Kenneth Corbin

The Justice Department has opened a probe into agreements reached between tech companies over hiring away top talent from each other, according to the Washington Post. The article, citing unnamed sources, said the investigation is preliminary, with a specific focus on Google, Yahoo, Apple and Genentech. But it also described it as a broader, “industry-wide” […]

WASHINGTON — The push for universal electronic health records, a long-simmering issue in the healthcare debate, is gaining fresh momentum with the new administration and Congress, but privacy concerns continue to confound policymakers. President Obama has set a goal of digitizing every American’s health record by 2014, and he included $19 billion to that end […]

WASHINGTON — Top attorneys for Microsoft and Google today reiterated their companies’ support for tougher government rules to protect consumer privacy. But when it comes to the details, some watchdog groups say they are concerned that Web firms will continue to fight against specific provisions that would limit the ways they can collect and use […]

WASHINGTON — Google’s really getting it from all sides about its Books Search project. Here at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, Google attorney Alex Macgillivray sat on a panel discussion as the lone defender of the deal, trying his best to assuage concerns about monopolies, privacy and authors’ rights. “There really is this whole […]

WASHINGTON — Craig Newmark is wearing many hats these days. In addition to his duties as a “customer service representative” for Craigslist, the popular online classifieds site he founded 14 years ago in San Francisco, Newmark has lately been consulting with newspaper executives, nonprofits and government officials, all the while becoming an increasingly active member […]

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s tech policy team has been on a bit of a publicity junket of late. In the four months since taking office, President Obama has added several tech advisory positions to the White House staff, made a series of splashy overtures to new media, and last week, he lent his imprimatur […]

WASHINGTON — After riding into Washington on a tech-savvy campaign, the Obama administration is trying to spread the same new-media focus across the government, even to some unlikely areas such as international diplomacy. At a panel discussion this afternoon at Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank, a senior adviser at the State Department […]

After filing for bankruptcy protection this morning, General Motors (NYSE: GM) has been booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average, making room for networking giant Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) Systems. Cisco is the first company in the tech or telecom sectors to ascend to the most prominent Wall Street index since Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) joined […]

President Obama’s promise to take the lead in shoring up the government’s cybersecurity efforts has drawn high praise from all corners of the tech world. Members of Congress, industry groups and activist organizations have heralded his announcement this morning and the report that accompanied it as a mighty step forward in a long-neglected and critically […]

President Barack Obama speaks about the nation’s cybersecurity at the White House on Friday. Photo: Kenneth Corbin WASHINGTON — President Obama today unveiled a broad-ranging plan to shore up the nation’s digital infrastructure, pledging to elevate cybersecurity on the national security agenda and establish an office in the White House to coordinate efforts across the […]

Tomorrow’s shaping up to be a big day for the cybersecurity community. Around lunchtime Friday, the White House is scheduled to release the results of a sweeping cybersecurity review President Obama commissioned earlier this year, an event which will likely also include the long-awaited appointment of a national cyber advisor to coordinate government efforts to […]

WASHINGTON — Government officials and advocacy groups are ramping up efforts to rewrite the Privacy Act, claiming that the 1974 law regulating how government agencies manage citizens’ personal information has fallen out of step with more than three decades of technological innovation. “I think we all know that that law is severely outdated,” said Leslie […]