October 2012

Even though prospects for the legislation have faded this year, the nation's governors told Senate and House leaders that they oppose draft legislation that would tighten restrictions on Internet gambling while allowing for the legalization of online poker.

In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the National Governors Association called on lawmakers to include state input before moving any online-gaming legislation. States have begun taking steps to offer online gambling within their state borders after the Justice Department last fall revised its interpretation of the Wire Act, which deals with state gambling activities. The department said the 1961 law only applies to sports betting, essentially opening the door to other kinds of online gaming.

The Librarian of Congress has declined to provide an exemption from copyright protections for so-called place-shifting of DVDs to tablets and other devices.

The Librarian did create new classes of exempt circumvention, including to access captioning or audio descriptions on the DVDs, or to excerpt videos for commentary, criticism and educational uses, but on the recommendation of Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante. Librarian James Billington eschewed the time-shifting carve-out, which would have allowed the copying of DVDs so they could be played on tablets or laptops without DVD-playing capability. Public Knowledge had argued that the inability to play lawfully acquired DVDs on the newest platforms adversely affects noninfringing uses, and that it would be reasonable to allow consumers to solve that by making a copy for noncommercial personal use that could be viewed on those devices. Public Knowledge also argued that allowing the copies would not hurt the market or contribute to piracy.

In a speech to the Americas Spectrum Management Conference in Washington, Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn emphasized that the FCC's upcoming incentive auctions are going to be voluntary, but also suggested there were some volunteers in the wings. "[T]o me, the most important aspect of this auction is that it is voluntary. That means TV broadcasters may, if it is in their interests, choose to submit bids to give up their spectrum rights in exchange for payment...While we don't know exactly how much spectrum incentive auctions will free up, there has been great interest generated from broadcasters and wireless service providers," she said.

A consumer group looking to overturn a $22.5 million Federal Trade Commission fine against Google to settle allegations of violating the terms of a 2011 consent decree is now arguing that Google continues to benefit from data it collected during the violation.

An FTC complaint in August alleged that Google improperly bypassed privacy protections on Apple's Safari browser and placed tracking cookies on users' computers. Google agreed to settle the case, but didn't admit wrongdoing. FTC Commissioner Thomas Rosch dissented from the settlement, arguing that Google should admit wrongdoing and that the fine was small relative to Google's revenues. Consumer Watchdog, a persistent critic of Google, argued just that in its bid to have the settlement tossed out. And in a reply memorandum filed in federal court in California, they're now saying that the settlement "permits Google to continue to profit from its wrongdoing indefinitely." According to the filing, though Google set tracking cookies it placed with the browsers of Safari users to expire, the data generated by those cookies while they were active still reside with Google, and can still be used to serve advertising to those same users.