Web companies beg Congress to “step back” from IP legislation

Hoping to amplify the voice of the Internet, web companies including Mozilla, Reddit, and WordPress have banded together with public interest and human rights groups to urge Congress to stop its work on intellectual property laws.

Monday, more than 70 organizations signed an open letter addressed to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“Now is the time for Congress to take a breath, step back, and approach the issues from a fresh perspective,” the … Continue Reading

Google defends its new privacy policy in letter to Congress

Google is defending its privacy policy changes yet again, this time to the United States Congress.

“Last week we heard from members of Congress about Google’s plans to update our privacy policies by consolidating them into a single document on March 1,” said Google director of public policy Pablo Chavez in a blog post. “Protecting people’s privacy is something we think about all day across the company, and we welcome discussions about our approach.”

In … Continue Reading

VBWeekly: We call Congress about SOPA (video)

For our weekly video show, we decided that not only were we going to talk about SOPA; we were going to do something about SOPA.

Also, this was our CES wrap-up show, and Chris Peri, who was there to see it all, recaps some of the highlights of the consumer electronics freak-fest that was. You can check out all of VentureBeat’s CES 2012 coverage at your leisure.

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a … Continue Reading

Congressman uses gaming forum to help gather anti-SOPA support

Congressman Jared Polis made an impromptu appearance on the official forum for online game League of Legends yesterday, to help gather further support in the movement against the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA).

Congressman Polis, Democratic Representative from Colorado, plays League of Legends himself, and his message was met with a wealth of positive responses from fellow gamers.

The controversial SOPA bill is aimed at giving the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to … Continue Reading

Video game industry voices urge ESA trade association to drop SOPA backing

[Updated with correction on SOPA support withdrawal story.]

Voices in the video game industry have spoken out about the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and its backing for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The proposed SOPA legislation gives the U.S. government and copyright holders the authority to seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. Critics of the bill say that it creates the building blocks for a … Continue Reading

Facebook takes its hacker army to Washington, DC, for a Congressional hackathon

Facebook is hosting its first-ever Congressional Facebook Developer Hackathon in the Capitol building in three weeks.

Interested developers and other parties can register for the event now.

Attendees of the bi-partisan event will include members of Congress, their staffers, developers and other tech-minded types. These folks will be hacking together for four hours “to explore the potential connections between legislative data, constituent correspondence and social media,” said Facebook today in a release.

On December 7, … Continue Reading

Why do Republicans tweet so much more than Democrats?

Representative Anthony Weiner’s embarrassing tweet has had a chilling effect on congressional Twitter use, an analysis by Tweetcongress.org shows.

But there’s another mystery contained in TweetCongress’s infographic: Why do Republican representatives use Twitter so much more than their Democratic counterparts?

Over a period of several weeks, TweetCongress recorded 4,537 tweets by 168 Democratic members of Congress. In the same period, the site counted 10,446 tweets by 232 Republicans.

That’s 2.3 times as much Twitter activity … Continue Reading

FBI planning to increase focus on cyber threats

FBI director Robert Mueller told Congress today that the bureau intends to ramp up its focus on battling cyber attacks and threats during the next two years, according to Bloomberg.

“We will increasingly put emphasis on addressing cyber threats in all of their variations,” Mueller said today at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on extending his term by two years.

Mueller’s words are especially meaningful in the wake of the recent attacks on Google’s email … Continue Reading

The U.S. Congress: The new stars of YouTube?

Move over, C-SPAN. The 111th Congress opens today with a virtual bang — YouTube is launching channels for The Senate and the House of Representatives to make it easier for average viewers to connect with their Senators and Representatives (we know you’ve been procrastinating on your letter writing campaigns). An explanation of the new service (delivered with obvious help from a teleprompter) can be seen here:

The YouTube channels are well-designed, with an interactive map … Continue Reading

Patent fight: Tech vs. pharma, round one

Move over, C-SPAN. The 111th Congress opens today with a virtual bang — YouTube is launching channels for The Senate and the House of Representatives to make it easier for average viewers to connect with their Senators and Representatives (we know you’ve been procrastinating on your letter writing campaigns). An explanation of the new service (delivered with obvious help from a teleprompter) can be seen here:

The YouTube channels are well-designed, with an interactive map … Continue Reading

Patent fight: Tech vs. pharma, round one

Move over, C-SPAN. The 111th Congress opens today with a virtual bang — YouTube is launching channels for The Senate and the House of Representatives to make it easier for average viewers to connect with their Senators and Representatives (we know you’ve been procrastinating on your letter writing campaigns). An explanation of the new service (delivered with obvious help from a teleprompter) can be seen here:

The YouTube channels are well-designed, with an interactive map … Continue Reading