Kenneth Corbin

E-commerce giant Amazon has unveiled a video game trade-in program, offering customers gift cards to the most popular store on the Web in return for old video games. It’s a move that could position Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to better capitalize on one of the healthier media segments: games. Reselling used games also could be potentially […]

If you can’t buy ’em … beat ’em? That might not be how the saying goes, but it may sound a lot like Facebook’s current line of reasoning. Just months after talks between Facebook and Twitter broke down, the social networking giant is revamping its profile pages based on a new feature that may look […]

Internet advocacy groups were quick to praise the appointment of Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission, looking ahead to a friendly majority as they press for a more open, unfettered Web. In his long-expected nomination of Genachowski, President Obama tapped a close friend and adviser, as well as a veteran of both government […]

WASHINGTON — Patent reform, one of chief policy priorities of the IT industry writ large, is getting another turn around the block in Congress this session. A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House and Senate today announced plans to introduce the Patent Reform Act of 2009, an ambitious bill that aims to modernize and […]

Some secrets are hard to keep. Microsoft is beginning internal testing of a major upgrade to its search engine this week, putting the rebranded version of Live Search — the long-anticipated Kumo — through its paces behind a corporate firewall. The company’s executives have made no secret of their commitment to staying in the search […]

You knew it was coming. It was never a question of *if*; it was only a matter of *when*. Tomorrow, the always-contentious issue of patent reform will once again take center stage in the world of tech-policy, with a bipartisan gaggle of lawmakers from both chambers planning to announce companion bills to overhaul the way […]

The organization that oversees the Internet’s domain name system is going to have to find a new leader. Today at the opening session of ICANN’s international meeting in Mexico City, Paul Twomey announced his intention to step down as the group’s president and CEO by the end of the year. Twomey has headed the organization […]

Facebook users protesting changes to its content ownership policies may have pushed the company to reverse its stance and solicit ideas for improvement from its community, but participation in the new, more democratic Facebook remains but an echo of that earlier outcry. That doesn’t mean that critics don’t have plenty to say about what they’d […]

Net neutrality advocates scored some recent victories with language in the broadband stimulus package, giving their efforts fresh momentum. But their ideal may be facing an even tougher opponent — content filtering — when Congress takes up the issue again. In its ongoing effort to combat online piracy, the association representing the recording industry recently […]

So what’s going to happen with all that stimulus money, anyway? You remember — the $7.2 billion for broadband deployment Congress [cleared](/infra/article.php/3802981/Stimulus+Endgame+House+and+Senate+OK+Billions+for+.htm) a couple weeks ago — minus a couple hundred million here and there for things like consumer education and public computing facilities. Well, the agencies in charge of the dispersal are getting on […]

Facebook-ers spoke up about how their user-generated content is used and Facebook listened. Now, in response to their concerns that the social networking site is running roughshod over its members’ data, Facebook is making some changes. For starters, users will have more of a say in how Facebook does things. On a conference call with […]

**UPDATED:** WASHINGTON — In the next couple weeks, security researchers, representatives from government agencies and major tech firms such as Google are planning to launch a collaborative security forum to combat malware and fraud on the Web. The only catch? It’s members only. “This is closed community — membership needs to be approved by existing […]