| | |
| U.S. government aims to shed control of Internet addresses Friday, Mar 14, 2014 06:30 PM PDT The Commerce Department maintains the master database for such top-level domain names as .com and .net, as well as the corresponding numeric addresses, but has contracted out that work to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling said he asked ICANN to convene a process for a formal transition, which he said must "support and enhance the multistakeholder model" and "maintain the openness of the Internet." ICANN Chief Executive Fadi Chehadé said the process would be completed before ICANN's management contract with the Commerce Department expires in September 2015. The United States, which gave birth to the Internet, has long said it wants to hand over stewardship and has taken many steps toward that. The push has accelerated following disclosures from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, whose documents showed that U.S. intelligence officials scanned vast amounts of Internet traffic. Full Story | Top |
| Sina Weibo files for $500 million U.S. IPO Friday, Mar 14, 2014 05:23 PM PDT  Twitter-like messaging service Weibo Corp filed on Friday to raise $500 million via a U.S. initial public offering, as Chinese companies flock to the American market in record numbers to take advantage of soaring valuations. Weibo, owned by Sina Corp, becomes the latest Chinese Internet giant to tap U.S. markets, following on the heels of search service Baidu and its own corporate parent. Alibaba, which owns a stake in Weibo, is expected to raise about $15 billion in New York this year, in the highest-profile Internet IPO since Facebook's in 2012. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. government to get out of Internet naming business Friday, Mar 14, 2014 03:26 PM PDT A division of the U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it would give up control of the group that manages much of the architecture of the Internet, including the parceling out of domain names. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said in a statement it would shift those tasks to "the global multistakeholder community." NTIA's role includes administering changes to the database that contains the list of names and addresses of all so-called "top level" Internet domains, including the commonly used ".com," .edu," ".info," and others. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a nonprofit organization, will help launch a process to transition away from the current, U.S.-government-run Internet domain name system. "The timing is right to start the transition process," said Lawrence Strickling, U.S. assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information. Full Story | Top |
| HTC, Huawei, ZTE did not violate FlashPoint patents: U.S. panel Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:58 PM PDT  HTC Corp and others did not violate digital camera patents owned by Apple Inc spinoff FlashPoint Technology to make their smartphones, the U.S. International Trade Commission said on Friday. FlashPoint Technology, which filed the complaint in 2012, had originally accused Taiwan-based HTC, China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp of infringing four patents for smartphone cameras. Full Story | Top |
| GoDaddy eyes initial public offering: sources Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:06 PM PDT  Web hosting company The GoDaddy Group Inc is preparing for a second run at an initial public offering, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the 2014 tech IPO pipeline continues to grow. GoDaddy, the Internet domain registrar and web host known for its racy ads, would join a number of high-profile technames expected to go public this year in the wake of Twitter Inc's successful debut. GoDaddy was not immediately available for comment. GoDaddy had filed to go public in 2006 but was told at the time that it would be required to take a 50 percent haircut -- a percentage that is subtracted from the par value of assets that are being used as collateral -- on its initial public offering. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico telecoms reform could take years to unseat Slim Friday, Mar 14, 2014 01:20 PM PDT  By Christine Murray MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tycoon Carlos Slim, under fire from regulators in his home country, has spent the last two years sniffing out deals in Europe to offset an impending regulatory shake-up of Mexican telecoms. But though the reforms are the furthest-reaching measures passed against Slim since he became the dominant force in Mexico's telecoms market more than two decades ago, they are likely to take years to erode his hold on the business. Slim's America Movil, which controls 70 percent of the Mexican mobile market and 80 percent of its fixed lines, was singled out for tougher measures last week by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), the new market regulator. His Mexico phone units must now present plans to lower rates for rivals using America Movil's mobile network, eliminate roaming charges, open up the fixed-line network and share transmission towers, ducts and other nonelectronic infrastructure. Full Story | Top |
| IBM says it has not given client data to the U.S. government Friday, Mar 14, 2014 01:18 PM PDT  By Marina Lopes NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp has not relinquished its customers' data to the U.S. government and would challenge any orders to do so, the company said in a blog post on Friday. The post by the world's largest technology service provider is the latest backlash by a tech company against U.S. electronic surveillance practices, after published reports on Wednesday that alleged the government used websites to break into computers. "IBM has not provided client data to the NSA or any other government agency under any surveillance program involving the bulk collection of content or metadata," Robert Weber, IBM's senior vice president of legal and regulatory affairs, wrote in the blog post. "If the U.S. government were to serve a national security order on IBM to obtain data from an enterprise client and impose a gag order that prohibits IBM from notifying that client, IBM will take appropriate steps to challenge the gag order through judicial action or other means," Weber said. Full Story | Top |
| Uber expands insurance coverage for ridesharing drivers Friday, Mar 14, 2014 01:13 PM PDT  By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - UberX on Friday expanded the insurance coverage it offers to ridesharing drivers, a step toward easing U.S. regulators' and lawmakers' concerns and creating broader acceptance of the services. Ridesharing companies such as UberX, part of black-car service Uber, allow members of the public to hail rides at the touch of a smartphone app. Until now, ridesharing companies' policies kick in only when a driver is giving a ride or en route to pick up a fare. That left drivers exposed when they were between rides in what has become known as the ridesharing insurance gap. Full Story | Top |
| Indian court rejects Nokia appeal over asset transfer to Microsoft Friday, Mar 14, 2014 09:29 AM PDT India's Supreme Court on Friday ordered Nokia to give a 35 billion rupee ($572.5 million) guarantee before it transfers one of its biggest handset plants to Microsoft Corp. The ruling upheld a lower court verdict over the plant in Chennai, which is the subject of a tax dispute, and had been challenged by the Finnish company. Nokia's case is one of several high-profile tax disputes involving foreign companies in India. Vodafone Group, IBM and Royal Dutch Shell are among foreign groups contesting local tax claims. Nokia, which is selling its mobile phones business to Microsoft in a 5.4 billion euro ($7.5 billion) deal, previously agreed to set aside 22.5 billion rupees in an escrow account while it fights the Indian tax authority's claims in court. Full Story | Top |
| India court rejects Nokia appeal over asset transfer to Microsoft Friday, Mar 14, 2014 08:52 AM PDT  India's Supreme Court on Friday ordered Nokia to give a 35 billion rupees ($572.5 million) guarantee before it transfers one of its biggest mobile phone plants and other assets in the country to Microsoft Corp. The ruling upheld a lower court verdict over the plant in Chennai, which is the subject of a tax dispute, and had been challenged by the Finnish company. Nokia's case is one of several high-profile tax disputes involving foreign companies in India. Vodafone Group Plc, IBM and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are among foreign firms contesting local tax claims. Nokia, which is selling its mobile phones business to Microsoft in a 5.4 billion euro ($7.5 billion) deal, last month appealed to the Supreme Court saying the Delhi High Court had imposed new conditions over the transfer after previously lifting a freeze. Full Story | Top |
| Kremlin website hit by 'powerful' cyber attack Friday, Mar 14, 2014 08:45 AM PDT By Timothy Heritage and Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Victories are hard to come by for Vladimir Putin's opponents, activists are jailed, protests draw dwindling crowds, but on Friday they celebrated a minor triumph by briefly knocking out the Kremlin website. To red faces in the Kremlin and government, the central bank's site was also brought down by a cyber attack and the Foreign Ministry suffered similar problems. "A powerful cyber attack is under way on the (Kremlin) site," a spokeswoman for the Russian president's press service said by telephone as security experts struggled to curtail disruption. A Kremlin source told Itar-Tass news agency there was no link with "the events in Ukraine", referring to the standoff with the West over Crimea, which votes on Sunday on unification with Russia. Full Story | Top |
| China's central bank halts Tencent, Alibaba mobile payment process Friday, Mar 14, 2014 08:15 AM PDT  By Hongmei Zhao and Heng Xie HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's central bank demanded on Friday that payments made by scanning a bar code with mobile devices be halted, hitting the payment arms of Internet companies Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) made its decision amid concerns about the security of verification procedures and asked both companies to provide detailed reports about their products. The suspension affects the rollout of new virtual credit cards by Tencent and Alibaba as competition intensifies in China's e-commerce market. Full Story | Top |
| China cracks down again on popular messaging app WeChat Friday, Mar 14, 2014 02:39 AM PDT  Chinese authorities have launched another crackdown on Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular social messaging app WeChat, closing dozens of popular accounts, media reported on Friday, as China tightens its control of the Internet. China Business News and Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said some of the accounts closed were run by widely-read columnists like investigative journalist Luo Changping, some of which have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The accounts were closed on Thursday, the newspapers said, the same day Premier Li Keqiang held a news conference in Beijing marking the end of the yearly meeting of parliament. Tencent, responding to the reports, said that the company was committed to combat ting the transmission of pornography, rumours and violence. Full Story | Top |
| Mind your wallet: why the underworld loves bitcoin Thursday, Mar 13, 2014 10:51 PM PDT  By Jeremy Wagstaff SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Criminals may already have made off with up to $500 million worth of bitcoins since the virtual currency launched in 2009 - and you can double that if it turns out they emptied Mt. Gox. "It's just growing pains," says Keith Jarvis, a security researcher at Dell SecureWorks. "Bitcoin is large enough and has enough momentum behind it to survive any public relations damage from this (Mt. Gox) case or anything else." The fall of Mt Gox, the Tokyo-based exchange which filed for bankruptcy last month after saying it lost some 850,000 bitcoins to hackers, is certainly the virtual currency's biggest crisis. But data collated by Reuters from specialist bitcoin industry websites and internet forums shows that more than 730,000 bitcoins were already missing to theft, hacking, cyber-ransom payments and other apparently criminal pursuits before Mt. Gox's collapse. Full Story | Top |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment