Internet

A government agency intends to extend a rural phone subsidy program to cover high-speed Internet. It comes as the agency's chairman warns that as many as 24 million Americans may have no access to broadband whatsoever. The debate involves the ... Universal Service Fund, a scheme set up in 1997 to provide every home in the country with telephone service. Phone operators forward a portion of their revenue to the fund, which is used to subsidize phone service in areas where operators couldn't otherwise charge reasonable rates and still make a profit. (Source: washingtonpost.com ) The fund also ... (view more)

Republican Congress members have taken the first step in blocking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from enforcing net neutrality rules. But the political landscape means the final outcome is far from clear. The move follows a hearing by ... the House of Representatives committee that questioned all five FCC members about their decision in December to issue controversial guidelines attempting to enforce net neutrality (the principle that all lawful Internet traffic should be treated equally). (Source: pcworld.com ) With Republican politicians unimpressed by the evidence given by the ... (view more)

It would seem at least somewhat logical to equate the number of one's Facebook friends with their overall happiness. The more Facebook friends, the more events one is invited to, the more pals to consult in times of stress. But a new study says ... that's not true, and indicates instead that the people with the most Facebook friends appear to be the least happy of all site members. The study comes to us from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. Researchers interviewed about 200 students to find out how Facebook use can be connected to one's overall mood. In their final report, these ... (view more)

An online "dating" site that was set up to expose the identities of more than 250,000 Facebook users has forced the social networking giant to seek legal action, despite no actual harm being done to the victims. The web site, called Lovely Faces, ... was created in an attempt to show how simple it is to misrepresent data and photos that are posted on public forums, all unbeknownst to those being profiled. Bot Scrapes Over 1 Million Facebook Profiles Despite being labeled an "awareness attack", site creators Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico are nevertheless guilty of utilizing an automated ... (view more)

The chief executive officer of Twitter says the site is helping maintain interest in live TV broadcasts, even in the era of the personal video recorder. Dick Costolo also claimed Twitter itself was making money -- though was unclear about the ... company's future financial strategies. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Costolo said that Twitter use had helped encourage people to once again watch TV shows at the time of their original airing, rather than catch up with them later. That's because watching "live" allows users to discuss the show with one another in real time, ... (view more)

A company offering a special discount on ordering flowers on line -- just in time for Valentine's Day -- was forced to shut down the deal a day early because customers complained the "offer" meant they saved little if any money. The offer came from ... Groupon, which issues a daily deal from retailers aimed at users in a particular geographical area. The way the deals work is that the offer is only good if a set number of people sign up to take advantage: that encourages more retailers to take part as they know they'll pick up enough extra business to make it worth their while. The all-or-nothing ... (view more)

Events in Egypt have shown how a citizenry will react when a government attempts to shut off local Internet access . Since then, there's been considerable discussion as to whether this could happen in the U.S., but experts say that even if such a ... move were legally possible, it would be practically unworkable. Connections between Egyptian computers and the outside world were cut off for a little over a week, almost certainly under government orders in an attempt to limit communications between protestors. It led to some creative responses from the public, ranging from using dial-up connections ... (view more)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's fan page has reportedly been hacked. Recently, a message appeared online the fan page, stating: "Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users ... invest in Facebook in a social way?" The social networking site has since removed all unauthorized posts from Zuckerberg's fan page. Facebook Hack Embarrassing, Concerning So, how is it that what should have been the most secure of all Facebook fan pages was easily cracked by a hacker? Sophos senior consultant Graham Cluley says it's hard to tell, but ... (view more)

For most of us, it's hard to imagine life without access to the Internet. But since late last week, that's been the reality for most people in Egypt. As part of crackdown designed to disrupt organized protests against the government currently in ... power, almost every connection between Egypt's Internet service providers (ISPs) and the rest of the web was cut almost simultaneously during the evening of January 27th. Any suspicion that this might be a mechanical failure was soon eliminated when it became clear that network traffic was still passing through the country. The major set of fiber ... (view more)

Mozilla and Google have both followed Microsoft's lead in giving users a chance to opt out of having their activity tracked by advertisers. But the voluntary schemes may not be effective enough to stave off government action. The changes follow ... Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demands for both website and browser developers to make it easier for users to opt out of tracking. The call was designed to tackle fears that sites were abusing their ability to pass on details about what people do online to advertisers, allowing for better targeted advertisements, which typically command higher rates. ... (view more)