commissions

The U.S. International Trade Commission today said that Apple is not violating patents held by S3 Graphics in its products and is terminating its investigation on the matter.

The decision follows a mixed ruling in July, where an ITC judge found Apple to be infringing on two of S3 Graphics' patents, while not infringing on two others. A final decision on the matter was due last week, with the ITC electing to postpone it (PDF) until today for reasons unknown.

"Having examined the record of this investigation, including the administrative law judge's final ID and the submissions … Read more

An effort on Capitol Hill to overturn the federal government's controversial Net neutrality regulations failed today.

By a 46-52 vote, the U.S. Senate rejected a Republican-backed proposal that would have lifted the regulations before they take effect on November 20.

This morning's vote was an anticlimactic affair. A veto threat two days earlier from President Obama, coupled with evidence that there was nowhere near a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers, meant that the repeal effort would fail.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the regulations by a 3-2 party line vote last December. Once they take effect, broadband … Read more

President Obama nominated two new commissioners to the Federal Communications Commission late Monday.

Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Varadaraj Pai, who each have experience working at the FCC and on Capitol Hill, have been nominated to fill vacancies left by Michael Copps, a Democrat, and Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican who left earlier this year to take a job with Comcast.

Rosenworcel currently works as an adviser to Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Previously, she worked for Copps as an adviser at the FCC. If confirmed, she will replace him on the commission. … Read more

WASHINGTON--A Federal Trade Commission official says that industry hasn't yet done enough to implement Do Not Track and that legislation to mandate it may still be necessary.

"I don't think we're quite there yet," Julie Brill, a Democratic FTC commissioner, said this week at a conference organized by the Online Trust Alliance.

As interest-based advertising, sometimes called behavioral advertising, has spread, so has interest in some form of Do Not Track mechanism inspired by the federal Do Not Call Registry. Developers have added tools to Chrome, Firefox, and Safari to implement different versions of Do … Read more

Wireless consumers will be alerted in real time when they're about to go over their voice, data, or text-messaging limits thanks to a new voluntary agreement struck between the wireless industry and the Federal Communications Commission.

On Monday, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and the head of the CTIA, the wireless industry's trade group, Steve Largent, are expected to reveal the new plan at a press conference in Washington, D.C. As part of the deal between the government and industry, wireless operators will send alerts to customers who are in danger of exceeding their monthly voice, data, and … Read more

Even potential data security breaches must be disclosed by U.S. companies in some circumstances, the Securities and Exchange Commission said today.

The move by the SEC is likely to shed more light on how publicly-traded companies are grappling with cybersecurity problems -- especially because the agency's ruling says that disclosure is needed when "the risk of potential incidents" becomes significant enough to impact the bottom line.

In a statement, the SEC indicated it would like to see:

• Discussion of aspects of the registrant's business or operations that give rise to material cybersecurity risks and the … Read more

Challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's Net neutrality rules will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a situation supporters of the rules had hoped to avoid.

On Thursday, the D.C. Circuit was chosen at random to be the court where challenges to the new rules, which prohibit broadband Internet providers from deliberately slowing or blocking subscribers' network traffic, will be heard. The rules were passed by the FCC in 2010. And they were officially registered with the government last month, opening up the process for legal challenges before the rules … Read more

Verizon Communications is taking another stab at overturning the Federal Communication Commission's Net Neutrality rules.

On Friday the company filed an appeal in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit.

After years of debate on the topic, the FCC adopted in late December rules codifying specific Net neutrality principles. The new rules were published in the Federal Register last week, which opened the door to lawsuits.The rules are expected to take effect November 20.

Verizon had filed a complaint in January to stop the Net Neutrality rules from being implemented. But in April a federal appellate … Read more

Groupon starts selling goods, lawmakers seek FTC probe of Facebook, Nokia hands out more pink slips, and Amazon lights a fire under the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded: