federal law

The Day the Web Went Dark

Arik Hesseldahl in News on January 18 at 5:40 am PT

A Web-wide protest against a controversial pair of bills before the U.S. Congress began this morning.

YouTube, Viacom Still Calling Each Other (Naughty) Names

Peter Kafka in Media on May 21, 2010 at 1:05 pm PT

In which the copyright case disgorges yet more documents, along with some swearing. Warning! This post contains f-bombs.

Viacom, YouTube Make Their Case: Read Their Secret Papers Here

Peter Kafka in Media on March 18, 2010 at 10:15 am PT

And we’re off! Court filings in the YouTube-Viacom suit were just unsealed and we can finally read them for ourselves. Settle in–this will take a while.

Net Neutrality Hearing Totally Comcastic

John Paczkowski in News on January 11, 2010 at 5:00 am PT

Comcast last week asked a court to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s order that censured it for interfering with peer-to-peer traffic on its network, and remarkably, the cable giant may get its way. During a hearing last Friday, a three-judge panel questioned whether the FCC has the authority to impose net-neutrality rules without an explicit congressional mandate.

Predictably, FCC Action on Comcast Spurs No End of Whining

John Paczkowski in News on October 29, 2009 at 11:22 am PT

The Federal Communications Commission likes to describe the enforcement action it took against Comcast for its overzealous network management techniques as “modest.” Which is an apt description, since the FCC measure really contained no substantive punishment. Certainly, requiring Comcast to disclose more information about its traffic management practices seems a mere slap on the wrist for a company that deliberately interfered with BitTorrent traffic in violation of Internet openness principles. But Comcast, which wants a court to reverse and vacate the FCC decision, feels that even it was too much.