February 2013

Amazon agreed to collect Connecticut's sales tax, ending a two-year dispute over the tax that the online retailer had previously refused to charge its customers.

The retailer also promised to spend $50 million to build an order-fulfillment center at an unspecified site and create hundreds of jobs. Kevin Sullivan, commissioner of Revenue Services, said that Amazon will generate about $8 million in the first year it collects the tax and $13 million to $15 million in the second year. By agreeing to collect the tax, Amazon puts pressure on other Internet businesses to pay Connecticut's 6.35 percent sales tax, Sullivan said. Amazon will begin collecting the tax on Nov. 1 at the start of the busy Christmas holiday shopping season. The company previously insisted it was not obligated to abide by the state's Internet tax law because it does not have a physical presence in Connecticut.

On January 25, 2013, Mpower Communications Corp., U.S. TelePacific Corp. (together, TelePacific); ACN Communications Services, Inc.; Level 3 Communications, LLC; TDS Metrocom, LLC and Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI) requested that the Federal Communications Commission “refresh the record” and make certain changes to its copper retirement rules. Interested parties may file comments on or before March 5, 2013 and reply comments on or before March 20, 2013. Pleadings are to reference WC Docket No. 12-353 and RM-11358.

Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell will testify before Congress on February 5 and plans to say that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) telecom treaty conference in Dubai in December marked the end of international consensus on keeping government hands off the Internet, instead "radically ratcheting up" even more regulation.

"[I]n 2011, then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin summed it up best when he declared that his goal, and that of his allies, was to establish 'international control over the Internet' through the ITU," says Commissioner McDowell. "Last month in Dubai, Putin largely achieved his goal." Talking about the forces being applied to that "one-way ratchet, he said: "Proponents of multilateral intergovernmental control of the Internet are patient and persistent incrementalists who will never relent until their ends are achieved." Commissioner McDowell is already looking ahead, and sees the 2014 plenipotentiary meeting of the ITU as both a threat and an opportunity. "While we debate what to do next, Internet freedom's foes around the globe are working hard to exploit a treaty negotiation that dwarfs the importance of the WCIT by orders of magnitude. In 2014, the ITU will conduct what is literally a constitutional convention [that] will define the ITU's mission for years to come."

Taking the podium in the State Department’s Ben Franklin Room one last time before stepping down, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thanked lots of people, offered reminiscences, and announced a flurry of last-minute initiatives.

“We’re all like one millisecond away from just collapsing here, because of the emotion and the feelings that are coursing through all of us,” Sec Clinton said. One of those new initiatives, the Alliance for an Affordable Internet, barely got a mention in Clinton’s speech. But it merits attention. If successful, the project -- a public-private partnership among the State Department, the World Wide Web Foundation, and tech companies such as Cisco Systems, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Intel -- could end up helping many people in poor countries get onto the Web. It could also cement long-term ties between the State Department and the companies—while opening new markets and reaching new customers for Silicon Valley. “We’re going to help the next billion people come online,” said Sec Clinton, quickly announcing the project before going on to talk about clean cook stoves for women in the developing world.