InternetPolicy.net

Internet "at risk" from FCC

Quoted verbatim from a news release issued by the US Federal Communications Commission last Thursday: "Commissioner Michael J. Copps, in a speech at the New America Foundation, today warned that: 'The Internet as we know it is at risk. Entrenched interests are positioning themselves to control the network’s chokepoints and they are lobbying the FCC to aid and abet them. The Internet was designed to prevent government or a corporation or anyone else from controlling it. But this original vision of the Internet may soon be lost. In its place a warped view that open networks should be replaced by closed networks and that accessibility can be superceded by a new power to discriminate is emerging.' Copps continued: 'Our ill-advised Internet policy is only one piece of a tectonic shift across the whole range of FCC issues. From media to telecom to the Internet, we appear to be rushing toward breathtaking regulatory alterations. The Commission is permitting, even encouraging, competition to wither in the face of centralization. It is short changing its responsibility to protect the public interest...'” Click on the link above to read the rest of this extraordinary statement.

Update on that database protection draft

On 2 October we had an item about the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act, which aims to give copyright protections to online databases. At the time of our report, no bill number had yet been assigned to this legislation. Now one has: HR.3261.

ICANN, Verisign and "restraint of trade"

Interesting short item today on ICANNWatch: "An astute reader writes, 'Did you look at Verisign's formal response to ICANN? In paras 3, 5, and 6 it looks to me like they are setting up a counter-claim against ICANN under the Sherman Act.' Michael Froomkin goes on to ponder the implications of Verisign suing ICANN for anti-competitive behavior: "The claim would be 'restraint of trade' rather then classic monopolization... I do think that ICANN has anti-trust exposure... It's hard to say, though, in this case who is being more anti-competitive, ICANN or VeriSign..."

The "anti-trust exposure" link is to the draft of a 100-page paper by Froomkin and Mark A. Lemley, called simply "ICANN and Antitrust?" which goes into much more detail about these difficult yet fundamental policy questions.

New blog: "The Internet in Asia"

Thanks to Lokman Tsui for alerting us to a blog started a few days ago by the Singapore Internet Research Centre at Nanyang Technological University. Monitor it for news about "The Internet in Asia."

Wireless IP standard for home multimedia

Agence France Presse reports that a hundred Japanese and foreign firms have agreed to collaborate in creating a common standard for Internet-enabled home appliances like TV sets and DVD players. The goals are to support both remote control from a single handset and intercommunication of multimedia content, using a wi-fi based protocol, and to bring products to market based on the standard by 2005. According to AFP, "Corporate participants include Japanese electronics giants Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Sharp Corp., NEC Corp. and Sanyo Electric Co. as well as foreign-affiliated firms like Microsoft Co. and IBM Japan Ltd... The project will be led by the Communications Research Laboratory under [Japan's] Telecommunications Ministry... The ministry will allocate frequencies for Internet-enabled appliances based on the trial results..."

Internet: "telecom" or "information" service?

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the US Federal Communications Commission erred in classifying broadband Internet delivered via cable TV as an "information service" when it is actually a "telecommunications service," too. The difference is that "information services" are only lightly regulated, while "telecommunications services" must offer interconnection to competitors. Under the previous designation, cable television networks in the US were not obliged to let their customers subscribe to Internet access services offered by other companies. That had a devastating impact on local ISPs as broadband grew in popularity. If yesterday's decision is upheld, it could have much broader implications, as the issue of whether Internet is an "information" or a "telecommunications" service has nothing to do with bandwidth.

"Must-read" report on convergence

We were delighted to find a rave review today in The Register by Kieren McCarthy for work by our friends at the Political Intelligence consultancy: "An extensive and wide-ranging report to the European Commission is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of ENUM, Internet phones, Instant Messaging, mobile phones and the Internet in general. The 161-page report [pdf], written by Joe McNamee and Tiina Satuli of Political Intelligence, is intended as a guide to possible future regulation by Europe regarding new and emerging technologies and will be debated in Brussels on 14 October...." Click here to download "Policy Implications of Convergence of Naming, Numbering and Addressing: An Orientation."

New privacy protections needed (EC report)

The European Commission released a 190-page report yesterday on "Security and Privacy for the Citizen in the Post-September 11 Digital Age: A Prospective Overview." The balance between privacy and security which is essential for democracy is being upset by the combination of terrorism-fighting actions, hasty changes in law, and emerging technologies, the report notes. The longer-term impact on privacy rights of three broadly-defined technologies are explored: "Identity Management Systems, Location based Services and Ambient Intelligence." The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, which wrote the report for the European Parliament's Committee on Citizens Freedoms and Rights, tried to identify areas where legal action may be needed to head off foreseeable problems. "Later this month, the EU head office will propose electronic privacy legislation that officials said will address some of the concerns enumerated in the study," according to an Associated Press article. Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, told AP's reporter, "I would hope that the EU would use this report as an opportunity to re-establish its pre-eminence in the field of protection of privacy." IPTS's report can be downloaded here.

EC offering a billion euros for ICT research

From a European Commission news release, 29 Sept: "The Union's priority for R&D in Information Society Technologies (IST) aims to bring technologies closer to people, ensuring that all Europe's citizens and businesses can, and actually do benefit from technological advance...[The] Commission's Information Society Directorate-General will be launching 236 new IST projects to the tune of 1 billion Euro of Community funding. This represents the largest award of its kind in the history of the Framework Programme. These projects will build on the foundations of today's Web, Internet and mobile communications technologies, transforming the delivery and performance of services and adding to their variety... The projects to be launched under the sixth Framework Programme promise an unprecedented concentration of effort on the critical issues, pulling together 3-5 times as many skills and resources as did projects under previous Framework Programmes...." For more information about funding priorities, selection criteria and application deadlines see http://www.cordis.lu/ist.

Internet Privacy Conservation Council

Jay Cross Jr. and Christopher Carlino, two high school seniors from Stamford, Connecticut, are organizing an "Internet Privacy Conservation Council, which they say will serve as an information resource on deceptive, privacy-compromising Internet advertising practices and will be a vehicle for people to devise ways to battle against such schemes," reports Wired News. Cross and Carlino were inspired - or more accurately, provoked - by Xupiter, an aggressive spyware application that "attaches itself to Internet Explorer's toolbar. Once active in a system, it periodically changes users' designated homepages to Xupiter.com, redirects all searches to Xupiter's site, and blocks any attempts to restore the original browser settings... The two said they have big plans for the IPCC, including a privacy offender database, where users can check a dynamically updated database of which companies and individuals are invading their privacy and rights..." They registered the domain name http://www.ipccouncil.com/ and hope to have the website working by the end of this month.