In the wake of the historic failure in the House of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which was co-authored by Rep. Smith and sponsored by Rep. Wasserman-Schultz, a newly empowered, and enlarged, wave of protesters aims to stop any bill that would leverage popular sentiment to force ISPs to retain customer data for use by government.

A commercial provider of an electronic communication service shall retain for a period of at least one year a log of the temporarily assigned network addresses the provider assigns to a subscriber to or customer of such service that enables the identification of the corresponding customer or subscriber information under subsection (c)(2) of this section... Access to a record or information required to be retained under this subsection may not be compelled by any person or other entity that is not a governmental entity.

Missing from this bill is any type of mechanism for law enforcement agencies to seek a court order. Instead, H.R. 1981 uses very broad language to open up the ISP's database of subscriber information to "a governmental entity." Such language refrains even from restricting access to law enforcement entities.

In a statement to the press at the time the bill was introduced last July, Rep. Smith characterized the omission of a court order provision in the bill as a feature, going so far as to suggest that, in the course of conducting investigations against suspected child pornographers, courts tend to merely get in the way.

"H.R. 1981 enables law enforcement officials to successfully locate and prosecute those who want to hurt our children," Smith stated. "Often, the only way to identify a pedophile who operates a Web site or exchanges child pornography images with other pedophiles is by an Internet Protocol address. Law enforcement officials must obtain a subpoena and then request from the Internet Service Provider the name and address of the user of the IP address. Unfortunately, Internet Service Providers regularly purge these records, making it difficult if not impossible for investigators to apprehend child pornographers on the Internet. H.R. 1981 directs ISPs to retain Internet Protocol addresses to assist federal law enforcement officials with child pornography and other Internet investigations."

Although the bill itself does not mention the possibility of extending the database to "other Internet investigations" by "a government entity," the American Civil Liberties Union pounced on the proposed legislation immediately. It also suggested that the creation of the database itself may give ISPs a green light to do something it says they've been wanting to do anyway: track and profile Web users' habits.

As the Union's Christopher Calabrese wrote, "The ACLU has long been concerned about companies that follow us around the Web and track our viewing habits for the purposes of advertising. They use this tracking to build personal profiles about us that can be widely shared. Forcing companies to retain data for long periods would bolster this practice. It would also make it much easier for the government to track everything we do online. No company would be able to promise not to record your visit - that would be barred by law. Respect for your anonymity online would be a thing of the past."

But one other potential defect of the bill as written - which, amid the less technical issues, may have been missed - has to do with IP addresses themselves. There's considerable legal precedent supporting the principle that an IP address cannot be used to identify a person. It may be used to identify a computer used by a person. Or it could identify a phone, or more often these days, a proxy that the very class of subjects the bill would target might use to anonymize their online sessions. Conceivably, a defendant could argue, with plenty of evidence to back him up, that an IP address is not enough to link an Internet session with a person.

At any rate, this afternoon the advocacy group Demand Progress reports that an online petition for opponents of H.R. 1981 has garnered over 70,000 signatures thus far. The petition cites a statement from Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D - Mich.), which reads, "The bill is mislabeled. This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes."

IN GENERAL- An operator of a nonauthoritative domain name system server shall take the least burdensome technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent the domain name described in the order from resolving to that domain name's Internet protocol address, except that...

The removal of said clause in Sec. 3 of PIPA would effectively cripple the entire section of the bill because that is the most active part, the means of taking down the alleged copyrighted website. Sec. 3 is important because it is the foundation for a good portion of the bill.

What else is worrisome about PIPA? Oh, let's say... every other section.

Sec. 4, titled "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online," contains several of the same proposals as the Stop Online Privacy Act in Congress. Notably, the ability of the Attorney General to issue an order for online payment processors and advertisers to stop doing business with allegedly infringing sites. From Sec. 4 article (d):

(2) REASONABLE MEASURES- After being served with a copy of an order pursuant to this subsection: (A) FINANCIAL TRANSACTION PROVIDERS- A financial transaction provider shall take reasonable measures, as expeditiously as reasonable, designed to prevent, prohibit, or suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States and the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order. (B) INTERNET ADVERTISING SERVICES- An Internet advertising service that contracts with the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order to provide advertising to or for that site, or which knowingly serves advertising to or for such site, shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as reasonable, designed to--

• (i) prevent its service from providing advertisements to the Internet site associated with such domain name; or
• (ii) cease making available advertisements for that site, or paid or sponsored search results, links, or placements that provide access to the domain name.

Eliminating the language from Sec. 3 supports the ISPs, such as cable operators Comcast and Cox, which support the bill though have objections to that particular clause. Yet, Sec. 4 remains would remain in the bill. Sec. 4 effects online advertisers like Google and payment processors like eBay/PayPal, both of which oppose PIPA. Essentially, Leahy is placating the bill's supporters while still imposing upon its opponents.

Looks like politics as usual in Washington.

Sec. 5 of PIPA outlines how payment providers and advertisers can voluntarily comply with Sec. 4 meaning that they can be proactive in shutting down payment options to alleged sites. Sec.6/7 defines the clauses and evaluation aspects of the bill. Sec. 8, the last section of the bill, has a particularly troubling clause.

Sec. 8 - "Preventing the Importation of Counterfeit Products and Infringing Devices." Note the term "infringing devices." Essentially, what the bill says is that products with have been ruled to infringe on intellectual property will be seized by customs.

Think about this for a second. What is the largest technology company in the world? What products does it make? What is its legal arm doing in U.S courts and around the world?

That would be Apple. Apple is raging a patent battle against nearly all of the original equipment manufacturers that build Android devices. All Apple has to do is win a patent suit against the OEMs and Sec. 8 would effectively stop the importation of the "infringing" devices. Apple has not made an official statement on whether or not it supports SOPA/PIPA but it was part of the Business Software Alliance that had originally supported the bills. The BSA officially withdrew its support citing, "valid and important questions have been raised about the bill."

What it comes down to is that PIPA is still a bill that could stifle and censor innovation on the Web, even without the teeth of Sec. 3. Will Leahy's "manager's amendment" be enough to placate the opponents and push it through the Senate?

Leahy credits his Vermont constituents for giving him insight into the issue, as well as service providers, whom he admits stand in opposition to the provision.

The section with Leahy will recommend be set aside grants the court the ability to issue an injunction or restraining order against a domain name. In the act of carrying out that injunction, DNS servers may be issued court orders compelling them to "take the least burdensome technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent the domain name described in the order from resolving to that domain name's Internet protocol address," granted that such measures would not force them to redesign their networks.

The House version of the legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, remains under consideration and, as of now, continues to contain the counterpart to the court order provision. Earlier today, its principal author, Rep. Lamar Smith (R - Texas), vowed to press forward with the SOPA legislation as it stood, but that statement was made prior to Leahy's.

Any final legislation passing Congress would need to be a reconciliation between both bills, which may now be more difficult if SOPA were to pass the House with the court order provision intact.

The senator broke the news of his decision in a response to a question on Vermont Public Radio this morning.

According to VPR reporter Patti Daniels, Leahy said, "I'm going to set aside these Domain Name provisions. That we'll hold back on, because I've listened to some of the concerns on those. I think there [are] easy answers to it, but let's set it aside, let's spend a year or so studying that part."

The full text of Sen. Leahy's statement follows:

The PROTECT IP Act provides new tools for law enforcement to combat rogue websites that operate outside our borders but target American consumers with stolen American property and counterfeits. One of those tools enables law enforcement to secure a court order asking Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to use the Domain Name System to prevent consumer access to foreign rogue websites. This provision was drafted in response to concerns that law enforcement has remedies it can take against domestic websites, but does not currently have the power to stop foreign rogue websites. I worked closely with the ISPs in drafting this provision to ensure they were comfortable with how it would work, and I appreciate their support.

The process in drafting the legislation has always been an open one in which we have heard from all third parties, and have worked to address as many outstanding concerns as possible. It is through this process that we have gained the support of the majority of third parties who will be asked to take action under the legislation, as well as a bipartisan group of 40 cosponsors in the Senate.

It is also through this process that I and the bill's cosponsors have continued to hear concerns about the Domain Name provision from engineers, human rights groups, and others. I have also heard from a number of Vermonters on this important issue. I remain confident that the ISPs - including the cable industry, which is the largest association of ISPs - would not support the legislation if its enactment created the problems that opponents of this provision suggest. Nonetheless, this is in fact a highly technical issue, and I am prepared to recommend we give it more study before implementing it.

As I prepare a managers' amendment to be considered during the floor debate, I will therefore propose that the positive and negative effects of this provision be studied before implemented, so that we can focus on the other important provisions in this bill, which are essential to protecting American intellectual property online, and the American jobs that are tied to intellectual property. I regret that law enforcement will not have this remedy available to it when websites operating overseas are stealing American property, threatening the safety and security of American consumers. However, the bill remains a strong and balanced approach to protecting intellectual property through a no-fault, no-liability system that leverages the most relevant players in the Internet ecosystem.

In a response this evening, Sen. Ron Wyden (D - Ore.), the co-author of the competing Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act, vowed he would continue his plan to block whatever parts of the Leahy-Hatch bill would try to reach the floor for a vote.

"It is welcome news that proponents of PIPA are finally accepting that it contains major flaws," stated Sen. Wyden. "Unfortunately, this announcement to study the DNS provision does not eliminate the clearly identified threat to net security contained within this bill. Beyond the DNS provisions, the bill still establishes a censorship regime that threatens speech, innovation, and the future of the American economy. I remain firm in my intent to block consideration of the PIPA bill until these issues are addressed and I am committed to doing all I can to ensure that whatever legislative course is taken, that it is fully transparent, fully understood and fully considered by all those who value the Internet."

Forbes and the Atlantic Monthly are both reporting that coders are already developing work-arounds. A developer calling himself Tamer Rizk launched DeSopa, a Firefox add-on that would allow users to visit sites blocked by the proposed copyright protection measures proposed under SOPA.

SOPA would block access to sites accused of violating U.S. copyright laws. The measure has been called Draconian by opponents who say it would fundamentally change the free-flow of information across the Internet. Proponents, ranging from the NBA to Universal, say the measure is needed to block sites like The Pirate Bay, which flagrantly flaunt copyright laws and make content available for free without paying copyright owners.

This week a House committee suspended debate on the measure until 2012.

"This program is a proof of concept that SOPA will not help prevent piracy," reads a note on DeSopa's download page. "If SOPA is implemented, thousands of similar and more innovative programs and services will sprout up to provide access to the websites that people frequent. SOPA is a mistake. It does not even technically help solve the underlying problem, as this software illustrates."

Or as Reason, the journal of libertarian thought and politics, noted, "SOPA looks like a stunning anti-success: Not only would it undermine core elements on the Internet's architecture, it wouldn't stop much piracy. Indeed...it would probably make the Internet substantially less secure."

Marketers and campaigns still crave phone numbers as the number one target of consumer information. It is not your email address, Twitter handle or Facebook profile. The baseline information for marketers continues to be your phone number and your physical address. That is the closest they can get to you, your mailbox and landline phone. This bill would bring them even closer - straight into your pocket.

The act itself is officially called the Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011. The Communications Act of 1934 governs telecommunications, broadcast television and radio. It has been amended several times through the years to adapt to changing technology. This amendment would bridge the gap of current rules allowed for robo-calls to landlines over to the cellular side. Here is the main thrust of the amendment:

Like any amendment to a long-standing bill, a good portion of the actual proposed changes are grammatical in nature. If you have an interest in history or law or are just a giant geek, take a look at the change logs to some of the oldest bills in Congress. They read like the rules implemented by the Modern Language Institute or the Oxford Dictionary. Yet, the changes to Section Two "Definitions" are what the key.

Basically, it identifies who can be called and how by defining a "business relationship" between the company and the individual.

What this is saying is that if you make a purchase from a retail store or online and give them your phone number, they can then "information call" basically whenever they want.

A lot of mobile robo-call legislation currently resides with the states. For instance, I have a Virginia phone number. Right after this story crossed my eyes this morning, I coincidentally then got a robo-call from a marketer. The Informational Call Act of 2011 would take that power of legislation from the states, making the federal law the one that governs robo-calls to mobile phones.

The bill has gone through the introduction stage and is currently awaiting the report of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce before going to vote on the floor.

Outraged? Excited? Ready to write a letter to your congressperson? Let us know in the comments.

This bill was opposed by politicians from both parties, as well as 30 privacy groups. That didn't stop the Judiciary committee from voting for it, 19 to 10. See ReadWriteWeb's coverage of the bill in terms of its possible violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

"Beijing Police has issued a notice to all the cafes and bars which provide Wi-Fi access to their customers to install a RMB20,000 monitoring system. Upon installation, users have to register their ID in the counter before logging in the Wi-Fi network. The notice was issued by the Beijing police around end of June, 2011 to cafe, bookstore, and bar which provide free Wi-Fi access to their customers. If they reject, they will no longer be allowed to provide free Wi-Fi service."

U.S. government indicts Twitter user for stalking. William Cassidy criticized a public official on Twitter and now faces jail time for it under a stalking law. Opponents argue that the law in question was designed to prohibit the use of tech to locate stalking victims, not to criticize public figures.

But in this post-Lantos age, Congressmen Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) have done their best to push, kidney-punch, brow-beat and shame Facebook and other such companies into a semblance of responsibility. Their latest act in that vein is to demand an explanation regarding the company's latest in a long line of security breaches and privacy problems.

Markety and Barton sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter [PDF] demanding an explanation for the breach by June 2.

"While Facebook reportedly now has fixed this particular issue, we remain concerned about how the problem arose in the first place, was allowed to persist undetected for such a long period of time, and could recur some time in the future...This issue is one that cannot be ignored and our concerns about Facebook's privacy policies are continuously increasing."

The questions they have sent include duration of the vulnerability (possibly years), Facebook's awareness by of the problem, the methods they used to determine that no user information allegedly wound up in the hands of a third-party and how the problem could have come to pass in the first place.

Markey and Barton's previous Facebook inquiry was over its plans to do purposefully what it allegedly did accidentally with the recent security flaw, share personal user information with third parties.

Other sources: LA Times

In the report, authors Helmi Noman and Jillian C. York "find that nine countries in the region utilize Western-made tools for the purpose of blocking social and political content, effectively blocking a total of over 20 million Internet users from accessing such websites."

Ran Yunfei, Chinese blogger arrested. A well-known writer and online newspaper publisher has been arrested in a continuing crackdown on a possible porting of the Jasmine Revolutions from the Middle East to China.

First academic paper on Wikileaks. Mark Fenster, Research Foundation Professor at the Frederic Levin School of Law at the University of Florida, has become the first academic to publish a paper on the implications of Wikileaks. The paper is titled "Disclosure's Effects: WikiLeaks and Transparency."

"WikiLeaks's ability to receive and distribute leaked information cheaply, quickly, and seemingly unstoppably enables it to bypass the legal framework that would otherwise allow courts and officials to consider and balance disclosures' effects. For this reason, WikiLeaks threatens to make transparency's balance irrelevant. Second, its recent massive disclosures of U.S. military and diplomatic documents allow us to reconsider and test the assumption that disclosure produces effects that can serve as the basis for judicial and administrative prediction, calculation, and balancing. For this reason, WikiLeaks threatens transparency's balance by disproving its assumption that disclosure necessarily has predictable, identifiable consequences that can be estimated ex ante or even ex post."

Bahrain's pioneer blogger arrested. Mahmood Al-Yousif, a godfather of Bahraini blogging, announced his imminent arrest with a post on his Twitter account. The tweet has since been deleted.

Microsoft keeps Arabic users from using HTTPS. Jillian York reported that she and others tested and found that users in Arabic countries, as well as users in Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazahstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, could not employ the secure browsing protocol. In response, Microsoft said it was not intentional, but a bug, and they have fixed the bug.

Hugo Chávez wins free press award. Ah. It's good to laugh, isn't it?

Google reaches settlement with U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges Google for Buzz. The settlement arose from Google's rollout of Buzz, in which users were not given the option to join, and many found their private information was inadvertently exposed in the process. The settlement will bar Google from any "future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years."

U.S. Congressmen order investigation into mobile phone tracking. Based on an apparent worry over their own privacy, Congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton began an investigation of cell carriers, to make sure their actions complied with the Section 222 of the U.S. Communications Act's, which requires "express prior authorization of the customer for use, disclosure of or access to the customer's location information for commercial purposes,"

Egypt still arresting bloggers. The latest was Maikel Nabil Sanad. Sanad is a conscientious objector. He was arrested for "defaming the military." (In reality, he criticized its lack of transparency - hard to imagine a less defamatory statement, what with it being 100% accurate.) This is one more indication that post-revolution Egypt is not as different from pre-revolution Egypt as so many of us were hoping it would be. While throwing the baby out with the bathwater would be deluded, so would pretending the bathwater's clean.

Mahmood tweet screen from Now Public

Now lawmakers are demanding to know what exactly the company's plans are.

Questions for Mark Zuckerberg

A summary of the letter's demands are posted here, on Congressman Markey's homepage, spelling out exactly what the lawmakers want to know. This includes questions about what user information would be shared, what Facebook's process was for developing and vetting the feature and why the company decided to temporarily shelve it, what internal company policies and procedures Facebook has for ensuring new features meet Facebook's privacy policy requirements, whether the feature represents a change to Facebook's privacy policy, what the risks are to children and teenagers, and what opt-out options will be available.

The lawmakers also brought up the issue of Facebook User ID sharing that was uncovered last fall after an article in The Wall St. Journal's series "What They Know" on personal data privacy revealed that Facebook IDs were making their way into the hands of third parties, including advertisers and so-called "data brokers." Not only can Facebook IDs be used to identify a person by name, the Journal found, some Facebook apps were sharing those IDs with advertising and data firms. One firm, RapLeaf, was discovered to have linked those IDs to its own database of Internet users, which it sells, said The WSJ.

In response, Facebook moved to encrypt those IDs to better protect its users. The company had also sent a response to lawmakers questioning its actions back on October 29, 2010. That letter was brought up again in this latest request. It reads:

Please explain why Facebook, while previously acknowledging in its letter to us that sharing a UID [Facebook ID] could raise user concerns, subsequently considered sharing of a user's home address and mobile phone number - even more sensitive personal information than a UID - to be information that should be more easily accessible to third parties.

In conclusion, the lawmakers requested that Facebook address all the issues raised in the new letter by Feb. 23, 2011.

Facebook's Original Plan for Sharing Mobile Phone Numbers and Addresses

The proposed feature would have allowed Facebook application developers the ability to access the mobile phone number and home address stored in a user's Facebook profile. According to some critics, the application permissions dialog box doesn't make it clear that the application is requesting such personal information. Instead, in a list of items the app requests, the text"Access my contact information" is bolded and in smaller, grey text beneath that request is a note that reads "current address and mobile phone number."

Enough people don't read these dialog boxes as it is, despite how invasive their permission requests may already be. Asking for personal, private information such as this should be better highlighted at the very least, critics said.

We've asked Facebook for comment on this issue, and will update if or when it responds.

Update: Below is Facebook's official statement.

As an innovative company that is responsive to its users, we believe there is tremendous value in giving people the freedom and control to take information they put on Facebook with them to other websites. We enable people to share this information only after they explicitly authorize individual applications to access it. This system of user permissions was designed in collaboration with a number of privacy experts. Following the rollout of this new feature, we heard some feedback and agree that there may be additional improvements we could make. Great people at the company are working on that and we look forward to sharing their progress soon.

Specifically, the live streaming will be done on the Republicans' page for PledgeToAmerica. When the Obama inauguration was live broadcast in 2009, the video appeared on CNN.com but was powered by Facebook Connect, which allowed viewers to see comments posted exclusively by their Facebook friends, if they so chose. CNN said at the time that 5.3 million video streams of that event were delivered.

Will viewers of the Pledge to America page be required to declare to all their Facebook friends that they Like the Republican Party in order to gain viewing or commenting access to the stream, as was so widely grimaced about when George W. Bush started a Facebook page?

Will any other online media outlets be allowed to live stream the proceedings, or will it just be Facebook? Twitter? Current.tv? UStream? Who will the new Hellen Thomas of live online social politics be - sitting in the front row and asking difficult questions for decades?

Actually, it's unclear whether Facebook itself will be providing the live stream or whether it will simply be Republicans embedding a live stream on their own Facebook page. I've emailed Facebook for clarification and to answer some of the more specific questions. Will Facebook staff be on camera hosting the coverage as they have in other instances? The company recently live-streamed an on-site visit by George W. Bush and it was quite charming (I say that as a non-Republican, too).

Update: Andrew Noyes, Facebook's Manager of Public Policy Communications, got back to us by email and had this to say. "Hundreds of members of Congress use Facebook to communicate and connect with their constituents in an official capacity and we're excited to see Facebook being used prominently as the 112th Congress gavels into session this week." It turns out that Rep. Boehner, the new Republican Speaker of the House, is leading the effort with his new media team. Facebook is, however, one of very few 3rd party services that Congress has approved for official use, something that was a subject of controversy when the US government started using YouTube prominently.

Many questions philosophical and practical about the implementation will be answered tomorrow morning, but no matter how it goes down, it's hard to argue that things haven't changed in the worlds of media and politics.

Republicans also had 38% more followers on their congressional accounts, where they tweeted about legislation. Even worse news for Democrats: Republicans had almost double the followers for campaign-specific accounts like @foxxforcongress and @VotePerriello.

The most-followed member of Congress is Senator John McCain, who has more than 1.7 million followers and is on 9,658 lists, although his campaign-specific account @teammccain is much smaller. A look at his Twitter page turns up retweets, @ replies, hash tags, photos and updates from Twitter for iPhone, text and HootSuite.

A recent tweet by Republican John McCain, the most-followed member of Congress.

A tweet by Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the third most-followed member of the Senate with 40,000-odd followers.

If social media plays as big a role in the U.S. as it has in other countries, the Republicans' Twitter edge could grab them some Congressional seats. "Data from the 2008 Presidential election suggests that grassroots campaigning via the Internet, including social media, contributed to President Obama's win," Burson-Marsteller concludes. "Future analyses will demonstrate how social media plays a role for congressional seats in the November 2010 election." The study was based on data on data from June.

Do you think Twitter will make a difference in the mid-term elections? Why or why not?

The Android application is similar in some ways to its iPhone counterpart, Real Time Congress, released at the beginning of the year. Like the the Apple version, the Android app makes it easy to see what's happening inside Congress in a timely fashion.

However, unlike the iPhone app, the Android version offers a greater focus on your representatives and their activity. This is something which iPhone users already had access to, explained Sunlight Lab's Clay Johnson back in January: there are "at least a half-dozen" third party applications for iPhone that do the same, he said . But in the Android Marketplace, there's only the one: Congress.

Congress: App Details

From the app's main screen, Android users can enter in their location, either by tapping into the phone's GPS or by manually entering a State or zip code. Search functions for finding a particular representative or committee are also present and, at the top, there are sections for tracking votes and nominations.

Each representative has an easy-to-use profile page where their office's phone number is prominently featured. Here, you're also one tap away from voting records, sponsored bills, committee details, news articles, Twitter updates and YouTube videos, assuming your rep participates on social media. The rep's own webpage is also linked by way of an icon found next to their profile picture.

Government in Your Pocket

For mainstream users who don't try software in beta (aka "we're still testing it") format, Congress for Android may be their first peek into the power of mobile combined with the power of open data, specifically open governmental data. The application was built using the Sunlight Congress API and GovTrack.us, the former a tool to programmatically access basic information on members of Congress, and the latter a civic project for tracking Congressional activity.

Like all Sunlight projects, Congress is open source software, meaning other developers can view and reuse the code, stored here on Github.

Since the app's launch into public beta late last year, over 250,000 Android owners have downloaded it. Now that the app has officially and publicly launched, that number is sure to rise.

In the future, the app will be updated to support real-time notifications and other "exciting features," says Sunlight Labs. Those interested in downloading the app can do so now from the Android Market: just search for "Congress."

Covering a period including 2008 and into 2009, the report, issued today, found that this concentration had increased 32 percent since 2003 and 6.5 percent in 2008, indicating a significant decrease in competition. Less competition usually means fewer choices and higher prices for both individual and enterprise consumers.

"Over the past five years, concentration has increased in the provision of mobile wireless services. The two largest providers, AT&T, Inc. (AT&T) and Verizon Wireless, have 60 percent of both subscribers and revenue, and continue to gain share (accounting for 12.3 million net additions in 2008 and 14.1 million during 2009). The two next largest providers, T-Mobile USA (T-Mobile) and Sprint Nextel Corp. (Sprint Nextel), had a combined 1.7 million net loss in subscribers during 2008 and gained 827,000 subscribers during 2009."

In a statement accompanying the report, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps agreed.

"(C)ompetition has been dramatically eroded and is seriously endangered by continuing consolidation and concentration in our wireless markets," he wrote.

The report also found that capital investment in the wireless industry has declined relative to size.

Bottom photography from Geograph

The discussion draft of the legislation sets up requirements for Internet companies and online ad networks that include "conspicuous" notice of information capture, initial user opt-in on all such collection and user opt-out afterward.

"A covered entity may not sell, share, or otherwise disclose covered information to an unaffiliated party without first obtaining the express affirmative consent of the individual to whom the covered information relates."

The legislation also makes the "covered entity" responsibly for guaranteeing the safety and security of the information they gather.

Some types of information are exempt from these rules.

"No consent is required to collect and use operational or transactional data--the routine web logs or session cookies that are necessary for the functioning of the website--or to use aggregate data or data that has been rendered anonymous."

To ensure the law would not be toothless, the legislation brings in a regulatory body.

"The Federal Trade Commission would adopt rules to implement and enforce the measure. States may also enforce the FTC's rules through State attorneys general or State consumer protection agencies."

Bottom photo by umjanedoan

The timing is good for such an announcement given the worry over, among other things, Facebook's recent changes that have caused fresh worry over privacy.

Elements of the draft include the following.

• Disclosure of what information is collected and how, how it is used and who it is shared with


• Opt-outs for consumers.


• Restrictions on collecting financial, medical, government ID information and that of children