Regulation

The Democratic-controlled Senate handed President Bush a major political victory on Wednesday by voting to derail lawsuits against telecommunications companies that unlawfully opened their networks to the National Security Agency.

Senators voted 69 to 28 for the bill, which would rewrite federal wiretap laws by granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies as long as the government claims the request was "lawful" and authorized by the president.

Wednesday's vote followed a last-minute effort by liberal and libertarian activists to convince enough Democrats to kill or modify the bill. DailyKos called the bill "a pardon to Bush"; … Read more

Monitoring customers' Web browsing to serve up targeted advertisements is coming under increased political scrutiny on privacy grounds, making the future of the controversial technique among Internet service providers less than certain.

A hearing convened by a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday is the latest potential obstacle to widespread adoption of the practice, which relies on intercepting customers' Internet packets and building anonymized profiles that can be used for topic-based advertisements.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., suggested that the procedure amounts to "wiretapping" and promised a followup hearing in the near future to explore the subject further. &… Read more

A housing bailout bill that would also create a national fingerprint registry is facing some unexpected delays in the U.S. Senate and may not be voted on until next month.

We wrote about the proposed law last month after it had been approved by the Senate Banking Committee. After that, it was supposed to be on the fast track to President Bush's desk, but a fuss over an amendment for renewable-energy tax credits--which, of course, have nothing to do with foreclosures and the bursting of the housing bubble--is creating the delay.

The legislation would require any mortgage "… Read more

Kicking the public out of a courtroom is an option that should be used rarely, and extremely judiciously, which is what makes U.S. District Judge James Ware's decision Monday disappointing.

Ware shuttered the doors to a San Jose, Calif., hearing pitting Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, probably the world's youngest self-made billionaire, against Harvard University classmates who claim Zuckerberg stole ideas and source code from a similar venture called ConnectU. Ware took this extraordinary step without notice, without a formal request from either side, and without even specifying why it was necessary.

This is at odds with the … Read more

Verizon Communications confirmed on Thursday that it will stop offering its customers access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas, including the alt.* groups that have been a free-flowing area for discussions for over two decades.

Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, said only a subset of discussion groups, or newsgroups, would be offered to customers in the future. In Usenet parlance, those newsgroups are called the big 8; they include complex procedures for newsgroup creation and deletion and even boast a formal management committee.

Rabe had told us earlier in the week that some newsgroups would be restricted, but … Read more

An announcement this week by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that three Internet service providers would "block" sources of child porn has caused a surprising amount of confusion.

First, some news reports assumed that meant blocking, say, overseas Web sites that are deemed illegal. But Cuomo's press release talked only of broadband providers agreeing to "purge their servers of child porn websites"--which they've done for years, making this point mere public relations puffery.

Second, some readers thought that the three companies involved in the deal--Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint--would … Read more

A secretive Washington, D.C., group linked to an anti-Google letter signed by corn farmers says cable providers, which have retained it as a client, have nothing to do with its attempts to convince Congress to hold hearings critical of the search company.

Guillermo Meneses, previously a press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, is now a senior vice president at the LawMedia Group. He said that he was "unaware" of any communications between the American Corn Growers Association--which has no history of being interested in the antitrust implications of online advertising--and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. … Read more

If you think there's something a little odd about a bunch of corn farmers lobbying Congress to hold hearings on the details of a Google-Yahoo advertising deal, you may be right.

A letter (PDF) that the American Corn Growers Association and other farmers' groups sent to the U.S. Congress on Monday appears to be linked to a Washington, D.C., lobby group that does work for cable providers, some of Google's most potent political adversaries.

The letter warned Senate and House committee chairmen that any such deal would "create a monopolistic concentration of power in the … Read more

[Update 6/12 11:40 a.m. Verizon has offered more details on what newsgroups will be removed. And here's background on whether or not Usenet is being blocked.]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday that Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint would "shut down major sources of online child pornography."

What Cuomo didn't say is that his agreement with broadband providers means that they will broadly curb customers' access to Usenet--the venerable pre-Web home of some 100,000 discussion groups, only a handful of which contain illegal material.

Time Warner Cable … Read more