Roy Mark

Microsoft’s Tuesday offer of “free, unlimited” technical support to rivals is generating only a lukewarm response from European Commission (EU) antitrust regulators. In its latest effort to appease the EU, Microsoft pledged to licensees of the EU’s Workgroup Server Protocol Program not only unlimited support but also to provide on-site assistance to licensees. Microsoft previously […]

Verizon Communications scored a major victory Monday when a sharply divided Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the telecom giant’s petition to deregulate its commercial broadband lines. The decision frees Verizon from FCC common carrier obligations to provide access at regulated “just and reasonable” rates to commercial competitors and potentially eliminates Verizon’s obligations to the Universal […]

Sprint Nextel took a number at the courthouse Monday to become the latest phone company to sue an alleged pretexter, people who impersonate another in order to illegally obtain confidential phone data. The suit filed in Florida targets a private investigation firm that Sprint Nextel claims employs deceptive practices to illegitimately obtain customer call records […]

Major Internet advertisers are financing — sometimes unwittingly — the spread of potentially harmful adware and spyware, according to a new Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) finger pointing report. The report targets mainstream advertisers whose ads appear through 180solutions, one of the world’s largest developers of Internet advertising software. Earlier this year, the CDT […]

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Big soft money supports bloggers; net neutrality debate hardly neutral; telcos nearing boffo legislative sweep. It was the week that wasn’t. Budget battles forced the House to delay consideration of legislation currently roiling political bloggers who, as you know, are somewhat excitable people. The House scheduled a vote on the Online Freedom of […]

A U.S. House panel effort to write a national data breach disclosure law is running into fierce opposition by consumer groups calling the legislation the “worst data security bill ever.” Passed out of the House Financial Services Committee on a 48-17 vote late Thursday afternoon, the Financial Data Protection Act of 2005 (H.R. 3997) allows […]

For the fourth consecutive year, a large percentage of federal agencies flunked their annual network security review under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), including the Department of Homeland of Security (DHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD). Out of 24 reporting agencies, 13 either scored an F or a D in the annual […]

WASHINGTON — A House panel today took a stab today at the heart of the offshore gambling business: U.S. cash flow. Approved on a close voice vote by the House Financial Services Committee, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (H.R. 4411) requires financial institutions to identify and block payments to offshore casinos, sports book and […]

WASHINGTON — Wall Street is taking a dim view of net neutrality proposals before Congress and is warning of unintended consequences, none of them good, according to one analyst. “Mandated net neutrality would further sour Wall Street’s taste for broadband infrastructure investments, making it increasingly difficult to sustain the necessary capital investments,” Craig E. Moffitt, […]

The United States government is siding with a Virginia patent holder that eBay willfully infringed on its patents and should be barred from using its popular “Buy It Now” feature, which allows a buyer to purchase an item at a set price. In a Supreme Court brief supporting MercExchange, the U.S. Solicitor General said that […]

WASHINGTON — News of the blockbuster AT&T-BellSouth merger that would combine the nation’s first and third largest telecommunications firms is drawing bipartisan yawns inside the Beltway. Having just recently approved the mergers of SBC-AT&T, Verizon-MCI and Sprint-Nextel — with remarkable speed and a feathery regulatory touch — neither the Bush administration nor Congress is likely […]

Momentum for a telephone data privacy bill began building in the U.S. Senate Wednesday, with Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) introducing legislation to outlaw the acquiring, selling or soliciting of someone else’s phone records without their express consent. Sen. Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is co-sponsoring the bill, and the Alaskan Republican promised […]