Kenneth Corbin

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) wants the Federal Communications Commission to gather more data related to how wireless service providers price and server consumers to guide the agency’s future policies. As Enterprise Networking Planet discovered, the new report is particularly concerned about early termination fees and handset exclusivity arrangements that directly impact the $150 billion-a-year […]

There is no love lost between media-reform group Free Press and Verizon. Nowhere is that enmity more apparent than in the fight over network neutrality. The rhetoric heated up this week, as each entity accused the other of distorting the facts in the highly charged policy debate. Verizon bills the legislative framework it developed jointly […]

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is firing back at a volley of criticism that it has taken over the past week concerning a proposal to require handset makers to include FM radio chips in mobile devices. The proposal, which is packaged in a compromise legislative framework the NAB reached with the music industry in […]

It didn’t take long after online social networking took hold as a mainstream technology that the personal monuments people created for themselves on the Web began generating a mounting array of horror stories about employers — current or prospective — that came across photos or other content depicting job holders or job seekers engaged in […]

Google dove headlong into the voice-over-Internet-protocol market this week with the launch of a new feature that will enable users to place calls to landline and wireless phones through its Gmail interface. Google’s new service comes as a direct competitor to Skype, offering discounted international rates and free domestic calls as it rolls out in […]

A new survey by ForeSee, a research firm that tracks and analyzes consumer sentiment, appears to reinforce the importance of the Obama administration’s efforts to overhaul government websites to provide maximum transparency and simplicity. As Datamation reports, the survey found an unmistakable correlation between visitors’ evaluations of a government website’s transparency with their overall satisfaction […]

Attorneys general in 18 states are ratcheting up the pressure on online classified site Craigslist to discontinue the “adult services” listings on its site, claiming they’re nothing more than a marketplace for prostitutes and other illicit activities. As eCommerce Guide reports, this isn’t the first time law enforcement agencies have called on Craigslist to shut […]

Lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics does a nice job of reminding us just how expensive the technology-policy wars currently playing out in Washington can get. Of the top 20 spenders in the first half of 2010, four are connected with the cable and telecom industries. Topping that list was Verizon Communications […]

A coalition of trade groups is calling on Congress to reject a compromise in a long-simmering policy dispute between broadcasters and the music industry over performance rights that would require mobile device makers to include an FM radio receiver in every handset. In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees […]

It wouldn’t be a product launch at Facebook if it wasn’t followed by public-interest groups lashing out at what they see as loose privacy settings. And so it was with the debut of Places, Facebook’s new location-based service. But Facebook, eager to avoid the lather-rinse-repeat cycle that has defined its many controversies in the privacy […]

The debate over network neutrality currently raging in Washington has drawn attention from all manner of industry groups, advocacy organizations and other stakeholders. Now add the music industry to that list. A coalition of the industry’s major trade associations, including the Recording Industry Association of America, has called on Google to consider the safeguards to […]

With smartphones and their applications now a major force reshaping enterprise and consumer IT, it should come as little surprise that Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is doing its part to embrace technologies that tap into the sorts of location-based services popularized by those devices. Facebook’s new Places feature puts it squarely into […]