WASHINGTON, January 15, 2010 – Verizon and Google submitted a rare joint filing to the FCC on Thursday. The two communications giants praised the agency for its principles while stinging it by saying that communications laws and regulations should not apply to Internet applications, content, or services.
WASHINGTON, January 5, 2010 – Mary Gardiner Jones, the first female Federal Trade Commissioner and co-founder of the Alliance for Public Technology, died on December 23, 2009, APT announced Tuesday.
“Mary Gardiner Jones not only tore down walls that kept women out of positions of power and influence – she smashed them to smithereens.” That was how former Labor Secretary Robert Reich described the career of Gardiner Jones. She advocated for increased consumer protections and women’s rights.
WASHINGTON, December 24, 2009 – The Federal Trade Commission this week asked Google for more information on the company’s plans to acquire AdMob.
WASHINGTON, December 22, 2009 – President Obama finally announced Tuesday that Howard Schmidt will serve as White House cyber security coordinator.
WASHINGTON, December 14, 2009 – What’s the greatest source of dissatisfaction in the mobile wireless industry? Ironically, according to industry experts and government representatives attending a conference on customer complaints, it is competition itself.
The size and pervasiveness of the mobile device market has exploded. In the space of just 17 years, the number of active mobile subscribers in the United States has exploded from 11 million to 276 million. An increased number of complaints have accompanied this market growth.
WASHINGTON, December 9, 2009 – The ubiquity of online advertising is a product of its importance to the internet economy, said a group of consumer advocates Wednesday during a debate on the future of online advertising.
But the impact of new targeted advertising methods on consumer privacy and its potential to manipulate online experiences was the subject of heated argument at the event, sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
WASHINGTON, December 8, 2009 – Google said Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks and several other unnamed defendants the company claims offer fraudulent money schemes using the Google name.
WASHINGTON, December 2, 2009 – A senior lawmaker on Wednesday weighed in on government intervention in the media at a Federal Trade Commission forum convened to consider an alleged decreasing amount of original reporting taking place, as media outlets shut down or layoff journalists in the face of falling revenues.
The widespread availability of broadband technology plays an important role both in the alleged problem – competition to traditional print media revenue streams – and in the proposed solution: widespread availability of online content funded through a variety of means.
WASHINGTON, December 1, 2009 – Experts from the private sector, nonprofit groups and the government gathered Tuesday at the Federal Trade Commission for the start of a two-day workshop focused on the troubled state of the media industry and how the business models will change going forward.
“Since the beginning of our Republic, journalism has been essential to making democracy work,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said (PDF) in opening remarks. His point is largely agreed upon by many involved in discussions centered around the media. But there is not a consensus on how media business models will evolve down the road or on whether the government should become more involved in the industry.
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday released the agenda and speakers for its upcoming workshop, “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” The workshop has been organized to consider the emerging issues of an increasingly internet oriented society.
As more consumers turn to the internet for news and information, print news organizations have begun to struggle with the declining ad market. Besides the simple economics of the matter, as online news expands many wonder how the two news formats can successfully coexist.