News and Events

The Computer & Communications Industry Association is issuing the following statement in response to an article in Monday's paper, 'Google Wants Its Own Fast Track on the Web,' which contained several mistakes. The following statement can be attributed to Ed Black, President & CEO of CCIA.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association is offering the following statement in response to several news reports that Intel is now suing the Korean Fair Trade Commission. The KFTC found Intel's practice of offering rebates tied to customers not buying from competitor Advanced Micro Devices illegal. It fined the biggest microprocessor producer 26 billion won in June, which is about $18 million. Intel is claiming the KFTC made mistakes in reaching its decision.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association is offering the following statement in response to new details released by the Financial Times and other news outlets on the latest details of the European Commission's Intel antitrust investigation. It can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black.

"We are disappointed that Intel has apparently chosen to attack the law enforcement organization that is investigating it. This is a tactic we have seen before by other companies when they have concluded they cannot effectively argue the merits of their wrongdoing.

The San Jose Mercury News published CCIA's op ed on intellectual property, trade and the next USTR in today's paper.

Washington, DC - We congratulate President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden, and all those elected to the Senate and House who face historic challenges and opportunities.

President-elect Barack Obama used technology and the Internet in unprecedented ways to organize volunteers, raise money and communicate his position on issues. The Computer & Communications Industry Association looks forward to seeing how Obama now turns his understanding of the technology used in his campaign to increase the efficiency of the federal government and boost innovation and the economy.

Washington, D.C. - A new group called Future of Privacy is being created reportedly to help shape the discussion of privacy policy during the Obama administration. Jules Polonetsky, AOL's former chief privacy officer will co-found the group along with Christopher Wolf of the Washington law firm Proskauer Rose LLP.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association is issuing the following statement in response to FCC Chairman Martin's announcement that he wants to allow portable devices to use the white spaces between TV broadcast channels for wireless and broadband. This can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Ed Black:

Washington, DC - Two military intercept officers who worked at a National Security Agency center in Georgia told ABC News they eavesdropped on the phone conversations of hundreds of U.S. citizens overseas. The officers told how operators would pass around time codes of the calls journalists, soldiers and aid workers made to friends and family back home.

Washington, DC - Universal Service should be redefined to ensure low-income consumers have access to broadband service, according to a petition the Computer & Communications Industry Association filed with the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has noted that broadband communication is becoming the "great economic engine of our time" while others like Commissioner Copps have likened it to the highways. High speed Internet access is among the critical infrastructures like electricity protected by the Department of Homeland Security. "With this much understanding of the importance of broadband, connecting low income residents should be a top priority," said Ed Black, President & CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Washington, DC - The Motion Picture Association, which represents six Hollywood movie studios, announced those studios are suing RealNetworks Inc. for releasing software Tuesday that allows consumers to copy DVDs onto their computer's hard drive.

The studios are asking for a temporary restraining order saying the downloadable software Real DVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by bypassing the copyright protection that's built into DVDs.

Washington, DC - A coalition of trade associations representing small to large companies and public interest groups have filed a friend of the court brief today in the case of Arista Records v. Limewire.

Washington, DC - In a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, the Department of Justice and Department of Commerce express concerns with a provision in S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act.

They say that despite the bill's good intentions, the way it is written, it would turn DOJ attorneys into pro bono copyright lawyers for big content providers.

CCIA is releasing this paper today on the trade barriers Internet and e-Commerce companies face as we approach OneWeb Day Monday, Sept. 22, which is a sort of "Earth Day" to look at the Internet, it's health and future challenges to its openness.

The subject of Internet and e-commerce laws as a trade issue has been a growing topic of discussion. The USTR plans a hearing Monday, Sept. 22 on this and a coalition of tech and telecom companies, including CCIA, have sent comments on this issue to the USTR last week.


Click Here for Link to CCIA's Comments to the USTR

Click Here for CCIA's Paper on Internet Protectionism

Read CCIA's Op-Ed

China and the United States approach politics differently, but their teenagers share a favorite means of communication, text messaging. What these teens are saying to each other may matter only to them. But that they are able to communicate this easily, openly and even cheaply matters to us all.

Without the freedom to have these little conversations, a nation is not equipped to have the bigger ones. It is with the vigilance of a teen facing time without texting that we should take a day to focus not on the small screen of the phone or bigger the laptop screen, but the broader picture -- the tremendous value of an open Internet.

Washington, DC --  The Department of Justice released a report on Antitrust Monopoly Law yesterday.  The report, "Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act," sought to examine whether specific types of conduct run foul of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.  In response to the report, Ed Black, President & CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association released this statement:

Washington, DC -- A long-standing gag order on a major antitrust case needs to be lifted, according to a motion filed today by news organizations and the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Washington, D.C. - T3 Technologies formally announced today it had retained counsel to file an antitrust complaint against IBM in Europe. T3 is a small mainframe supplier, which bills itself on its website as an alternative to being bound by IBM.

Washington, DC - The FCC is scheduled to vote Friday on whether Comcast violated federal rules when it slowed down the transmission of files for those using the video sharing application BitTorrent.

Washington, DC - The Computer & Communications Industry Association has joined a coalition of ten other non-profit and public interest groups including The Public Patent Foundation, AARP and the Software Freedom Law Center today to file an amicus brief in a pending patent office rules case.

Washington, DC - The Computer & Communications Association joined Compete America and a broad coalition of those in education and the tech industry to ask Congress to pass changes this year to help ease the backlog in visas for highly skilled workers.

The letter asks members of Congress to pass incremental adjustments to the employment-based green card system, noting that H.R, 6039, H.R. 5921 and H.R. 5882 have broad bipartisan support.

Washington, DC - European regulators have filed new antitrust charges against Intel today. The European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition confirmed today that it had sent Intel a supplementary Statement of Objections (SSO) outlining its preliminary conclusion that Intel has engaged in three additional elements of abusive conduct. These new charges accuse Intel of providing rebates to a prominent European computer retailer conditional on them only carrying Intel products, providing rebates to a leading computer manufacturer to delay the launch of an AMD-based product line, and providing rebates to the same computer manufacturer for stocking their laptops exclusively with Intel-based products.

Washington, D.C. - IBM has just announced it is buying up Platform Solutions, Inc. (PSI), its small but most significant competitor. PSI is/was a small mainframe manufacturer that had sued IBM over the same anticompetitive practices in Europe and New York.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association sees this as a clear attempt by IBM to purchase a company solely to foreclose competition in the mainframe marketplace, protecting IBM's cash cow at the expense of consumers. This acquisition should be a cause of concern for competition authorities throughout the world.

Washington, DC - The Computer & Communications Industry Association joined with several organizations today in urging a federal court to grant a new trial to Jammie Thomas, who was fined $222,000 in October 2007 for allegedly violating copyrights.

Thomas was found liable for unlawfully distributing music on a file sharing network, notwithstanding the lack of evidence that she had in fact done so. Her liability was based upon a startling jury instruction that the plaintiff record labels need not have proved that she actually distributed any music on the Internet to hold her liable for distributing music on the Internet.

CCIA commends the FCC for releasing the final report on its March decision on Broadband Data collection that makes significant changes that will allow the agency to collect more accurate data on broadband penetration and speed.

In response to the report, CCIA's Vice President of Government Relations Cathy Sloan released this statement:

"The FCC's effort to collect more granular data is an important initial step towards improving U.S. broadband deployment. By collecting better data on broadband availability and corresponding speeds, it becomes easier to target areas that are not adequately covered with efforts designed to stimulate broadband investment in those regions. Since broadband is an important driver of economic development, it is essential that our nation improve broadband access and speed to all Americans. We applaud the expert agency's taking its cue from bipartisan consensus legislation on broadband mapping that passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this year."

Washington, DC - The Computer & Communications Industry Association commends the Federal Trade Commission for opening up a formal antitrust investigation into Intel's alleged anticompetitive practices.

This news comes days after Korean antitrust regulators fined Intel $25 million for abusing its dominant position in the microprocessor market and the European Commission announced plans to rule in their case against Intel by September. Besides the recent events in Europe and Korea, Japanese regulators ruled against Intel's practices in 2005 and the New York State Attorney General's Office announced their own investigation in January of this year. CCIA said word of the FTC's investigation sends a clear signal that the agency, which has been less aggressive in its enforcement in recent years, may now be taking competition in the high-tech markets, markets that are crucial to our future economic success, more seriously.

Washington, DC - The South Korean antitrust ruling against Intel is seen as a portent of other pending lawsuits against the world's largest chipmaker. Intel is facing antitrust challenges in jurisdictions around the world.

After a three-year investigation, The Korean Fair Trade Commission has fined Intel $25 million for abusing its dominant position in the microprocessor market and ordered the company to cease its illegal rebates to PC makers. This ruling comes on the heels of news that the European Commission (EC) plans to rule on the case by September.

Washington, DC - The European Commission said it will rule by August or September in its antitrust investigation into Intel, the world's largest semiconductor maker, according to news reports this week.

The timeline came after a spokesman for the EC denied a Financial Times Deutschland report that the Commission had reached a provisional decision against Intel. If the EC deems that Intel's anticompetitive actions were illegal, then they could fine the company up to ten percent of their annual revenue or $2.6 billion Euros and demand they alter their sales practices.

Washington, DC -- The Computer & Communications Industry Association welcomed the United States Trade Representative's announcement Tuesday that it had requested WTO dispute settlement action on duties imposed by the European Union on high-tech products covered by the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA).

Washington, D.C. - Just a day after Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., held a hearing this week to examine global Internet freedom, the Washington Post reported on the Iranian government's crackdown on Internet sites related to women's issues and human rights.

Some of the sites, including http://wwwchange4equality.net, were among those involved in an online petition seeking 1 million signatures in hopes of encouraging the government to change what activists say are laws that discriminate against women.

Today, the Computer & Communications Industry Association has sent a letter to the State Department, asking the administration to oppose constricting information in all forms. Restricting information in the media and elsewhere is a long used tool by undemocratic regimes. The letter asks the State Department to raise Internet censorship as a human rights issue on its diplomatic agenda.

At the Washington Caucus May 6, tech executives had the chance to engage in a dialogue and to get an update on tech measures, including several which have been stalled in Congress this session. Sixteen officials and members of Congress shared their insights on issues from patent reform to trade, FISA legislation, net neutrality, and broadband deployment, among others. While this report focuses on what CCIA members and guests heard from our distinguished presenters, the format offered frequent opportunities for CCIA's views to be presented, and for comments, questions, and feedback from all those attending.