Roy Mark

The government’s increasing reliance on Microsoft desktop software makes federal systems “susceptible to massive, cascading failures,” according to a report issued Wednesday by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an industry organization that promotes open systems and networks. The report was promptly criticized by another trade group, which includes Microsoft as one of its […]

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.) said late Wednesday the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) decision to drop a copyright infringement lawsuit against a Boston grandmother calls into the question the RIAA’s testimony last week before the Senate Commerce Committee that the music industry was not unfairly targeting alleged downloaders. Sarah Seabury Ward was one […]

Just one day after it was introduced, the House Government Reform Committee approved legislation Thursday aimed at protecting the security and privacy of federal agency computers from the risks posed by peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. No comparable legislation has been introduced in the Senate. Both the House and the Senate have already implemented security measures […]

The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC), a joint agency of state tax organizations, says sponsors of legislation to permanently extend the current temporary moratorium on Internet taxes inserted last minute language that vastly expands the scope of the tax exemption to give telecommunications firms “unprecedented church-like status.” The MTC claims it was not consulted about the […]

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint Monday with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) claiming JetBlue Airways violated the FTC Act when it provided personal passenger data to Torch Concepts, a data mining company based in Little Rock, Ark. EPIC alleges JetBlue’s actions were in violation of its own privacy policies. JetBlue does […]

Dolby Laboratories has acquired Cinea, a Herndon, Va.-based start-up content protection and anti-piracy company which is developing technology to prevent piracy of motion pictures via illegal camcorder recordings. Cinea’s prototype distorts unauthorized recordings of digitally projected movies without affecting human visual perception of the original version. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Cinea CEO […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin’s (R.-La.) late May prediction that anti-spam legislation would pass Congress this year is beginning to look remote as differences over the ability of individuals to sue spammers, caps on damages and definitions of what actually constitutes spam continue to divide lawmakers. The Senate Commerce Committee passed the Can Spam […]

Despite the headlines coming out of the U.S. Senate last week about legislation to roll back the subpoena power provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it appears unlikely Congress will take any action to lessen the authority of the music industry to issue bulk subpoenas to obtain the names of alleged online pirates. […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expanding its investigation into the adult Website Married Bit Lonely, alleging Dutch citizen Martin P. Bevelander participated with Brian T. Westby in sending consumers sexually explicit spam with deceptive subject lines that disguised the content. In April, The FTC charged Westby, who lives in the St. Louis area, with […]

As Hurricane Isabel raked the mid-Atlantic coast, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a $11.25 million project for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) to collaborate with the University of Illinois and seven other institutions to improve researchers’ ability to study and predict dangerous weather. The NSF Information Technology Research grant will support the […]

The Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Wednesday agreed to extend their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for three more years to transition management of the Internet domain name and numbering system (DNS) from the U.S. government to the private sector. Commerce currently serves as the “steward” of critical elements […]

WASHINGTON — Hewlett-Packard’s Carly Fiorina said Thursday HP plans to expand its $21 billion share of the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market with a $750 million investment in research and development, marketing, sales programs and services. The SMB market is expected to grow from $450 billion to more than $640 billion over the next […]