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AOL's privacy policy and how it is interpreted by the courts and federal government will be in the spotlight as two separate actions against the company move forward. In the latest reaction to AOL's erroneous posting of some of its members' search term data this past August, two unnamed California ...

China has announced it will adopt a digital TV broadcast standard that will combine two systems developed by the Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiaotong University. The decision, made by the Standardization Administration of China following a review of the short list of submitted proposals, will b...

A week or so after Hurricane Katrina roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and devastated huge portions of the coast, it became clear to officials at the Louisiana Department of Economic Development that they would have to rethink their long-term game plans. "The mission of the LDED is to expand existing...

Google's presence in Brazil might be threatened by a dispute with that government's law enforcement agency over user data. Brazil's public attorney has filed suit against Google demanding information on users of its social networking site, Orkut, who are suspected of engaging in child pornography an...

Microsoft's efforts to build out its advertising network received a considerable boost with the announcement that Facebook has signed on with the company to receive online advertising services. As part of the multiyear contract, Microsoft will be the exclusive provider of banner advertising and spon...

In separate filings, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the World Privacy Forum have asked the FTC to investigate AOL's release earlier this month of search term queries that had been made by 650,000 of its users over a three-month period. "This release was a violation of section 5 of The FTC Ac...

AOL has apologized for inadvertently posting on the Internet search data of 658,000 AOL members that used the proprietary software to conduct searches over a three month period. The data, which has since been taken down, had been collected for academic researchers and did not directly connect search...

On July 27, by a vote of 410 to 15, the House of Representatives passed the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which will restrict access to social networking sites such as MySpace.com and other interactive services at schools and libraries that receive federal funding. The rationale behind the D...

Google is planning to open a new, 1,000-employee facility in Michigan that will handle its highly profitable AdWords operations -- but Google watchers using this particular decision to augur the company's direction are likely wasting their time. Other than reinforcing Google's intention to continue ...

Stung by the unprecedented number of identify thefts and data losses that have occurred in recent months across academia, the private sector and the government, a group comprised of representatives from each of these areas has formed the Center for Identity Management and Information Protection.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet is donating the bulk of his formidable personal fortune to charity, and the Reverend Cecil Williams could not be more pleased. Williams is not a direct recipient of Buffet's largesse; the Sage of Omaha will donate US$31 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundat...

Once again, AT&T's actions have sparked a national debate over customer privacy. The company deliberately kicked off a new round of debate with its announcement last week that it was changing -- or as it said, "modifying" -- its privacy polices for Internet and video customers. To be sure, compa...

Powerhouse telecom providers Nokia and Siemens intend to merge their telecom networks businesses to create one of the largest entities in the industry. The 50-50 US$30 billion joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, is expected to generate $20 billion a year in revenue. More significantly, the merger...

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are the most likely alternatives News Corp. is considering for providing its popular MySpace social networking site with search functionality. MySpace already offers a Web search feature. This April, it was included for the first time in comScore's search engine rankings,...

eBay is launching its own contextual ad tool called eBay AdContext in order to build out its third party distribution network -- and shift away from a too heavy reliance on Google. Like similar applications launched by Overture and Google, AdContext is, at bottom, designed to entice online distribut...

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006 by 321-101. If it becomes law, the bill will open the cable television market to further competition, allowing phone companies such as Verizon to offer subscription video programming. ...

Wired News has waded into the middle of the controversial court case involving AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations. An anonymous source provided the news organization with a copy of documents pertaining to the case that the judge had or...

Wired News has waded into the middle of the controversial court case involving AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations. An anonymous source provided the news organization with a copy of documents pertaining to the case that the judge had or...

Wired News has waded into the middle of the controversial court case involving AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations. An anonymous source provided the news organization with a copy of documents pertaining to the case that the judge had or...

XM Satellite Radio has been accused of "massive wholesale infringement" in a suit filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York by the Recording Industry Association of America. RIAA is targeting XM Radio's latest portable music player, Inno, which allows users to download and store hu...