Roy Mark

A New Zogby/463 survey finds Americans bullish on the Internet, if not the future of U.S. tech education. Almost half of all Americans believe the next Bill Gates will come from either China or Japan, according to a new poll to be released Wednesday. Only 21 percent believe the next great technology leader will come […]

Internetnews.com wades through the top stories and issues that rocked the industry in 2006 in this week-long series. A little more than a year ago, the term network neutrality raised but the faintest of pings on the technology policy radar. A year later it had wrecked the ambitious telecom reform plans of the Republican majority. […]

UPDATED: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Robert McDowell is standing by his recusal from the agency’s AT&T-BellSouth merger vote, declining an invitation to break the 2-2 deadlock over the $80 billion deal hung up on network neutrality conditions. McDowell, nominated to the FCC by President Bush on Feb. 6, is the former lobbyist for a […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) won’t be voting on the AT&T-BellSouth merger this week at its monthly open meeting, but the agency will consider another issue near and dear to the telephone giants: video franchising rules. Once the centerpiece of the failed telecom reform legislation in Congress, AT&T and Verizon now want the FCC to […]

Citizen satisfaction with e-government sites isn’t that great, and not so bad — just stagnating, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index’s (ACSI). Produced by the University of Michigan, the latest Index shows aggregate satisfaction with the 87 federal Web sites measured nudged up by improved three tenths of a percent from the third […]

Shareholders will soon be able to find proxy statements and annual reports online, according to new voluntary rules approved this week by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In addition to cost savings for public companies, the SEC hopes the new rules will offer persons other than company officials a more efficient way to make […]

Two U.S. House members want to know more about the circumstances surrounding Hewlett-Packard President and CEO Mark Hurd’s $1.37 million stock options profit just days before HP went public with its boardroom leaks scandal. Michigan Democrats John Dingell and Bart Stupak this week co-authored a letter to Hurd asking him to explain his sale of […]

Five consumer and public-interest groups wrote the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Tuesday opposing Commissioner Robert McDowell’s participation in the AT&T-BellSouth merger vote expected this month. McDowell, a former lobbyist for a trade group opposed to the $80 million merger, recused himself from the vote in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. […]

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell said Tuesday he plans to introduce state legislation to require convicted sex offenders in Virginia to register their e-mail addresses and instant-messaging handles with the state’s sex-offender registry. According to McDonnell, Virginia is the first state to make such a proposal and comes after discussions with Virginia’s Youth Internet Safety […]

A combined federal-state task force announced Tuesday a law enforcement sweep targeting bogus business opportunities and work-at-home scams, including several Internet operations. Dubbed Project FAL$E HOPE$, the crackdown includes more than 100 law enforcement actions by the Department of Justice (DoJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. Postal Service and 11 state agencies. The […]

Burlington Coat Factory and Payless ShoeSource agreed Tuesday to pay more than $400,000 to settle claims of unlicensed software use. According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), Burlington Coat Factory will pay the BSA $300,000 for using unlicensed copies of Microsoft and McAfee. Payless agreed to a $124,057 settlement for use of unlicensed copies of […]

The U.S. Congress renewed the R&D tax credit as part of its last-minute tax package of legislation before officially adjourning on Saturday. The law provides a research tax credit equal to 20 percent of the amount by which a company’s qualified research expenses for a taxable year exceed its base amount for that year. The […]