It’s difficult to connect with our members of congress, who have busy schedules traveling between their hometowns and Washington D.C., but YouTube is trying to make things a bit easier.

This week YouTube is rolling out enhanced channels for everyone in congress, which will now provide them with enhanced features like live streaming video. The new channels will also allow constituents to more easily follow events, hearings, and such that their congressperson conducts.

The move is nice, especially because the YouTube channels fit into the daily routine of most people — meaning they probably spend some time every day watching videos on YouTube. I’m guessing the same can’t be said for C-SPAN, the public access channel dedicated to government dealings.

Over the last year, Google and YouTube has significantly stepped up its efforts to provide video coverage for the government. It’s encouraged congress members to conduct live Google Hangouts via Google+, which allows constituents to ask questions via video chat. It also set up its own political hub to help collect coverage of the 2012 presidential election as well as provided coverage of the Republican National Convention.

Congress photo via Shutterstock

Copyright law in the U.S. was created in 1790, edited in 1831, updated in 1909 for “motion pictures,” and extended to unpublished works in 1976. Which means, according to the current Register of Copyright Maria Pallante, who leads the U.S. Copyright Office, that it is high time for an update.

“We always love it when law is brought up to speed with technology,” Josh Mendelsohn of Silicon Valley’s political advocacy organization Engine.is. “Hopefully we’ll get some some good legislation out of it.”

The review is welcomed by those looking for more freedom and less corporate control over the very stuff of our culture: digital content.

“This is great news for groups like my own, the EFF, and Public Knowledge,” Sina Khanifar, who led the White House cellphone unlocking petition drive and sees this as an opportunity to address the DMCA at the same time. “We’ll be pushing strongly for comprehensive Section 1201 reform via a grassroots campaign at FixtheDMCA.org. The DMCA’s unintended consequences on our rights to modify and repair the electronics we buy, and to remix and make fair use of copyright content could easily be fixed as part of a larger Copyright reform act.”

Whether that actually happens is subject to long months of debate and discussion. But Rep. Goodlatte said in a press release that “there is little doubt” the current copyright system is challenged by new technology, and that a wide review of copyright laws — and related enforcement mechanisms — is needed.

That’s precisely what Pallante, who had testified before the House Judiciary Committee last month, said in a recent lecture on the state of copyright law. She also addressed the need for reviewing the DMCA and its application. Corporations have used the DMCA to take down links, because the DMCA says that content-sharing and social services are responsible for the content their users post.

“The next great copyright act must … serve the public interest,” she wrote. “It must confirm and rationalize … the ability of authors and their licensees to control and exploit their creative works, whether content is distributed on the street or streamed from the cloud.”

The public interest part sounds hopeful to those who want greater freedom for users when it comes to digital content and digital devices — not so much the control and exploitation bits. But those two sides, of course, will form the basis of the battleground.

“We know the movie and music industries have been spending lots of resources on this,” Engine’s Mendelsohn told me, referencing two combatants likely to be on the control side at the coming hearings. “But we in the tech community have spent a lot of time on this as well, and now we are part of the process.”

“There is much work to be done,” Rep. Goodlatte said.

Indeed.

photo credit: opensourceway via photopin cc

The Senate has backed a repeal of a 2.3 percent tax on medical device makers that was enacted as part of Obamacare.

Silicon Valley’s health-technology entrepreneurs view this move as a step in the right direction, whether or not the bill passes.

“It could move forward and, more importantly represents how much the tax is disfavored,” said Practice Fusion‘s senior policy advisor Lauren Fifield. Practice Fusion is a San Francisco-based startup that has been keeping a watchful eye on hearings in Congress this week.

As VentureBeat reported, the Food and Drug Administration is under pressure to determine which “grey area” mobile medical apps should be regulated — and potentially taxed as medical devices.

“This may bode well for med mobile app developers — if the Senate is voting to repeal the tax for devices, there’s no way they’d support a tax on entrepreneurs,” said Fifield.

Happtique’s Ben Chodor was brought in to testify in Congress this week, and represent the voice of health entrepreneurs.

Chodor is outspokenly critical about the tax on medical devices, especially considering that it could prompt bio-tech and life science investors to look at international markets where tax rates are lower. “I think and believe they listened,” he said.

According to Politico, the language was included in an non-binding amendment to the budget resolution, meaning the tax will remain in place regardless of whether the resolution passes. But it does demonstrate growing bi-partisan opposition to the tax in the nation’s capital.

“The importance of this vote cannot be overstated,” said Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who introduced the amendment. “For the first time, Democrats and Republicans have come together in recognizing how bad this tax is. We cannot stop here. We must continue the fight to get rid of this tax.”

As Newsmax points out, most of the Democrats who backed this Hatch amendment are from states that are home to numerous medical device-makers.

As we reported yesterday, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is under pressure to decide how to regulate thousands of new mobile medical applications. Congress has been in session for three days to hear from the experts in the health IT sector on topics like taxation, regulation, and consumer privacy.

Silicon Valley’s health IT investors and entrepreneurs currently operate under a set of FDA guidelines issued in 2011. At that time, the FDA stressed that it had not yet issued an “overarching software policy,” and it asked for the public’s input.

Two years later, developers and investors are still “waiting on the sidelines” for an official decision, said Ben Chodor, the CEO of health app store Happtique, who called me after testifying in House Energy and Commerce committee yesterday.

This delay may prove to be a hindrance for entrepreneurs. “Investors are clearly following the debate in D.C. about regulating mobile health apps, especially those that use attachments to transform a mobile phone into a medical device,” said Missy Krasner, the executive in residence at Morgenthaler Ventures.

For years, the FDA has had the final say on whether new medical devices are safe for clinical use. However, it is poorly equipped to react to the explosion of new mobile health applications.

A potential concern is that the FDA will step up its enforcement of health applications targeted at consumers.

“These laws were created before this new medical technology was imaginable and before it was understood, and this may hamper innovation,” said Lauren Fifield, a health policy adviser at Practice Fusion, a San Francisco based startup. ”The gap between DC and Silicon Valley is 3,000 miles, but it feels like 20 years in terms of understanding.”

Practice Fusion, an electronic health record (EHR) startup, is one of the fastest-growing players in the health IT space. It recently made its first major acquisition in the form of 100Plus, a medical apps maker, and is keeping a watchful eye on Congress. Fitfield’s said the FDA may make a short-sighted decision that could lead to unnecessary oversight in the health IT space.

What’s particularly problematic for the FDA is that some of these medical apps operate in a “gray area.” Would a device marketed to diabetic patients that connects a smartphone to a glucose meter need to be regulated? “To put it bluntly, that is the area that no one gets,” said Chodor.

Malay Gandhi, the chief strategy officer for health accelerator Rock Health [one class is pictured, above], is working on a guide to benefit its startups that operate under existing device regulations, and their best interpretation of draft guidance issued by the FDA in 2011.

“What is unclear how many of these companies—representing almost 40,000 apps—would fall under selective enforcement by the FDA,” he said.

Gandhi advised that the FDA provide a specific set of examples for apps that would need to be regulated. One example that congress is considering is a urine analysis app (it’s not clear whether the stick or the app is doing the diagnosis), which the FDA may need to approve before it launches in the App Store.

Most concerning of all is that while the FDA dithers, a small sliver of medical mobile apps used in clinical settings are slipping under its radar, which is a potential public health hazard.

“In short, FDA needs come up with their guidelines already — sooner rather than later,” said Chodor.

Top image via Rock Health 

Congress is conducting a three-day series of hearings to decide how to regulate the explosion of health apps on smartphone and tablet devices.

Lawmakers from the House Energy and Commerce committee have been holed up to discuss how to balance patient’s privacy concerns and inspire innovation in the developer community.

“Developers are mystified by the rules in this highly regulated industry,” said Ben Chodor [below], the chief executive of mobile health app store Happtique, who called me after testifying alongside a handful of medical experts in Congress today.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been mulling over this problem for years. It remains unclear which medical and consumer health apps come under its jurisdiction.

“Since the 2011 guidance [that it would be seeking public input], the FDA has held a public workshop on mobile medical apps and has received many public comments, but has not yet issued final guidance,” states a letter the committee sent to the FDA earlier this month.

Gaining FDA approval can take years and thousands of dollars, but it’s worth it for companies like AliveCor, a technology that turns your smartphone into a sophisticated heart monitor.

But what about the vast majority of medical apps that are not for clinical use and are designed for scheduling doctors’ visits or devising a healthy eating plan?

Chodor advised the FDA to clarify that apps sold in a consumer environment, like an App Store, will not come under regulation. The vast majority of health apps fall into this category (only about 15 or 20 percent of all apps are for clinical use.) He explained that FDA approval should only be necessary if the app is intended for physician use to make decisions about your health. “The FDA is in the best position to regulate that subset of apps,” he said.

The total market for health-related app services will reach $26 billion by 2017, according to a study from the consulting firm Research2Guidance.

The burgeoning med-tech community fears that the FDA will step up its enforcement, and shackle consumers health products. This is stifling innovation with developers “waiting on the sidelines” for an official decision, according to Chodor.

“FDA needs come up with their guidelines already — sooner rather than later,” he said.

According to the Washington Post, lawmakers are also questioning whether the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would encourage the FDA to define smartphones and tablets with health-related apps as “medical devices.” This has repercussions for the tax that will be levied on the next generation of mobile health products. Medical devices are levied far higher taxes than consumer products and services.

Chodor is concerned that investors are already turning to international markets, where tax rates on medical-related products are lower.

The blurry line between a consumer-focused health app and a medical device is a bureaucratic nightmare. To make matters worse, many of these new health-related apps are used in clinical settings and by consumers. “To put it bluntly, that is the area that no one gets,” said Chodor.

Top image via Tyler Olson// Shutterstock 

This is a guest post by Flybridge Capital Partners’ Jeff Bussgang.

[Editor's note: VentureBeat originally published this story with a headline that badly miscast the author's meaning. We apologize to our readers and the author for the mistake.]

The short answer is no, but perhaps there’s hope.

The day after President Obama was inaugurated for a second term, I was invited to speak at the inaugural meeting of the newly formed Congressional Caucus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  The caucus is a bi-partisan group, created by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Gary Peters (D-MI), to focus federal policy efforts on supporting startups and innovation.

I have to admit my expectations were pretty low.  After my euphoria over the passing of the JOBS Act last year, the latest fiasco over the fiscal cliff have me pretty down on Washington’s ability to get anything done that will help create a more robust business environment.

I have been to DC a few times with the policy business group I helped co-found, The Alliance for Business Leadership, and every time I’m there, I’m struck by the contrast with the more thrilling, action-oriented world of startups and venture capital.

That said, the House Members and staffers seemed genuinely interested in the components of a vibrant start-up ecosystem.  I gave them a briefing of why Boston and NYC have such vibrant start-up environments, with the former being in the midst of a renaissance and the latter emerging from nowhere over the last five to 10 years to legitimately become one of the world’s major start-up centers.

I cited a few elements, which echo a presentation I have given in the past aboutBoston’s Start-Up Scene and that my NYC-based colleague, Matt Witheiler, has written about NYC.  Specifically, here are four important ingredients for a start-up ecosystem to thrive:

• Intellectual capital: Universities, young people, creative, whacky people with expertise in multiple disciplines.
• Angels, Advisors and Accelerators: The first source of capital and they can offer mentorship and good advice to transition an idea to reality.
• Venture capital: Startups need the necessary capital to scale, as well as guidance from those who have “seen the movie.”
• Successful companies: For inspiration, to partner with, poach from, sell to, and so on.
• A welcoming culture: Successful start-up ecosystems are are open, diverse, inclusive of outsiders/immigrants and creative types, and rich in information exchange.

Today, Boston and NYC are shining examples of these elements.  Boston has always had rich intellectual capital, but was historically weaker in the cultural characteristics than it is today.  The angel community has also stepped up in a more meaningful way recently, which has been very positive.

NYC has historically fallen short on intellectual capital, but that has changed dramatically in recent years with the talent streaming out of Wall Street and Madison Avenue into start-ups.  There’s been an explosion in NYC’s angel community.  This has led to an environment that has never been more promising.

With the audience being a policy one, I gave some simple advice to policy makers:  avoid getting involved in areas where government doesn’t have a role (such as picking winners with targeted tax breaks) and focus instead on fundamentals like education and infrastructure, as well as policy issues that matter to entrepreneurs, including immigration reform, education reform to fit the needs the start-up employers, and capital formation issues like crowdfunding.

I gave a nod to local government leaders like Governor Patrick and Mayor Bloomberg who have been terrific champions in their respective communities. When you ask local business leaders, they will all tell you that those two politicians totally “get it”.

I can’t predict whether this new caucus will have an impact, but clearly comprehensive immigration reform is on Congress’ short list for important initiatives in 2013 and Rep. Polis was one of the co-sponsors of the Start Up Visa Act.

If every entrepreneur reached out to their House Representative and encouraged them to join this Caucus, perhaps it would have a small impact.  Meanwhile, I was happy to leave Washington DC and get back to action-oriented Start Up Land!

This post originally appeared on Jeff Bussgang’s personal blog.

Congress decided to kill an amendment to an older piece of legislation that would have prevented authorities from viewing a person’s e-mail messages without obtaining a warrant.

The amendment would have been applied to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it was originally included in the same vote that allowed Netflix users to link their viewing data with their Facebook account, which the Senate successfully passed last week.  We don’t know exactly why Congress yanked the e-mail protections, but my guess is that it wanted to take a more substantial look at the issue.

Federal authorities can currently collect e-mail messages and data from cloud services that’s stored on a third-party server for at least 180 days. Right now, no warrant is currently needed to obtain this information, and authorities only need to claim that such private data is important to an (any) ongoing investigation.

Lets hope the next body of congress can hammer out a real solution to online privacy before 2014.

Via AllGov

The U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that would take the teeth out of online and mobile stalking by creating new rules for location privacy.

The bill, first brought to the Senate by Sen. Al Franken, would keep companies — apps, OS makers, and mobile carriers — from secretly monitoring your location. If the bill becomes law, consumers will have to give consent for any location information can be shared or even collected.

Most reputable applications, such as Google Maps, Foursquare, and Facebook, already take steps to get your consent. But the bill would make that mandatory.

“I believe that Americans have the fundamental right to control who can track their location, and whether or not that information can be given to third parties,” Franken said. “But right now, companies — some legitimate, some sleazy — are collecting your or your child’s location and selling it to ad companies or who knows who else.”

Franken says the practice can lead to or enable stalking and even domestic violence — and the fact that many companies do location-gathering and location-sharing in a way that actually promoted such behavior is something we’ve talked about quite a bit in the past.

The bill was first brought to Congress back in June 2011. A few legislators have expressed concerns about the wording of the bill, but most said they’d be willing to work with Franken to get the bill passed into law.

Here’s the full text of the bill:

S. 1223

Image courtesy of Couperfield, Shutterstock

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Yet, when it comes to the Internet, there are plenty of politicians who believe something is broken.

But many active Internet users — especially those that frequent community news sharing site Reddit — wholeheartedly disagree. With this in mind, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) introduced a new piece of legislation yesterday that, if signed into law, would prevent politicians from passing laws or regulations that might burden the Internet over the next two calendar years.

Over the last two years, congressional leaders have attempted to pass a handful of really bad laws or international trade agreements (including SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and CISPA)  that would have tragically warped the Internet. Each of the failed laws promised to prevent digital theft/piracy, protect privacy, or afford the government greater leeway to carry out these actions.

Issa has rallied against these bills. In the past, he’s participated in Reddit Q&A AMAs (Ask Me Anything) to help explain bad tech policy, and he’s helped create the Internet Defense League. He’s sort of an unofficial champion for Reddit users, which could explain why his new bill’s official title is the Internet American Moratorium Act or IAMA for short — that’s the same abbreviation used for another of Reddit’s popular Q&A sessions, “I Am A…“

As for the bill itself, Issa will be answering questions about it at 7:30 a.m. PST/10;30 a.m. EST  tomorrow via Reddit. We’ll be keeping you updated with his responses either here or in a future post.

Image via Monika Wisniewska / Shutterstock

The SHIELD act – Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes, there must be a silly names contest for American legislation — would force patent trolls who lose frivolous cases to pay their defendants’ legal costs.

From the act preamble:

Essentially, SHIELD would increase the riskiness of the patent trolling business model. With the potential for vastly higher costs, deciding to sue becomes a harder decision … and suing companies using ridiculous patents becomes less attractive.

Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon, who sponsored the bill with Representative Jason Chaffetz from Utah, certainly gets the issues:

“Patent trolls don’t create new technology and they don’t create American jobs,” DeFazio said in a statement. “They pad their pockets by buying patents on products they didn’t create and then suing the innovators who did the hard work and created the product.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees, with staff attorney Julie Samuels writing: “Finally, a moment of sanity.”

The courts system has recently shown signs of being less eager to be the patent trolls heavy, but despite the America Invents act of 2011, it’s been a tough slog passing substantive patent reform. (Although more patent offices and patent review officers is one step.)

This bill is music to the ears of executives like Build.com CEO Chris Friedland, who I interviewed a month ago. Build.com was fighting patent lawsuits from as many as five trolls and formed patent defense pools to spread the legal costs.

“Frankly, the absurdness of some of this stuff is just ridiculous,” Friedland said at the time. “Are you going to patent wiping your ass?”

Perhaps, with SHIELD, there will be less point to … since the courts will no longer be a cash machine for trolls.

Image credit: Songquan Deng/ShutterStock

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Add the House and the Senate to the growing list of parties with serious questions and concerns about how Facebook, its underwriters, and the NASDAQ handled the most anticipated initial public offering in recent history.

Both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Committee on Financial Services are now officially looking into issues surrounding the Facebook IPO. The committees will be conducting briefings with all involved parties, spokespeople confirmed in statements to Reuters.

The committees have yet to schedule hearings or publicly state what specific issues are under review, but we suspect they’re especially curious about whether Facebook and its underwriters violated securities law in the run-up to its offering, as has been alleged in a shareholder class action lawsuit.

“Effective capital markets require transparency and accountability, not one set of rules for insiders and another for the rest of us,” Senate Banking Committee member Sherrod Brown said in a statement. “There’s a lot that we don’t know about this IPO, but a lot that we do. We know that the SEC must fully investigate and take appropriate action if it discovers any violations.”

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that they will review allegations of impropriety around Facebook’s IPO.

The congressional inquiries follow a tumultuous week for Facebook, which saw its share price plummet on Monday and Tuesday and only rebound slightly on Wednesday to close at $32. To make matters worse, as Wall Street shows signs of uncertainty about the company’s future, Facebook shareholders are more than a little disgruntled about being left out of the revised earnings estimate loop. They’ve filed a class action lawsuit against the social network and its underwriters for allegedly disclosing material information to select investors.

Facebook declined to comment on this story.

Photo credit: f-l-e-x/Flickr

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a hotly protested cyber security bill, CISPA, with a vote of 248 to 168 this afternoon.

CISPA, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, seeks to give American companies more legal breathing room when collecting and sharing consumer/user data in the scope of Internet security threats. Essentially, the bill’s goal is to encourage companies to share information with the government that may help it fight and prevent cyber security attacks. Currently, most businesses are hesitant to share such precious information with third parties for fear of violating antitrust laws.

House Republicans brought the bill to a vote despite the threat of a veto recommendation by President Barack Obama’s advisers if certain amendments were not made prior to it passing. Some of those amendments did make it into the bill before going to vote, including more stringent privacy protection measures and additional restriction for how a person’s private data can be used. However, I highly doubt CISPA is now completely devoid of vague language and over-broad descriptions for determining what is a security threat.

CISPA’s main co-sponsor Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) seemed put off by the White House’s veto threat, which could have prompted the bill going to the floor for a vote. “We’ve been working with [the White House] for one year. I don’t like to get a phone call half an hour before we go to Rules yesterday that this is coming,” he told industry group  Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) at an event today.

While CISPA only intends to thwart security threats, many believe it could end up paving the way for large companies (as well as the government) to begin policing the internet. Critics also point out that companies may begin creating extensive user databases, intercepting or modifying communications under the guise of security, and blindly complying with government requests for private  user information.

In response to the successful House vote, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) reaffirmed its opposition to CISPA by outlining exactly why its a bad cyber security bill.

“The bill has three critical civil liberties problems, and we have worked with Members of Congress, Internet users, advocacy groups, and industry to address them,” the organization wrote in a statement today. “The first is that CISPA permits unfettered sharing of private communication with the government; second, it permits that sharing to go to any agency including the super-secret NSA; and third, it permits the government to use this information for purposes wholly unrelated to cybersecurity.”

The bill has public support from several big tech and communications companies, including Facebook, AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, IBM, Intel, and over 25 others. It still faces a vote in the senate, and another congressional vote to overturn a veto, should the president decide to follow his advisor’s recommendation.

Image via Monika Wisniewska / Shutterstock

One iOS app maker is so confident in the righteousness of its data collection practices that it has responded to a congressional inquiry with an open letter detailing the types of user information it collects, transmits, and stores.

“In full disclosure of our privacy practices — and because we’re proud of our track record — we’ve posted our responses to Congress,” Forkly co-founders Brady Becker and Martin May wrote Tuesday on the company’s blog.

Forkly, a food-sharing and discovery application for iPhone, was one of 34 application makers, including Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, identified last week in a formal congressional inquiry on data privacy. The inquiry from ranking members of the Energy and Commerce Committee G.K. Butterfield and Henry Waxman was launched in the aftermath of a data privacy scandal and set out to determine whether social application makers violate the privacy rights of consumers when their apps access, transmit, or store personal data.

In the open letter, Forkly, the first app maker that we know of to publicly address the matter with detailed responses, disclosed that it has never transmitted or stored information from or about a user’s mobile phone address book. The co-founders did say, however, that Forkly transmits and stores push notification device tokens, transmits a device’s location when needed, and indirectly collects device identification numbers (UDIDs) from its beta testers using TestFlight.

“Forkly does not store any address book information. Forkly stores push notification device tokens to support sending push notifications to users,” the app makers said. “We keep this information until the user deletes their account, and/or until Apple’s Feedback Service… notifies us that a device token has had failed delivery attempts.”

The letter appears to be the most forthcoming response yet from an app maker to the iOS address book and data privacy kerfuffle, and it shows that May and Becker feel they have little to hide from Congress — or their users.

In fact, the pair have long felt a responsibility to collect and transmit as little personal data as possible. They faced similar data collection challenges when working on their previous location-based startup, Brightkite.

“When we were discussing the implementation, the first iteration inevitably lead to the same strategy that Path is using: upload the user’s address book information to our servers so we can do the matching. But it didn’t feel right,” May said previously of the dilemma.

Brightkite instead employed a hash system that allowed it to compare hashes rather than the full text of phone numbers and email addresses to make friend matches.

As for the matter at hand, what do the Forkly co-founders believe to be the proper resolution to how apps collect personal data?

“We understand why Congress is concerned, but we’re not sure if legislation is the solution here,” Becker told VentureBeat. “We believe the proper resolution resides in more transparent privacy policies, something that is easy to digest and understand.”

“Beyond that we think, pressure by users for companies to be transparent and adopt best practices will help this issue,” Becker concluded.

VentureBeat has reached out to the congressional subcommittee to determine if any other app makers, including Apple, have privately responded to last week’s inquiry. The deadline for responses, as stated initially, is April 12.

Photo credit: tanakawho/Flickr

Not satisfied with Apple’s updated privacy policies, members of a congressional subcommittee dedicated to consumer protection have gone directly to the makers of social iOS applications and are demanding answers on how these apps access personal data.

G.K. Butterfield and Henry Waxman, ranking members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, sent inquiry letters Thursday to makers of 34 different social applications, including Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Path, Pinterest, Socialcam, Foodspotting, and even Apple, which makes and distributes the Find My Friends location-based application.

The letters represent the congressmen’s third attempt to get to the bottom of a data privacy scandal involving many of today’s hottest social networking companies. The issue came to light after it was discovered that Path and many social applications access, transmit, and store personal data including address book information and photos. Butterfield and Waxman, with the expressed interest of wanting to protect consumers, have sent Apple two formal inquiries and are now routing around the gatekeeper to get to the heart of the matter.

The letters delivered Thursday are mostly identical in nature and include nine different questions designed to determine the exact types of information app makers collect from users, their policies governing collection and usage, their understanding of Apple’s policies, whether they transmit the data in question, and if they store that data (and for how long).

“We are writing to you because we want to better understand the information collection and use policies and practices of apps for Apple’s mobile devices with a social element,” the congressmen said in the letters. The letter delivered to Twitter is included below.

Several of the questions ask for specifics on data collection practices. One question reads: “At any time, has your iOS app transmitted or have you stored any other information from or about a user’s device — including, but not limited to, the user’s phone number, email account information, calendar, photo gallery, WiFi connection log, the Unique Device Identifier (UDID), a Media Access Control (MAC) address, or any other identifier unique to a specific device?”

The congressional committee is requesting that application makers respond to the questions in written form no later than April 12, three weeks from today. The congressmen did not detail how they plan to address application sellers they believe violate the privacy rights of consumers, but did indicate that they hope to build a “fact-based understanding of the privacy and security practices in the app marketplace.”

Photo credit: THEMACGIRL*/Flickr

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Despite a detailed response from Apple CEO Tim Cook and the introduction of new privacy policies, U.S. government officials aren’t yet satisfied that Apple is doing enough to protect the information of its customers.

G.K. Butterfield and Henry Waxman, ranking members of a congressional subcommittee dedicated to consumer protection, delivered a second letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook Wednesday, this time requesting that Apple brief the Energy and Commerce Committee on its practices.

“The March 2 reply we received from Apple does not answer a number of the questions we raised about the company’s efforts to protect the privacy and security of its mobile device users,” the congressmen wrote in a letter to Cook.

The questionable practices of iPhone applications collecting address book data without permission came to a head last month after VentureBeat exposed the common practice. Apple publicly addressed the kerfuffle and said it would use a future software release to require applications accessing contact data to get explicit user approval. The company also responded to the committee’s first formal inquiry with a letter from Cook (embedded below).

The New York Times, however, later discovered that apps can also copy photos from a user’s device without warning.

“Concerns have been raised about the manner in which apps can access photographs on your mobile devices and tools provided by Apple to consumers to prevent unwanted online tracking,” the congressmen said. “To help us understand these issues, we request that you make available representatives to brief our staff on the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

In the aforementioned letter from Apple, Cook responded to some of the committee’s questions and proclaimed that Apple has an “unwavering commitment” to providing customers with “clear and transparent notice, choice, and control over their personal information.”

Cook also said that the majority of the 550,000 applications in the company’s App Store do not collect or transmit user data. The Apple CEO also included details on the company’s application approval process and added that of the 26,000 applications submitted for review each week, 30 percent are rejected for failure to meet developer guidelines.

In late February, California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris secured a privacy agreement with Apple and five other prominent mobile app makers to force mobile applications that collect personal information to create and distribute a privacy policy.

Photo credit: Chris-Håvard Berge/Flickr

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) tackled questions about technology and anti-piracy legislation from users of community news-sharing site Reddit yesterday.

Having Issa participate in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) is a big deal because the site generates over two billion monthly page views and regularly conducts discussions that are entirely policed by its own users.

Issa is head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, strong opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as well as the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), and a vocal critic of the European “trade agreement” ACTA. Issa recently published the entire ACTA text online, as VentureBeat previously reported. He’s also a self-proclaimed “Internet defender” with 37 patents to his name. Basically, that makes Issa one of the most qualified members of Congress when it comes to issues involving patent and copyright legislation.

Some of the most popular questions Reddit users asked Issa centered on the government’s involvement in curbing piracy through legislation.

“Any solution needs to be inclusive of everyone involved or impacted — content producers, copyright holders, individual Internet users, digital job creators, etc.,” Issa wrote in response to a question about a valid approach to preventing piracy without having the government infringe on a citizen’s basic privacy rights. He also explained why the OPEN Act, which he authored, is a better alternative than SOPA. “I think the OPEN Act is a good balance of increasing protections for our inventors and artists without giving government new, invasive and Internet-destabilizing powers.”

When asked why so many publishing companies are trying to limit our freedoms on the internet, Issa replied: “Publishers and all intellectual property owners will always take the most strident position, in an attempt to maximize their return on their investment. The Internet will always have those who will seek less restrictions on intellectual property, regardless for the need for a return on the investment of the IP creator.

“I fought to defeat SOPA and PIPA because they were bad pieces of legislation and went too far in harming the Internet,” he added.

Many people criticized SOPA and PIPA because they would have given federal authorities the right to shut down any foreign-based website accused of infringing on copyrights and committing acts of piracy. Those pieces of legislation were far too vague in regards to how “foreign website” was defined and didn’t offer enough protection to those that were being falsely accused of piracy by copyright holders trying to eliminate competition or negative criticism.

Despite Issa’s attempts to appeal to Reddit’s masses by mentioning his love of gadgets and Battlestar Galactica, the site’s users also drilled the congressman with some hardball questions. For instance, one Redditor asked how Issa could claim to be a defender of the Internet while supporting legislation in 2008 that allowed the government to conduct warrentless wiretapping.

“After 9/11, an extraordinary amount of cooperation by our communications industry was necessary to find out who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, and who continued to pose an active threat to Americans in our country and around the world,” wrote Issa. “Americans in the telecom industry were called into classified sessions and asked to help in this effort and were asked to tell no one, not even their own coworkers. Some would say Bush had no right to do that, but that’s a fight (with) the Executive Branch and Congress.”

While not everyone was pleased with Issa’s responses, the majority of people who had their question answered seemed appreciative. The congressman said he’d attempt to answer more questions from the Reddit post later today.

Photo of Rep. Darrell Issa browsing Reddit via Issa/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Both houses of Congress passed a bill today that could give Americans access to more of the wireless spectrum; however, this access will cost us some free broadcast TV stations.

If you search for some kind of appropriately named piece of legislation like the “Open up more wireless spectrum so my iPhone browser will load faster act”, you won’t find it. That’s because the bill Congress passed was actually an extension of the payroll tax, which essentially lets people keep more of their paycheck by removing some of the standard taxes.

To pay for this extension, Congress needed a new source of income. That’s where the TV spectrum comes in.

The bill is setting up a voluntary auction for the block of spectrum currently reserved for television broadcasts. Many of the owners originally granted a license for their part of the spectrum are getting a pretty good deal; they paid very little money compared to what it’s now worth on the open market.

To give you some kind of understanding of the spectrum’s value, the 2008 auction for wireless spectrum ended up bringing $19.6 billion, with more than $16 billion of that coming from AT&T and Verizon. Verizon is also poised to pick up a large chunk of wireless spectrum from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks for a cool $3.6 billion (pending approval by the Department of Justice).

So clearly, we’re talking about a lot of money here, of which the U.S. government will get a hefty cut.

Despite the FCC’s countless pleas to make more spectrum available, Congress has mostly neglected to address the issue directly. The payroll tax extension is more or less seen as a way to kill two bird with one stone. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The good thing about this auction is wireless carriers will be able to speed up their networks, expand coverage area of high-speed internet to rural areas of the country, and (in turn) create more jobs.

The bad part about this legislation is that it has the potential to sacrifice some the broadcast TV channels that are barely starting to get used by tech companies as a valuable public resource.

For instance, Boxee just launched a Live TV stick, which feeds the HD TV broadcast signal into the company’s Boxee Box set-top box, thus providing owners with a way to both cut the cord and still get some live content like local news and sports. There’s also recent Barry Diller startup Aereo, which uses tiny HD antennas (one per user) to stream the broadcast TV content thru a variety of connected devices.

While I welcome the additional spectrum availability, part of me wonders whether it would have been better for Congress to directly address the issue rather than issuing a voluntary auction to pay an immediate bill like the payroll tax cut extension.

[Via the Washington Post; Gavel photo via ShutterStock]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The questionable practices of little-known iPhone application Path led to the unearthing of evidence that many other iPhone apps also take consumers’ address book data. The ensuing public outcry prompted U.S. government officials today to question the one company that might actually be to blame: Apple.

“This incident raises questions about whether Apple’s iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts,” congress members G.K. Butterfield and Henry Waxman wrote Wednesday in a letter addressed to Apple CEO Tim Cook. The letter marks the beginning of an investigation into whether Apple adequately protects application users’ privacy and data.

The “incident” is the recent discovery by iOS application developer Arun Thampi that mobile-journaling app Path was, without permission, uploading and storing the contents of users’ iPhone address books on its servers. Path has since apologized and deleted this data, but its actions spawned a heated discussion on how iOS application makers access the official iOS address book, and placed the spotlight on Apple for granting app makers too much access and not protecting its mobile users.

Congressmen Butterfield and Waxman, ranking members of a congressional subcommittee dedicated to consumer protection, specifically questioned Apple on how it could approve the Path application, “despite [it] taking the contents of users’ address books without their permission.”

The duo put nine tough questions in front of Cook and is giving the CEO and his company just 14 days to respond.

“You have built into your devices the ability to turn off in one place the transmission of location information entirely or on an app-by-app basis. Please explain why you have not done the same for address book information,” one of the directive reads.

This echoes the sentiments of many iOS developers, including Instapaper creator Marco Arment, who recently argued that Apple should change its API to require permission for access to the user’s address book.

Arment will soon get his way. Apple, for its part, has said nothing on the matter until today, despite the cacophonous volume of the discussion. The company, currently sitting comfortably atop a $90 billion pile of cash, was compelled to publicly acknowledge the situation Wednesday and will be making changes in response to the backlash.

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”

Whether the permissions change will satisfy the congressmen remains to be seen.

“We look froward to hearing from Apple and will withhold judgment until we hear directly from them,” a committee spokesperson told VentureBeat. As of noon Pacific Wednesday, the committee had not received a response from Apple.

The letter comes just one day after VentureBeat uncovered evidence showing many iPhone applications upload real names, email addresses, and phone numbers from users’ iOS address books to their servers without first asking permission.

Photo credit: Trevino/Flickr

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 letter reads. “The concerns are too fundamental and too numerous to be fully addressed through hasty revisions to these bills. Nor can they be addressed by closed door negotiations among a small set of inside the-beltway stakeholders.”

The letter, embedded below, comes in the aftermath of a powerful Internet protest that helped to defeat, at least temporarily, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, two controversial pieces of IP legislation that were making their way through Congress. But, as the letter notes, the bills aren’t dead yet.

“Finally, any future debates concerning intellectual property law in regards to the Internet must avoid taking a narrow, single-industry perspective,” the letter continues. “Too often, Congress has focused exclusively on areas where some rights holders believe existing law is too weak, without also considering the ways in which existing policies have undermined free speech and innovation.”

Unfortunately, as we see it, the letter is far too generic in purpose, weak in message, and broad in audience to make any real impact on Congress. The clout of its signers, however, may help the letter win more favor from those who oppose SOPA and PIPA. And, ideally, the letter could rally enough support to keep the web focused on the task at hand: preventing Congress from spitting out irresponsible legislation.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/80672293/Public-Knowledge-Internet-Letter-to-Congress

[via The Verge]

Photo credit: vgm8383/Flickr

“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 response to this letter from Congress, Google has publicized its reply in the hopes of clarifying the issues of privacy controls and opt-outs. You can read the full text of the letter below.

The company recently consolidated its privacy policies from over 70 — one for each of its broad range of products — to just a handful. Sixty of these policies were consolidated into one, big privacy policy, which allows Google to share user data across its products.

In the letter, Google stresses that it is not collecting any new information about its users, nor selling it to advertisers. The difference users will notice are new integrations of their data from one product being used in another. For example, Google currently lets you upload events into your Google calendar if the company’s Gmail technology believes text in an email is referring to a time and place. Another example is its recent launch of Search Plus Your World, which takes data from your Google+ account and provides it as search results in Google’s web search product.

Google is also trying to calm to seas by continuing to provide granular privacy controls within each product.

“The privacy policy changes don’t affect our users’ existing privacy settings,” Google’s letter explained, “If a user has already used our privacy tools to opt out of personalized search or ads, for example, she will remain opted out.”

Facebook committed a similar misstep when it made changes its site-wide privacy settings. Instead of alerting users, however, the company changed their settings to the site’s new default, resulting in a complaint filed with Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The case was settled with Facebook promising to undergo 20 years of privacy audits, and include its security and privacy departments in all product development.

According to Google you can still “opt-out” of the new privacy changes by simply not using the products while logged into an account, but this restricts what products you can use as some require an account to get the full experience.

We have contacted Google and will updated upon hearing back. Check out the full letter to Congress below.

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 bill that attempts to conquer counterfeiting and piracy but would also entail widespread censorship on the web.

We wouldn’t call the bill controversial so much as outright hated — at least among the citizens of the Internet. Even the Internet’s founders and inventors have become very vocal about their opposition to SOPA and its sister bill, PIPA.

So instead of standing idly by and opining about SOPA, we picked up the phone and called Congress.

Jolie O’Dell (that’s me, folks) called Rep. Jackie Speier of California to express opposition to SOPA (in other, unfilmed correspondence, O’Dell also contacted her two senators about her opposition to PIPA). We highly recommend that you do the same post haste.

If you’re all fired up and ready to get in touch with your representatives in Congress, here’s a great guide explaining exactly how to do that.

If you’re not shy about getting on the phone, you can call your representatives in Congress directly. The Senate switchboard number is (202) 224-3121, and the House switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

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 seek court orders against websites associated with infringing, pirating or counterfeiting intellectual property. Critics of the bill say that it will curb creativity, cost jobs and jeopardize free speech.

Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck had appealed to League of Legends players to write to Congress, in order to help stop the bill being passed. Polis then made his appearance in the same forum thread, to highlight the reasons he feels that SOPA should be stopped:

Hi, this is Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado. As a member of the League of Legends community (partial to Anivia and Maokai), and as someone who made his living as an Internet entrepreneur before being elected to Congress, I’m greatly concerned about the future of the Internet and gaming if Congress doesn’t wake up. You may have heard that Congress is currently considering a bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. While SOPA has a ton of problems, there are some significant issues that I thought fellow gamers might want to know about.

I’m particularly concerned that SOPA might stifle the kind of innovation that brings us games we love, such as LoL. The bill makes it far too easy for angry competitors to sue good law abiding companies out of existence. It threatens any company or website that depends on user-generated content, even companies like Riot. Instead of coming up with great ways to keep making games like LoL even better, companies will have to spend their money hiring lawyers. That’s why companies like Riot, who want to protect the games they create, are opposed to SOPA.

I’ve been working on alternative legislation that would protect the games companies create while also fostering innovation. But we also need you to call your members of Congress and let them know of your opposition to SOPA. This bill has a very real chance of passing, and it is up to all of who want to protect the Internet to take action. More information is available at http://keepthewebopen.com/. Please make your voices heard in this debate! I will be happy to respond to your posts below, and will check back every few hours today and respond to as many as I can.

True to his word, Polis did check back on the site, to see the comment “We need more representatives like you”, to which he replied “*blush* There are a few who get this, but your calls will help convince many representatives who haven’t decided yet on this. Jared.”

Congressman Polis even found time to joke about his customized ‘United States Congress’ avatar with forum member ‘bieberfever123′:

bieberfever123: WHY DOES HE GET AN AVATAR AND l DONT???

Rep Jared Polis: u would just use Justin Beiber as your avatar anyway

bieberfever123: You got a problem with that?

Rep Jared Polis: Jes saying it might b a copyright violation

Polis, who formed a number of successful internet businesses, including ProFlowers.com, before being elected to Congress in 2008, has been a vocal opponent of the SOPA bill. He has previously said that SOPA will “destroy the Internet as we know it”, and is instead backing an alternative bill, known as OPEN: Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act.

To keep up to date with the SOPA story, be sure to follow VentureBeat’s ongoing coverage.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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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 great American firewall that will curb creativity, cost jobs and curb free speech.

Major game companies Nintendo, Sony and EA reportedly removed their individual support for SOPA in the past week, but in an update, EA said that story was incorrect, because it had never expressed support for the Senate version of SOPA, but rather for something similar to it.

However, these companies are all still members of the ESA trade association, which is listed as a supporter of the bill. Indie game developer Nathan Fouts, behind the games Serious Sam Double D and Weapon of Choice, has urged gamers and developers to lobby the organization to drop support for SOPA. He states that “as long as the ESA is still listed [as a supporter], the game industry as a whole is supporting SOPA.”

In July 2011, the ESA won a landmark court case, which ruled that “video games are entitled to the same constitutional protections as books, movies, music and other forms of artistic expression”, under the First Amendment. The ESA also sponsors the Video Game Voters Network, an organization that unites gamers who support freedom of speech in games. Now it seems, at least to some industry figures, that the ESA is going against one of its guiding principles.

In a statement, the ESA said:

As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection, and do not believe the two are mutually exclusive. Rogue websites – those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy – restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs. Our industry needs effective remedies to address this specific problem, and we support the House and Senate proposals to achieve this objective. We are mindful of concerns raised about a negative impact on innovation. We look forward to working with the House and Senate, and all interested parties, to find the right balance and define useful remedies to combat willful wrongdoers that do not impede lawful product and business model innovation.

Jim Sterling, reviews editor at Destructoid.com has sent an open letter to the ESA,  in which he describes its continued support for SOPA as “hypocrisy on a most despicable level,” given its previous actions to protect freedom of speech. Sterling requests that “as other companies dissolve their allegiance with this poorly written, glaringly broken bill, I ask you to do the same.“

Fouts has also written to the trade association, saying that “The ESA represents the video game industry, including companies such as Sony Entertainment and Nintendo which have dropped support for SOPA. This bill is bad for the internet and bad for the video game industry. Please show the world that the game industry does not support SOPA, and please have the ESA withdraw support.”

The letter appears in full on Fouts’ blog, and he is encouraging gamers to send similar messages to the ESA, as a show of strength by the gaming community.  As he puts it, “I’ve put together a simple post pleading with developers and gamers to focus their internet super powers on getting the ESA to drop SOPA support. If they can get the Ocean Marketing guy fired forever, I’m sure they can blow this up as well.”

The ESA has 34 industry members listed on its website, including Sony Computer Entertainment, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Capcom, Namco Bandai and SEGA. Fouts has appealed to developers working at these companies to “talk to your higher ups about contacting the ESA, to have them withdraw SOPA support”. He says that “there are over 30 really great companies that have made amazing games that are effectively supporting the SOPA bill.”

Fouts is adamant that SOPA is not a viable solution in the fight against software piracy. He admits that “my company lost plenty of potential sales of our recent game Serious Sam Double D to online piracy.” But despite this, “SOPA is not the answer to fixing piracy problems.”

Voting on the SOPA bill has currently been delayed, but the issue is certainly not going to die down, and it will be interesting to see whether other organizations drop their support for the bill, amidst widespread protests by members of the tech community.

You can keep on top of the SOPA story by following VentureBeat’s ongoing SOPA coverage.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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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, House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and minority whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) will host the event from 3:30 pm to 7:30 pm Eastern Time in the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C.

Hoyer said in a statement, “Americans have a right to petition government, and new online technologies are giving that right exciting new possibilities.”

Hoyer continued to say that members of Congress should “embrace these technologies to make the legislative process as open and accessible as possible.

“We welcome the help and advice of industry leaders like Facebook, as well as individuals and academics who have innovative ideas on how to do so.”

Over the past year, Facebook and Congress have been working at opposite ends of the same problem: using technologies to safely and securely allow more room online for various aspects of the democratic process. While the event itself will be brief and not every interested developer might be able to attend, the hackathon represents the ability of any good hacker with a great idea to have a huge impact on our government and legislation.

“As social media increasingly plays a central role in all areas of our everyday life, it is essential that Congress fully incorporate these platforms into its daily operations,” Cantor said in the same statement.

“Software developers, designers and program engineers have a unique opportunity to help us improve the legislative process resulting in more citizen engagement, and we are very excited about working together and getting started.”

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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 from the right wing than the left.

The analysis, reported by Mashable on Friday, focuses on the aftermath of the discovery that a photo showing someone’s bulging underpants had appeared on Weiner’s Twitter account. Weiner promptly deleted the tweet (and later blamed it on hackers), but TweetCongress recorded the post, which was later picked up by Andrew Breitbart at BigGovernment.com.

TweetCongress’s infographic shows that after those revelations, the number of tweets by Republican members of Congress dropped by 27%, while those of Democrats dropped by 29%. No wonder — our elected representatives are probably being a bit more cautious about what they post, now that they see how embarrassing a misdirected tweet can be.

But it’s still a bit of a mystery why the Republican party has embraced Twitter so much more than the Democratic party. Any ideas?

“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 system and major defense supplier Lockheed Martin. Hacker attacks on Sony’s PlayStation network, while not relevant to national security, have also increased public awareness of cybercrime and online threats. Mueller said the FBI will make sure “the personnel in the bureau have the equipment, the capability, the skill, the experience to address those threats.”

The Pentagon recently weighed in on cyber attacks and decided that if such an attack produces “death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause,” then the attack could merit retaliation by force.

It’s good to see the Pentagon and FBI talking about cyber security on a more consistent basis and making the issue a higher priority. The last ten years have brought incredible advances in technology, but the U.S. government is considerably behind the curve at preventing potentially crippling cyber attacks.

The YouTube channels are well-designed, with an interactive map that you can click on to find your state’s congressional leaders and their personal YouTube channels (funnily enough, the Senate and the House are both 31-years-old, according to their YouTube channel pages).

Floor speeches and committee hearings as well as “behind-the-scenes footage from Capitol Hill” will be available. Elected officials are posting videos directly from their Washington offices as well, but the majority of current videos available have garnered very few views — most likely because they feel more like commercials for government than sincere attempts to reach out to constituents. Hopefully the introduction of this technology will encourage them to speak more clearly, or at least try to cater to viewers just a bit more. Speaking of elected officials using technology, we found a video of Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan showing off his Facebook skills:

As the YouTube blog says, “They’re posting videos direct from their Washington offices, as well as clips of floor speeches and committee hearings alongside additional behind-the-scenes footage from Capitol Hill.”

The Congressional move to YouTube is an attempt to engage citizens, following in Barack Obama’s footsteps in his commitment to transparency and online video with his weekly YouTube addresses.

While the YouTube blog says that these channels are the equivalent of a “backstage pass” to the government, efforts to make the Congressional activity more transparent will be effective only if the communication goes both ways. Quite a few of the congressional leaders’ YouTube channels have disabled comments — understandable due to the potential for idiotic YouTube comments like “TAXES R LAME, LOL” — but if YouTube is to be a platform for citizens to speak up and provide feedback, users need to be able to do so directly on the site.

Both the House and Senate are expected to introduce bills today that reflect the tech industry’s long-standing desire to weaken the protection patents offer their holders — over, of course, the vehement objections of pharma/biotech. The main issue separating the two pillars of U.S. high technology: Big tech companies tend to end up as defendants in patent-infringement suits, while big drug companies are more frequently plaintiffs. (The Washington Post’s Alan Sipress didn’t put it that simply, but that’s essentially what’s going on).

Generally speaking, tech companies want a greater ability to challenge the validity of existing patents and relief from what they consider exorbitant damages, such the $1.52 billion Microsoft was ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent in February for infringing two patents on MP3 digital-music technology. Companies that pop up with such patent claims when a technology is already in widespread use are frequently derided as “patent trolls,” and the tech industry is anxious to limit their ability to block product development or to demand huge damages after the fact.

The pharmaceutical and biotech industries, by contrast, frequently spend years — and sometimes decades — developing drugs that are often protected by a limited number of patents. As a result, drugmakers are far more interested in protecting their investment by using those patents to ward off would-be competitors.

The possibility of patent changes is clearly a big deal for both sides, although I suspect that warding off changes is going to be an uphill battle for the drugmakers, who could even end up longing for a presidential veto. Not only has the drug industry leaned heavily Republican in recent years — hardly an auspicious sign now that Congress is held by Democrats — but criticism that overly strong patents stifle innovation has been growing steadily in recent years, and has even seemed to pique the interest of the Supreme Court. Plus, if things do get down and dirty on Capitol Hill, it probably won’t take long for stories about drug companies’ own abuses of the patent system to begin circulating again, potentially tipping the scales further toward reform.

A long-awaited struggle over patent reform appears to be upon us, the Washington Post reports today (hat tip to the WSJ’s Health Blog). It pits the tech industry against pharmaceutical/biotech companies over intellectual property protections that, depending on where you stand, are either largely a nuisance or an industry’s lifeblood.

Both the House and Senate are expected to introduce bills today that reflect the tech industry’s long-standing desire to weaken the protection patents offer their holders — over, of course, the vehement objections of pharma/biotech. The main issue separating the two pillars of U.S. high technology: Big tech companies tend to end up as defendants in patent-infringement suits, while big drug companies are more frequently plaintiffs. (The Washington Post’s Alan Sipress didn’t put it that simply, but that’s essentially what’s going on).

Generally speaking, tech companies want a greater ability to challenge the validity of existing patents and relief from what they consider exorbitant damages, such the $1.52 billion Microsoft was ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent in February for infringing two patents on MP3 digital-music technology. Companies that pop up with such patent claims when a technology is already in widespread use are frequently derided as “patent trolls,” and the tech industry is anxious to limit their ability to block product development or to demand huge damages after the fact.

The pharmaceutical and biotech industries, by contrast, frequently spend years — and sometimes decades — developing drugs that are often protected by a limited number of patents. As a result, drugmakers are far more interested in protecting their investment by using those patents to ward off would-be competitors.

The possibility of patent changes is clearly a big deal for both sides, although I suspect that warding off changes is going to be an uphill battle for the drugmakers, who could even end up longing for a presidential veto. Not only has the drug industry leaned heavily Republican in recent years — hardly an auspicious sign now that Congress is held by Democrats — but criticism that overly strong patents stifle innovation has been growing steadily in recent years, and has even seemed to pique the interest of the Supreme Court. Plus, if things do get down and dirty on Capitol Hill, it probably won’t take long for stories about drug companies’ own abuses of the patent system to begin circulating again, potentially tipping the scales further toward reform.