House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, Homeland Security Committee ranking member Peter King and others wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday asking them to delay for one year implementation of a 2006 law that bans Internet gambling in the United States. The members referred to the regulations as an "unreasonable burden on regulators and the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis."
In May, Frank introduced legislation to put off the execution of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which is slated to take effect Dec. 1, 2009. Lawmakers have complained that the rules were completed by the Bush administration at the last minute and his bill would stop regulators from enforcing the measure until Congress has had a chance to decide national policy. Frank also sponsored legislation to create a federal regulatory and enforcement framework under which online gambling operators could obtain licenses allowing them to accept bets from individuals in the United States.
National Thoroughbred Racing Asssociation, the American Greyhound Track Operators Association and the Poker Players Alliance has petitioned the Obama administration to extend the date of compliance for 12 months. A copy of the letter from Frank, King and others can be found here.
Members of the House or Representatives are under no obligation to keep records of their actions online. This would include the e-mail correspondences and comments that could take place on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. "There is no member archiving requirement. The committee passed a resolution encouraging member offices to explore archiving opportunities last session," Kyle Anderson, spokesman for the House Administration Committee, said in a statement.
Anderson did note, however, that "many member offices do maintain archives" anyway. New rules adopted by the committee in October allow members to maintain Web sites in addition to their official House.gov site and post material on third-party Web sites so long as it complies with federal law and House rules and regulations applicable to official communications. He said the initial discussion to update the rules focused on posting video within House domains but regulations that passed do not specifically indicate video. "The new rules can be interpreted as allowing for Members to have Facebook and MySpace presence," he said.
Members of Congress have started to use their own YouTube channels and post videos directly from their Washington offices. Google announced Monday that it was launching a Senate Hub and House Hub. -- Winter Casey
The system used for rating movies could be applied to Web sites in an attempt to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture told The Daily Telegraph newspaper. In an interview published Saturday, Andy Burnham said he is prepared to negotiate with President-elect Barack Obama's administration to draw up new international rules for English language sites. Such a proposal would likely enrage online free speech and First Amendment defenders. Previous attempts by Congress and Internet governance groups to cordon off areas of the Web deemed undesirable for kids faced controversy and were ultimately unsuccessful.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff -- the UK and the U.S. working together -- the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports Burnham saying. Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper stated. "If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now." Obama has defended Internet openness and has argued in favor of "network neutrality" but it remains to be seen how he will approach Web regulation on other fronts.
The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse welcomed two Wall Street mainstays to its membership ranks this week -- Goldman, Sachs & Co. and New York Life Insurance Company. The additions top off an 80 percent increase in membership in 2008, which the group says is proof that more businesses recognize the need to fight cyber-squatting, phishing, and domain name tasting. CADNA held its strategic planning meeting for 2009 last week where experts in the areas of Internet technology, intellectual property, legislative policy, and international relations met with brand representatives.
Based on conservative projections, the three-year cost to business of registering new domains in the proposed new top-level domains to prevent loophole exploitations and combat significant harm caused by fraudsters could be more than $1.5 billion, CADNA said in a press release. However, challenges facing brand owners go beyond the cost of what the group believes is misguided efforts by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. CADNA cited efforts to pass the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act in Congress and World Intellectual Property Organization dispute resolution issues as other topics of interest.
The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve issued a final rule late Wednesday aimed at stopping illegal Internet gambling - two days after House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank had called for a delay in the rule because of the problems he said it would cause for banks. But the regulation pleased Republican lawmakers: The GOP still controlled Congress when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed in 2006, and the Republicans have been pushing for the Bush administration to issue the rule before leaving office in January.
"No longer will the offshore gambling interests benefit from any turning any computer into a casino that is available every minute of the day," Financial Services ranking member Spencer Bachus said in a statement welcoming the new rule, which he noted was more than one year late. The 2006 law cost Europe's online gambling companies billions in lost market value as they were forced to retreat from one of their most lucrative markets, Reuters reported. Read more in CongressDaily here.
Rob Faris of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society is circulating some interesting thoughts about the second Internet Governance Forum, which took place in Rio de Janeiro this month.
This was not a forum for making major decisions or generating new strategies for tackling profound questions, he wrote in a lengthy commentary. It was also not a venue for finding the best way to reward innovative thinkers while continuing to promote innovation.
Yet, there is "inestimable value in the conversations and connections made off the official record and unknown benefits to be reaped by the potential future collaborations," he noted.
"If the diversity of attendees or the number and range of opinions expressed is the gauge of success, then the 2007 IGF was a huge success," he wrote. There were nearly 1,400 attendees from all walks of Web life.
But many sessions involved "people talking past one another" and the question Faris is left to ponder is "how the exchanges of opinions can be aggregated and channeled into something genuinely useful."
On a lighter note, he added: "I find fresh coconut milk the perfect fuel for digesting the enormity of Internet governance, particularly in combination with the sonorous lapping of waves. When that isn’t enough, a caipirinha can help with one’s courage of conviction."
Read Faris's detailed reflections on IGF in the next issue of the Filter, Berkman's monthly e-newsletter.
"Governments who want to stomp-out dissidents or just stick a finger in the American eye" attempted to "hijack" some of the conversations held by participants at the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week, according to one industry source.
For them, the term "protecting critical Internet resources" has become a euphemism for "killing ICANN," the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which administers the Web addressing system, wrote Steve DelBianco, executive director of the e-commerce trade group NetChoice.
"The motivations of repressive regimes are obvious, but as I've stated before, those who see ICANN as a mechanism for American imperialism over the Internet are grossly overestimating the power of ICANN," he wrote on his blog. Read more here.
Technology Daily has been following the IGF too:
• Participants At Brazil Forum Hail Its Open Process
• The Net As 'A Tool Of Repression'
• Cuban Official's Calls For Net Change
• Call For 'Net Bill Of Rights' Opposed
• U.S. Likes Structure For Net Policy
The chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which administers the Web addressing system, made a plea to participants at a Web policy summit in Brazil to get involved with his group.
"Whoever you are, wherever you are, if you are interested in finding out more about ICANN, or its work, the door is open. Please walk in," Peter Dengate Thrush told attendees of the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Thursday.
ICANN's organizational model allows all to contribute, from business to governments to the technical community to everyday Internet users, he said. The group's transparency has been routinely criticized but it is trying to improve its image in international circles.
Thrush said a new e-mail address -- get-involved@icann.org -- has been set up for those who wish to learn more about ICANN's structure and to get involved. "We will be glad to hear from you," he said. Read more about the forum in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
Confusing concepts like "Internet governance" and "critical Internet resources" could divert attention from key barriers to Web development and could fuel calls for government intervention that would undermine the Internet's openness, the Center for Democracy and Technology said in paper released Wednesday.
The document was unveiled at the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. "Critical Internet resources," or CIR, is one of several general themes of the conference.
While CIR has become a code word in some circles for the domain name system, the CDT paper identifies a broad range of concerns and warns against wholesale change in the structure of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
CDT's paper can be found here and you can read more about the forum in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
The first day of the Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was not without controversy. Read Technology Daily's PM Edition for details. We can't give away the best stuff on the blog, which is free to read, but here are a few odds and ends…
▪ Paul Twomey, who heads the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said during the opening session that the Internet community as a whole should be proud of its accomplishments. There are more than a billion people online around the globe and trillions of dollars are being made via Web-oriented businesses.
"With this extraordinary change also comes challenges," he said. "That is what this forum is about -- bringing together people to talk, review, discuss and hopefully solve some of the issues that are before us."
▪ Anriette Estherhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications, said the Internet is "a public good and should be governed as public good [and] that governance should take place in the public domain."
Removing barriers for some potential Internet users is important, she said. "Why should blind people pay more for interfaces to read text because they're blind and because someone owns a royalty on making two applications talk to each other?" she asked.
Reprinted from the Nov. 9, 2007 edition of National Journal's Technology Daily
Net Governance: U.S. Wants To Maintain The Nature Of Internet Policy
By Andrew Noyes
A pair of high-ranking telecommunications officials from the U.S. government this week emphasized the importance of maintaining the true multi-stakeholder nature of Internet policy talks in anticipation of a global conference that begins Monday in Brazil.
The second installment of the Internet Governance Forum will be a significant place to "share experiences and visions that support the continued evolution and expansion of the Internet," John Kneuer and David Gross said in a joint statement.
Kneuer, who just announced that he is leaving as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and Gross, the State Department's international communications and information policy chief, hope the event will foster "constructive discussions" about economic and social development.
Internet industry representatives from the United States and other nations, as well as some Western government officials, worry that a handful of delegations like China and Russia are trying to turn the U.N.-sponsored forum into a policymaking body.
Preserving the current framework makes the organization a "unique environment for an honest and frank exchange of ideas without the pressure of negotiating output discussions or conclusions," Kneuer and Gross said.
Markus Kummer, the U.N. official who heads the forum's secretariat, told Technology Daily on Friday that "more traditional" governments are not used to attending an event like the forum without it ending in a treaty or concluding document.
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