regulators

The U.S. and Canada's attempt to limit the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) regulations to telecom operators has been stalled.

The countries, along with much of Europe, had hoped to stop the United Nations arm from attempting to regulate online companies as talks got under way. However, other countries, led by Russia and some countries in the Middle East, have balked, arguing that regulating the Internet should encompass Web companies.

Reuters was first to report on the talks.

ITU discussions kicked off earlier this week as countries around the world determine the extent to which the Internet should … Read more

A new proposal would temporarily stop the federal government from pushing through bills and regulations on the Internet's content.

Recent attempts to regulate the Internet -- in the form of SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA -- are all dead in the water after failing in Congress. But the potential of poorly thought-out changes remains a reality.

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released a draft of the proposed bill, dubbed the "Internet American Moratorium Act 2012," to Project Madison on Monday. The crowdsourcing platform allows people to read and amend draft bills online, striking through text and adding … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--A United Nations summit next week could imperil Internet freedom and lead to a deluge of intrusive new national regulations, Google and a member of the U.S. delegation warned.

"We want to maintain a platform of a free and open Internet as a platform for free expression," Patrick Ryan, an attorney at Google, said at a forum organized by Stanford Law School here yesterday afternoon. Google has organized a new campaign to draw attention to the summit, saying some governments "are trying to use a closed-door meeting in December to regulate the Internet.&… Read more

The Federal Trade Commission may not have enough evidence of harm to consumers to proceed with an antitrust claim against the heart of Google's business, search, Bloomberg reported.

Google faces antitrust investigations from the U.S. FTC and from the European Commission, both going on for many months and both carrying the potential to wreak havoc with Google's search business. At the heart of the issue is whether Google gives unfair prominence to its own properties -- YouTube, Google Flight Search, Google Images, Google Shopping, Google Maps, and more -- at the expense of other businesses.

Regulators aren'… Read more

Tim Carter was blindsided when his home-improvement site AsktheBuilder.com fell out of favor with Google's search algorithm about 21 months ago. His daily ad revenue from Google AdSense crashed from $1,400 to $70.

"I have learned my lesson," Carter said. "Anybody who builds a business based on the whims of a search engine's algorithms -- that's a foolish thing to do."

This recrimination, mind you, is coming from a former Google advocate. In 2009, Google published an AdSense case study about his success, and Carter even testified before the U.S. Congress … Read more

Think of them as the good cop and the bad cop.

Two individuals hold central positions in Google's antitrust challenges from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the EU's European Commission. As the European commissioner for competition, Joaquin Almunia has tremendous influence over what happens to Google. And in the United States, George Mason University professor Joshua Wright is expected to get some influence soon as an incoming FTC commissioner.

They contrast sharply. Almunia has been highly critical of Google and how it's done business since becoming dominant in search. Wright, though, not only advocates minimal … Read more

Now you see it, now you don't.

Just over a month after car-hailing service Uber launched support for taxi service in New York City, the company is pulling out, CEO Travis Kalanick confirmed to CNET in an e-mailed statement today. All mention of taxi service in New York City has also been removed from the company's Web site.

"We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road but New York's TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail which they privately have … Read more

Thousands of units of the new iPhone 5 and other popular smartphones like Samsung's Galaxy S III will likely fly off California store shelves the last week of September, and many of the consumers purchasing them will probably do a double take at the total on the receipt.

That's what happened to CNET reader Debi Scott, who read my story on how much sales tax from new iPhone sales could add to local government coffers (JP Morgan also took note of the iPhone 5's potential as an economic booster shortly thereafter) and thought I might be understating the case. Scott told me how she purchased two iPhone 4S smartphones last year for $199 each at an AT&T store in Visalia, Calif., and was charged more than $100 in sales tax.… Read more

commentary California lawmakers have taken an encouraging step to keep government from tinkering with the mechanics of the Internet. As first reported by CNET in June, SB 1161, which passed last week, prohibits the state's Public Utilities Commission from imposing new regulations on "Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled services," except when specifically authorized by the legislature or by federal authorities.

SB 1161, which is only four pages long, was approved in May by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of the state's Senate. On August 22, it cleared the state Assembly by a margin of … Read more