Sony Electronics is reorganizing its U.S. sales and marketing operations and installing new leadership, it told retailers Friday. Chief Marketing Officer Mike Fasulo will lead all sales and marketing functions, President Stan Glasgow told dealers in a “Dear Sony Retail Partner” letter. Senior Vice Presidents Ken Stevens and Paul Spitale will be responsible for Sony’s national accounts and its regional and specialty accounts, respectively, while Jay Vandenbree, consumer sales president, has opted for Sony’s early retirement offer and will soon leave the company, Glasgow said.
Congress should make cybersecurity, not net neutrality, its main communications priority in the year ahead, James Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president, told reporters. He said he expects quick action from the FCC and Congress on a Universal Service Fund overhaul because of growing recognition that the current system is broken. And he endorsed Verizon’s position that the 700 MHz D-block should be given to public-safety agencies for immediate use rather than go through a second auction.
Congress should make cybersecurity, not net neutrality, its main communications priority in the year ahead, James Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president, told reporters. The Senate Commerce Committee has “a lot of issues involving telecom and the Internet, but there’s probably no more urgent problem than cybersecurity,” he said. “It is real. It is now. It is massive, and the government has not played the role it should have all along.” Although opinions vary on whether Congress should step in on other Internet matters, “there’s nobody I know that doesn’t agree that the government ought to be playing a larger, at least coordinative role, in cybersecurity issues,” he said.
EU officials Tuesday said they've probably reached agreement on most proposed revamps of European e- communications regulations. But they wouldn’t say what’s still under discussion. “We could agree on all the main issues” after Monday night’s ’trialogue’ among the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers, the information society and media commissioner, Viviane Reding, told reporters. Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer said he’s optimistic the deal will be clinched, but urged caution.
The U.S. payment card industry (PCI) got an unwelcome suggestion from the House Homeland Cybersecurity Subcommittee Tuesday that its security standards regime could use a federal backup. Echoing criticisms often leveled at the Federal Information Security Management Act, which governs data and network security at agencies, lawmakers said the PCI standards that govern merchants and payment processors had become a “check box” exercise that doesn’t adequately guard against data breaches. The industry in Europe and Asia is upgrading infrastructure to improve the security of transactions, said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “I am puzzled and disappointed that we are not seeing similar upgrades here domestically.”
The Office of Textiles and Apparel has announced that effective April 1, 2009, China's value-added tax (VAT) export rebate (duty drawback rate) for most textile and apparel goods will rise one percentage point to 16%. The rate for leather and leather apparel products will rise to 13%. The list of products and tariff number (partially in English) subject to the increase has also been posted. (See future issue of ITT for details.) (OTEXA press release with link to list, dated 03/30/09, http://web.ita.doc.gov/otexa/hotiss.nsf/7bfa72c94f543da685256e5b00498a4d/bb32a878458380a185257566004caeef?OpenDocument)
EU officials Tuesday said they've probably reached agreement on most proposed revamps of European e- communications regulations. But they wouldn’t say what’s still under discussion. “We could agree on all the main issues” after Monday night’s ’trialogue’ among the European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers, the information society and media commissioner, Viviane Reding, told reporters. Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer said he’s optimistic the deal will be clinched, but urged caution.
Broadcasters and state and local emergency management officials are wary of putting too much money into new emergency alert system equipment before the federal government finalizes plans for a new system that won’t soon be obsolete. Their comments at the National EAS Summit Monday echoed concerns raised a year ago (CD May 20 p1). At issue is how quickly broadcasters will have to install new equipment after FEMA adopts a new common alerting protocol. An FCC rule says EAS broadcasters have to be able to receive the new signals within six months of FEMA’s adoption of CAP.
The National Association of Manufacturers' CPSC Coalition has requested that the Consumer Product Safety Commission grant a one year stay of enforcement for the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA1) "tracking label" requirement which takes effect for children's products manufactured after August 14, 2009.
On March 11, 2009, the President signed into law H.R. 1105 (P.L. 111-8), the fiscal year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. The following are highlights of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act's funding and other provisions for the Food and Drug Administration.