governance

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Best Buy scraps its restocking fee policy

Google TV may not be ready for its closeup when the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show kicks off next month

The Privacy Bill of Rights aims to regulate companies' data collection practices

The U.K. government wants to make all pornography opt-in only

Google's PowerMeter can now track your home energy use via your home broadband if you have a PowerCost Monitor

TellMyGeo is the app version of "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

And don't miss tonight's lunar eclipse … Read more

Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft.

Announced yesterday, Microsoft's winning bid will kick off a project to move 120,000 USDA employees to the company's cloud-based Business Productivity Online Suite, a collection of applications that includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online.

Though Microsoft already counts more than 500 state and local agencies among its cloud-computing customers, the new project marks its first with a cabinet-level federal agency.

But the … Read more

Google has won a major contract to provide Google Apps for an entire federal government agency.

Teaming up with Unisys and two other companies, Google will deploy Google Apps for Government to all 17,000 employees and contractors at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA handles business for the entire federal government by providing real estate and building management services along with buying assistance to other agencies, according to a Google blog post.

Awarding the $6.7 million contract to Google and its partners, the GSA becomes the first federal agency to migrate all its e-mail to the cloud, … Read more

Research In Motion has been butting heads with foreign governments over its tight security, but its latest BlackBerry 6 OS has won approval from the U.S. government for those same standards.

RIM announced today that its BlackBerry 6 operating system is now FIPS 140-2 certified. FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) is a series of standards set up by the U.S. government to ensure that computer products meet certain high-level security requirements. The standard is used by government agencies, regulated industries, and other organizations that store and send data dealing with sensitive information.

The FIPS 140-2 standard (PDF) specifically … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Most of the big-ticket speakers at the Web 2.0 Summit this week gave talks that were carefully guarded, offering little deep insight into the tumultuous state of the fast-evolving tech industry out of necessary trade-secrecy. Not FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who wasn't too subtle about implying that he's got a lot on his plate and it's tough to digest.

Part of this is good, of course. The flurry of extreme innovation in Silicon Valley and necessary shaking-up of decades-old telecom-industry norms has led to a road map that's difficult for regulators to augur. The … Read more

A report delivered today to Congress by a commission on U.S.-Chinese relations is pointing the finger at the Chinese government for continued hacking attempts and computer exploits.

"Recent high-profile, China-based computer exploitations continue to suggest some level of state support. Indicators include the massive scale of these exploitations and the extensive intelligence and reconnaissance components," noted the report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's (USCC).

The report specifically concluded that the Chinese government, Communist Party, and Chinese individuals and organizations continue to hack into computer systems and networks in the U.… Read more

The Chinese government is starting a new campaign to fight the free flow of counterfeit and pirated software and DVDs, according to the country's official news service.

Citing comments made at a State Council meeting at which Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presided, the Xinhua News Agency reported this week that the goal is to clamp down on both the import and export of phony software, DVDs, publications, and other products that violate trademarks and patents.

Scheduled to start the end of October, the campaign will run for six months and will also target Internet piracy and fake goods sold … Read more

The Tech CEO Council, a group made up of top industry CEOs, including Dell's Michael Dell, Intel's Paul Otellini, and Motorola's Greg Brown, has laid out an extensive plan that could help the U.S. government save $1 trillion over the next decade.

Dubbed "One Trillion Reasons," the initiative outlines seven areas where the U.S. government could cut costs or revamp its operational processes to save taxpayers money over the long term. The organization shared its findings with the Obama administration's economic team and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

"… Read more

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released a joint report Friday that detailed the cause of the "flash crash" on May 6 that triggered the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plummet almost 1,000 points in the course of a half hour. The culprit, the report found, was a single $4.1 billion trade carried out by a computer-based sell order.

"This report identifies what happened and reaffirms the importance of a number of the actions we have taken since that day. We now must consider what other investor-focused … Read more