Roy Mark

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein re-introduced Thursday her controversial legislation to mandate DRM formats for all streaming media services. A similar bill failed in the last session of Congress under pressure from consumer advocates and the electronics industry. The Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act (PERFORM Act) primarily targets satellite radio services […]

I went virtual the other day and ended up in real life on CNN. Things like that can happen when you teleport into the Virtual Capitol Hill at Second Life, the online virtual world site where users create their own universes. The Internet has already brought e-mail, fund raising, blogs and virtual grassroots movements to […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) delivered a gift-wrapped present to consumer electronics makers Wednesday, rejecting cable giant Comcast’s request to delay implementing FCC rules to provide consumers with a separate security device for set-top boxes. Comcast had sought FCC permission to waive a July 1 deadline for the company to offer a cable-ready security card […]

WASHINGTON – Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy began his reign as chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today by promising to bring oversight and legislation to the government’s data mining programs. To those ends, he revived legislation that he claimed would “restore key checks and balances” by requiring federal agencies to report to Congress about […]

Waiting just four days into the new 110th Congress, Senators Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced legislation today to impose network neutrality conditions on broadband carriers. The bill, known as the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, would prohibit broadband carriers from discriminatory practices such as pricing in handling traffic from Internet content, application and […]

U.S. Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) pledged Monday to introduce legislation to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from imposing either broadcast or audio flags on electronics makers. Major content providers, such as Hollywood studios and music publishers, heavily endorse the technology as a way to prevent consumers from making unauthorized copies of digital movies and […]

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens may no longer be chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, but the Alaskan Republican is still stumping hard to expand Universal Service Fund (USF) obligations to broadband services. As the new minority-ranking member on the committee, Stevens Thursday introduced the Universal Service for Americans Act (USA), which would collect fees from […]

With the start of a new Congress, it didn’t take Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) long to make a renewed pitch for a permanent ban on Internet connection taxes by federal, state and local authorities. Shortly after the first gavel fell in the 110th U.S. Senate Thursday, Wyden, along with John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Sununu […]

As the 110th Congress performed its first-day rituals Thursday, California Rep. George Miller temporarily left his first life on the floor of the U.S. House to conduct a Second Life press conference. “I’m the canary in the coal mine,” Miller said. “Second Life is the next frontier and hopefully other members will use it to […]

A Washington State research group claims three of the world’s largest electronics makers are infringing on Bluetooth technology patents developed at the University of Washington. In a lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court in Seattle, the Washington Research Foundation (WRF), which licenses and manages patents developed by Washington State universities, claims Japan’s […]

Internetnews.com editors provide an early roadmap for tech’s direction in 2007. There’ll be a new buzz in Washington in 2007 when it comes to technology policy. For the first time since the dial-up era, Democrats will have a majority voice in Congress. The question is do Democrats have anything different to say than Republicans? Even […]

Verizon and AT&T won a major victory Wednesday afternoon with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voting 3-2 along party lines to streamline the video franchising process for competitors to incumbent cable companies. The decision allows Verizon and AT&T to run their multi-billion dollar IP fiber-optic networks into homes offering bundled television, telephone and high-speed Internet […]