COPYCENSE

“According to recently released documents, Cingular applied provisionally for patents of shortcut steps used to transmit emoticons in 2004. Six months later, in March 2005, the company filed a claim to patent “a method and system for generating a displayable icon or emoticon form.”

“Cingular is the second major company to apply for patents for technology relating to emoticons, which are so common as punctuation marks in electronic communication that trying to patent them almost seems like trying to copyright a speech tic.”

Maria Aspan. Cingular Seeks Patent on Icons in Text Messages. The New York Times. Feb. 6, 2006.

(Editor’s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archive.)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“As Congress begins writing new telecom legislation, a big question is whether Internet users will have the same broad freedom to access applications and content as before, or whether their online experience will be controlled by companies supplying your Net access.

“Those seeking to preserve this freedom are asking Congress to codify “Net neutrality.” Those seeking to control the Internet dismiss it as unprecedented regulation of the Internet.

“But the dirty little secret is that without regulation, the vital Internet we know today would never have developed. Most of the rhetoric over the past few years has painted a much different picture–that the lack of regulation was crucial to the Internet’s development.”

Gigi Sohn. Perspective: Don’t Blow It, Congress. News.com. Feb. 6, 2006.

See also:

Public Knowledge. Good Fences Make Bad Broadband: Preserving an Open Internet through Net Neutrality. Feb. 6, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

America Online and Yahoo, two of the world’s largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must promise to contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely.

The Internet companies say that this will help them identify legitimate mail and cut down on junk e-mail, identity-theft scams and other scourges that plague users of their services. Thy also stand to earn millions of dollars a year from the system if it is widely adopted.

But critics of the plan say that the two companies risk alienating both their users and the companies that send e-mail. The system will apply not only to mass mailings but also to individual commercial messages like order confirmations from online stores and customized low-fare notices from airlines.

Saul Hansell. Postage Is Due for Companies Sending E-Mail. The New York Times. Feb. 5, 2006.

Update:

John C. Dvorak. Paid E-Mail and the Road to Perdition. PCMag.com. Feb. 6, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Last November, Vinton G. Cerf wrote a letter of warning to Congress. The legendary computer scientist argued that major telecom companies could take actions to jeopardize the future of the Internet. Cerf wrote that they may begin setting up the equivalent of tollbooths and express lanes, potentially discriminating against the traffic of other companies. Such moves, Cerf warned, ‘would do great damage to the Internet as we know it.’

“Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Verizon Communications is setting aside a wide lane on its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service. According to Marvin Sirbu, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who examined the documents, more than 80% of Verizon’s current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service, while all other traffic jostles in the remainder.”

Catherine Yang. Is Verizon a Network Hog? BusinessWeek Online. Feb. 2, 2006.

See also:

Jeff Chester. The End of the Internet? The Nation. Feb. 1, 2006.

Pedro Ferreira & Marvin Sirbu. Inefficiency in Provisioning Interconnected Communication Networks. Proceedings of the Sixth ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce. June 2005.

Updates:

Mike Farrell. Seidenberg: It’s About Cost, Not Blocking. Multichannel News. Feb. 9, 2006.

Rep. Rick Boucher. Saving the Internet. The Hill. Feb. 9, 2006.

Dan Frommer. Verizon CEO Backs Off Executive’s Google Slam. Forbes.com. Feb. 9, 2006.

Arshad Mohammed. Verizon Executive Calls for End to Google’s ‘Free Lunch.’ WashingtonPost.com. Feb. 7, 2006.

U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Net Neutrality (Full Hearing). Feb. 7, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Virtually since the Internet’s creation, its most devoted protectors have been wondering how long it would take for the forces of unrestrained commerce to throttle its freedom and innovation.

“Now they have a date: Some people believe the breakpoint will come as early as Jan. 6, 2008.

“That’s when the telecommunications marriage of Verizon Communications and MCI marks its second anniversary and sheds an important restriction imposed by the Federal Communications Commission when it approved the deal in November: a requirement that Verizon comply with the principle known as ‘network neutrality’ for two years following the completion of its acquisition.

“Absent network neutrality, network operators could dictate to customers which Internet services they could access, and at what quality.”

Michael Hiltzik. Web’s Fate May Hinge on ISPs’ Neutrality. LATimes.com. Jan. 30, 2006.

See also:

CopyCense. Big Telecom Moving Away from Network Neutrality. Jan. 25, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“The Justice Department went to court last week to try to force Google, by far the world’s largest Internet search engine, to turn over an entire week’s worth of searches. The move, which Google is fighting, has alarmed its users, enraged privacy advocates, changed some people’s Internet search habits and set off a debate about how much privacy one can expect on the Web.

“But the case itself, according to people involved in it and scholars who are following it, has almost nothing to do with privacy. It will turn, instead, on serious but relatively routine questions about trade secrets and civil procedure.”

Adam Liptak. In Case About Google’s Secrets, Yours Are Safe. The New York Times. Jan. 26, 2006.

(Editor’s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archive.)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.