Internet Products and Services

Anna Patterson, who has sold search engine technology to Google, is introducing her own search engine- Cuil, pronounced "cool." Claiming to have an index of over 120 billion Web pages, Patterson says she believes her index covers three times the amount of pages covered by Google. For privacy advocates, there is something to like about Cuil. The engine will not be tracking users' search histories- a practice that has earned the ire of many privacy experts and regular citizens alike.

For more information, see this AP article.

Released one day before the Senate Commerce Committee held its hearing on the privacy implications of online advertising, a new report says targeted ads may involve practices that violate state and federal wiretap laws.

On Tuesday, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) issued a memo, saying Internet service providers (ISPs) that allow an advertising network to copy [their] customers' Web traffic contents are defying "reasonable consumer expectations and may [be violating] communications privacy laws."

Currently, some ISPs are working with third party advertising agencies, which are copying consumer data in order to target specific ads at users. One such firm, NebuAD, testifed before the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday. NebuAd claims it does not violate any laws because they do not collect personally identifiable information. Some, though, argue that any collection of data can ultimately be tied to an individual and disagree with NebuAd's assertion that privacy is completely protected. CDT's memo says the practice most likely violates legal protections provided in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Today the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held a hearing on privacy concerns related to online advertising. In what will probably be the first of several hearings, the committee asked panelists about their thoughts on privacy threats vis-a-vis online advertising. Chairman Dorgan noted that no Internet Service Providers (ISPs) wanted to participate at today's hearing, but he hoped to address this issue with them at another hearing in the future. Panelists at this well-attended event included Lydia Parnes of the Federal Trade Commission, Chris Kelly of Facebook, Leslie Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology, Jane Horvath of Google, Robert Dykes of NebuAd, Mike Hintze of Microsoft, and Clyde Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

HIGHLIGHTS:

EDUCAUSE today proposed bringing the federal government, state governments, and the private sector together as part of a new approach to making high-speed Internet services available across the country. The group, whose membership includes information technology officials from more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and other educational organizations, said that a new "universal broadband fund" would be necessary so that "Big Broadband" — services of 100 mbps — could be made widely available. For more information, read the press release.

After far too long, it looks like Telecom New Zealand, the incumbent monopoly telecommunications provider in New Zealand, is being forced into local loop unbundling.

Part of the reason it's taken so long is that Telecom is New Zealand's biggest public company and holds a great deal of implicit leverage. Personally I think that splitting the company into three means they'll do far better in the medium term, simply by growing the market, something which local loop unbundling has shown to be very effective at elsewhere.

The dynamic is pretty simple: when companies compete to offer broadband and similar services to consumers, those services become cheaper, easier and better supported, leading to greater take-up. As the numbers of broadband-connected homes and businesses rises, more of those businesses start connecting with more of those homes, and before you know it, e-commerce is really taking off. Most of those businesses don't know one end of an internet from the other, so third parties spring up to help them and before you know there's an entire industry. Entry into that industry is entirely predicated on what Telecom has to sell: high quality Internet connections.