January 2012

Amazon and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels unveiled an agreement that may mean that the world's largest Internet retailer starts collecting sales tax in the state in 2014.

Amazon will voluntarily begin collecting Indiana sales tax on Internet purchases on Jan 1, 2014, or 90 days from any federal online sales tax legislation that may pass before that time, according to a statement from Daniels' office. Online retailers without a physical presence in a state do not have to collect sales tax on purchases by those residents. As e-commerce ballooned in recent years, that exemption came under pressure from several states looking to fill big budget gaps. Brick and mortar retailers have been pushing hard behind the scenes to get Amazon to collect sales tax. Some traditional retailers argue Amazon has an unfair price advantage because it does not collect the tax in many states, although Amazon has said customers shop with it for other reasons, such as wide product selection and availability.

The iPhone 4S, along with cheaper older models, has helped Apple close the distance on Google’s Android, drawing within a few percentage points in recent smartphone sales market share in the U.S., according to the NPD Group.

In a CES telecom fact sheet, the research firm said that iOS has zoomed up to 43 percent of sales in October and November, compared with 26 percent in the third quarter. Meanwhile, Android’s share dropped from a high of 60 percent in the third quarter to 47 percent in October and November. The results affirm again that Android and iOS are in a two-horse race that has gotten tighter with the release of the iPhone 4S.

Internet domain name regulators played down fears by the United Nations and other international bodies that a planned expansion of possible Website addresses could cause them problems, saying safeguards were in place.

The world body, the International Monetary Fund and 26 other organizations last month wrote to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, asking it to stop addresses like ".un" or ".imf" from being seized by "cybersquatters." Cybersquatters register addresses that appear to belong to others, sometimes in the hope of selling them to those who have a more logical claim to them. "We're very sensitive to those concerns," ICANN president Rod Beckstrom told reporters, referring to the objections by international bodies. "We'll be responding to that letter." Beckstrom said that if anyone applied for a top-level domain using a trademark or service mark owned by someone else, the owner could file a complaint to a panel of intellectual property experts, who would decide who had rights to the term.

The Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation is calling for proposals that address the question: “What is meaningful broadband adoption, and how can we measure it?”

Authors of successful proposals will be invited for a day-long workshop at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, to present and discuss answers to this question. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers from different disciplinary traditions to discuss challenges in defining broadband adoption and its effects, address issues of reliability and validity, and present innovative methods for studying adoption. We welcome proposals that reflect work-in-progress as well as completed studies. We are especially interested in proposals that review recent broadband adoption initiatives, including those outside of the United States.

Please submit your proposal here by January 31, 2012. Proposals should explicitly identify the methodological and/or conceptual innovation that you are developing or have developed, as well as presentation format (slides, video, map, paper, interactive workshop, etc.). Do not include any information in your proposal that would enable reviewers to identify you. Proposals will be blind-reviewed by a multidisciplinary panel of scholars. Please note: final acceptance is contingent upon submission of completed works or works in progress one week before the date of the workshop.