The Supreme Court should rule that AT&T and similar phone companies aren’t violating antitrust laws when they set prices high at wholesale and low at retail, the company said in oral argument Monday at the Supreme Court. The case, Pacific Bell v. LinkLine Communications, centers on whether a “price squeeze” violates the Sherman Act if it’s done by a vertically integrated company that’s highly regulated at the wholesale level but has no antitrust duty to deal with competition (WID Nov 11 p7).
Sorenson Communications launched its real numbers and E911 Video Relay Service at a ribbon-cutting Friday in Washington, D.C., at Gallaudet University, founded to serve deaf individuals. The move responded to an FCC order requiring all VRS providers to offer real telephone numbers and E911 services to everyone with hearing and speech disabilities by Dec. 31. Raising awareness of the importance of the services for people with disabilities should be a top priority for the new administration, Sorenson CEO Pat Nola said.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA1) contains several provisions expected to affect textile and apparel products, including children's textiles and apparel.
The only way to calm the privacy worries of patients about their health information in an electronic environment is to ensure that they control the data, William Yasnoff, managing partner of NHII Advisors, said on a panel at the eHealth Initiative conference. Yasnoff co-presented with Katherine Ball, director of health sciences informatics at Johns Hopkins University. Yasnoff is the CEO and Ball the director of informatics of Patient Privacy Certified.
The FCC plans to revise its backup power rule for cell sites after disapproval by the Office of Management and Budget (CD Dec 2 p1), the commission said in a letter late Wednesday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The rule, part of the agency’s Hurricane Katrina order, was challenged by wireless carriers in that court. Since the FCC doesn’t plan to override the Office’s disapproval, the court should throw the case out as moot, the commission said.
Loosening access controls on mobile phones benefits the environment as well as carrier competition, mobile phone resellers told the Copyright Office in a filing for the agency’s proceeding on anticircumvention exemptions for “copyright protection systems.” The companies are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group asked on its own behalf for exemptions on “jailbreaking” cellphones -- loading applications that aren’t authorized by the maker or carrier -- and making noncommercial compilations of DVD clips.
Loosening access controls on mobile phones benefits the environment as well as carrier competition, mobile phone resellers told the Copyright Office in a filing for the agency’s proceeding on anticircumvention exemptions for “copyright protection systems.” The companies are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group asked on its own behalf for exemptions on “jailbreaking” cellphones -- loading applications that aren’t authorized by the maker or carrier -- and making noncommercial compilations of DVD clips.
Congress needs to get over the idea that homeland security is too important for investigators’ methods to be studied and overseen, Fred Cate, the director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, said in a panel discussion organized by House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Because homeland security is so important, investigation methods should be scrutinized and tested, Cate said. The National Academy of Sciences recently reported there’s no evidence that one method -- predictive data mining -- works, said Cate and Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU.
Loosening access controls on mobile phones benefits the environment as well as carrier competition, mobile phone resellers told the Copyright Office in a filing for the agency’s proceeding on anticircumvention exemptions for “copyright protection systems.” The companies are represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group asked on its own behalf for exemptions on “jailbreaking” cellphones -- loading applications that aren’t authorized by the maker or carrier -- and making noncommercial compilations of DVD clips.
The verdict in the MySpace suicide case troubled some who followed it, and the decision should worry all Internet users, they said. A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized access to a computer and deadlocked on a conspiracy charge (WID Nov 28 p5). The prosecutor had sought felony convictions in the case. Drew used an account and the persona of a teenage boy to attract her daughter’s friend, who later hanged herself. Missouri prosecutors said Drew hadn’t violated any laws, but U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien in Los Angeles brought the case, arguing that the MySpace servers were located in California and that Drew had accessed them for purposes not allowed in the terms of service.