Roy Mark

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who has led the fight to allow states to tax Internet connections, said Friday the broadband industry needs no special tax breaks from the federal government. “There were dire predictions that if states were allowed to keep taxing this access that it would become a terrible burden for the industry. […]

Despite being ranked eleventh in the world in broadband penetration, the United States is rolling out high-speed services on a “reasonable and timely basis to all Americans,” according to a new report narrowly approved today by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In its fourth annual report to Congress on broadband deployment, the FCC said the […]

WASHINGTON — With an eye on peer-to-peer networks, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved legislation Wednesday criminalizing some acts of copyright infringement. In the same markup session, the panel created criminal penalties for the surreptitious use of spyware. The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2004 specifically targets the electronic distribution of copyrighted material “with […]

Traditionally, the last few days of Congress in an election year can bring parliamentary chaos. Midnight hour legislation that is neither read nor understood by lawmakers is routinely passed. Bills become amendments that are substituted for riders. Bits and pieces of disparate special interest legislation are attached to wholly unrelated bills. Dave McClure of the […]

Negotiations over Sen. Orrin Hatch’s peer-to-peer (P2P) legislation are expected to continue this afternoon when the Senate Judiciary Committee staff holds a private meeting to consider alternatives to the controversial bill. The bill would allow P2P networks and others to be sued for encouraging children and teenagers to commit copyright infringement via their P2P networks. […]

Federal legislation to exempt Internet telephony from state regulations and tariffs has all but failed in the 108th Congress, ending an ambitious effort to carve out and protect Internet-related issues from looming, and highly uncertain, telecom reform. The idea was simple enough. Because IP-enabled networks are inherently interstate in nature, they should fall solely under […]

A report released Thursday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project says U.S. workers are increasingly using instant messaging (IM) in the workplace, with approximately 11 million Americans logging into an IM program daily. The study says 53 million Americans (43 percent of all U.S. Internet users) report using IM with the application having […]

The U.S. government is encouraging Japan to drop a proposal to tax users of Wi-Fi devices and high-bandwidth wireless local area networks . Doing so, it claims, would result in dampening demand and slowing development of wireless Internet services. Like most industrialized nations including the United States, Japan already imposes fees on licensed, commercial providers […]

North Dakota became the second state in as many weeks to announce that its registered voters living abroad could use an e-mail service provided by the DoD’s Federal Voting Assistance Plan (FVAP) to cast their ballots. Like many states, North Dakota law allows for the faxing of ballots, but prohibits e-mail voting. Under the new […]

Tuesday’s primary elections in Florida could underscore the last minute scrambling by voting rights groups to guarantee that some 50 million Americans who will electronically cast their votes in November leave more than a digital footprint. Until late Friday, Florida election rules prohibited a manual recount of votes in counties using touch screen technology. Election […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is appealing the 9th Circuit Court’s October 2003 ruling that forces cable modem providers to share their lines with other Internet service providers (ISPs). In addition, the ruling states that cable companies offering broadband service would be subject to the same regulations as the incumbent Bells. “The 9th Circuit has […]

WASHINGTON — More than a hundred individuals have been arrested and charged this summer in a federal computer and Internet-related crime sweep known as Operation Web Snare, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said today. The operation was launched on June 1 and concluded today with several arrests. In all, Ashcroft said, approximately 350 individuals were […]