WASHINGTON, November 15, 2009 - The Food and Drug Administration last week considered how regulated medical products such as prescription drugs for humans or animals should be promoted on the Internet and through the use of social media tools.
“The FDA has been widely criticized for not providing guidance for drug companies eager to promote their products on the internet,” according to Kate Greenwood, a faculty member of Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law & Policy. “In recent months, the FDA has indicated that it is open to providing internet-specific marketing guidance,” she said.
The FDA held a two-day public hearing to gather feedback from interested parties in order to “help guide FDA in making policy decisions on the promotion of human and animal prescription drugs and biologics and medical devices using the Internet and social media tools.” In April the FDA sent a number of warning letters to companies with sponsored ad links on Google, telling them their ads were in violation of the law and asking that they be taken down.
During the meeting, Google proposed a new design for FDA-related approved ads that...
WASHINGTON, November 14, 2009 - Google and related parties have reached a revised settlement agreement concerning Google’s project to make library books available online. “We're disappointed that we won't be able to provide access to as many books from as many countries through the settlement as a result of our modifications, but we look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world's books,” wrote Google Books Engineering Director Dan Clancy in a blog entry posted Friday at 11:54 p.m. Eastern time.
The revised agreement is the latest update in a case that has gone on since 2005 when a number of publishers and authors’ associations launched a class action lawsuit against Google in U.S. courts for its plan to scan millions of library books and make them accessible online.
Google has contended that its project protects copyright holders “by making sure that when users find a book under copyright, they see only a card catalog-style entry providing basic information about the book and no more than two or three sentences of text surrounding the search...
A technology that allows a user to make phone calls using a broadband internet connection instead of an analog phone line could soon become legal in the United Arab Emirates for the first time in years, according to an Arab news web site.
International internet-based calls using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) through providers such as Skype and Yahoo have been illegal in the UAE since 2004 and the related Web sites have been blocked, Maktoob.com reported last month.
The country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has been working on an official proposal governing VoIP for several years. Currently, two domestic telecommunications service providers, Etisalat and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications, have been offering VoIP services within the country. If TRA comes up with a new policy for international calls it will only allow licensed providers to offer the services. That would mean that most likely Etisalat and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications will be the first legal providers of the service.
Yahoo announced in August 2009 that it would acquire Maktoob.com, which reported the...
WASHINGTON, November 12, 2009 - BroadbandCensus.com on Thursday released, for FREE, the full-length video of the Broadband Breakfast Club event on November 10, 2009: "Setting the Table for the National Broadband Plan: The Environment and Telecommuting."
This video is 72 minutes, 58 seconds long. If you are unable to view the entire video, make sure to unclick the "HD" button on the right.
The event is available on BroadbandCensus.com at the following link.
The creation of a “smart grid” for electricity conservation may lead to parallel telecommunications networks by both utilities and traditional telephone communications providers; whether or not this was a positive development was debated at the Broadband Breakfast Club on Tuesday.
The event featured Jennifer Thomas Alcott, Telework!VA's program manager; Cynthia Brumfeld, Director of Research, Utilities Telecom Council; Kevin Moss, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, BT Americas; Steven Ruth, Professor, George Mason University School of Public Policy; and Donald Thoma, Executive Vice President Marketing at the satellite company Iridium.
To register for the next Broadband Breakfast Club, to be held on Tuesday, December 8, 2009, please visit http://broadbandbreakfast.eventbrite.com. The Broadband Breakfast Club...
WASHINGTON, November 10, 2009 - The United States and European Union antitrust regulatory bodies are at odds over whether Oracle Corporation should be allowed to go through with its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
While the U.S. has not found any issues with the proposed merger, the EU has been putting on the breaks. On Monday, the European Commission issued a statement of objections concerning the acquisition of Sun by Oracle and the deal’s potentially negative effects on competition in the database products market.
"After conducting a careful investigation of the proposed transaction between Oracle and Sun, the Department’s Antitrust Division concluded that the merger is unlikely to be anticompetitive. This conclusion was based on the particular facts of the transaction and the Division’s prior investigations in the relevant industries,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division said Monday, in a statement.
“The investigation included gathering statements from a variety of industry participants and a review of the parties’ internal business documents. At this point in its process, it appears that the European Commission holds a different view. We remain hopeful that the parties and the EC will reach...
WASHINGTON, November 10, 2009 - The European Union’s independent supervisory authority devoted to protecting personal data and privacy said Monday that member states will soon be required to implement new privacy rules including requirements that users be offered easier ways to control whether they want cookies stored on their computer equipment.
European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx, said in a statement, “I note in particular the emphasis on more effective enforcement of the rules on spyware and cookies. This has special relevance where privacy rights must be protected in relation to so called targeted advertising."
After the revised electronic privacy directive is formerly adopted, member states will have 18 months to follow its provisions. The new provisions are meant to strengthen enforcement powers for national data protection authorities and require that any communications provider or Internet service provider “involved in individuals' personal data being compromised must inform them if the breach is likely to adversely affect them.”
The provisions also give any person negatively affected by spam, such as an Internet service provider, the right to take legal...
By Christina Kirchner, Reporter-Researcher, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 9, 2009 – Panelists at a Federal Communications Commission field hearing on Friday agreed that there should be a national broadband plan that made high-speed internet connections accessible to everyone, including those with hearing, visual and other disabilities.
“A national broadband plan is not national if not accessible to everyone,” said Michael Richert, director of public policy for the American Foundation for the Blind.
Thus far, people with hearing or visual disabilities have been limited to the resources that are offered to those without disabilities. And those have been inadequate to meet the special needs of people with disabilities, panelists said.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said that soon after he first became a commissioner in 2001, he went to speak in Sioux Falls, S.D. The unemployment of the hearing disabled community was at 75 percent, he said.
“Broadband can impact education and the environment of the people with disabilities,” said Jay Wyant, president of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
With the speed increase that broadband offers vis-à-vis dial-up services, and with appropriate technology, people with disabilities are able to work from home and attend class at home. That can be useful when...
By Andrew Feinberg, Deputy Editor, BroadbandCensus.com
WASHINGTON, November 6, 2009 - The National Cable and Telecommunications Association has asked the Federal Communications Commission to redirect up to $2 billion in "wasteful" spending from Universal Service programs towards broadband. The association did so in a filing submitted to the Commission on Thursday.
With telephone subscriber contributions to the program now exceeding 12 percent of total usage fees -- and projected to pass 14 percent next year, it is "critically important" for the FCC to update the program, NCTA said in a press release.
"The USF program operates as if nothing has changed since 1996," the association said in its filing. Americans continuous switch away from traditional copper-based phone service negates the need to subsidize it, and funds should be redirected towards the broadband infrastructure carrying Voice over IP traffic which Americans are increasingly choosing. "[A]s millions of Americans take service from facilities-based wireline competitors, the Commission continues to provide billions of dollars of support for [traditional] service."
The NCTA suggests the FCC use a two-step process to reassess the level of USF support needed by measuring the availability of cable-based telephone service -- and reducing USF support where it can be shown that competitive service...