| Breaking News |
| The Wall Street Journal reports that the FTC and AOL
and Time Warner reached an agreement under which the companies
"commit to open their cable systems across the nation to
Internet competitors", thus clearing the way for approval
of the merger by the FTC. See, full
story. (Subscription web site.) |
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| TLJ Stories |
| NTIA
Chief Reports on 3G Wireless in Asia. NTIA chief Greg
Rohde met with reporters on Tuesday, December 12 to report on
the ITU's Asia Telecom 2000 conference, and his bilateral
talks on 3G wireless technologies with other government
officials. "We are going to see Asia play a very
significant role in the development of the Internet,"
said Rohde. See also, transcript
of press conference. |
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| Documents |
FCC:
Working
Paper No. 33, re interconnection, 12/13 (PDF, FCC).
FCC:
Working
Paper No. 34, re interconnection, 12/13 (PDF, FCC).
GILC: letter
to Council of Europe opposing draft treaty on cyber crime,
12/12 (HTML, GILC).
CDT:
report
opposing Council of Europe draft treaty on cyber crime, 12/12
(HTML, CDT).
IIPA:
exec.
summary of report on effect of copyright industry on U.S.
economy, 12/12 (PDF, IIPA). |
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| Quote of the Day |
"... the United States has to move very aggressively on
developing 3G. Otherwise, we will be stuck with having to
adopt other technologies that are developed elsewhere around
the world. We don't want to do that. We want to have U.S.
technology playing a lead role. And the way to do that is we
have to be on the forefront of developing 3G."
Greg Rohde, NTIA, from Dec. 12 press
conference. |
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| News Briefs |
12/13. The FCC's Office of
Plans and Policy released two working papers which offer
proposals regarding interconnection between carriers,
including ISPs. One is Bill
and Keep at the Central Office as the Efficient
Interconnection Regime [PDF], Working Paper No. 33, by Patrick
DeGraba. It proposes "a unified approach to
interconnection pricing called Central Office Bill and Keep
("COBAK"), which applies to all types of carriers
that interconnect with, and to all types of traffic that pass
over, the local circuit-switched network. COBAK is a default
interconnection regime, which means it would apply only when
two networks cannot agree on terms for interconnection. The
COBAK proposal consists of two rules for local calls involving
two networks. First, a called party’s carrier cannot charge
an interconnecting carrier to terminate a call. (Thus,
each carrier recovers the cost of the loop and local switch
from its own end-user customers). Second, the calling
party’s network is responsible for the cost of transporting
a call between the calling party’s central office and the
called party's central office." The second paper is A
Competitively Neutral Approach to Network Interconnection
[PDF], Working Paper No. 34, by Jay Atkinson and Christopher
Barnekov. It proposes "a default bill and keep solution
under which carriers split equally those costs that are solely
incremental to interconnection, and recover all remaining
costs from their own customers."
12/13. The FBI's NIPC
issued an assessment which stated
that "A regional entity in the electric power industry
has recently experienced computer intrusions through the
Anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Login exploitation. The
intruders used the hacked FTP site to store and play
interactive games that consumed 95 percent of the
organization's Internet bandwidth. The compromised bandwidth
threatened the regional entity's ability to conduct bulk power
transactions." See, release.
12/13. The USPTO
published an unofficial
list [PDF] of the individuals who passed the examination
given on Oct. 18, 2000 to practice before the USPTO in patent
cases.
12/12. The Global
Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC) sent a letter
to the Council of Europe
(COE) stating its opposition to the COE's draft convention
on cyber crime. The letter was signed by 22 major (and
minor) privacy and Internet related groups. The letter states
that "the convention continues to be a document that
threatens the rights of the individual while extending the
powers of police authorities, creates a low-barrier protection
of rights uniformly across borders, and ignores
highly-regarded data protection principles." The CDT,
signatory to the GILC letter, also released its own report
of the draft treaty. See, also, Council
of Europe Draft Treaty on Cyber Crime (Draft No. 24).
12/12. The International
Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) released a study
titled "Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The
2000 Report" and prepared by Stephen
Siwek of Economists
Incorporated. It reports that the U.S. copyright
industries continue to be one of the fastest growing segments
of the U.S. economy. The study found that "In 1999, the
core copyright industries contributed an estimated $457.2
billion to the U.S. economy, accounting for approximately
4.94% of GDP. This 1999 contribution represents an increase of
10.9% from 1998 ... The copyright industries have created jobs
at a much faster rate than many leading sectors of the
economy." An Executive
Summary [PDF] is in the IIPA web site. The full report is
for sale from the IIPA. (Call 202-833-4198.) See also, IIPA
release [PDF].
12/7. A federal trial court jury of the U.S. District Court (SDNY)
rendered its verdict SEC v. Cassano.
The jury found that four defendants engaged in illegal insider
trading of stock of Lotus Development Corp. in violation of §14(e)
of the Exchange Act and Rule 14e-3 thereunder. The SEC's original
complaint, filed on May 26, 1999, charged 25 individuals with
engaging in insider trading in advance of IBM's takeover of
Lotus in 1995. 17 defendants settled with the SEC prior to the
trial. Of the 8 who went to trial, one settled on the last day
of trial, four were found liable for insider trading, and
three were found not liable. See, SEC
release. |
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| Editor's Note: This column includes all News Briefs
added to Tech Law Journal since the last Daily E-Mail Alert.
The date indicates when the event occurred, not the date of
posting to Tech Law Journal. |
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