Two U.S. lawmakers have called on the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into Google's snooping on Wi-Fi networks in 2010 after recent questions about the company's level of cooperation with federal inquiries. Representatives Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, and John Barrow, a Georgia Democrat, called on the DOJ to fully investigate Google's actions for potential violations of federal wiretapping laws. In light of a recently released U.S. Federal Communications Commission report on Wi-Fi snooping by Google Street View cars, the DOJ should take a new look at the company's actions, wrote the lawmakers, in a Thursday letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The FCC report suggests the Wi-Fi snooping was a "deliberate, software-design decision," Pallone said in a press ... Continue reading →

IDG News Service - The efforts of President Barack Obama's administration to streamline and improve the government's IT systems aren't proceeding as quickly as officials have suggested, a federal auditor said Thursday. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has made "solid progress" toward IT reform, but officials there have oversold their progress, said David Powner, director of IT management issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). "Our review shows less progress than what OMB reports," Powner said during a hearing before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "Prematurely declaring victory in areas where more needs to be done will have the wrong consequences." OMB still has work to do on its goal of closing nearly ... Continue reading →

I was like all of you. I believed in the promise of the Internet to liberate, empower and even enrich artists. I still do but I’m less sure of it than I once was. I come here because I want to start a dialogue. I feel that what we artists were promised has not really panned out. Yes in many ways we have more freedom. Artistically this is certainly true. But the music business never transformed into the vibrant marketplace where small stakeholders could compete with multinational conglomerates on an even playing field. In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is ... Continue reading →

A Florida VoIP carrier has filed a net neutrality complaint against a Georgia utility and broadband provider, after the utility accused the VoIP firm of theft of service for using its network to deliver voice service without paying for it. L2Networks filed the net neutrality complaint with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission Tuesday, the first formal complaint since the FCC passed net neutrality rules in December 2010. L2Networks' filing comes after the telecommunications manager for the City of Albany Water, Gas & Light Commission, a municipal utility in Georgia, filed a theft-of-service complaint with the Dougherty County Police Department in Albany earlier this year. Albany Water's assertion that the VoIP (voice over IP) provider should be paying for access to its fiber-optic network violates the ... Continue reading →

IDG News Service - U.S. schools will need broadband speeds of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students and staff members by the 2014-15 school year in order to meet a growing demand for Web-based instruction and a skyrocketing number of student-owned Web devices, according to a report by a trade group representing state education agencies. The report, The Broadband Imperative, recommends schools increase their broadband speeds to 1 Gbps per 1,000 students and staff by 2017-18. Internal WANs connecting schools within districts should be 1 Gbps by 2014-15 and 10 Gbps by 2017-18, said the report, released Monday by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). Schools are moving away from viewing Internet instruction as an add-on to traditional teaching, said Christine Fox, director of educational ... Continue reading →

IDG News Service - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has hired Paul Ohm, a privacy advocate and critic of current online privacy practices, as a senior privacy adviser for consumer protection and competition issues affecting the Internet and mobile services. Ohm, a University of Colorado Law School professor, will take a leave of absence from the school to serve in the FTC's Office of Policy Planning. The office focuses on long-range competition and consumer-protection policy efforts, and it advises FTC staff on cases raising complex policy and legal issues. "Paul's keen insights on how the law applies to technology and privacy issues will be invaluable to the FTC's work in these areas," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. "We have been fortunate in ... Continue reading →