Roy Mark

The rollout of national broadband picked up some speed from two lawmakers seeking tax incentives for service providers. The proposed legislation specifically targets rural and underserved areas. Sponsored by Senators John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.V.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), the Broadband Internet Access Act of 2005 (S. 1147) would allow providers to expense 50 […]

WASHINGTON — Online political activists want the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to stay cool when considering proposed rules that some fear will chill online political debate, particularly in the blogosphere. The FEC agrees, but the courts do not. Faced with a mandate from a federal court to extend some aspects of campaign finance laws to […]

WASHINGTON — Verizon moved to Capitol Hill today in its campaign to reduce entry barriers for incumbent telephone companies pushing new video services. Verizon’s march on Congress comes after the Texas Legislature adjourned without taking action on a bill supported by Verizon and SBC that they claim would have streamlined the process for the incumbents […]

Don’t pop that cork quite yet on direct online wine sales. Though the e-commerce industry hailed the May 16 Supreme Court decision as a major boon for business, states still have the right to ban direct shipments of wine. In a 5-4 decision earlier this month, the justices said if a state allows in-state wineries […]

Wireless airline phone service is an idea whose time is not quite here, the nation’s primary cell phone association said Thursday. The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) said the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should move in an “extremely cautious fashion” on the issue. In December, the FCC decided to proceed with plans for a […]

Hollywood this week sent college students off to their summer vacations with another round of copyright infringement lawsuits. This time around, the targets are students using their universities’ Internet2 high-speed connections to allegedly swap music files illegally. Thursday’s lawsuits involved 91 students at 20 colleges and universities from Harvard to Berkeley. Last month, the music […]

WASHINGTON – The federal deficit, it turns out, may be just the thing to launch WiMAX as an alternative broadband pipe to cable and telcos. At least, Intel hopes so. Both the House and Senate Commerce Committees are under pressure from the Republican leadership to find $4.8 billion each in new revenue to help slice […]

WASHINGTON — Rampant intellectual property theft in China and Russia is undermining the free trade policies of the Bush Administration, U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) said today. As a Chinese trade delegation prepares for a Washington summit with officials of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Hatch spoke at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on […]

As he promised in February, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) is moving forward with legislation to force television broadcasters out of their beachfront analog spectrum to make way for advanced services, such as wireless broadband. Under the draft “discussion” legislation introduced this week by Barton, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, broadcasters […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched a new anti-spam campaign today, this time targeting hijacked or “zombie” computers. Routing e-mail through zombies allows spammers to hide the origin of their unsolicited messages. The FTC and its international partners will send letters to more than 3,000 ISPs around the world, urging them to employ protective measures […]

The U.S. House on Monday voted to close two loopholes in federal law that allow counterfeiters to avoid prosecution and profit from illegal activities. The House passed the Stop Counterfeiting in Manufactured Goods Act, sponsored by Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.), and it now moves to the U.S. Senate. Under current law, when a counterfeiter is […]

The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Tuesday that Reuters will restructure its deal to acquire Moneyline Telerate to satisfy the DoJ’s and the European Commission’s (EC) antitrust concerns over the deal. In December, London-based Reuters, the world’s largest publicly traded provider of financial information, agreed to buy Telerate, which provides financial information to capital markets, […]