US Court Says Interior Dept. Can Stay Online
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The US Interior Department can keep its computers connected to the Internet despite the fact that hackers could manipulate royalty payments owed to American Indians
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Interior Department employees aren't just using their computers to oversee parks and wildlife, an investigation found. They're spending thousands of hours a week visiting shopping, sex and gambling Web sites.
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WASHINGTON -- The US Supreme Court decided on Friday that it would consider whether cable companies should be forced to give third-party ISPs access to their networks.
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Blog: Large and small Internet radio operators and National Public Radio file for an emergency stay to the new rules, scheduled to take effect July 15.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. government will remain involved with the management of the Internet's domain name system after its current agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expires on Saturday. The decision comes despiteÂ international pressureÂ advocating for the U.S. government to bow out and make ICANN a totally autonomous entity. The U.S. Commerce Department will retain ICANN oversight for three more years, although there will be a review in 18 months of ICANN's progress toward becoming a more stable, transparent, and accountable organization, the government agency said in a statement Friday. A spokesman for ICANN said that at this 18-month review a decision could be taken to give ICANN total autonomy. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) that has been in place between ICANN and the Commerce Department since 1998 has now been modified in several ways that represent a "dramatic step" towards full autonomy, ICANN said in a separate statement. For example, the MOU had outlined the government's role as "prescriptive," but now, ICANN will determine how it works and what it works on, ICANN said. Furthermore, the requirement for ICANN to submit a progress report to the Commerce Department every six months has been lifted. Instead, ICANN will publish an annual progress report aimed at the entire Internet community, not just the Commerce Department. Duties retained by the Commerce Department include helping ICANN achieve greater transparency and accountability in how it evaluates and adopts policies, the government agency said. In addition, the Commerce Department said it will continue its oversight of the security andÂ operation of root name servers. The Commerce Department remains committed toward eventually giving ICANN full autonomy, it said. However, many observers believe that this full autonomy should have been granted already, because having the U.S. involved in DNS (domain name system) management creates political friction and ultimately slows down the international development of the Internet. On the other hand, others believe that continued U.S. government oversight of ICANN is necessary because ICANN hasn't proven it can handle the entire task of DNS management alone and that if the U.S. government withdraws, the Internet's security and stability could be compromised. ICANN is a private, nonprofit organization based in California. The Commerce Department held a hearing on the matter in July and previously called for written comments, receiving about 700 of them. On Friday, the agency said that consultation process revealed broad support for continuing the transition towards a fully autonomous ICANN but with the Commerce Department's continued involvement. ICANN and the Commerce Department will hold a press conference Friday.
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ZDNet&#39;s survey of IT professionals in August kept Wired &amp; Wireless on top for the 18th month in a row. WASHINGTON--The US Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower-court ruling that telemarketers&#39; rights to
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Fourth Protocol A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling against warrantless seizures of email. Law enforcement agents need to obtain a warrant before looking at a user's email even if it is stored online, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.â¦
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A European Court of Justice ruling this morning appears on the surface to reaffirm the rights of Internet users from having their data subpoenaed in civil trials. But a deeper read of the ruling shows the high court left the matter wide open.
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The US Supreme Court yesterday agreed to decide whether cable television companies that also provide high-speed internet service must allow other Internet service
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. district court has ordered a halt to an operation that allegedly added unauthorized charges to the phone bills of small businesses and nonprofit groups for Web sites services that, in many cases, they didn't know they had and didn't request, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said. Judge Kenneth Hoyt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has approved a temporary restraining order halting the activity and freezing the assets of a group of businesses and individuals, the FTC announced Thursday. The FTC's complaint named defendants WebSource Media, BizSitePro, Eversites, Telsource Solutions, Telsource International, Marc R. Smith, Kathleen A. Smalley, Keith Hendrick, Steven Kennedy, John O. Ring, and James E. McCubbin, Jr. The defendants illegally billed thousands of customers, according to the FTC. The operation was a maze of interrelated companies directed by the people named as defendants, the FTC said. The operation used telemarketers to make cold calls to small businesses and nonprofits, and offered a âfreeâ 15-day trial of a Web site design. The customers were told there was no charge or obligation and that the Web site would be cancelled automatically if it was not approved by them. Whether the customers agreed or not to be billed after the trial, their phone bills were often charged. When consumers called to dispute the charges, the operators told them they had âverification recordingsâ of an employee authorizing the charges. The FTC said the operation is typical of fraudulent Web cramming operations -- by using sales pitches to employees who frequently lack authority to make commitments for their employers and failing to effectively notify consumers that a Web site has been set up. The operators repeatedly changed the names of their companies to avoid detection by telephone companies they rely on to bill consumers and to evade scrutiny from law enforcers, the FTC said.
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The U.S. Commerce Department said on   Friday it would retain its oversight of the company that   manages Internet domain names, renewing an agreement that was   scheduled to expire this weekend.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday sidestepped a dispute over whether Internet providers can be forced to identify subscribers illegally swapping music and movies online.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday sidestepped a dispute over whether Internet providers can be forced to identify subscribers illegally swapping music and movies online.    The subject, however, may be back at the court soon...
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The federal judge who ordered a halt to   the Bush administration's program of domestic wiretapping on   Thursday allowed the surveillance to continue for a week to   allow an appeals court to weigh in on an issue expected to end   up with the U.S. Supreme Court.
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NEW YORK - The Justice Department will likely appeal a court ruling that declared unconstitutional a Patriot Act provision allowing secret and unchallengeable searches of Internet and telephone records, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.    In a blow to the Justice Department's post-Sept...
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Tentatively. Temporarily There's been a stay of execution after all. Just hours after a federal appeals court rejected efforts to postpone the arrival of new royalty rates threatening to bring down internet radio, webcasters reached a tentative agreement with the recording industry that will keep them online - at least temporarily.â¦
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Federal Election Commission may appeal ruling that campaign finance and spending limits must apply online.