July 2012

Google has agreed the outlines of a settlement with Europe’s top competition authority, in a deal that would spare the US search giant from formal antitrust charges for allegedly abusing its dominance.

In a big test for how Google handles the mounting regulatory scrutiny it is facing worldwide, the company offered to make significant changes to its business to avoid a lengthy EU legal battle and the threat of multibillion-dollar fines. While the deal must still be finalized, the talks have cleared an important hurdle that could save Google from the sort of decade-long fight in Brussels that dogged the likes of Microsoft and Intel. The details of Google’s concessions are still unclear, but they address four specific concerns laid out publicly in an earlier warning by the EU to Google. The breakthrough came after Google said it would in principle extend the remedies it had offered to make for PC-based search to cover mobile search services too.

Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) are asking the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and other major tech companies to back their revised cybersecurity bill.

In letters sent to more than a dozen tech CEOs, the two senators note the latest version of the bill includes "voluntary provisions on critical infrastructure protection" and updates to measures aimed at improving information sharing about cyberthreats between government and industry. The move is aimed at drumming up industry support ahead of possible Senate action on the bill later this week. In the letter, Sens Rockefeller and Feinstein noted the outreach made to tech industry groups during the crafting of the cybersecurity bill. The technical language included in the bill was largely developed in partnership with "your industry," the two senators wrote.

A preliminary U.S. assessment has concluded that the U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) did not violate U.N. sanctions when it sent technical equipment to North Korea and Iran, the State Department said. "Our own preliminary assessment - but we are still seeking more information from WIPO - is that there doesn't appear to have been a violation of U.N. sanctions," said department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. She noted that the transfers had been referred to U.N. sanctions committees for a final determination and said the United States was seeking more information from WIPO as it investigated whether any U.S. laws had been violated.

In the latest parry in the duel between the Federal Communications Commission and broadcasters over the FCC's new online filing requirement for TV station public files, the National Association of Broadcasters again asked a D.C. Federal Court to block the Aug. 2 effective date of that mandate.

In reply comments on its request for an emergency stay of the rules by the court until after it has ruled on broadcasters' appeal, NAB said that the FCC, in its opposition to the stay, had yet again failed to recognize the potential harm to competition of having to publicize detailed information on political ad rates in an easily accessible database. NAB says that the FCC does not dispute that an industry wide posting of pricing would violate antitrust laws were it not compelled by the FCC, but that the FCC says those laws can be "disregarded" because price information is already readily available. But NAB argues that such a contention contradicts the FCC's own justification for moving the public files online, which was to dramatically increase access to that information.