The FCC, after being deadlocked along party lines, is expected to clear a merger between satellite radio providers XM and Sirius, so long as the firms meet certain conditions, reportedly the firms' payment of $20 million in fines for violations regarding tower locations and power limits. The approval of the merger comes as a disappointment to consumer groups and Democratic FCC Commissioners, who had Read More
Web Retailers Bear No Burden to Police Trademarks
A federal judge in New York has ruled that online retailers do not have a burden to affirmatively police trademark infringers that sell on their sites. The case pitted Tiffany, maker of fine jewelry, against eBay. Tiffany asked the court to rule that eBay should be responsible for policing its site for trademark infringers, often in the form of forgeries sold on eBay. The Court ruled that eBay did not Read More
Telecom Granted Spying Immunity by Senate
The Senate approved a bill today that will finally provide some guidance on procedures for government eavesdropping under what the Bush Administration has dubbed its “terrorist surveillance program.” The bill provides that any future surveillance be approved by the non-public United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Of particular note in the bill is the fact that telecom companies were granted Read More
DOJ Antitrust Probes Google Yahoo Deal
The deal that allows Google to provide some advertising for Yahoo searches has unsurprisingly attracted a formal antitrust probe from the Department of Justice. The fact that the Bush Administration’s Department of Justice, comfortably hands-off in recent years, has begun a formal investigation is not good news for the deal. As a report notes, attorneys for Yahoo and Google believe that the deal is Read More
ICANN to Vote on Expansion of gTLDs
ICANN, holding its 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting June 22-26, 2008 in Paris, France, is set to vote on an substantial expansion of opportunity for new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). gTLDs are top-level domain extensions such as (.com, .net, and .org). It is expected that the voting bloc will approve the proposal when it comes up for the vote Thursday. Late last summer, the ICANN Generic Names Read More
Japan to Expand Fair Use in Copyright
Japan is preparing to grant more “fair use” in its copyright laws that is intended to increase competition and bring the nation’s intellectual property laws more in line with the United States and other industrialized nations. Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 107) sets out certain exceptions to a creator’s copyrights. These exceptions are generally known as “fair use” exceptions. A Read More
Update on Verizon Blackberry 8830 Case
Not much has happened in the proposed class action lawsuit against Verizon for it’s disabling of the built-in GPS in the Blackberry 8830. The parties have primarily been engaging in some preliminary procedural matters. The biggest issue so far addressed was whether an arbitration provision in the Customer Agreement could be enforced. The Court issued an order on May 13, 2008 denying Verizon’s Read More
Riskiest Domain Extensions
McAfee is releasing a report that identifies the highest risk domain extensions. McAfee reports that the “most dangerous” domains to navigate to are ".hk" (Hong Kong), ".cn" (China) and ".info" (information). About 19% of .hk domains were dangerous, 12% of .cn sites, and 12% of .info sites. Of course, the majority of sites with these extensions are still safe, but Read More
ICANN’s Weak Grip on WHOIS
A recent article discusses the continuing problems with accurate WHOIS records, many registrars’ complacent allowance of such inaccuracies, and ICANN’s limited involvement in enforcing the accuracy of such records. Specifically, there is a discussion about the concentration of inaccurate WHOIS registration at certain registrars. Unsurprisingly, the registrars that have the most inaccurate WHOIS Read More
Presidential Candidate Views on Technology
Technology Review has a nice tool that allows visitors to see the remaining presidential candidates’ positions on various technology issues, including net neutrality, broadband, privacy, stem-cell research, global warning and biofuels. You can also see some of the applicable legislation each introduced or handled in their time in the Senate. Overall, this is a nice resource for “at a glance” analysis of the Read More
