| Global Crossing Files
Chapter 11 Petition |
| 1/28. Global
Crossing, and some of its affiliates, filed a Chapter 11
bankruptcy petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court (SDNY).
Global Crossing also stated in a release
that it filed "coordinated proceedings in the Supreme
Court of Bermuda." Global Crossing operates a fiber optic
network in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. It also provides
telephone, Internet access, and data transport services. |
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| Few Congressional Web Sites
are Rated Highly |
1/28. The Congress
Online Project (COP) released a report
titled "Congress Online: Assessing and Improving Capitol
Hill Web Sites". The report concludes that "There is
a digital divide within Congress between a small group of
offices that host good to excellent Web sites and the vast
majority that host fair to poor sites."
The report also concluded that "neither congressional
offices nor the public they serve are yet reaping the benefits
of this powerful new medium."
The report found that "Constituents, special interest
groups, and reporters are seeking basic legislative
information such as position statements, rationales for key
votes, status of pending legislation, and educational material
about Congress. However, offices are using Web sites primarily
as promotional tools ..."
The COP report identified 35 web sites for praise. It picked
both the web site of the House Commerce Committee
and that of the House Commerce
Committee Democrats.
The COP reviewed 605 web sites of Members of Congress,
Congressional committees, and Congressional leadership
offices. The COP also interviewed Congressional staff and
conducted constituent focus groups. The COP is funded by a
grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The report was written
by George Washington University and the Congressional
Management Foundation. |
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|
| DOJ Recommends Approval of
Verizon NJ 271 Application |
1/28. The Antitrust
Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted its evaluation
[PDF] to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) recommending that it
approve Verizon's Section
271 application to provide in region interLATA services in
the state of New Jersey. This is CC Docket No. 01-347. See, DOJ
release.
The DOJ wrote that "The
record in this matter suggests that Verizon has succeeded in
opening its local markets in New Jersey to competition in most
respects. Subject to the Commission satisfying itself as to
the pricing issues discussed below, the Department
recommends approval of Verizon’s application ..."
Verizon has already gained approval to provide long distance
services in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New
York. It also has applications pending for the states of Rhode
Island and Vermont. Sarah Deutsch, VP and Associate General
Counsel of Verizon, stated in a release
that "We are very pleased ..." |
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| People and Appointments |
1/25. The law firm of Preston
Gates named several new partners. Katherine
Marelich was named a partner in the litigation group
in the Los Angeles office. She focuses on intellectual
property law, with an emphasis on copyright, trademark,
antitrust and unfair business practices litigation. Audra
Mori was also named a partner in the litigation group
in the Los Angeles office. She focuses on copyright and
trademark cases. John
Lange was named a partner in the technology and
intellectual property group in the Seattle office. He works
with software, television, wireless communications and other
high tech companies on transactions related to product
development, cross licensing, online marketing and product
distribution via retail, wholesale and OEM sales channels.
See, Preston Gates release
regarding Marelich and Mori, and release
regarding Lange.
1/24. Spencer Klein joined the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery as a
partner in the corporate department of the firm's New York
office. He will head the firm's M&A practice. He was
previously a partner with the law firm of Shearman & Sterling in
New York. See, MWE
release.
1/28. Jeffrey Sheldon joined the Washington DC office
of the law firm of McDermott
Will & Emery as a partner in the firm's regulation and
government affairs department. He will also be a member the
firm's telecommunications practice group, advising telecom
clients regarding legislative and regulatory matters. He was
previously VP of Cogent
Communications. Before that, he was VP and General Counsel
of United Telecom Council.
See, MWE
release. |
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| More News |
1/26. President Bush stated in his regular Saturday radio
address that "My budget calls for the largest
increase in defense spending in the last 20 years, investing
in more precision weapons, missile defenses, unmanned
vehicles, and high tech equipment for our soldiers on the
ground."
1/25. The Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative (USTR) announced that "The chief
negotiators of the Free Trade Agreement between Chile and the
United States scheduled two new meetings for March and April
2002. This agreement was reached at the end of the 10th Round
of Negotiations held between January 22 and 25, in
Santiago." It also stated that "During this week,
the parties met to address the following issues: market
access, antidumping, services, investment, financial services,
e-commerce, intellectual property rights, government
procurement, dispute settlement and institutional issues.
Labor, environmental issues, sanitary and phytosanitary as
well as customs procedures were addressed in
videoconferences." See, USTR
release. |
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|
| ProComp Opposes Microsoft
Antitrust Settlement |
1/28. ProComp,
an anti Microsoft group, submitted a lengthy comment
[PDF] in opposition to the Proposed
Final Judgment (PFJ) filed with U.S. District Court (DC) in the case U.S.
v. Microsoft.
January 28 was the deadline for the public to submit comments
on the proposed settlement, pursuant to the 15 U.S.C. § 16,
which is also known as the Tunney Act. It requires that
"Before entering any consent judgment proposed by the
United States under this section, the court shall determine
that the entry of such judgment is in the public
interest."
ProComp's comment begins with the statement, "This
proposed decree is so ineffective that it would not have
prevented Microsoft from destroying Netscape and Java, the
very acts that gave rise to this lawsuit. It is so ineffective
in controlling Microsoft that it might as well have been
written by Microsoft itself."
ProComp asserts that the "public interest" standard
under the Tunney Act "is determined in this case by the
unanimous legal ruling of the Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit sitting en banc. That Court held
that Microsoft has maintained its monopoly in personal
computer operating systems in clear violation of Section 2 of
the Sherman Act. No decree that fails to cure that illegality
and prevent its recurrence can conceivably serve the public
interest."
The comment elaborates that "the proposed settlement
takes no steps to remedy Microsoft’s foreclosure of
middleware threats from competing Internet browsers and cross
platform Java technology, Microsoft’s related efforts to
illegally increase the applications barrier to entry
protecting its Windows monopoly, or Microsoft’s illegal
commingling of browser and other middleware code with Windows.
Further, the proposed settlement does not assure that future
middleware competitors will have access to the necessary
technical information to interoperate properly with Windows,
and does not open up the critical Original Equipment
Manufacturer ("OEM") distribution channel to these
future competitors. Finally, the PFJ ignores the competitive
threat to Microsoft’s monopoly presented by server-based
distributed applications, and thus fails to address
Microsoft’s practice of protecting its monopoly by
controlling proprietary interfaces and communications
protocols."
ProComp's comment also states that "The proposed decree
is riddled with ambiguities and loopholes and grants
unilateral, essentially unreviewable, power to Microsoft to
define the scope of its own ambiguous obligations. As such,
the PFJ is an illusory contract, and unenforceable as a matter
of well settled contract law."
The comment argues that "divestiture remains the most
effective remedy for Microsoft’s wide ranging unlawful
practices. Conduct remedies like the proposed decree are a
second best solution, because they rely on the defendants good
will to comply."
In conclusion, the ProComp recommends that "the Court
must find that the Proposed Final Judgment is not in the
public interest. At a minimum, the Court should defer any
judgment on the PFJ until the upcoming remedies hearing in the
ongoing litigation is conducted. This is necessary to avoid
inconsistent remedies."
ProComp's filing also includes a 34 page affidavit signed by Kenneth
Arrow, an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford
University. His Nobel prize winning career is built upon his
"Arrow's Theorem". See, Social
Choice and Individual Values, first published in 1951.
Arrow wrote in his affidavit that "As the D.C. Circuit
found, Microsoft violated Sec. 2 of the Sherman Act in
impermissibly maintaining its monopoly through actions
designed to eliminate the threat to that monopoly posed in the
mid 1990s by competition from Netscape Navigator and Java
middleware. Given that finding, the remedies in this case
should eliminate the benefits to Microsoft of its illegal
conduct; should restore, if possible, the possibility of
competition in operating systems; and should not allow
Microsoft to protect its illegally maintained monopoly from
current and future competition in related markets, such as
server operating systems and Web services. In my opinion, the
PFJ fails to accomplish these objectives."
The ProComp comment lists as its authors the famous lawyers
Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr. It also lists Michael Pettit of
ProComp and Kevin Arquit of the law firm of Clifford Chance.
Finally, its lists Glenn Manishin
of the law firm of Kelley Drye & Warren. See also, ProComp
release. |
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|
| Privacy News |
1/28. Qwest announced
that "it is withdrawing its plans to share private
customer account information among different divisions in the
company. Citing customer concerns, the company said a decision
on when and how it might share information within Qwest would
be made after the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) has an opportunity to
issue new rules, expected later this year." See, Qwest
release.
1/29. The Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) wrote a letter
to state attorneys general urging them "to take action to
protect consumers against unfair and deceptive trade practices
raised by Microsoft Corporation’s Passport service and
related “Wallet,” “Kids Passport,” “Hailstorm,”
and “.Net Services.” These systems unfairly and
deceptively gather personal information and expose consumers
to the release, sale, and theft of their personal
information." Last year, the EPIC unsuccessfully sought a
Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) investigation of the same practices. |
|
|
| About Tech Law Journal |
Tech Law Journal publishes a free access web site and
subscription e-mail alert. The basic rate for a subscription
to the TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert is $250 per year. However, there
are discounts for entities with multiple subscribers. Free one
month trial subscriptions are available. Also, free
subscriptions are available for law students, journalists,
elected officials, and employees of the Congress, courts, and
executive branch, and state officials. The TLJ web site is
free access. However, copies of the TLJ Daily E-Mail Alert and
news items are not published in the web site until one month
after writing. See, subscription
information page.
Contact: 202-364-8882; E-mail.
P.O. Box 4851, Washington DC, 20008.
Privacy
Policy
Notices
& Disclaimers
Copyright 1998 - 2002 David Carney, dba Tech Law Journal. All
rights reserved. |
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|
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| Tuesday, Jan 29 |
The House will meet at 12:30 PM for morning hour and 2:00 PM
for legislative business.
9:00 PM. The House and Senate will meet in joint session to
hear President Bush deliver the State of the Union Address.
Day two of the COMNET Conference & Expo. Location:
Convention Center.
3:00 PM. The EPIC will
hold a press teleconference regarding its efforts to induce
state attorneys general "to take action to protect
consumers against unfair and deceptive trade practices raised
by Microsoft Corporation's Passport service". See, EPIC letter
to state AGs. For more information, contact Chris Hoofnagle at
202 483-1140. |
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| Wednesday, Jan 30 |
The House will not be in session. (The Republican retreat is
being held on January 30 and 31.)
Day three of the COMNET Conference & Expo. Location:
Convention Center, Washington DC.
Day one of the 2nd Annual Privacy & Data Security Summit,
sponsored by the International
Association of Privacy Officers. See, online
brochure [PDF]. Location: Hyatt Regency Washington, 400
New Jersey Ave., NW.
8:45 AM - 3:45 PM. The NIST
Advanced Technology Program Advisory Committee will hold a
partially closed meeting. See, notice
in Federal Register. Location: NIST, Administration Building,
Employees' Lounge, Gaithersburg, MD.
9:00 AM. The Global Business Dialogue will host a press
conference on the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) tax regime.
For more information, contact Judge Morris at 202 463-5075.
Location: First Amendment Room, National Press Club, 529 14th
St. NW, 13th Floor.
POSTPONED TO FEB 6. 10:00
AM - 12:00 NOON. The FCC's Advisory Committee for the 2003
World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-03) will meet.
See, FCC
notice of postponement [PDF].
12:15 PM. The FCBA's
Cable Practice Committee will host a luncheon. The speaker
will be Stacy Robinson, Mass Media Legal Advisor to FCC
Commissioner Kathleen
Abernathy. The price to attend is $15. RSVP to Wendy
Parish at wendy@fcba.org.
Location: National Cable & Internet Association, 1724
Mass. Ave., NW. |
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|
| Thursday, Jan 31 |
The House will not be in session. (The Republican retreat is
being held on January 30 and 31.)
Day two of the 2nd Annual Privacy & Data Security Summit,
sponsored by the International
Association of Privacy Officers. See, online
brochure [PDF]. Location: Hyatt Regency, 400 New Jersey
Ave., NW. Highlights include:
• 8:15 AM. Howard Beales (Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer
Protection) will speak on "Privacy Regulation and the
Federal Trade Commission".
• 8:45 AM. Phillip Bond (Dept.
of Commerce) will speak on "Privacy and
Commerce".
• 9:15 AM. Amy Friend (Office of the Comptroller of
the Currency) will speak on "Privacy and Financial
Affairs".
• 9:45 AM. Kathleen Fyffe (HHS Dept.) will speak on
"Healthcare Privacy, Security and HIPAA Compliance".
• 10:15 AM. Daniel Collins (Chief Privacy Officer of
the Justice Dept.) will
speak on "Prosecuting Privacy Violations".
• 12:30 PM. Keynote Panel titled "Privacy in
America Following the Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon". The participants will be Agnes
Scanlan (CPO of FleetBoston Financial), Gary Clayton (Privacy
Council), James Harper (Privacilla.org),
John Kamp (Wiley Rein &
Fielding), Mark Rotenberg (EPIC),
David Stampley (AAG, Internet Bureau, Office of the NY
Attorney General), Zoe Strickland (CPO of the USPS), Bruce Johnson
(Davis Wright Tremaine).
10:00 AM - 12:00 NOON. The ITAA's
Telecommunications Committee will meet. For more information,
contact Thomas Vincent at tvincent@itaa.org.
Location: ITAA, 1401 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1100, Arlington, VA.
12:30 PM. John Browne, the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratories,
will speak at a luncheon. Location, Ballroom, National Press Club, 529 14th
St. NW, 13th Floor.
12:30 - 2:00 PM. The FCBA's
International Practice Committee will host a brown bag lunch
with FCC Commissioner Kathleen
Abernathy. Location: FCC, 445 12th St, SW, 8th Floor,
Conference Room 1.
1:00 - 3:30 PM. The FCC's WRC-03 Advisory Committee, Informal
Working Group 7: Regulatory Issues and Future Agendas, will
meet. Location: The Boeing Company, 1200 Wilson Boulevard,
Arlington, VA. (This is near the Rosslyn Metro station.)
7:00 - 8:00 PM. There will be a panel discussion titled
"The State of Online Journalism" featuring Rich
Jaroslovsky (Wall Street Journal) and Doug Feaver (Washington
Post). Location: National
Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor. |
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| Friday, Feb 1 |
The House will meet at 10:00 AM in pro forma session only.
Day three of the 2nd Annual Privacy & Data Security
Summit, sponsored by the International
Association of Privacy Officers. See, online
brochure [PDF]. Location: Hyatt Regency, 400 New Jersey
Ave., NW.
12:30 PM. The FCBA will
host a luncheon. The speaker will be FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin.
There will be a reception at 12:00 NOON. The price to attend
is $45 for FCBA members, $35 for government and law student
members, and $55 for non-members. Registrations and
cancellations due by 5:00 PM on Tuesday, January 29. To
register, contact Wendy Parish at wendy@fcba.org. Location:
Capital Hilton Hotel, 16th & K Streets NW.
12:30 - 2:00 PM. Harold Furchtgott
Roth will give a speech titled "A Tough Act to
Follow: The Telecommunications Act of 1996". To register,
contact Linzey Powers at lpowers@aei.org.
Location: American Enterprise Institute, Twelfth floor, 1150
Seventeenth St., NW.
Deadline to submit comments to the Federal Election Commission
(FEC) in response to its requests comments on the second draft
of the revisions to the 1990 national voluntary performance
standards for computerized voting systems and the first draft
of the revisions to the 1990 national test standards. See, notice
in Federal Register. |
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| Monday, Feb 4 |
9:00 AM. The Cato Institute
will release a study titled "The Digital Dirty
Dozen" which lists and evaluates the worst high tech
legislative proposals of this Congress. The speakers will be Wayne Crews
and Adam
Thierer. This study will be released at an invitation only
press breakfast. For more information, contact Jerry Brito at
202 218-4621. Location: Cato, 1000 Mass. Ave., NW.
10:00 AM. The U.S. Court of
Appeals (FedCir) will hear oral argument in Telecom
Technical Services v. Siemens Rolm. Plaintiffs sued
Seimens Rolm alleging violation of federal antitrust laws;
they alleged monopolization of alleged markets for
telecommunications equipment; they also sought class action
status. Seimens asserted various counterclaims, including
patent infringement. The U.S.
District Court (NDGa) denied class action status. (This is
Appeals Court No. 01-5090 and D.C. No. 95-CV-549-WBH.)
Location: Courtroom 201, 717 Madison Place, NW.
Deadline to submit petitions and comments to the FCC's Cable Services Bureau
regarding the applications of Hughes Electronics Corporation
and EchoStar Communications Corporation to the FCC requesting
consent to the transfer of control of licenses and
authorizations involved in the EchoStar DirecTV merger. See,
FCC notice
[MS Word]. Oppositions and responses are due by February 25,
2002. This is CS Docket No. 01-348. |
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