Officials at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service now state that the inter-agency report to Congress on the Lacey Act declaration is expected to be completed and sent to the Office of Management and Budget by the end of January 2012. At OMB, the report will be subject to a formal agency comment process, which sources hope will occur in a streamlined manner as these agencies were involved in writing the report. Officials also state that the final rule to define two categories of products that are exempt from the Lacey Act Declaration -- common cultivar and common food crop -- is now very close to completion.

Senate Republican intellectual property hawks want to keep the PROTECT IP Act from moving on to a cloture vote, they told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Friday. Bowing to pressure from not only critics but also a proposed compromise from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., over the PROTECT IP Act’s provisions, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, also said Friday he was dropping DNS blocking provisions from the House companion Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Smith’s reversal came just hours after his office declined to even recognize Leahy’s offer to strip DNS blocking from PROTECT IP (WID Jan 13 p1).

On January 9, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the orange juice processing industry informing it that FDA is sampling import shipments of orange juice and will deny entry to shipments that test positive for the fungicide carbendazim.

LAS VEGAS -- The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) dominated the discussions during a congressional panel at CES Wednesday. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a supporter of SOPA, clashed with several of her Republican colleagues. SOPA was a huge focus of the conference, given the strong opposition of CEA.

LAS VEGAS -- The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) dominated the discussions during a congressional panel at CES Wednesday. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a supporter of SOPA, clashed with several of her Republican colleagues. SOPA was a huge focus of the conference, given the strong opposition of CEA.

As the use of mobile commerce becomes more widespread, ISPs, payment service companies, government agencies and other entities are increasing efforts to address challenges around privacy and security. Companies like MasterCard and Sprint Nextel have practices in place to protect consumer data and resolve customer disputes concerning mobile transactions. The FTC Division of Financial Practices is attempting to rev up its expertise in the mobile space to protect consumers.

As the use of mobile commerce becomes more widespread, ISPs, payment service companies, government agencies and other entities are increasing efforts to address challenges around privacy and security. Companies, like MasterCard and Sprint Nextel, have practices in place to protect consumer data and resolve customer disputes concerning mobile transactions. The FTC Division of Financial Practices is attempting to rev up its expertise in the mobile space to protect consumers.

SAN FRANCISCO -- AU Optronics (AUO) and five executives took part in price-fixing meetings at hotels more than 60 times with counterparts from five other TFT-LCD makers that produced billions of dollars in excess costs to customers including Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday at the start of a trial that the lawyers have estimated will last two or three months. The executives on trial are former CEO Hsuan Bin Chen; Hui Hsiung, a former corporate executive vice president and AUO America president; Lai-Juh Chen, who was vice president of the desktop display business; Shiu Lung Leung, who was director of the desktop unit; and Tsannrong Lee, who held senior manager positions in the computer display businesses.

LAS VEGAS -- Questions are likely to continue to arise about usage-based pricing and whether some high-use subscribers should pay more than those that use much less, industry officials said during a panel Monday at CES. One key, speakers said, is that consumers have usage measurement tools available so they can see that the overwhelming majority utilize little enough bandwidth that they don’t face caps or extra charges, panelists said.

Efforts to deliver more TV Everywhere services to pay-TV customers were given a boost by the Disney-Comcast distribution agreement announced last week, executives said Thursday at a Citigroup investor conference. Giving the largest cable operator broader rights to distribute marquee programming from Disney will raise the profile of all TV Everywhere services, said John Martin, Time Warner chief financial officer. That’s good because though Time Warner has been successful in distributing its TV Everywhere services such as HBO Go, “usage is still de minimis and awareness is very low,” Martin said. “The more programmers that embrace this and put resources behind it,” the better, he said.