Roy Mark

UPDATED: Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology developers are legally responsible for the illegal acts of their users, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today. The unanimous landmark ruling is a major victory for movie studios and music publishers seeking to curb the widespread theft of copyrighted material on the file-swapping networks. By sending a portion of MGM v. […]

UPDATED: The Supreme Court ruled today that cable broadband providers do not have to share their lines with independent Internet service providers (ISPs), a victory for the cable industry, which dominates the broadband access market. In a 6-3 decision, the justices said the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was correct in classifying broadband cable modem as […]

Private enterprise broadband providers ignoring the growing digital divide should expect competition from local municipalities. That’s the role of local governments, says one of the nation’s leading proponents of municipal Wi-Fi. As Philadelphia’s chief information officer, Dianah Neff knows all about the contentious debate going on between cities wanting to offer broadband as just an […]

Municipal Wi-Fi supporters gained a powerful ally today as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced legislation promoting local governments’ rights to launch wireless networks in direct competition to incumbent carriers. The Community Broadband Act of 2005 (S. 1294) adds provisions to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to allow a municipality to offer high-Internet access to its […]

The almost daily assault of headlines reporting data breaches is taking a toll on e-commerce. According to research firm Gartner, one out of three Internet users is buying less online because of security concerns related to data breaches, identity theft and phishing attacks. In the Gartner survey of 5,000 U.S, adults, nearly twice as many […]

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing has many emerging legal uses but downloading music and movie files – often illegally – remains the most popular use of the software, according to two reports released today. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), businesses, government agencies, academic institutions and others use P2P applications for a variety of legal tasks including sharing communications, processing […]

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers lashed out today at Bush administration officials for their latest delay in implementing biometric passports. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department, in turn, counseled patience and pointed to progress already made. House members on the Homeland Security Committee were unimpressed. “The [DHS] appears to be keeping up its […]

Senators Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.) hope to help heal the nation’s health care system with legislation to create an interoperable health IT network. The lawmakers said Thursday the Health Technology to Enhance Quality Act of 2005 (Health TEQ) implements IT standards to guide the design and operation of health information systems. “[This […]

Consumer groups are rallying to oppose the mega telecom mergers before the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The proposed deals between Verizon-MCI and SBC-AT&T, they say, will work against a competitive market. Verizon is offering $8.4 billion to acquire long distance carrier and Internet backbone provider MCI. SBC hopes to […]

Former Senate Commerce Chairman John McCain trumped his Republican colleagues earlier this week by introducing actual legislation setting a hard date of Jan. 1, 2009, for the United States to cease analog television broadcasting. Parts of the vacated spectrum could then be dedicated to first responders for emergency services and the rest auctioned off for […]

WASHINGTON — On a day marked by another major data security breach and more tough talk from Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved against a Fortune 500 company for its data protection practices. Testifying before a Senate panel investigating possible national legislation aimed at better data protection and a national data breach disclosure law, […]

With growing evidence that Americans want new data privacy laws, the U.S. Senate opens a series of hearing today on legislative solutions to data breaches and identity theft. Thursday’s full Senate Commerce Committee hearing will not specifically address any of the several bills introduced in the 109th Congress, which combat identity theft and force data […]