The U.S. Senate voted today to pass a bill that would require large e-commerce companies to collect sales taxes from all of their U.S. customers.

The bill, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 (S. 743), passed the Senate by a vote of 69 to 27 (with 4 Senators not voting).

It now goes to the House of Representatives, where it may face a tougher battle.

The bill imposes a single federal standard requiring all retailers with more than $1 million in online transactions to collect the sales tax required by whatever locality the buyer happens to be in. States would have to do their part by setting up a single entity for sales tax collection and providing a single sales tax return form for retailers to use in reporting tax payments, greatly simplifying the process.

We’ve been expecting this bill to pass for awhile.

So the bill is mixed news for e-commerce fans. For customers, that means they’ll have to pay sales tax even if they didn’t before. For online retailers, it means they’ll have to collect sales taxes for a variety of jurisdictions — but the process will be simpler.

Right now, there’s a patchwork of different state and local laws governing e-commerce. Technically, e-retailers are supposed to collect sales tax in many locations. In reality, not many do: In California, only 1.4 percent of online transactions included the required sales tax.

Some online retailers, such as eBay, have stridently opposed the bill, while others, such as Amazon, are in favor. (Amazon earlier fought, and lost, a battle to keep from collecting sales tax from its California customers.)

Brick-and-mortar retailers supported the bill, viewing it as a way to cut down on “showrooming,” where customers visit physical showrooms to check out the latest products, then go online to purchase them at lower prices. The U.S. governor’s association also supported the bill.

CNN has a handy overview of the bill’s main points and what it will mean for you.

Here’s the full text of S. 743.

Corrected 6:06pm: The bill goes next to the House, not to the President.

Photo credit: kenteegardin/SeniorLiving.org via photopin cc

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

The Obama administration will announce Tom Wheeler as its pick for the next head of the Federal Communications Commission later today, according to a Wall Street Journal report that cites unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Source: Core Capital Partners

Tom Wheeler

Former FCC chairman Julius Genachowski stepped down from the position back in March after a four-year stint. It wouldn’t be a complete surprise if the WSJ report is true, as many speculated that Wheeler would be among the top candidates for consideration. The report indicates that President Barack Obama will make a formal announcement as soon as Wednesday

As for Wheeler, he’s currently a partner at Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm Core Capital Partners, which manages $350 million in investments across two different funds. Wheeler has plenty of experience working with communications companies and organizations. He’s the former CEO of trade organization former president of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA), former CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), a board member of PBS, and cofounder investor relations service company SmartBrief. Wheeler also has a rather though background in crafting communications policy and serves on  Obama’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Wheeler is not only familiar with the telecommunications world but also with the startup world, which should please the tech community. Personally, he sounds like a shoo-in for the position, but he’ll still need to gain a vote of approval from the Senate.

If you’re curious about his stances on the communications industry, he writes a column called Mobile Musings. Some of his stances are definitely forward-thinking, but not so much that I’d label him a futurist. For example, he theorizes that mobile payments startup ISIS — which you can use to pay for goods using your mobile device — could eventually use its technology to shape the way we hold elections. And as the WSJ notes, Wheeler was a fan of the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, which later fell apart after the Federal Trade Commission filed a suit to block it. His logic was that the FCC missed a huge opportunity to add further regulation to the wireless carrier industry.

We’re reaching out to both Wheeler and the FCC for comment, and will update this post with any new information.

Photo via wiredbike/Flickr

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is likely to fail if it goes to a vote on the Senate floor, according to comments made today by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the committee on commerce, science and transportation.

CISPA is a bill that would enable major companies to share cyberthreat data with the government (and each other) to prevent attacks on their networks. Many critics have spoken out against CISPA because it doesn’t specify what information can be shared and what it will be used for beyond preventing cyberattacks. CISPA passed a vote in the House last week despite threats of a presidential veto.

“We’re not taking [CISPA] up,” Rockefeller told U.S. News. “Staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we’re going to strengthen cybersecurity. They’ll be drafting separate bills.”

CISPA isn’t technically dead, because the Senate hasn’t brought the bill to a vote. And even though there’s promise of carving CISPA’s various cybersecurity issues into separate bills, it could easily morph into something that’s very much like the original piece of legislation that was passed by the House.

It’s worth noting that this is the second go-around for CISPA. Last year the bill also passed successfully in the House — and the Senate version of CISPA bill even had the White House stamp of approval. Yet the Senate is also where CISPA met its demise the first time, so maybe there is some hope that Rockefeller’s comments will hold true. Still, the White House is still pushing for some type of cybersecurity legislation to pass into law, and the Obama administration has even laid the groundwork for companies to voluntarily start participating in a CISPA-style coalition.

While it seems fairly obvious that corporations would use social media to communicate to the public, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has formally decided it’s OK, according to a new filing today that involves Netflix’s charismatic chief executive, Reed Hastings.

Back in December, SEC staff recommended that Hastings and Netflix be formally charged with failing to use proper disclosure procedure when he shared news on Facebook in June. Hastings was sharing news that Netflix’s subscribers had reached 1 billion hours of video watched on the streaming service for the month, which coincided with a boost to the company’s stock.

The SEC’s new decision allows CEOs to tweet, update Facebook, and other social networks, just so long as the information follows other disclosure policy. That means Hastings isn’t going to get in trouble for the Facebook incident he invoked last year. (Now, all other CEO of major companies need to do is just find the time to update their accounts more often.)

Here’s the SEC’s official statement about its decision on social media:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today issued a report that makes clear that companies can use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to announce key information in compliance with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Regulation FD) so long as investors have been alerted about which social media will be used to disseminate such information.

The SEC’s report of investigation confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites.  The SEC issued guidance in 2008 clarifying that websites can serve as an effective means for disseminating information to investors if they’ve been made aware that’s where to look for it.  Today’s report clarifies that company communications made through social media channels could constitute selective disclosures and, therefore, require careful Regulation FD analysis.

“One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information,” said George Canellos, Acting Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.  “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors, but not if the access is restricted or if investors don’t know that’s where they need to turn to get the latest news.”

Source: WSJ; Photo via blucier/Flickr

On the same day the New York Times runs a story about how a faceless squad of hackers on the other side of the world has gone unchecked in a race to penetrate frightening chunks of the digital grid, I am sitting across from author, blogger, and activist Cory Doctorow.

He’s seated cross-legged, perched on a wooden table. The setting is an independent bookstore, where Doctorow proceeds to tell stories he’s told dozens of times already on this book tour — yet still manages to make them seem as fresh as they probably did the first time.

He sways, gestures invitingly, and adjusts his large-rimmed glasses, always in motion. He’s self-effacing, the way he calls himself a Patchouli-scented info hippie. And he talks with intensity of purpose, like a man always running out of time.

At his book signings, the co-editor of the website BoingBoing is not an author so much as a Jeremiah of the web. Never mind promoting “Homeland,” the follow to his 2008 bestseller “Little Brother.” He’ll get around to that.

Getting our policy badly wrong

First, he walks through a litany of episodes from the department of “truth is stranger than fiction.” He recaps examples of technology devices that have been co-opted and turned against their owners.

It’s partly our fault. One of the things wrong with the world, Doctorow insists, is that enough people aren’t demanding that devices be made differently, “so that people can see inside them.”

The default posture of computers is ‘Yes, master’ or ‘I can’t let you do that, Dave.’ It’s up to us decide, because the world we live in is made of computers. Your house is a computer. We are increasingly putting little computers inside our body. Your car is a computer that hurtles down the highway.

People are free when they know the reality of the world. Yet we continue to treat the Internet as though it were nothing but a glorified system for cable and phone calls.

Before he gets around to exposing the still-raw nerve that is his reaction to the suicide of his close friend Aaron Swartz, Doctorow continues with a segué that doesn’t let the public off the hook. He laments the frequency with which users tap “Agree” when confronted with Byzantine Terms of Service agreements and software updates, an action that’s a kind of mindless surrender to the complexities of the Internet age.

From there (and he still hasn’t yet bothered to beat his chest and tout the book that’s brought him here) he blasts prosecutors run amok and talks about how lawmakers “keep getting our policy badly wrong” when it comes to computers.

There’s no way to legislate what computer users can’t do or shouldn’t do, because no sooner than the ink has dried on that bill would such a law be rendered obsolete by the pace of technological change. Yet along the way, in Doctorow’s telling of the story, legal protection of the free flow of information gave way to a kind of mutual protection racket.

Information that’s supposed to be free and public got shut away, where it’s kept under lock and key.

Remembering Aaron Swartz

“I knew Aaron for more than half his life,” Doctorow said, bringing the discussion around to the loss of a pioneer of Internet freedom. “Aaron was one of those bright kids who blew the grading curve. His parents let him leave school.”

Years ago, Doctorow was dating someone who had volunteered to be Swartz’s chaperone around San Francisco when the young teenager was visiting and involved in Internet work far beyond his years.

“We picked him up,” Doctorow remembers. “I remember he was the world’s worst eater. We fed him awful food. I remember thinking, this kid’s going to go somewhere – if he doesn’t die of scurvy.”

Swartz, of course, went on to work at Reddit. He got wealthy but stayed restless and reckless. He couldn’t shut off his ambitiousness, Doctorow remembers, not when he was “liberating” 20 percent of the most widely cited case law from the PACER electronic court records system and not when he was taking advantage of MIT’s public wifi and downloading academic journal articles.

The researchers behind those articles, Doctorow said, are “uncovering tiny chunks of the truth of the world, and we don’t get to see it. If you’re a random person, you can’t get it. And that matters, because we don’t know where the next innovation will come from. I think the world is better when we know the truth of it.”

MIT kept locking Swartz down, Doctorow said, trying to tweak the network and kick him out. At one point, Swartz walked into a closet and plugged directly into the system and downloaded millions of documents.

A prosecutor brought charges against him, threatened decades’ worth of jail time. Swartz said he’d fight it. Doctorow recalled lawyers who “started to play dirty,” denying Swartz documents he was entitled to.

“He kept working,” Doctorow said. “You may remember that dumb law, SOPA. Aaron was one of the people who helped fight and kill that.”

Just over a month ago, Swartz hanged himself in his New York apartment. Doctorow says he’s still trying to make sense of that.

Drawing from life

It’s hard not to be reminded of Swartz in Doctorow’s new story, about a young hacktivist who’s detained and roughed up by the feds. As a matter of fact, Swartz helped Doctorow write the book.

“When I was working on this book, I asked Aaron for help,” Doctorow said.

Swartz sent Doctorow a missing piece he needed for the story. Doctorow didn’t know how he’d describe it, but he wanted to include a mention of a next-gen device that could be used to mobilize voters without needing to rely on the moneyed interests or power brokers who run the current political structure.

Swartz sent him a few paragraphs that Doctorow liked so much he used them verbatim.

Doctorow wraps up his brief remarks by turning to something he’s written down. He’s promised Swartz’s family he would talk about this on the book tour.

“These are things I would have said to Aaron if he’d called me.”

Doctorow’s voice wavers a bit. He presumes there are people in the crowd who’ve dealt with depression.

“I know I have.”

Trying to maintain a steadiness in his voice, Doctorow tells the crowd that “dead people can’t solve problems.” That whatever problems Schwartz was facing, killing himself didn’t solve them. “They will go unsolved forever.”

That “if he was lonely, he will never again be embraced by his friends. If he was despairing of the fight, he will never again rally his comrades with his brilliant leadership.”

And that’s it. There are questions from the audience, and Doctorow promises to “render your books un-returnable” by signing them.

One of the several things striking about him is the way he can pull off a difficult feat. He’s served to rally the faithful — this small crowd of the faithful, admittedly — in defense of the cause of Internet freedom. And he gives them marching orders, without even having to tell them what those orders are.

Photo credit: JonathanWorth.com

While congress has yet to reach any sort of lasting solution regarding the nations growing cyber security problems, President Barack Obama has decidedly taken the first big step in an executive order signed earlier today.

The executive order places the National Institute of Standards and Technology with the responsibility of  creating cyber security standards for organizations and industries that are of great importance to the country, such as transportation, utilities (water and electric), and healthcare. The department of Homeland Security will then work with businesses and industry groups on a volunteer basis to ensure that the standards are being met properly as well as come up with incentives to get more organizations/businesses on board.

The executive order would also create a new initiative for businesses to share their cyber security data with a centralized organization that could make sense of it, and allow security experts to advise on how to prevent future attacks.

Right now the biggest deterrent in getting businesses and other organizations to get on some kind of standard cyber security plan is that most don’t want to be held liable for security breaches due to failure of these self-imposed regulations. However, if congress passes new legislation regarding cyber security standards, that could change.

Last year the House passed legislation call CISPA, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which would have addressed many of the concerns businesses and other organizations had about a cyber security standards. The bill sought to give American companies more legal breathing room (protection against lawsuits) when collecting and sharing consumer/user data for the purpose of preventing massive Internet security threats. However, CISPA had few guarantees that it wouldn’t grossly violate an individual’s privacy rights, and initially faced of a presidential veto threat). The White House eventually put a stamp of approval on a revised version of the bill, which failed a vote in the Senate.

Now, that same House bill is tentatively headed back to the floor for another vote Wednesday, meaning congress has one more chance to pass the White House-approved version.

This is an issue that President Obama clearly understand is important (having highlighted it specifically in tonight’s State of the Union address), and his executive order essentially lays the groundwork for the CISPA bill to pass, should that happen.

You can read full text of the cyber security executive order in the document embedded below.

Today marks a calendar year since passionate Internet activist and major tech companies helped defeat bad tech legislation SOPA and its Senate cousin PIPA. It’s also the day set aside by activists as national Internet Freedom Day.

Now, this isn’t a celebration of some global declaration that the Internet shall remain free (because that’s hardly the case), but rather a day where activists are asking people to raise awareness about all the issues that are still threatening the net’s freedom.

And there are plenty of issues that demand attention heading into 2013. For instance, the recent suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz has caused many people to call for a reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Also, Congress plans to vote on a new cybersecurity law requiring authorities to get a warrant before obtaining your email messages — something the President’s cybersecurity executive order doesn’t require.

But you should probably be more concerned with the bills and policy that aren’t on the public radar yet, especially since SOPA-author Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) is head of the House’s science and technology committee.

The official Internet Freedom Day website has a list of tech policy issues as well as a list of events discussing Internet Freedom today. It’s worth checking out if you plan on fighting the good fight.

The White House has raised its requirements to make it more difficult to get a response on user-generated petitions today.

The White House’s “We The People” tool allows U.S. citizens to create their own petition to the government. Previously, President Barack Obama’s administration promised a response to any petition that gained 25,000 signatures (up from just 5,000 when the tool debuted) within 30 days of creation. Now, petitions need at least 100,000 signatures in the same time frame.

“When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it ‘a good problem to have.’ Turns out that ‘good problem’ is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve,” wrote White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips in a blog post.

The decision comes just days after the White House responded to a petition asking the government to build its own Death Star, the planet destroying mega-ship from Star Wars. That particular petition brought in 34,435, which was enough to get a response, but far short of the new requirement.

The White House also released lots of statistics about the “We The People” tool as evidence of why the signature threshold had to be increased. For instance, the administration said it took successful petitions an average of 18 days to hit the 25,000 mark during the first 10 months of 2012. However, it only took nine days to reach the threshold for petitions during November and December, the White House said. (For more statistics about the We The People tool, check out the White House’s infographic below.)

But increasing the signature threshold isn’t the only thing the White House plans to do with the tool. It also announced plans for an open API, released the source code for the petitioning tool, and invited engineers to reach out to them if they wanted to help.

Via The Verge

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) is introducing a new piece of legislation that would limit the number of charges brought against someone who violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

The bill, “Aaron’s Law,” is dedicated to the memory of Internet rights activist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide last week. Swartz drew attention from authorities for first downloading about 20 million academic documents from PACER in 2008, and again years later for downloading and distributing another 5 million academic documents from for-fee database JSTOR. That last action resulting in federal authorities charging Swartz with a total of 13 felony counts — a move that many believe contributed to Swartz’s suicide.

Lofgren stated her position about the new legislation in a Reddit comment submitted yesterday:

“As we mourn Aaron Swartz’s tragic death, many of us are deeply troubled as we learn more about the government’s actions against him. His family’s statement about this speaks volumes about the inappropriate efforts undertaken by the U.S. government. There’s no way to reverse the tragedy of Aaron’s death, but we can work to prevent a repeat of the abuses of power he experienced.

We should prevent what happened to Aaron from happening to other Internet users. The government was able to bring such disproportionate charges against Aaron because of the broad scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the wire fraud statute. It looks like the government used the vague wording of those laws to claim that violating an online service’s user agreement or terms of service is a violation of the CFAA and the wire fraud statute.

Using the law in this way could criminalize many everyday activities and allow for outlandishly severe penalties.”

In the coming days, Lofgren said, she plans to seek cosponsors for the bill from both political parties. For now, a draft of Aaron’s Law is available online (PDF).

This isn’t the first time Lofgren has reached out to Reddit for help in drafting new tech policy. The congresswoman first asked Reddit users for help in creating a copyright reform law back in November, which is unrelated to the “Aaron’s Law” bill.

Photo credit: Sage Ross/Flickr

This year we woke up to the reality that much of U.S. tech policy is either deficient or horribly outdated.

But if 2012 has taught us anything, it’s that the average, often faceless Internet user’s voice can make a difference like never before. To be better prepared to make such a difference going forward, you’ll want know this year’s biggest tech policy issues. We’ve highlighted what we think are ten of the most important policy stories below; feel free to call out any we missed in the comment section.

10. Killing SOPA/PIPA

The SOPA/PIPA legislation was the epitome of awful tech policy. It asked for sweeping authority to shut down any website domain suspected of copyright infringement or piracy. The legislation claimed to protect American businesses from theft. In reality, it would have allowed major media companies to censor anything they didn’t like. SOPA/PIPA was also so vague that it could have started a slow decay of our current privacy rights.

The story: “Following the news that the Senate is delaying a vote the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) issued a statement today admitting that Congress may need to rethink its approach to thwarting piracy. Smith is the author of the House version of PIPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Last week, he announced that a vote on SOPA would be delayed until February, but the delay could actually end up being much longer — like forever.”

9. CISPA & Obama’s cybersecurity executive order

CISPA was yet another piece of legislation that could reasonably do more harm than good if not kept in check. The bill sought to give American companies more legal breathing room (protection against lawsuits) when collecting and sharing consumer/user data for the purpose of preventing massive Internet security threats. It passed a House vote with few guarantees that it wouldn’t grossly violate a person’s privacy rights (even in the face of a presidential veto threat). The White House eventually put a stamp of approval on the bill, pending certain amendments. But the Senate vote failed, and the president resorted to other methods.

The story: “President Obama signed a new cybersecurity directive in mid-October that begins to outline the government’s involvement in securing the private sector and how it will act when on the offensive. For the most part, the directive is still secretive and murky. A senior administrative official told the Washington Post that it will deal specifically with the issue of defensive measures or protecting the government and citizens from being hacked, and offensive measures, how the U.S. should act when pushing back.”

8. LightSquared vs. FCC

U.S. businesses are increasingly becoming both connected and mobile, which makes the need for additional wireless spectrum even more dire. You’d think that in this sort of climate that the government would be eager to bend over backward for any company willing to launch a wireless carrier startup to fulfill those needs. Well, you’d be wrong, at least in the case of LightSquared.

The story: “After spending the better part of 2011 fighting regulators, the wholesale wireless company LightSquared suffered a killer blow from the FCC today that could squash its 4G LTE network plans. We’ve been hearing from government regulators since June that Lightsquared’s proposed LTE network could interfere with GPS devices. Today the NTIA, an agency that oversees spectrum use, issued a letter to the FCC that claims Lightsquared’s network will indeed impact GPS services, and that ‘there is no practical way to mitigate the interference at this time.’”

7. The JOBS Act

The rise of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo is enabling a new wave of hungry entrepreneurs to disrupt the markets with business plans deemed too risky to gain investment by conventional means (venture capital, loans, angel funding, etc.). The JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act is a direct response to the crowdfunding movement and would permit startups to solicit the public for microinvestments, which process is currently illegal. Despite getting passed, the JOBS Act isn’t currently being implemented. It still needs the SEC to determine a finalized set of rules outlining how the JOBS Act will be enforced.

The story: “The JOBS Act that passed in the House today contains some big changes for crowdfunding startups. It now moves on to the Senate. Right now, it’s illegal for a startup to solicit investors on platforms like Twitter or Kickstarter. But the JOBS Act would change that. For startups raising $1 million or less, anyone can now buy up to $10,000 or 10 percent of the annual income (whichever is less) in equity.”

6. Verizon’s $3.6 Billion spectrum purchase

With the failed AT&T/T-Mobile merger still fresh in everyone’s mind, Verizon found itself running into constant road blocks when trying to buy a block of wireless spectrum from a joint venture made up of big cable TV companies. The deal would have allowed Verizon to buy the spectrum and begin selling  cable/broadband Internet packages from big cable companies (like Comcast) with its wireless service plans. (Verizon was also quietly trying to halt plans to grow its own cable TV/Internet business, FiOS.) U.S. regulators raised lots of red flags about how the spectrum sale could hinder competition, and attached all sorts of stipulations before giving the sale final approval.

The story: “Federal Communications Committee has approved a deal that will see Verizon purchase a portion of wireless spectrum from a handful of big cable television providers, the federal committee announced today. … Originally, the deal would have allowed Verizon to purchase the licenses for the spectrum for $3.6 billion and allow cable companies to run their own branded wireless services through Verizon as well as cross-promote their existing cable TV services within Verizon Wireless retail stores. After some push back from federal regulators as well as other wireless carriers, the Department of Justice approved the deal last week, provided certain stipulations were met.”

5. Driverless car legislation!

Google — best known for its search engine, advertising, and various web services — is working on a side project that will enable automobiles to drive without being under the constant control of a human being. As the company showed off the new technology in demo videos, it slowly started pushing state governments to pass new laws allowing cars to drive themselves.

The story: “California just added its name to the list of states allowing driverless cars to operate on public roads — and inadvertently made David Hasselhoff’s work on Knight Rider a bit more relevant to future generations. Governor Jerry Brown signed bill SB1298 into law today, thus adding automated vehicles to the state’s safety standards and permissions. This is, of course, wonderful news for tech giant and California native Google, which has been developing its own driverless car for the past few years. Brown even visited Google headquarters to sign the proper documents.”

4. U.S. domain seizures

This year marked the continuation of U.S. authorities seizing domain names accused of conducting piracy and copyright infringement. The big problem with this was the operation’s questionable legality. Prosecuting the owners of these domains (as well as the websites those domains pointed to) became even foggier because many were operating outside the United States’ borders. February’s “Operation Fake Sweep” sparked an important discussion about domain regulation — a discussion that’s likely to continue in 2013.

The story: “The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a new round of domain seizures today targeted at websites that provide access to illegal live sports streaming video. The DOJ’s timing is likely related to this Sunday’s NFL Super Bowl championship football game, which has routinely become the most watched televised event of the year with over 100 million viewers. In December, television affiliate NBC and the NFL announced that the big game would stream for free online for the first time — meaning illegal sports streaming sites could hypothetically steal traffic away from NBC.”

3) VPPA Amendment (aka Netflix-Facebook sharing law)

It’s crazy to think that Netflix wasn’t allowed to integrate with Facebook in the U.S. when it was legal in so many other countries. But two years of lobbying efforts and judiciary hearing testimonies later, Netflix finally got Congress to explicitly state that it was OK to share a person’s video rental activity if they consented.

The story: “Soon, Netflix subscribers in the U.S. will be able to connect their accounts with their Facebook profiles thanks to new legislation that the Senate just passed. While the majority of digital media services have benefited from the social network giant, Netflix has previously been noticeably absent from Facebook’s Timeline feature due to a 1988 law that forbids video rental services from sharing a customer’s rental history. The current law, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), was initially created for the purpose of concealing physical media rentals, but until now, Congress hasn’t clarified whether digital video rentals also fall under the law’s jurisdiction.

2. Oracle vs. Google

Federal courts finally ruled on a two-year legal fight between Oracle and search giant Google. It’s seen as a particularly important case because it touches on whether companies can claim copyright infringement over a programming language.

The story: “Google scored a legal victory today, as a federal jury has decided that the search giant wasn’t guilty of patent infringement claims made by Oracle. The two companies have been wrapped up in a legal battle since August 2010, when Oracle accused Google’s mobile operating system Android of violating patents and copyrights related to Java that Oracle owns. The trial is seen as very important because it’d one of the most prominent battles over intellectual property in the software industry. In addition, it could set a precedent for whether or not a programming language can be copyrighted.”

1. Apple v. Samsung (The Patent Wars!)

I’d like to say that this particular legal fight over patent infringement by two major companies gave us some clarity on how to deal with future patent-related policy. Yet what the Apple v. Samsung case really did was expose how truly broken and inadequate our current patent system is. Sure, this is something most people already knew, but the Apple/Samsung case highlighted the ridiculousness of trying to apply our current policy. (Seriously, it even spawned its own meme based on the mom-like reprimands of the case’s federal judge, Lucy Koh.)

The story: “After just 21 hours of deliberation, the jury has reached a verdict in the Apple-Samsung patent trial, a landmark case that is set to change the way we look at competition in the mobile market. It’s a decisive win for Apple, with the jury awarding damages of $1,049,343,540 to Apple. … The jury found Samsung infringed many of Apple’s utility and design patents, particularly with regard to the nearly 20 phones that Apple had called into question. In addition, the jury found that in most cases, Samsung’s patent infringements were knowing and willful.”

Honorable Mention: Supreme Court’s Ruling on Obamacare

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the health care reform law (Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare) did not violate the Constitution. And while this particular law didn’t originate in 2012, it certainly made an impact on the tech sector of the health care industry in the form of electronic medical records, new regulations, and more. A vibrant crop of health care tech startups are already out there, and these will continue thriving now that the threat of a Obamacare repeal is gone. Bottom line: Health care tech will be huge in 2013.

The story: “For cloud technology companies that are brave enough to tackle the healthcare industry, it’s a perfect storm — there are major challenges and opportunities. … By 2014, Obamacare mandates that hospitals and practitioners who have been maintaining paper records to switch to electronic medical records.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The Federal Communications Commission released a new set of rules today aimed at making it easier for airline carriers to offer their passengers in-flight Internet access — and I don’t think I’m alone when saying it’s about freakin’ time.

Of course, the FCC isn’t solely to blame for all the rigid and ridiculous restrictions placed on Internet access during a flight. The agency jointly regulates in-air communications along with the much more stodgy Federal Aviation Administration, which forces passengers to turn off all electronics before and slightly after a plane takes off.

“These new rules will help airlines and broadband providers offer high-speed Internet to passengers,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told Bloomberg in a statement. Genachowski said he’s been pushing the FAA to approve a revised set of rules regarding electronic usage during flights. For instance, one dire exception the FAA has yet to even acknowledge is being able to use devices like iPads and iPhones during take off if the passenger is using the “Airplane Mode” setting that blocks all Internet connectivity.

Previously, Airlines needed approval by the FCC to offer an in-flight Wi-Fi service, which was a long and slow process that permitted some airlines to offer stellar web services while others were woefully left out. Under the new rules, the FCC will offer airlines an opportunity to meet a set of standards that make sure the Internet service won’t interfere with the plane’s controls or communications while it’s in the air. These standards permit the passenger/consumer Internet access to work with an aircraft’s other communications systems to ensure problems don’t exist.

According to the FCC, the new access rules should lead to faster adoption and licensing of Internet services across all airlines and offer a path toward FAA approval of updated electronic usage regulation.

While I’m glad to hear that I’ll soon have more opportunities to pay $49.95 for unlimited blazing-fast Wi-Fi service on my 75-minute flight to the next airport, I won’t be fully satisfied until flight attendants stop acting like anti-gadget police during take off. Luckily, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) shares my frustration, and earlier this month threatened to introduce new legislation for in-flight electronic use if the FAA doesn’t act soon.

Airplane photo via Chalabala/Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Cisco Systems announced on its blog today that it will acquire Denver-based BroadHop for an undisclosed sum. The technology will be used to shape mobile data traffic and will be folded into Cisco’s service provider networking group.

According to Cisco’s VP of Corporate Business Development, Hilton Romanski, global IP traffic is projected to increase threefold in the next five years. For this reason, the networking giant had its eye on BroadHop, a policy control and service management technology for carrier networks that has been around since 2003. BroadHop is deployed by more than 70 wireline and mobile carriers around the world.

BroadHop has an open policy platform, which is designed to make it easier for service providers to control and monetize any service, regardless of whether the network has new or legacy components. In a nutshell, the technology allows a carrier to develop service tiers based on bandwidth or application.

According to Romanski, the technology will benefit Cisco’s service providers, as users will be incentivized to purchase ”customized premium service packages,” such as on-demand streaming.

The BroadHop team will report to Shailesh Shukla, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s software and applications group.

The networking giant acquired three companies last month — most recently, Cariden for $141 million in cash. In an interview with VentureBeat, Cisco’s cloud computing CTO Lew Tucker stressed that the company is always on the look-out for potential acquisition opportunities to bring innovation to its suite of products.

However, GigaOm’s Kevin Fitchard pointed out, Cisco is not the first to jump on board the policy bandwagon. Aging giant Citrix whisked away Bytemobile earlier this year.

Facebook is trying to stop you from voting on its future policy changes. And it’s the smartest thing it’s ever done.

Since April 2009, Facebook has notified its users whenever it planned to make any changes to its site governance. Meant to get users involved in the policies that shape the social network, the voting process has been held twice so far. And both times have been massive failures.

In the inaugural vote, only 665,654 of Facebook users participated  – a tiny number in comparison to the social network’s then-membership of 200 million people. The second vote, held earlier this year, was even worse. In this case, only 342,632 people voted –  just 0.038 percent of users.

As a result of this awful turnout, Facebook is now letting users decide whether it should get rid of the system entirely. That’s right — Facebook is using its broken voting system to decide whether to get rid of its broken voting system.

You have until December 10 to cast your vote, but unless 30 percent of the company’s users vote “no,” then the vote is merely advisory, and Facebook will go ahead with its new policy document, which eliminates user voting.

The game is rigged

As the world’s largest social network, Facebook is under constant scrutiny from just about every government body and privacy group out there. This, coupled with the overwhelming attentiveness of the modern press, prevents Facebook from doing much of anything without everyone instantly knowing about it. So what does the social network do? It creates a (rigged) system that gives its members a say in the changes it aims to make. If enough people dislike a proposed change, Facebook won’t follow through with it. This makes Facebook look good in the eyes of regulators because even if the turnout’s low, at least it can say that it tried.

But here’s where Facebook’s scheming comes in. One of the big limitations with its voting system is that it requires that 30 percent of its members vote in order to make the vote binding. Think about that. Facebook now has north of a billion users, which means that 300 million people — roughly the population of the United States — would need to vote in order to prevent its proposed policy changes from going into effect. If there was ever a system set up for failure, it’s this one.

Also, consider that for a social network built on ads, Facebook is really bad at letting its members know when its opening up new voting opportunities. Clearly, the social network isn’t going out of its way to get the word out.

Facebook’s real sin, though, is that it gave members the sense that their votes mattered in the first place. Were that the case, it would simply lower the 30 percent threshold to something smaller — or get rid of it altogether. But the problem is doing so would risk giving its community actual power, and that’s the last thing Facebook wants.

A Chinese democracy

It would be easy to call Facebook’s voting process a failed attempt at a democracy, or even a house of mirrors made to give members the false impression that their say actually counts.

But the truth is that Facebook isn’t a democracy all, nor is it just a social network anymore. It’s a company, and like any company it wants to make money. Asking members what they think about every new policy change isn’t going to help it do that.

Of course, it also doesn’t help that the Facebook community is as clueless and misinformed as a first time dad in the diaper aisle. Remember the so-called copyright disclaimers that made the rounds on everyone’s Facebook walls last month? While various news outlets pointed out that the messages meant essentially nothing, that hasn’t prevented Facebook members from continuing to think otherwise.

The incident, like every other Facebook privacy scare, underscores the basic reality about our relationship with the social network: We’re not paying a single cent to use it,  which means we’re not Facebook’s customers. 

Were Facebook any other company, expressing distaste with its business practices would be easy: We’d just stop buying whatever it sold. But we can’t do that with social networks. And Facebook knows it.

Facebook’s entire modus operandi right now is to make tiny incremental policy changes that few people know about and even fewer people care about. But even if the changes upset members, would they care enough to just stop using Facebook? Probably not.

The infinite Facebook flywheel

I don’t fault Facebook for being a company with financial concerns and a stable of money-hungry stockholders. Nor do I fault it for treating its users less like customers and more like organic packets of data. But what I do fault Facebook for is pretending as if anything else was the case.

The truth is that Facebook is no longer a nascent social network with a membership of 200 million people. It’s a sprawling flywheel of a company that serves roughly a seventh of the world’s population. The voting process may have made sense back when Facebook was still rapidly growing, but that’s no longer the case now the whole operation’s so massive.

Facebook knows that its voting mechanism is dead, and when it does die, the social network will be a whole lot better off. Why? Because it will show, finally and without question, that Facebook isn’t beholden to its community. And that’s a wakeup call that Facebook members desperately need.

From SOPA to CISPA, legislation is playing an increasingly large role in the technology world.

Sitting at that intersection is Engine, an advocacy organization that’s helping to give startups a voice when it comes to creating policies that shape their industries. The organization rose to prominence earlier this year when it became one of the loudest voices against SOPA, the proposed anti-piracy legislation that galvanized the technology world.

I sat down with Engine founder Michael McGeary on Friday to discuss the presidential election, how legislation shapes startups, and how Google is different from a minivan maker.

VentureBeat: Immigration policy is not the first thing that comes to mind when we’re talking startups, but it’s something you focus on. How does it fit into your mission? 

In the Valley, you’ve got people who want to start businesses who weren’t born here, and you’ve got small companies that want to hire people who can’t get a visa. Fixing immigration policy is about expanding the visa pool and keeping the minds that were educated in our universities here starting businesses and working for startups.

Engine Advocacy co-founder Michael McGeary

VB: Is this the sort of issue that the presidential candidates have responded to so far?

Because the issues that we in the startup world face don’t have a really broad appeal, sometimes it’s hard to pin down and give a partisan answer to the sort of non-partisan things we focus on.

Broadly, though, there has to be a deeper understanding from the government about how Google is different from Ford and GM and Caterpillar.

VB: Let’s get into that. How is Google fundamentally different from a company like Ford?

It’s pretty simple. What Facebook and Google build are things that others can take and build their own products on top of. Technology companies give lots more people opportunities to build the kinds of businesses that they want. You don’t build on top of a mini van.

VB: Which is why you don’t want to stifle innovation with bad policy. 

Exactly. That was the whole danger with SOPA. A free and open Internet is really the baseline for all the things that we do. Without it, there’s no innovation, without innovation there’s no startups, and without startups there’s no job growth. As Clay Shirky says, the Internet means never having to ask permission to be creative and to start something.

VB: How does New York factor into all of this?

What New York has is that it’s not just the startup community. It’s a big city, so there are tons of people here that do other things. San Francisco is great at channeling startup energy, but it doesn’t plug as well into things like the financial services community and fashion world.

When communities intermingle, it fuels even better startup growth because you just get better ideas flowing. New York is on par with San Francisco – they’re the big boys in the clubhouse.

Photo: Flickr/David Paul Ohmer

By showing how many requests Google gets for user information — and exactly how many users and accounts are under some kind of surveillance — the company hopes to have a positive effect on public policies around government access to citizens’ online activities.

“All too often, policy that affects how information flows on the Internet is created in the absence of empirical data,” writes Google senior policy analyst Dorothy Chou on the company blog.

“By showing traffic patterns and disruptions to our services, and by sharing how many government requests for content removal and user data we receive from around the world, we hope to offer up some metrics to contribute to a public conversation about the laws that influence how people communicate online.”

During the first half of 2011, Google received a total of 5,950 government and/or police requests in the U.S. for information about 11,057 unique accounts, and it fully or partially complied with 93 percent of those requests.

Around the globe, Google received 15,506 data requests for 25,440 accounts and complied with about half of the requests, on average.

Generally speaking, these requests are made through appropriate legal, police and bureaucratic channels to get vital information about possible criminal or even terrorist activity. However, Google’s Transparency Report also shows interruptions to its services from various governments.

For example, the company kept track of the February 18 and March 3 blackouts of all Google services by the Libyan government and the five-day blackout of all Google services during the Egyptian Internet shutdown that began on January 27.

“By illustrating outages, this tool visualizes disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it’s a government blocking information or a cable being cut,” the company noted in the report.

And while Google does comply with lawful and justified requests to remove content or turn over user data, it sometimes pushes back against the governments making the requests.

For example, in India this year, Google fielded requests from police and government agencies to take down several YouTube clips showing protests against local leaders or using strong language to refer to religious leaders. “We declined the majority of these requests and only locally restricted videos that appeared to violate local laws prohibiting speech that could incite enmity between communities,” said the company.

In another case, Google denied a local police request to remove 236 Orkut communities and profiles. The content displayed there was critical of a local politician, but Google said, “We did not comply with this request, since the content did not violate our Community Standards or local law.”

In other cases, Google does not turn over user data for a variety of reasons. For user data requests from Russian and Turkish authorities, no data was given out, in fact.

Notably, in the United States, Google refused to remove YouTube clips showing police brutality. In these cases in particular, we are seeing how relatively neutral platforms such as YouTube can have great social impact depending on the intentions of the person posting the content and the integrity of the content host in keeping that content online.

In the past few weeks, there has been much debate about Google’s Real Name Policy, with some calling it revolutionary and others labeling it an abuse of power.

The suspension measure is aimed at cutting down on spam, according to the company. But, ensuring that the majority of those accounts are real, living, breathing human beings also makes it a far more effective advertising platform. It also raises questions about the added privacy concerns associated with storing personal information on a platform designed to share with various social circles.

In response to the feedback, Google has announced that accounts currently using a pseudonym or nickname won’t be immediately suspended.

“We’re listening, learning and iterating to give our users the best experience possible. Starting today, if we find that your profile name does not adhere to our policy, we’ll give you a 4 day grace period to fix your profile name before we take further action,” said Google+ project manager Saurabh Sharma in a note posted on Google+ yesterday. “During this period, you can continue to use Google+ as usual. We’re hoping that most affected users will be able to quickly fix their profile name while continuing to enjoy all that Google+ has to offer.”

We’ve also embedded Sharma’s video response below.

Do you use a pseudonym or nickname across the web? Tell us your thoughts on switching to your real name in the comments.

The policy change is in response to the internet outcry of disapproval over Airbnb’s treatment of EJ — an Airbnb user who blogged about her experience dealing with the company after her apartment was ransacked.

Airbnb is now pledging $50,000 to protect a host’s property from damage by Airbnb guests who book reservations through our website. The new “Airbnb $50,000 Guarantee” program will extend to EJ and any other host that has reported property damage from Airbnb guests in the past, according to the company.

“I am gratified nonetheless that the extent of public awareness my story generated has encouraged Airbnb to implement real change to its product, its service and its community of users,” EJ wrote in a blog post today.

She also notes that while the company is finally making good on their offer to help, she’ll still bear the grief of the experience as well as the stigma of being called a liar.

“When we learned of this our hearts sank. We felt paralyzed, and over the last four weeks, we have really screwed things up,” said Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on the company’s blog Monday. “With regards to EJ, we let her down, and for that we are very sorry. We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we weren’t prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball. Now we’re dealing with the consequences.”

In addition to the $50,000 property damage protection, Airbnb is providing a 24-hour customer hotline, doubling the size of its support staff and adding a safety department to the company. Chesky even lists his email address as another possible line of defense for hosts dealing with property damage.

The company also promises to implement verified user profiles with social integration, which will allow hosts to view potential guests prior to a rental agreement.

Given the public backlash against Airbnb, I can’t say that the company’s most recent response to property damage isn’t adequate. However, I am curious as to how long the company can sustain itself with all of these new expenses — which are bound to grow as Airbnb becomes more popular.

Airbnb recently confirmed a $112 million round — meaning it has money to burn for the immediate future.

The company declined VentureBeat’s request to comment further on the policy changes.

Image via Kaye

But rather than seize the spectrum outright, Genachowski wants Congress to approve a plan that would allow the current owners of the spectrum to share in the proceeds as the government auctions it off to infrastructure companies. Once that spectrum is in the right hands, Genachowski (pictured right) said that a wave of mobile innovation could occur that will keep the U.S. competitive in the global competition for communications technology. In a chat moderated by Fortune writer Adam Lashinsky, Genachowski spoke at the Commonwealth Club event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

The process of reallocation through auctions will likely lead to the most fast and efficient way to get more bandwidth to mobile broadband subscribers, who are so plentiful now they are causing data traffic jams on the mobile phone networks.

Right now, the available wireless spectrum is set aside for uses such as digital TV services, and broadcast TV companies have not shown any interest in giving up that spectrum willingly. The FCC could seize it, but that would likely lead to a long legal process.

Instead, Genachowski proposed that the spectrum owners be compensated in part after the government auctions the spectrum. Genachowski said that the FCC has some of the authority it needs to put this plan into place and is hopeful that Congress will give it the full authority to conduct the “incentive-based auctions.” By doing it this way, more spectrum would become available, and that would help satisfy the crushing demand. Genachowski said this plan has bipartisan support, support from economists, and support from President Obama.

“I’m hopeful it can happen soon,” he said. “Every day we wait has real costs. We have more dropped calls, more consumer frustration.”

The problem with mobile broadband is that smartphone and tablet usage are stressing the capacity. Smartphone users consume about 24 times more data bandwidth than users of ordinary mobile phones, while tablet users consume 104 times more. Netbook users with wireless cards consume even more. There’s a huge gap between available capacity and the demand for it, Genachowski said.

“Spectrum is a scarce resource where physics puts limits on how much data can travel over the air waves,” he said. “We can’t close the gap because it is so large. We have to allocate spectrum from existing users to those who need it.”

Meanwhile, Genachowski said he was disappointed that the U.S. has not been able to extend broadband communication to more of its citizens. Roughly 25 million people live in regions with no internet access, and another 100 million do not subscribe to services that are available to them. As a result, only 67 percent of the population has broadband access, compared to 90 percent in Singapore.

Genachowski said one recent study found that the U.S. was sixth among 40 countries reviewed in terms of broadband access, but it ranked 40th in terms of how much progress it was making.

“We spend money on programs on universalizing telephone service,” he said. “We need to transform 20th century rules into a smart, efficient broadband access program.”

Genachowski said the U.S. has been the leader in auctioning off spectrum as needed for things such as digital TV. Now the country has to act as if it is in a race to be the innovation leader yet again when it comes to mobile broadband, he said.

“The costs of delays are much greater now because of changes in the global competitive landscape,” he said. “My counterparts around the world are looking at communications as key to economic growth and innovation.”

Calling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we’ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. We’ve pretty much finalized the invite list, but have a few spots left. Request an invitation.

Many are calling for the dismantling of the nuclear industry, but  doing so could drive us even further away from clean energy. As with all strategy you have levers, not switches – confusing the two can cost you. For now at least, nuclear is the most viable energy lever cleantech has.
Let’s be clear: nuclear is by no means “clean energy” but it is our friend at the cleantech table because the alternative – fossil fuels – is an immense economic problem that we cannot shake in the near term. In this case, nuclear is the devil we know.

There are many reasons we can’t seem to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, including unfair subsidies for oil & gas, uncertain efficiencies and costs, and even the age-old NIMBY problem. And then there’s the anti-science/education/elite political agenda, which is a whole different issue entirely though, as many have pointed out, we’ve been here many times before. But one of the biggest reasons we can’t get off fossil fuels is the availability of viable alternatives.

Before you go for that comment section with every alternative energy option, consider that it comes down to a question of alternatives, demand, and means. The world currently gets over 80% of its energy needs through fossil fuels, while nuclear provides only 5%. Alternative technologies like wind and solar currently contribute somewhere below 1%, which leaves a lot of room to grow – a good thing for innovation, but hardly the muscle you need to push the clean energy agenda. If you want to push on a gas pedal this big it’s going to need more than just venture capital from Sand Hill Road – it requires a fundamental shift in the global energy infrastructure and the way we live.

And if you think the fossil fuel industry is bad now, it’s about to get worse. The immense lever at play for traditional fossil fuel energy is the price of oil. When oil goes up, unconventional (read = expensive and usually environmentally disastrous) sources like the tar sands and oil shale become more economically viable. And fossil fuel reserves in this segment are vast – about 35x what’s available today. So as long as we are willing to pay for oil, the companies who supply our energy will continue to dig.

So why don’t these companies simply invest in solar and wind as cheaper alternatives to digging? Technologies like inexpensive solar roofs, immense solar farms, wind energy, and hydro power already exist. But our nuclear energy lever has been in the “off” position since the mid-nineties with global supply essentially flat, and as Dr. Malhotra at SRI of the points out in his book A Cubic Mile of Oil, future global energy requirements are truly staggering.

According to this research, to meet future energy demand we would need to build 250,000 solar roofs each day for the next 50 years – or one nuclear plant each week, 1200 windmills per week, or 200 hydro dams each quarter. Put in this context, it’s easier to see the complexities in what seemed to be a simple demand/supply question.

Countries are now re-examining their approach to nuclear as a result of the horrific situation in Japan’s reactors. The US is also re-evaluating it’s energy policy. But the larger risk here is that both sides of the climate change debate will weigh in on why we should kill nuclear. Greenpeace, Lieberman, and others say the Japan situation highlights the need for renewables, which is a viable argument.

There’s a danger in trying to kill nuclear at this point in time – we could end up creating a vacuum without enough support for renewables where the default option – the oil and coal we’ve been using for a hundred years – looks like the cheapest and safest way forward. Yes, nuclear is less effective, more expensive, and produces less jobs than alternative energy, but if we’re going to kill it, we should ensure that renewables is the default option. At this point, I don’t think it is.

If the past decade in cleantech has taught us anything, its that doing the right thing is not a slam dunk. While the facts may be on our side to have renewables fill the vacuum created by killing nuclear, we’ve seen time and again that facts have little to do with energy policy. Japan’s disaster is bringing to the forefront the terrifying risks of nuclear energy, but it’s an unfortunate bellwether for the types of tradeoffs we will be forced to make in our insatiable demand for energy – removing nuclear now may leave us with an equally damaging energy source in fossil fuels. If we are to succeed in developing a clean energy economy we need to keep every strategic lever we have.

[Image via exquisitur/Flickr]

Michael Meehan is a cleantech entrepreneur and executive in Silicon Valley. He is co-founder and Chief Green Advisor for ENXSUITE and is currently CEO of iVeridis Corporation. In his 16+ years in the industry, Meehan has advised both the White House and the UN on cleantech issues, co-founded The Climate Resource, and sits on several boards and advisory panels for NGOs. Voted among the top 5 CEOs to follow by BusinessWeek magazine, you can follow Meehan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/michaelmeehan and visit his blog Cleantech Ink at http://www.cleantechink.com.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Tell us what you really think, Verizon. The company yesterday issued a press release titled “Congress Needs to Update the Nation’s Antiquated and Anti-Competitive Telecom Rules” — which, as you can guess, isn’t exactly a love letter to the FCC.

Verizon executive vice president of public affairs Tom Tauke is quoted as saying in the release: “The grinding you hear are the gears churning as policymakers try to fit fast-changing technologies and competitive markets into regulatory boxes built for analog technologies and monopoly markets.”

The company’s frustration isn’t unwarranted. The FCC is still fighting for authority when it comes to regulating the internet, mainly because current telecom rules aren’t suited to the issues we’re facing today like net neutrality. The agency tried to reclassify internet communications in a “third way” that gave it more authority earlier this year — after a US court declared that the FCC didn’t have the authority to impose net neutrality on providers.

Verizon’s position now is even more extreme than its stance earlier this year, when it proposed its policy for an “open internet” together with Google. The company is now proposing four components that it feels are necessary for a new policy to guide the internet: It should be a federal framework; allow for case-by-case rulings; government intervention should be allowed only to protect consumers from harm or to stop anti-competitive activity; and perhaps most importantly, a single federal agency should be given clear jurisdiction.

As Engadget points out, Congress already started looking into a revamp of the Telecommunications Act earlier this year. Perhaps Verizon’s prodding will move things along even more quickly.

Via Engadget