Roy Mark

A U.S. Senate panel pushed out legislation yesterday that makes it illegal to acquire, use or sell a person’s confidential phone records without affirmative written consent. Applying to wireline, wireless and Voice over IP &bspcarriers, the bill also bars unscrupulous companies and individuals from fraudulently obtaining consumers’ private phone records through a deceptive practice known […]

WASHINGTON — Big tech urged Congress today to stop telephone and cable operators from extending their market power over broadband access to broadband content. Speaking at the first hearing on the House Republicans’ new telecom reform effort, Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for Global Public Policy, told lawmakers the lack of an effective network neutrality […]

Legislation forcing data brokers to disclose security breaches to the public passed the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee today on a 41-0 vote. The Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA) would place new requirements on data brokers such as ChoicePoint to notify the public if there is a “reasonable risk” of identity theft associated […]

WASHINGTON — If the House Republicans’ latest stab at telecom reform is any indication, net neutrality is dead. Of course, it may never have been alive since the telephone and cable companies told Congress it was never an issue, a solution in search of a problem. Nevertheless, House Republicans gave at least lip service to […]

UPDATED: WASHINGTON — Online auction giant eBay told the Supreme Court today that a permanent injunction against its Buy It Now feature is unnecessary and unwarranted, contending that money damages alone could atone for the company’s proven patent infringement. The San Jose, Calif.-based eBay is already on the hook for financial damages to Falls Church, […]

Reporter’s Notebook House Republicans previewed a fast track telecom reform bill Monday that promotes greater choice and lower prices in the pay television market but guts broadband network neutrality, according to consumer and advocacy groups. Rallying within hours of the introduction of the legislation, the groups uniformly condemned the bill as an attempt to “cableize” […]

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) unanimously approved regulations today that widely exempt Internet political activity from federal campaign finance laws. Under the new regulations, only paid online ads fall under campaign finance laws. Internet political advertising will be treated as the same as traditional radio, television and print advertising. Aside from paid political advertising, all […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Thursday hit Internet marketer Jumpstart Technologies with a $900,000 civil fine for violating the CAN-SPAM Act, the largest penalty to date for a violation of the two-year-old law. According to the FTC, the San Francisco-based Jumpstart violated the law by disguising its commercial e-mails as personal messages. The FTC’s complaint […]

WASHINGTON — Suppose someone stole your car. Using your stolen property as startup capitol, the thief builds a profitable cab fleet. You eventually find your car and turn to the courts for justice. You indisputably prove the thief stole your car, proof of title providing irrefutable evidence of ownership. You demand damages of the thief, […]

Republicans and Democrats have reached a compromise on legislation mandating data brokers disclose to consumers certain unencrypted breaches of their personal information. The accord comes almost five months after a subcommittee of the panel approved the Data Accountability and Trust Act (DATA Act) over the strenuous objections of Democrats who argued the legislation lacked any […]

U.S. authorities Thursday indicted four individuals currently being held in the Netherlands for running an e-mail scam targeting U.S. Internet users. According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), the four men allegedly sent spam to “thousands” of potential victims in what is known as an advance fee scheme. The DoJ claims the men falsely claimed […]

Three more executives in the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip industry are heading to prison for their roles in a global price-fixing conspiracy. The ongoing Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation has already netted $731 million in fines and resulted in jail time for nine other executives. The latest to enter guilty pleas and take […]