Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Senator Ron Wyden blocked a change to the Copyright Act which would have allowed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order search engines and ISP to stop sending traffic of websites accused of infringing copyrights. The proposed law is called “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act” (PROTECT IP Act). This Act would allow the DOJ “…to seek court orders requiring search engines and ISPs to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright. The bill would also allow copyright holders to seek court orders requiring payment processors and online ad networks to stop doing business with allegedly infringing websites.”

Critics of the proposed law said:

...it would lead to hundreds of court cases brought by copyright owners against online businesses. The legislation would lead to a blacklist of Internet sites and compromise the Internet's Domain Name System,…

Senator Wyden called the Internet the "shipping lane" of the 21st century and felt the PROTECT IP Act would impede eCommerce.

What do you think?

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With 2010 revenue of about $240 million LinkedIn’s IPO $9.1 billion foreshadows an unbelievable value for Facebook when it has an IPO. Particularly since Facebook had 2010 revenue of about $2 billion, and that Hitwise most recent report of the Top Ten Social Networking Sites listed Facebook #1 with a whopping 64.22% and LinkedIn was merely #9 with 0.41%. It doesn’t take rocket science to see that Facebook’s IPO will be astronomical! Bloomberg reports that the Facebook IPO is still on track for April 2012.

These numbers make me dizzy and remind me of the Internet (doc.com) bubble of the late 1990s…what do you think?

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Current US Congressional debate will impact the future of the Internet with Net Neutrality opponents claiming that the FCC has overstepped its bounds of regulation and should rely on the antitrust laws. My recent eCommerce Times column entitled “Net Neutrality in a Nutshell” helps put the debate in perspective:

What is Net neutrality?

"Net neutrality" is short for "network neutrality" or "Internet neutrality." The concept addresses user access to the Internet, and the debate around Net neutrality centers on whether ISPs (Internet service providers) can limit, tier, block or otherwise affect Internet performance.

Without Net neutrality, ISPs can even charge higher fees for more bandwidth and higher-speed access to one vendor and not others, thus establishing tiers of service. For instance, without Net neutrality, an ISP could sign a lucrative contract with Netflix, then charge lower rates for its customers who use Netflix rather than Blockbuster.

Or, if an ISP preferred (e.g. had a financial interest in) one search engine over another, that ISP could force its customers to the preferred search engine by charging customers more each time they used any other search engine.

What do you think? Should the FCC regulate the Internet or not?
 

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VOIP is likely headed in a new direction now that Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Skype. It was reported that Facebook and Google’s offers were in the $3 to 4 billion range, while at the same time Skype was still considering an IPO later this year. As a result of this purchase, Microsoft may end up the Internet leader of communications, information, and entertainment. Clearly Facebook’s play for Skype would have extended the reach of the 600+ million friends and Google’s plan would have enlarged the Google Talk and Voice offerings. 

Skype was founded in 2005 in Luxemburg, and purchased by eBay for $3.1 billion in 2005. But in 2009 eBay sold a majority to an investor group.

Without question VOIP is the future of communications and it will be interesting to follow Skype in the future. What do you think about Microsoft winning this competition over Facebook and Google?

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By the fall of 2011 BlackBerry mobile devices will use Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine (with Bing maps) in direct competition with Google and to try to capture location based marketing opportunities. This should not be a surprise to anyone since Microsoft’s reported a 4% decline in sales of the Windows operating system in the wake of the sales of Apple’s iPad 2 and a many other tablets including the BlackBerry Playbook. No one should really feel sorry for Microsoft however since their overall profits were up 31%, but clearly Microsoft and BlackBerry teaming up against Google sends interesting messages to the location based marketers.

Needless to say there are a myriad of competitors to BlackBerry, including the Google's Driod which of course defaults to Google for search and maps. Of course on the iPad/iPhone default to Safari so neither Microsoft nor Google benefit. As location based marketing evolves which mobile browser is default on your device may be a game changer.

Do you think the default browser on the BlackBerry will help Bing?

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