The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will likely approve a compromise network neutrality proposal from its current chairman later this month with the support of many large broadband providers, said Michael Powell, former chairman of the agency. Powell, a Republican, questioned the need for new net neutrality rules, but he suggested that long-term uncertainty over the proposed regulations has held back investment in the telecom industry.
The group that manages the Internet's domain name system is meeting in Catagena, Colombia, where its board is expected to take up a controversial proposal that could dramatically increase the number of generic Internet domain names available to users. The Commerce Department has raised several concerns with the proposal, which would expand the number of generic top-level domains, such as .com and .info, from the current 21 to perhaps hundreds or more.
The FBI has issued a "cyber crime alert" for a new Barbie doll that comes equipped with a tiny hidden video camera in her chest, saying the toy could be misused to make child porn. The report, issued by the FBI's Sacramento field office November 30 and titled "Barbie 'Video Girl' a Possible Child Pornography Production Method," warns that the doll's camera captures up to 30 minutes of footage that can be downloaded to a computer.
Microsoft Corp. said it will include a privacy feature in its Internet Explorer that would let users list websites that can't track them. It is similar to a key feature it dropped in an earlier version of the Web browser after a heated debate with advertisers.
A new virus is infecting Twitter users through the use of URLs shortened by the goo.gl service. The virus is spreading as a result of users clicking on links that start with http://goo.gl, Google's URL shortener.
Swirling rumors that pedophiles are behind a viral Facebook campaign are unfounded, according to a company spokesman. The campaign, which has been actively gaining momentum in the past month, urges users to swap a cartoon character for their usual profile picture and boasts more than 150,000 "likes" among its Facebook pages.
After a New York Times magazine article exposed his bizarre business tactic of courting the worst customer feedback possible so that infuriated buyers would leave negative commentary online, boosting his Google search results, DecorMyEyes.com eyeglass proprietor Vitaly Borker has been arrested on charges of cyberstalking, making interstate threats, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The original story about DecorMyEyes, published on November 26, detailed the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Borker's tactics of harassing, cheating, and bullying customers, sometimes under pseudonyms and often with threats of obscenity and violence, to the point that several of them contacted the police.
The Federal Trade Commission’s proposed privacy mechanism could cause a major shift in the online advertising industry, as companies that have relied on consumers’ browsing history try to make up for what could be billions in lost revenue. If the vast majority of online users chose not to have their Internet activity tracked, the proposed “do not track” system could have a severe effect on the industry, some experts say.
Two California residents filed suit against the owner of adult website YouPorn, alleging it had violated cybercrime and consumer-protection laws by using surreptitious technology to harvest information about what websites they had visited. The suit, which a lawyer for the plaintiffs said was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, is one of the first to target a practice called "history-sniffing," which is drawing increased scrutiny from regulators and academics.
As China ratcheted up the pressure on Google to censor its Internet searches last year, the American Embassy sent a secret cable to Washington detailing one reason top Chinese leaders had become so obsessed with the Internet search company: they were Googling themselves. The May 18, 2009, cable, titled “Google China Paying Price for Resisting Censorship,” quoted a well-placed source as saying that Li Changchun, a member of China’s top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and the country’s senior propaganda official, was taken aback to discover that he could conduct Chinese-language searches on Google’s main international Web site.
The Indian government is talking to companies using Research in Motion's's BlackBerry to gain access to their employees' secure communications when it is deemed necessary, an official told the Wall Street Journal. Home Secretary G.K. Pillai also said reports that BlackBerry could be blocked if the government's security concerns over the device were not met by the end of January were overblown, according to the paper.
It will take several more years for the government to fully install high-tech systems to block computer intrusions, a drawn-out timeline that enables criminals to become more adept at stealing sensitive data, experts say. As the Department of Homeland Security moves methodically to pare down and secure the approximately 2,400 network connections used every day by millions of federal workers, experts suggest that technology already may be passing them by.
LimeWire, the popular music file-sharing service that ran afoul of the music industry, has reached its end and will be shutting down by the end of the year and closing its sole office in New York. “As a result of our current legal situation, we have no choice but to wind down LimeWire Store operations,” LimeWire said in a statement.
In potentially the most significant attack on WikiLeaks to date, PayPal froze the account of the German foundation accepting donations for the secret spilling website, claiming that WikiLeaks was in violation of PayPal’s terms of service. “PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity,” reads a statement on PayPal’s website.
Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners' say-so came closer to becoming law as the "Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act" passed in the U.S. Senate. The law will make it illegal to use "misleading post-transaction advertisements" and require marketers to clearly disclose the terms of their offers.
WikiLeaks scrambled to stay online as companies and governments either pulled or threatened to pull Internet-support services to the controversial document-leaking website. WikiLeaks' Internet domain name, wikileaks.org, was inaccessible after a U.S. domain-name service provider, EveryDNS.net, said it had withdrawn service to WikiLeaks.
Lawmakers examining the Federal Trade Commission’s recommendation for a “do not track” mechanism to restrict the monitoring of Internet users said that they supported stricter safeguards for consumer privacy, but raised questions on how the system would work. Many also expressed concern that it would undermine one of the main pillars of the Internet’s growth -- the development of free, advertising-supported content.
A Russian man the FBI believes has been responsible for one-third of the spam you get in your inbox is scheduled to be arraigned in a court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According court documents and FBI affidavits, researchers began tracking down the "Mega-D" spam automated botnet as a prime source of selling counterfeit goods, and the mastermind of it all is Oleg Nikolaenko.
Seeking to head off escalating scrutiny over Internet privacy, a group of online tracking rivals are building a service that lets consumers see what information those companies know about them. Called the Open Data Partnership, it will allow consumers to edit the interests, demographics and other profile information collected about them.
Google announced that it will be more aggressive about booting AdSense partners who use their sites to post pirated content. In a post on its public policy blog, Google said that it's taking a stricter stance against piracy on its own sites and the sites of its partners.
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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.