in a statement when additional test results were released on Thursday.

With the House Judiciary debate over online piracy legislation now expected to extend into the new year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative provided copyright and trademark holders with fresh evidence Tuesday to demonstrate the scope of online infringement they face from pirates and counterfeiters based offshore.

USTR released a new report outlining the most notorious infringers based outside the United States.
"Globally copyright piracy on a commercial scale and trademark counterfeiting continue to thrive, in part because of the presence of marketplaces that deal in goods and services that infringe intellectual property rights," according to the USTR report.

The report includes a list of sites offering pirated music, links to pirated content, sites that provide illegal streaming of live events such as professional sports, cyber lockers where pirated content can be stored and accessed, and social networking sites such as Russia's vKontakte, where users can provide access to infringing materials.

"The notorious overseas markets highlighted in today's report are a direct threat to the millions of hard-working Americans and the tens of thousands of businesses that rely on [intellectual property] for their livelihoods," Michael O'Leary, senior executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement. "The list also demonstrates the need for Congress to take action against rogue websites that are causing so much damage to American workers and businesses."

Two senior lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee are urging the Commerce Department to try to delay the rollout of a program that could dramatically expand the number of Internet addresses.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the California nonprofit picked by the Commerce Department in 1998 to manage the Internet's domain name system, is set to begin accepting applications for the new domain name program Jan. 12 despite a growing chorus of protests against the proposal.

The latest criticism comes from Judiciary Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., a senior Judiciary member and the ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee. They joined other lawmakers in recent weeks who have raised concerns about the domain name plan and have called for a delay in its launch. Trademark holders, including many of the nation's biggest corporations, say the new program could cost them millions of dollars to register their brands in the new names -- or launch new domain names themselves.

"We urge the department to take steps necessary to delay the roll out of these new [domain names] until a more thorough analysis and evaluation of the potential costs and benefits of all these factors is concluded and until the department can assure Congress and the American public with absolute confidence that the benefits of the proposed rollout exceed the costs and risks to consumers, businesses and the Internet," Goodlatte and Berman wrote in a letter on Friday. They called on the department to answer several questions about the program's development and rollout by Jan. 5.

Their letter was sent the same day that the Federal Trade Commission formally outlined the agency's concerns with the new program. "We write now to highlight again the potential for significant consumer harm resulting from the unprecedented increase in new" domain names, all four FTC commissioners said in a letter Friday to ICANN.

The commissioners said a dramatic expansion of domain names will make the already challenging task of tracking down Internet scam artists even harder. They urged ICANN to limit the number of new domain names that can be introduced in the first round, increase numbers of staff charged with ensuring compliance with ICANN policies, and improve the accuracy of data about people who register addresses in the new domain names, which the commissioners noted has been problematic for many years.

So far, ICANN has given little indication that it is willing to delay the program's launch. During two congressional hearings in recent weeks and a statement in response to the FTC letter, ICANN continues to defend the program.

"The new program offers significant protections beyond those that exist in current [top-level domain names], including new mandatory intellectual property rights protection mechanisms and heightened measures to mitigate against malicious conduct," ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said in a statement released Saturday.

After expressing concerns earlier this year, the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which has some oversight over ICANN, has said it is satisfied with the protections ICANN has in place and pledged to closely monitor the program's rollout.

The agency, however, is in a difficult position. Some countries want the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union to take over ICANN's duties, a move the United States opposes. Given this, the United States has as a strong interest in ensuring ICANN succeeds, and thus does not want to be seen as imposing U.S. will on the nonprofit, which is supposed to operate based on input from Internet stakeholders around the world.

When AT&T asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve its bid to buy T-Mobile's spectrum licenses earlier this year, it was months before FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski revealed an opinion about the merger.

And on Monday, when AT&T announced that it was officially giving up on the proposed merger, the famously circumspect Genachowski may have seemed once again to avoid taking any position on the news -- at least for a few minutes.

In a statement released Monday night, the Genachowski simply stated that the FCC is committed to a competitive wireless marketplace and said he agreed with AT&T that Congress needs to act to free up more spectrum resources.

The Twittersphere took note of the seeming non-statement but the FCC 10 minutes later, quickly corrected the oversight -- with an email adding one key sentence to his commitment to competition:

"The FCC is committed to ensuring a competitive mobile marketplace that drives innovation and investment, creates jobs and benefits consumers. This deal would have done the opposite," it read.

T-Mobile still has some options, the Wall Street Journal reports, including teaming up with Leap Wireless, turning to Sprint, or maybe even its own IPO.

Sprint Nextel Corp., the third- largest U.S. wireless operator, sued Time Warner Cable Inc., Comcast Corp. and two other cable-TV companies on Monday, saying they infringed patents related to transmitting phone calls over digital lines, Bloomberg reported.

The International Trade Commission ruled on Monday in favor of Apple, saying that set of important features commonly found in smartphones are protected by an Apple patent, a decision that could force changes in how Google's Android phones function.

Twitter's new leadership team is purging the old guard, CNN reports.

See some more of today's e-Reads here.

The top leaders of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee called on the Federal Trade Commission Monday to investigate whether Google's moves to expand its services beyond search violate antitrust law.

In a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, raised many of the issues that were highlighted during a hearing before their panel in September that featured Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt as well as critics of the online giant.

Kohl and Lee noted that Google's move into secondary services beyond just search results such as maps, travel services and finance raises questions about its role as an unbiased provider of Internet search results. Google rivals argue that the company's search results are biased in favor of Google's own products and services.

"We believe these allegations regarding Google's search engine practices raise important competition issues," the senators wrote. "We therefore urge the FTC to investigate the issues raised at our subcommittee hearing to determine whether Google's actions violate antitrust law or substantially harm consumers or competition in this vital industry."

Despite their call for an investigation, the senators said they are not taking a position on whether Google's practices are legal or not.

The FTC has acknowledged it is currently conducting an antitrust investigation of Google but has not commented on the areas it is examining.

In a statement, Google said, "These letters are customary, and we appreciate that the committee reserved judgment as we continue to cooperate with the FTC. We are committed to competing fairly on the Internet's level playing field."

The company's critics, meanwhile, applauded the senators' letter. "This bipartisan letter validates the many concerns held by the members of FairSearch.org and thousands of other companies about the impact Google's anti-competitive behavior has on innovation and consumer choice," FairSearch.org, a coalition made up of Microsoft, Expedia, Kayak and other Google rivals, said in a statement.

Verizon Wireless submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission on Monday to get permission to buy $3.6 billion in spectrum from billion from SpectrumCo, LLC, jointly owned by cable companies Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, and Comcast. Verizon said the purchases would benefit customers by making networks more robust.

Verizon said earlier this month that it was buying 122 Advanced Wireless Services licenses covering 259 million POPs from the cable providers. It also said the government does not need to review its marketing agreement with the cable companies - something that worries advocacy groups.

"No matter how forcefully Verizon claims that this is 'a spectrum-only transaction,' it is much more than that," Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project said in a statement. "The FCC's mandate is to look at the totality of the circumstances to decide if a proposed transfer is in the public interest."

Verizon announced a smaller deal on Friday, saying it would buy 20 MHz of spectrum from cable provider Cox Communications for $315 million. The stretch of AWS spectrum includes 28 million POPs.

Cox and Verizon also agreed to market one another's residential and commercial products and services.

"Over time, Cox may have the option to sell Verizon Wireless' services on a wholesale basis. In addition, Cox expects to enter into arrangements with the innovation technology joint venture formed by Verizon Wireless, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to better integrate wireline and wireless products and services," Verizon said in a statement on Friday.

The advocacy groups are already cheering -- AT&T has given up in the face of opposition from both the FCC and the Justice Department.

"Good riddance. The Obama administration deserves praise and credit for standing up to AT&T's relentless lobbying and propaganda," Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron says in a statement.

The company says it'll try to find the spectrum it needs elsewhere and doesn't go out cheerfully.

"The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately," the company complains bitterly in its release.

"The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled."

Read the full story here as it develops.

After two days of acrimonious debate, the House Judiciary Committee postponed further action on Friday on a bipartisan bill that would authorize new tools for tackling the growing problem of online piracy and counterfeit goods on foreign websites.

Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said the panel will resume consideration of the bill when the House is back in session. House lawmakers could meet again next week depending on maneuvering over a payroll tax package.

"I am pleased that the unfounded claims of critics of the Stop Online Piracy Act have overwhelmingly been rejected by a majority of House Judiciary Committee members," Smith said in a statement. "Members consistently voted by a 2-1 margin to defeat amendments that would have made it more difficult to stop the problem of counterfeit products and online theft of America's intellectual property."

The legislation would give the attorney general authority to seek a court order that could require payment processors and online advertisers to stop doing business with sites "primarily dedicated to illegal or infringing activity." The bill also would allow a court to bar search engines from returning results for such sites and order service providers to block U.S. users from accessing the sites. The measure has strong backing from a broad coalition of copyright and trademark holders.

A bipartisan group of committee members, including Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Jared Polis, D-Colo., have led a spirited effort to amend the bill to address what they say are key flaws that will harm innovation, free speech and the integrity and security of the Internet.

Opponents, however, made little headway in their efforts to make key changes to the bill. The committee dealt with more than two dozen amendments during two days of debate. And supporters appear to have more than enough support to move the bill out of committee based on the roll call votes on critics' amendments.

"It is clear from the last two days that the House Judiciary Committee is genuinely struggling with the serious, complicated and highly technical issues raised by the Stop Online Piracy Act," said Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, which represents Amazon, eBay, Google and other tech companies opposed to the Judiciary bill. "NetCoalition is encouraged that Chairman Smith is considering the requests of many on the committee that additional hearings be conducted, particularly on the issue of Internet security, in order that the committee be fully briefed on the potentially serious and negative consequences that the proposed legislation would create."

Smith said Friday that he would consider a request by some members to hold another hearing on the bill to more closely examine how the measure may affect efforts to bolster the security of the Internet's domain name system, according to his spokeswoman.

The ACLU warns: Watch out for drones.

The New York Times asks: Is technology distracting your doctor?

Facebook's redesign may bring an unwelcome blast from the past.

Those e-books might not be cheap.

See more of today's e-Reads on our Tech page.

Mobile diagnostic company Carrier IQ says it initiated meetings with Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission officials, and denies there it knows of any official investigation.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Carrier's software was under investigation by the FTC and FCC because it could be used ot track people.

"This week Carrier IQ sought meetings with the FTC and FCC to educate the two agencies about the functionality of its software and answer any and all questions. Andrew Coward, VP of Marketing at Carrier, said in a statement.

"Although Congressman Edward Markey , D-Mass. co-chairman of the Bi-Partisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the practices of Carrier IQ, we are not aware of an official investigation into Carrier IQ at this time."

Coward says Carrier's software has been misrepresented in some media reports.

"Carrier IQ software provides mobile network operators and device manufacturers data that can help identify ways to prevent dropped calls, prolong battery life and improve customer service. The Carrier IQ software is not needed to record phone numbers dialed ad received per se, as the operators must know what numbers users dial as that is the only way they can bill users for their minutes."

House and Senate talks meant to resolve sticking points over spectrum legislation appear to have stalled for now.

Staffers from the House and Senate Commerce committees had been in talks to try to resolve some of the differences between legislation approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in June and GOP draft legislation approved by the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee earlier this month.

The draft Energy and Commerce measure was added to the payroll tax package passed by the House Tuesday. Senate Democratic leaders have said the payroll tax package is unlikely to pass the Senate for reasons unrelated to the spectrum bill and President Obama has vowed to veto it if it passes Congress in its current form.

"I'm disappointed that the House has unilaterally stopped negotiating with us on spectrum, but I'm not giving up," Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a statement late Wednesday. "It's my hope that we can include a compromise in the final year-end package. Although I don't care to negotiate this publicly, we remain open to any good idea. "

Both the House and Senate bills aim to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband and help build a national broadband network for public safety.

Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told reporters earlier Wednesday that discussions with the Senate weren't making enough progress to continue.

"We had a bipartisan vote on the House floor. It's up to the Senate to try to do something here," Walden said. "Why would we negotiate against ourselves?"

Walden said the main problem in talks with his Senate counterparts was the governance structure for the public safety network. He said he and other Republicans on the committee have already given in on a key issue by lifting their opposition to giving a swath of spectrum known as the D-block to public safety for their network.

"We haven't seen much give, and I didn't feel there was any reason to continue those discussions," Walden said. "And you know if it's all going to break down over their governance model or the highway, then maybe public safety has to come out" of the spectrum measure.

But Rockefeller said public safety is his top priority in the spectrum legislation and he would not compromise on the need to build a national network to improve emergency communications. "Frankly, the rest of the spectrum debate is secondary to the needs of our firefighters, cops, and emergency workers," he said.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., the ranking member on Walden's subcommittee, told Tech Daily Dose Wednesday afternoon that she would support passing Rockefeller's bill in the House. Eshoo and other Energy and Commerce Democrats opposed Walden's bill during the subcommittee markup because of concerns with the public safety governance language and other provisions.

Sixteen of the lobbyists working the Hill on the piracy issue used to work for the house Judiciary Committee, the Sunlight Foundation reports.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace dud Bart Rutan have a new company -- Stratolaunch Systems -- which will build giant airplanes to launch spacecraft.

See more of today's e-Reads here.

After months of debate and hearings, the House passed spectrum legislation Tuesday as part of a larger package that includes a payroll tax holiday.

The package, passed on a 234-193 vote, faces an uncertain future. Senate Democratic leaders have said the package will likely fail in that chamber and President Obama has vowed to veto the payroll tax package if it remains in its current form.

To help offset the cost of the measure, the payroll tax package includes spectrum legislation that could raise $16 billion for the Treasury from spectrum auctions. The spectrum language is largely similar, with a few changes, to the draft bill approved by the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee earlier this month.

That bill would free up more spectrum for wireless broadband by authorizing "incentive auctions" that would cut in broadcasters for a share of the revenue if they give up some of their spectrum. It would provide spectrum and funding to build a broadband network for public safety officials.

All but one of the panel's Democrats opposed the bill in subcommittee and Energy and Commerce Democrats reiterated their concerns Tuesday with the legislation during the floor debate on the payroll tax package.

Communications and Technology Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said she opposed the bill's treatment of unlicensed spectrum. And while Energy and Commerce Republicans gave in to demands from Democrats and public safety groups to reallocate a chunk of spectrum known as the D-block to public safety, Eshoo and a coalition of public safety groups worried about other provisions in the bill related to the build out of the public safety network.

"I'm very concerned about how this bill treats the spectrum public safety needs to create and manage a nationwide, interoperable broadband network," Eshoo said during floor debate on the payroll tax measure. "What the Republican bill does, is on the one hand it gives, and on the other hand it takes away. This is not a solution, and I don't believe it's fair to public safety, and our country. "

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski also complained about the bill.

"Over the last weeks and months, we have conveyed to members of Congress and their staff concerns about provisions that would reduce FCC flexibility to maximize the overall value of freed-up spectrum, enhance spectrum efficiency, and promote robust innovation and investment," Genachowski said in a statement. "Several provisions of the House bill would tie the agency's hands in ways that could be counterproductive, reducing economic value and hindering innovation and investment."

But Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he has spent months working with Democrats and the bill's stakeholders on the legislation. "At some point, the American people say stop talking and get it done," Walden said in his floor remarks. "That's what this legislation does with this bigger bill."

Despite this, staffers from both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee, which passed its own version of spectrum legislation in June, have been meeting over the last week to try to hammer out their differences. And even if the House payroll tax package fails, supporters will continue looking for other avenues to move the spectrum legislation or continue trying to advance it through the regular legislative process.

Rhod Shaw, executive director of the High Tech Spectrum Coalition, praised the House vote as "a vital step forward". "Without passage of voluntary incentive auction legislation this year the FCC will not have the tools necessary to meet the rising demand for spectrum," Shaw said.

Sources are anonymously telling the press that Verizon may want to buy Netflix.

Dish is checking out T-Mobile in the event the AT&T deal fails, Bloomberg reports.

Authorities in India are investigating a server in Mumbai for links to a potential cyber threat, according to Reuters.

AT&T has cupcakes for the FCC.

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Helped with an offstage version of Apple's iPhone voice assistant Siri, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski made fun of his handling of the AT&T-T-Mobile merger, the final end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Universal Services Fund on Thursday night.

Genachowski knew he was expected to draw laughs at the "telecom prom", the annual Federal Communications Bar Association dinner, but he got in some serious moments with a farewell to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who finishes his tenure at the agency this month, and a tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs who died this year.

"You know I can't talk to anyone" about the AT&T merger, Genachowski told "Siri" in one bit. "That's not what [AT&T CEO] Randall Stephenson's phone records say," "Siri" answered.

Siri stole most of the edgy lines, claiming that the chairman takes her for granted. "Christine Varney is not the only one who does your dirty work," she said, referring to the Justice Department's top antitrust official who stepped down earlier this year. Varney and Genachowski coordinated on the Comcast merger with NBC Universal, approving it conditionally, and on the AT&T merger with T-Mobile. Varney left before DOJ sued to block the AT&T merger.

Genachowski lamented conservative claims that he's over-regulatory, noting he deleted language on the Fairness Doctrine from the rule books. The Fairness Doctrine created a balance requirement for broadcast news and though it has not been enforced for years, it remained in writing.

"Immediately, talk radio hosts accused me of deleting the Fairness Doctrine in order to secretly bring back the Fairness Doctrine," Genachowski said. "It's a strange job."

He tweaked his own claim that reforming the Universal Service Fund and payments between phone companies will create 500,000 jobs, saying those are all lawyers.

The biggest laugh came when Siri mentioned a disorganized mass of people who can't articulate anything, and Genachowsk took it as a criticism of Occupy Wallstreet.

"No, Free Press," the assistant said.

Two key lawmakers are expected to release draft legislation on Thursday that offers an alternative to two controversial bills cracking down on piracy and counterfeiting on foreign websites.

The draft legislation from House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and a similar Senate draft measure from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are aimed at countering a House bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced last month by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas., and a similar bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in May known as the Protect IP Act.

House Judiciary is expected to mark up SOPA next week. Both SOPA and the Protect IP Act would cut off access to foreign websites deemed to be dedicated to piracy or counterfeiting. Those bills would allow the attorney general to ask a court to require a service provider to redirect U.S. users away from such sites and require advertisers and payment processors such as PayPal and credit card companies to stop doing business with them.

Both SOPA and Protect IP are strongly supported by a broad coalition of copyright and trademark owners, unions and others that say the rapid growth in infringement on foreign websites is hurting the U.S. economy.

But Issa, Wyden and other critics, including tech companies, venture capitalists and privacy advocates, argue that SOPA and Protect IP are too broad and could do more harm than good.

"Efforts to address online piracy aimed at specific behaviors or parts of the network could have unintended consequences elsewhere - consequences that may undermine the value that digital products and services creates for so many," seven tech groups, including the Information Technology Industry Council and TechAmerica, said in a letter to Smith on Wednesday. They urged the committee to hold off on marking up SOPA and continue to work with stakeholders on finding other ways to crack down infringement on foreign websites.

Issa's draft bill, known as the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, employs a follow-the-money strategy and gives responsibility for implementing the bill to the International Trade Commission instead of the Justice Department.

Issa's draft, obtained by Tech Daily Dose, would allow copyright or trademark owners to file a complaint with the ITC against a foreign website that is infringing their intellectual property.

The draft calls for an expedited process for dealing with such complaints, quicker than the normal process the ITC uses for infringement cases. Under the draft bill, a commission finding could lead to a cease-and-desist order to the infringing website and an order to online advertisers and payment processors to stop doing business with those sites. The draft would authorize the ITC to require those who file complaints against foreign websites to pay a fee to pay for the costs of the process.

Issa is expected to launch a new website, www.keepthewebopen.com, Thursday that will allow users to offer changes to the bill, which will likely be introduced some time before the end of the year. Among those expected to sign on to Issa's bill include Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who also has been an outspoken critic of SOPA and Protect IP.

A top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee voiced frustration Wednesday with reports that House GOP leaders are considering including spectrum legislation in a broader bill that might include an extension of a payroll tax holiday and other measures.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, told Tech Daily Dose that it's important for the committee to continue its work on the issue even if it ends up getting attached to another bill.

The subcommittee approved spectrum legislation crafted by the panel's chairman, Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., on a largely party-line vote last week. Eshoo and other Democrats opposed the bill because of concerns about provisions related to unlicensed spectrum and the governance structure for a national broadband network for public safety.

"It is my understanding that the Republican leadership is considering placing this in an omnibus," Eshoo said. "But this is without the benefit of a full committee markup. These are complex issues. Congress does not do spectrum legislation but for maybe once a decade, if that," she added."I'd like to see the fullness of the effort optimized."

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, confirmed that GOP leaders are considering including spectrum in the payroll tax measure, which the House may take up next week. Spectrum legislation has been floated several times this year as a possible offset to pay for various measures Congress has considered.

Walden said last week that his spectrum measure, which is focused on freeing up more spectrum for mobile broadband and helping to build a public safety broadband network, could raise as much as $15 billion for the U.S. Treasury through spectrum auctions.

Walden said last week that he expected the full committee would take up his measure this week but that appears to be on hold until a decision is made on whether his bill will be attached to the payroll tax measure. Eshoo said her staff and Walden's aides are continuing to talk about ways to resolve their differences on his spectrum bill.

Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. said Tuesday that his staff may begin discussions with the House on ways to resolve differences between his spectrum bill, approved in June, and Walden's proposal.

"Were moving to get together with the House folks," Rockefeller said, though he didn't say when such talks would take place.

The NY Times has a rundown of holiday tech gift ideas, including a mount to help cooks use an iPad without splashing it.

Dot-xxx, the higher-level Internet domain extension for naughty stuff, makes its debut today, USA Today reports.

The exceptionally well timed biography of Steve Jobs was the best selling book on Amazon this year, according to the L.A. Times.

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The House passed legislation Tuesday that supporters say would update a 1988 law designed to protect the privacy of consumers' video viewing records to reflect the changing ways people watch movies and television shows.

The legislation, passed on a 303-116 vote, would amend the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, enacted after a newspaper published the video rental records of failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. The proposed changes offered in legislation from Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the Judiciary Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee, would allow companies such as Netflix to obtain one-time consent to share consumers' video rental information with others.

"This bill ensures the law related to the handling of videotape rental information is updated to reflect the realities of the 21st century," Goodlatte said.

Netflix in particular has been pushing Congress to make changes that would allow its users to connect their Netflix accounts to Facebook so they can share with their Facebook friends what they are watching on the video service. When it announced it was launching the Facebook service in September, Netflix said it was only rolling it out in Canada and Latin America because the video privacy law barred it from introducing the service in the United States.

But critics argue that the bill has not been properly vetted and that it would weaken the video privacy law by allowing companies to seek blanket approval from individuals to share their video rental history.

"There's case after case after case of consumers' information being used, abused, and misused and here we are making it easier for that to occur," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., the ranking member on the Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee. "I understand there are people who have an interest in this. They are people who profit from mining this kind of information."

Goodlatte, however, noted that supporters have tried to address concerns with the measure by adopting an amendment in committee that would require explicit written consent from consumers. "In no way does this bill undercut the principal purpose of the Video Privacy Protection Act because the power rests with the consumer," he said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on Tuesday urged critics of his bill targeting foreign websites that offer pirated content or counterfeit products to propose legislative language on alternative ways to address the problem.

"I'd love to see some legislation and not just some talking points," Leahy said when asked about a draft proposal released last week by a bipartisan group of lawmakers who oppose his bill.

The Protect IP Act, which Leahy authored, was approved by the Judiciary Committee in May but has been blocked from moving to the Senate floor by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Wyden and other critics, including tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, argue that Leahy's bill and a similar measure introduced in the House known as the Stop Online Piracy Act would stifle innovation and free speech and could undermine the integrity of the Internet's domain name system.

Wyden and a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers released a draft proposal last week that proposes a different approach that would cut off advertising dollars and payment options to foreign websites that provide pirated music, movies or counterfeit products.

The proposal calls for putting the International Trade Commission in charge of enforcing the measure's provisions, instead of the Justice Department as called for by the Protect IP Act and SOPA. The lawmakers are seeking comments on the proposal for the next few weeks and may offer legislation early next year.

So far, the proposal has gotten a cool reception from copyright groups that favor Leahy's bill and SOPA.

"This proposal is impractical for individual artists and creators. Forcing them to litigate claims against foreign rogue sites before the (International Trade Commission) rather than in their home jurisdictions would effectively deny them their day in court," Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance, said in a statement last week.
Like Leahy, the Recording Industry Association of America said it is difficult to judge the proposal without seeing actual legislative language.

"Looking generally at the draft, some concepts might have value, but there is no reason why they shouldn't be cooperatively offered as part of pending legislation rather than starting from scratch with a brand new bill in a different committee's jurisdiction that will take years to process," an RIAA spokeswoman said. "The problem of rogue sites is too acute and too damaging to wait years for relief."

The Senate Commerce Committee says it will vote on nominees to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission on Thursday.

FTC nominees include Rebecca Blank, Jon Leibowitz, and Maureen Ohlhausen. FCC nominees are Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai.

The session will begin after the first roll call vote on the Senate floor.

Verizon has made a deal to pay $3.6 billion to Comcast, Time Warner and Brightline Cable to use a stretch of unused cellphone airwaves, and inked a cooperative marketing arrangement that has raised the hackles of regulators, the Washington Post reports.

The spectrum deal would keep Verizon No. 1 at a time when AT&T is, apparently, failing in its bid to take the crown by joining forces with T-Mobile USA.

The cooperative marketing arrangement would have the cable companies and Verizon to "become agents to sell one another's products," the Post reports. It could allow customers to buy Verizon products in a Comcast store and vice-versa.

Telecom analyst Craig Moffett is quoted in the newspaper as saying the agreement is "a complete reordering of the competitive universe as we know it" and "amounts to a partnership between formerly mortal enemies, not just outside of Verizon's FiOS territories, but even within them."

A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers released a draft proposal to address their concerns with controversial House and Senate bills that would crack down on piracy and counterfeit products on foreign websites.

The draft proposal was crafted by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Jerry Moran, R-Kan., Mark Warner, D-Va., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, John Campbell, R-Calif., Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

Their draft proposes an alternative to a Senate bill known as the Protect IP Act, authored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, introduced in the House last month by Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas. Wyden has been a vocal opponent of the Senate measure and has blocked the bill from moving to the Senate floor since it was approved by the Judiciary Committee in May.

Even though they agree on the need to curb online piracy and counterfeiting abroad, Wyden and several of the other lawmakers say Protect IP and SOPA would stifle free speech and innovation and undermine the integrity of the Internet.

In an interview late Thursday, Wyden said the proposal he and the other lawmakers have crafted "is focusing to the extent possible on the payment processors, the advertisers, the follow-the-money approach." Its an approach that tech firms and other critics have been urging lawmakers to take instead of trying to block access to websites that offer infringing content or goods. "If you can take away the financial incentive, that goes a long way in dealing" with the problem, Wyden added.

Protect IP and SOPA focus on trying to cut off funding to those sites as well but they also would allow the attorney general to seek a court order requiring U.S. service providers to direct users away from websites deemed to be primarily focused on providing pirated content or counterfeit goods. Those bills also would put the Justice Department in charge of enforcing the bill's provisions.

The proposal from Wyden and the other lawmakers would give that job to the International Trade Commission, which deals with imports alleged to infringe intellectual property. The proposal would allow intellectual property owners to appeal to the commission to investigate infringing sites. If the commission finds such sites are "primarily" and "willfully" infringing U.S. copyrights or willfully enabling imports of counterfeit merchandise, the agency would issue a cease-and-desist order requiring U.S. payment processors and advertisers to stop doing business with the sites.

"When infringement is addressed only from a narrow judicial perspective, important issues pertaining to cyber security and the promotion of online innovation, commerce and speech get neglected," according to the proposal.

Wyden said the lawmakers will collect comments on the proposal over the next few weeks and will likely introduce it early next year.

AT&T, HTC, Samsung and Sprint have acknowledged that their mobile phones use a controversial tracking technology that some critics say violate user privacy, Computerworld reports.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg says the social networking site, which reached a major settlement with the FTC this week over alleged privacy violations, is the "first innovator in privacy," CNN reports.

Google is negotiating a deal with retailers to allow consumers to receive goods they buy on the Web in a day or less, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The New York Times reports on a new study that says the growth in mobile technologies and cloud computing could pose a challenge to older tech giants.

Microsoft saw a slight boost last month in users of its Internet Explorer Internet browser, according to eWeek.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says two congressional bills aimed at curbing online piracy on foreign websites go after the wrong problems, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

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