Last month, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff issued a preliminary report designed to provide a framework within which policy makers, industry and consumer advocates can craft standard practices to protect consumer privacy in the face of rapidly evolving data handling and consumer outreach technology. That report, entitled Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid [...]

Earlier this month, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and former Chair Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the Small Business Broadband and Emerging Information Technology Enhancement Act (S. 3506). This legislation codifies several of the recommendations made by the FCC in its report to Congress earlier this year, in which [...]

A few weeks ago, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship held a hearing on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan and its promise (or lack thereof) for small businesses. At the end of that hearing, Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) announced that she intended to hold another hearing during which she wanted [...]

If you were placing bets with yourself about which Small Business Committee would venture to hold a hearing once the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its broadband plan, your wait is over. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) convened that hearing at the end of last month. For the most [...]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the release of its National Broadband Plan a few weeks ago, accompanied by as much hullabaloo as could be spared from health care reform. Whatever else this plan is, or is supposed to be, the FCC had a clear Congressional mandate to get certain things done here. The agency [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee, under the auspices of Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), has been working on patent reform legislation for about a year now and, earlier this month, Chairman Leahy announced that a compromise had been reached with Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL). You might expect that to be big news for microbusinesses, nonemployer [...]

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Data Accountability and Trust At of 2009 (H.R. 2221). Possibly you will remember this train wreck of a bill from previous coverage. To refresh your memory, this piece of legislation does two things. First, it requires businesses that own sensitive consumer data to plan to secure that [...]

Late last month, the House Small Business Committee held yet another oversight hearing involving the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), this time focusing on the investments called for in the bill into nationwide broadband deployment. Broadband deployment is particularly important for microbusinesses, which tend to be heavily reliant on a variety of Internet-based technologies [...]

When it comes to controversial, gigantic, game-changing legislation, Congress is not slacking off. When lawmakers are finished with the current health care reform slugfest, there is another major legislative initiative waiting in the wings for the to fight about next. And the probable subject of the next round of mud-slinging is the Clean Energy Jobs [...]

Congress has not yet finished with health care reform, of course, but that hasn’t stopped them from starting to fashion what will no doubt be the next huge policy debate: energy and the environment. Which makes a new report released last week by the National Small Business Association (NSBA) not just interesting and informative, but [...]