Roy Mark

The Consumers Union told a House panel reviewing an anti-spam bill Tuesday that none of the current proposals before Congress go far enough since none contain “opt-in” provisions. All of the introduced anti-spam proposals in the House and the Senate call for “opt-out” procedures that require senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail to provide recipients of […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives begins its Passion play Tuesday to convince voters it is earnest about passing anti-spam legislation before the end of the year. Neither the House nor the Senate has ever passed a federal law dealing with spam, instead hoping that technological solutions or industry standards could be found before […]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the 16 states that reached the November 2002 anti-trust settlement agreement with Microsoft, said last week “numerous concerns” still exist with Microsoft’s compliance efforts. In the first status report to U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversaw the settlement agreement, the primary concern of the plaintiffs is Microsoft’s […]

Just a month after acquiring election.com, IT consulting firm Accenture has won a contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish trial Internet voting for overseas U.S. personnel for the 2004 elections. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. Accenture will support the DoD’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) in the a Secure Electronic […]

Cell phone users who still owe money to their carrier will be allowed to transfer their telephone numbers under the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) local number portability (LNP) rules. The FCC has set a Nov. 24 deadline mobile carriers to implement the LNP system that allows users to switch carriers but still retain their cell […]

E-commerce offers consumers lower prices and more choices in the wine market according to a Federal Trade Commission study released Wednesday. The report concludes that states could expand e-commerce by permitting direct shipping of wine to consumers. The FTC study finds that state bans on direct shipping prevent consumers from saving as much as 21 […]

A U.S. District Court judge has issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt what the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asserts are deceptive claims by an operation that promised a one fee, turn-key get-rich-quick Internet home-business opportunity. At the request of the FTC, Judge David C. Godbey of the U.S. District Court for the Northern […]

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that file-swapping site Aimster must remain shuttered while it battles against copyright infringement lawsuits filed by the major music labels. Monday’s decision affirmed a preliminary injunction issued by a lower court in December mandating that Aimster immediately disconnect any computers or services used in connection with file […]

Consumer interest in the Federal Trade Commission’s Do-Not-Call Registry remains high with more than 10 million Americans signing up for the service began on Friday. The vast majority (85 percent) has used the FTC’s online site, donotcall.gov, to list their telephone numbers in the registry. The new government site allows consumers to list their numbers […]

Consumers flocking to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new DoNotCall.gov site overwhelmingly support the idea of a similar Do Not Spam list, according to a survey by online research firm InsightExpress. The survey of 300 consumers who have signed up to have telemarketing calls blocked found that more than 8 in 10 respondents stated they […]

For the second time in less than two years, a federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to disconnect from the Internet in order to protect $1 billion in American Indian money managed by the agency. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said Interior’s refusal to cooperate with a court-appointed master who wanted to test the […]

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced legislation Friday to require businesses or government agencies to notify individuals if a database has been broken into and personal data has been compromised, including Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses and credit cards. The Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act would set a national standard for notification of […]