Roy Mark

A U.S. District judge slapped Internet telephone provider Vonage with a permanent injunction today against using Verizon technology in its VoIP service that connects users to standard phone lines. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton delayed the actual enforcement of the injunction for two weeks. Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage moved quickly to assure its more than 2 […]

Nearly nine years after Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a Philadelphia federal court judge ruled Thursday that COPA is unconstitutional. As a result of his findings, Philadelphia Judge Lowell Reed issued a permanent injunction against enforcing the controversial, though never enforced, law. Reed ruled that the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) arguments […]

WASHINGTON – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously voted Thursday to seek public comment on the need to add a network neutrality principle to its 2005 Internet Policy Statement. By opening what is known as a Notice of Inquiry (NOI), the FCC hopes to determine if the marketplace behavior of broadband carriers threaten the historic […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) renewed her call for a federal data breach disclosure law Wednesday afternoon, seeking to stir new life into her almost four-year-old legislation known as the Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act. If her attendance at yesterday’s hearing on data privacy is any indication, Feinstein will need a […]

UPDATED: A federal appeals court today upheld a 2004 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling that Voice over IP services are interstate in nature and not subject to state public utility regulation. The ruling gives the FCC the responsibility and obligation to decide which regulations apply to Internet telephony. The ruling is a significant victory for […]

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) opened a new front in the long running patent war between Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent, agreeing today to hear Redmond’s unified communications technology infringement claims against the French telecom giant. Microsoft  contends Alcatel-Lucent does not have a license to use the technology in its products and is seeking an import […]

IBM and Cisco hope to turn the debate over crisis communications from a hardware issue to a service solution, launching today a service based on a managed approach. Most efforts to maintain continuous access to critical infrastructure during and after storms like Hurricane Katrina and terrorist attacks are focused on product-based, individual solutions for crisis […]

National Public Radio (NPR) filed a formal appeal with the U.S. Copyright Office today protesting a recently approved hike in streaming Internet music royalty rates. The increase, many webcasters claim, will force them out of business. NPR, for its part, claims the rate hike will make it cost prohibitive for public radio stations to continue […]

Without a re-evaluation of the broadband commercial marketplace by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) claim incumbent carriers like Verizon and AT&T will hold a virtual monopoly. In a 2005 order deregulating the broadband market, the FCC ruled incumbent carriers no longer had to lease DSL lines to competitors at wholesale prices. […]

A group of Internet service providers (ISPs) including EarthLink   and Time Warner Telecom, went to court Friday to challenge Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that free wireline telecom carriers from line-sharing obligations. At issue is a 2005 FCC decision that put telecoms like Verizon  and AT&T  on an equal regulatory footing with cable modem […]

Buried deep within the massive Homeland Security bill recently passed by the Senate is a provision that should give privacy advocates some much needed cheer. But it probably won’t. Section 504 of the bill requires the federal government to report annually on its development and use of data-mining technologies. However, the provision does not prohibit […]

WASHINGTON — The impact of the Internet on political campaigns has increased with each election cycle. Google plans to be a part of that leap and face all issues, good and bad, that might arise when you mix politics and Internet technologies. Elliot Schrage, Google vice president of global communications, told an audience during his […]