regulators

A federal appeals court decision against the Federal Communications Commission has left many people wondering if the open Internet's days are numbered.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out an FCC cease-and-desist order against cable giant Comcast. The FCC said in 2008 that Comcast had illegally slowed its customers' Bit Torrent traffic. Comcast, which changed its practices voluntarily before the FCC took action, claimed it was simply managing its network. The cable giant appealed the FCC's order to clear its name and set the record straight.

The recent … Read more

Only a few years ago, a member of Congress serving up an inane comment in a congressional hearing would have merited a brief gossip column mention, or more likely gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately for Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, his bizarre question about the island of Guam possibly tipping over--he used the word "capsize"--if additional troops were stationed there became a YouTube sensation on Thursday.

It's no April Fools' Day joke: the 55-year-old congressman and member of the House Democratic leadership told a naval officer who was testifying on March 25 that: "My fear is … Read more

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Saturday called for Internet regulations and demanded that authorities crack down on a news Web site he accused of spreading false information, according to media reports.

"The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. No, every country has to apply its own rules and norms," Chavez said during a televised speech, according to reports by Reuters and the Associated Press.

Chavez singled out Noticiero Digital, a Venezuelan news Web site he said falsely reported the assassination of one of his ministers.

"We have to act. We are going … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Larry Downes' bio below.

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

In 1996, Congress passed the landmark Telecommunications Act. The last major reform of communications law, the 1996 act ended Judge Harold Greene's 10-year effort to run America's telecommunications industry from his judicial chambers after the forced breakup of AT&T.

Since then, consumers have lived in two very different worlds.

One is the land of unregulated "information services." It includes, among other innovations, the World Wide Web, voice over Internet Protocol … Read more

Unhappy with their lot, six of seven second-tier browsers have petitioned regulators for increased prominence on the screen that gives Windows users in the European Union a choice of browsers besides Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The browser makers on Thursday sent a petition to Neelie Kroes, a European Commission vice president, and other regulators who have been dealing with the browser-choice technology that Microsoft has begun distributing to millions in Europe as part of an antitrust case against the software company. The top five browsers dominate the market, but more obscure browser makers hope the EU antitrust action will grant … Read more

This is the last in a series of profiles that look at how the tech industry is working with the federal government.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--In October 2006 Jim Cicconi, a senior executive vice president at AT&T who heads up legislative affairs, took his team of top regulatory lawyers to Gettysburg to teach them battlefield strategy.

For two days, 15 senior AT&T managers stood on the very spot where more than 50,000 men had died during one of the greatest battles in the Civil War, and they listened to a former West Point history professor … Read more

IdPhotos 2008 bills itself as an easy way for users to create photos appropriate for a variety of identification types. Although the program has potential, it wasn't as easy to use as we had hoped it would be.

The program's interface is sleek, and at first glance it seemed like it would be fairly intuitive. Users first select the type of document for which they need a photo; specifications for documents from 31 countries are listed, including those for passports, visas, and other types of ID. Each document type notes, for example, what color the background should be, … Read more

The European Commission on Monday formally dug in its heels over Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, but Oracle accused the regulatory body of "profound misunderstanding" in a rebuttal that declared its intention to fight the opinion.

The regulatory body issued a statement of objections about the merger, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Sun Microsystems. The open-source MySQL database software is the sole issue of concern in the matter, Sun said in the filing.

"The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination … Read more

Europe is set to get a major overhaul of its telecommunications regulation, after the European Parliament and Council of Telecoms Ministers reached a compromise on the rights of Internet users.

The Telecoms Reform Package is a raft of new laws that tackle issues ranging from data-breach notification to faster number porting. Following an agreement reached on Wednesday night, the package will now become part of national legislation in every EU country, with a deadline of May 2011.

A sticking point in the package's progress had been a provision regarding "three strikes" laws targeting Internet users suspected of … Read more