Regulation

With numerous and diverse groups pushing for President-elect Barack Obama to adopt open media principles, many are anxiously awaiting his choice for chair of the Federal Communications Commission, expecting it to signal what kind of media approach the new administration will take.

The media reform group Free Press is highlighting the significance of the selection in a new ad campaign and appeal for public input on what the next chair's top priorities should be.

The group's "Help Wanted" ad reads: "The American people seek a new leader at the Federal Communications Commission to take media … Read more

WASHINGTON--Trends indicate that more and more commercially successful innovations are backed by federal dollars, a researcher said Monday, and politicians should do even more--even create a cabinet-level Innovation Department--to support the innovation economy if they want to kick-start the wider national economy.

"We need economic policies that pull us out of the recession but are oriented towards innovation," said Fred Block, a sociology professor from the University of California at Davis. "What we have to do as a country is figure out how to walk and chew gum at the same time."

Block co-authored a report … Read more

In light of the recent breach of President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone records, a senator on Monday sent a letter (PDF) to the Justice Department asking how many investigations or prosecutions the department has undertaken for violations of the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent the letter to Matthew Friedrich, acting assistant attorney general, noting that "data privacy breaches involving the sensitive phone records of ordinary Americans are occurring with greater frequency."

The Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act, which Leahy sponsored and Congress passed in 2007, prohibits telecommunications … Read more

The United States through its history has been the world's leading innovator thanks to a few hobbyists tinkering in their garages. If the U.S. wants to maintain its dominance in the world market, some argue, its policies should encourage innovation through broadband deployment.

While Congress has taken steps to promote universal broadband, a new working paper from the New America Foundation suggests a peculiar route to fostering the nation's next great innovators: allowing consumers to purchase and own their own fiber-optic connection.

In their paper Homes with Tails (PDF), Columbia Law School professor and NAF Fellow Tim … Read more

Even as it continues to grow, Facebook is facing less pressure to reveal its finances.

The Securities and Exchange Commission in October granted the social-networking site an exemption to part of the SEC Act of 1934, which requires companies to disclose financial information once they have more than 500 stockholders and $10 million in assets.

As BusinessWeek reported, lawyers for Facebook sent the SEC a letter on October 13, asking for an exemption for its distribution of restricted stock. The letter noted that the company could in the future have more than 500 employees with restricted stock. The company currently … Read more

WASHINGTON--Rather than investing emergency funds into old economic sectors like the auto industry, the federal government should look to the future and invest in a national broadband strategy, panelists at a broadband symposium said Wednesday.

"Let Detroit go bust, let the banks go bust--put $700 billion into broadband," said Paul Dickson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project. "Broadband is the future."

The U.S. economy will surely come to a halt if the country cannot keep up with the pace of modern technology, said panelists at the event, which was hosted by the Internet Innovation Alliance. … Read more

WASHINGTON--Government leaders need to do more than provide bailout money for America's flailing economy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday. They need to use the bailout programs as an opportunity to invest in infrastructure and look for more innovative solutions to persistent problems.

Addressing a large audience of academics, government workers, and others in Washington on Monday in his role as chairman of the board of the New America Foundation, Schmidt laid out the myriad ways in which the government could open the doors for innovation … Read more

Yahoo is in yet another sticky situation as a result of a canceled advertising deal.

Digital media company DivX on Monday filed a lawsuit against Yahoo because the search company backed out of a two-year advertising agreement the companies reached in September of last year. DivX said the canceled deal will hurt its revenues.

Under the terms of the agreement, consumers who downloaded DivX video software tools were offered a co-branded version of the Yahoo toolbar as well as a version of Internet Explorer 7 with other Yahoo services. Before the Yahoo agreement was reached, DivX had a search tools … Read more

In theory, antitrust law helps foster competition. In reality, politically connected companies sometimes use it to bludgeon competitors and boost their own bottom line, as soon-to-be former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang learned the hard way.

Yang had lent his prestige and the weight of his position to the proposed Google-Yahoo advertising deal, in part as an alternative to being gobbled up by Redmond, and in part as a way to get an easy $800 million a year in additional revenue.

When that proposed deal unceremoniously ended earlier this month--thanks to Microsoft's take-no-prisoners lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., and … Read more