The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules allow the agency to police future network management practices and business models rolled out by broadband providers, raising concerns among critics that an activist commission will inject itself into ISP board rooms.The so-called future conduct standard in the FCC’s new rules leave questions about what ISP practices the agency will allow, critics say. Following the FCC’s publication of the new rules last week, the future conduct standard has raised perhaps the most objections, other than complaints about the agency’s decision to reclassify broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules allow the agency to police future network management practices and business models rolled out by broadband providers, raising concerns among critics that an activist commission will inject itself into ISP board rooms.The so-called future conduct standard in the FCC’s new rules leave questions about what ISP practices the agency will allow, critics say. Following the FCC’s publication of the new rules last week, the future conduct standard has raised perhaps the most objections, other than complaints about the agency’s decision to reclassify broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Proposed legislation that would require U.S. businesses to notify affected customers after data breaches is too weak because it would preempt stronger breach notification laws in several states and it wouldn’t cover several classes of data, including geolocation and health information, critics told lawmakers.The proposed Data Security and Breach Notification Act covers only data linked to identity theft or financial fraud, including Social Security numbers, but would not require businesses and nonprofit groups to notify users if other information is stolen, said critics, including Democratic members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee’s trade subcommittee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Department of State will shut down its unclassified email system for a short time to clean up malware that may have resided there since late last year.The State Department said Friday it has scheduled a planned outage of the unclassified email system to make security improvements and to respond to “activity of concern” on the network.The State Department’s unclassified email system was compromised by a suspected state-sponsored hacking campaign, possibly originating in Russia, according to media reports from November.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A U.S. Senate committee has voted in secret to approve a controversial bill that seeks to encourage businesses to share information about cyberthreats with each other and with government agencies.The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting behind closed doors, voted 14-1 late Thursday to approve the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act [CISA], even though Senator Ron Wyden, who cast the lone vote against the legislation, said it doesn’t adequately protect privacy.“If information-sharing legislation does not include adequate privacy protections, then that’s not a cybersecurity bill—it’s a surveillance bill by another name,” Wyden said in a statement. The bill would have a “limited impact” on U.S. cybersecurity, he added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The 400-page net neutrality order released by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission includes a long legal defense of the commission’s vote last month to reclassify broadband as a regulated telecommunications service.The order, released Thursday in the wake of the commission’s vote to approve net neutrality rules in late February, establishes “clear and enforceable rules” to protect consumers, an FCC official said.While the order is long, the actual changes to the Code of Federal Regulations that the FCC approved amount to eight pages, running from pages 283 to 290 in Appendix A of the order. An executive summary describing the changes runs from page 7 to page 18.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This may finally be the year that the U.S. Congress gives email and other documents stored in the cloud for several months the same privacy protections from police searches as newer files or paper records stored in a file cabinet, say backers of electronic privacy reform.A coalition of tech companies, digital rights advocates and other groups on Wednesday renewed their call for Congress to change a 29-year-old electronic privacy law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [ECPA].Members of the Digital Fourth coalition have been pushing since 2010 for Congress to change ECPA by requiring law enforcement agencies to get a judge-approved warrant before getting access to a suspect’s digital files stored with a third party for more than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A group of U.S. senators has revived an effort to require major online retailers to collect sales tax from shoppers.The nine senators on Tuesday reintroduced legislation that would allow states to collect sales taxes—more than 9 percent in a handful of states—from large Internet sellers with no operations in the states collecting the taxes.The Marketplace Fairness Act is similar to legislation that was introduced but failed to pass in the past two sessions of Congress. A version of the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 69-27 in May 2013, but the House of Representatives failed to act on it.Lawmakers have tried for more than a decade to pass an Internet sales tax. Supporters of an online sales tax say local businesses are at a disadvantage because they have to collect sales taxes, while online retailers, in many cases, do not.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two Vietnamese men have been indicted, with one pleading guilty, for hacking into eight U.S. email service providers and stealing 1 billion email addresses and other confidential information, resulting in what’s believed to be the largest data breach in U.S. history, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.The attacks, running from February 2009 to June 2012, resulted in the largest data breach of names and email addresses “in the history of the Internet,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell said in a statement. After stealing the email addresses, the defendants sent spam emails to tens of millions of users, generating US$2 million in sales, according to the DOJ.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Four U.S. senators have resurrected legislation that would allow consumers to see and correct personal information held by data brokers and tell those businesses to stop sharing or selling it for marketing purposes.The Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act, introduced by four Democratic senators Thursday, also would require the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to craft rules for a centralized website for consumers to view a list of data brokers covered by the bill.Data brokers collect personal information about consumers, often without their knowledge, and resell it to other businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Four U.S. senators have resurrected legislation that would allow consumers to see and correct personal information held by data brokers and tell those businesses to stop sharing or selling it for marketing purposes.The Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act, introduced by four Democratic senators Thursday, also would require the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to craft rules for a centralized website for consumers to view a list of data brokers covered by the bill.Data brokers collect personal information about consumers, often without their knowledge, and resell it to other businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who leaked details of the agency’s surveillance programs, is willing to return to the U.S. and face criminal charges, if he’s assured of a fair trial, according to a Russian news report.Snowden, now living in Russia, is ready to return to the U.S. on the condition that he’s guaranteed a fair trial, Snowden lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told journalists Tuesday, according to a report from Russian news agency TASS.Several Snowden lawyers are negotiating his return to the U.S., Kucherena said. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has promised in a letter to Snowden’s lawyers that he would not face a death sentence, Kucherena added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A consumer privacy proposal from U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration gives people too little control over their personal data and companies too much latitude to use that information, a coalition of 14 privacy and digital rights groups said.The Obama administration’s consumer privacy bill of rights, released late Friday, allows companies holding personal data to determine whether consumers should be able to demand changes to the information, the groups said in a letter to Obama, sent Tuesday.The White House proposal contains several “shortcomings,” said the groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Watchdog, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A consumer privacy proposal from U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration gives people too little control over their personal data and companies too much latitude to use that information, a coalition of 14 privacy and digital rights groups said.The Obama administration’s consumer privacy bill of rights, released late Friday, allows companies holding personal data to determine whether consumers should be able to demand changes to the information, the groups said in a letter to Obama, sent Tuesday.The White House proposal contains several “shortcomings,” said the groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Watchdog, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. businesses that collect personal data would be required to describe their privacy and security practices and give consumers control over their personal information under a proposed privacy bill of rights released Friday by President Barack Obama’s administration.The proposal would also require companies and nonprofit groups to collect and retain only the personal data they need to operate.However, the proposal allows industry groups to submit their own codes of conduct to the Federal Trade Commission and shields companies that follow those codes from FTC enforcement actions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. businesses that collect personal data would be required to describe their privacy and security practices and give consumers control over their personal information under a proposed privacy bill of rights released Friday by President Barack Obama’s administration.The proposal would also require companies and nonprofit groups to collect and retain only the personal data they need to operate.However, the proposal allows industry groups to submit their own codes of conduct to the Federal Trade Commission and shields companies that follow those codes from FTC enforcement actions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to pass new net neutrality rules and reclassify broadband as a regulated telecommunications service, but the text of the full order may not be released for several weeks. Here’s what we know so far:What’s next?The new rules take effect 60 days after the full order is published in the Federal Register, the official journal of the U.S. government. The FCC has some procedural hoops to clear before publishing the text, including drafting responses to the dissents by the FCC’s two Republican commissioners. So publication may not come for months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It didn’t take long for congressional Republicans to attack the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to strike down two state laws that prevent municipal broadband networks from expanding.Seven Republican lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday, just hours after the FCC vote, that would prohibit the agency from preempting state laws that limit municipal broadband networks. The main sponsors of the bill are Representative Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and Senator Thom Tillis, of North Carolina.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Communications Commission has voted to approve new net neutrality rules by reclassifying broadband as a regulated public utility, over the objections of the commission's Republican members and large broadband providers.The commission voted 3-2 Thursday to approve net neutrality rules that prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web traffic and from offering paid traffic prioritization services. The commission's vote on the new rules prompted loud applause from the audience at the FCC meeting.INSIDER: 5 tricks to improve poor TCP performance
The new regulations will almost certainly face a court challenge from broadband providers, and a court case could drag out for years. Verizon Communications, AT&T and Comcast have all opposed reclassification of broadband.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted to overturn large parts of two state laws that limit local governments from funding and building broadband networks.Commissioners, in a 3-2 vote Thursday, moved to preempt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that limit the expansion of existing municipal broadband networks in the two states.The FCC order, coming in response to petitions from a city in each state, does not apply to laws that limit municipal broadband networks in about 20 other states. But the vote signals how the agency may act if it gets similar petitions from cities in other states, FCC officials have said.The FCC action will help bring broadband competition to new areas, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. “You can’t say you’re for broadband, and then turn around and endorse limits on it,” he said. ‘You can’t say you’re for competition, then deny local officials the right to offer competing choices.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Grant Gross