WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Despite growing concerns of the threat of cyber attacks, chances of a new cybersecurity law passing this year faded Thursday as Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have let the government and companies share information about attacks on computer networks.

The measure had been viewed as one of the few that might draw enough bi-partisan support to get through the largely deadlocked Congress. Experts say there is an urgent need to address vulnerabilities of both government and private systems controlling everything from highway traffic to financial services.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – The Obama administration
prodded Congress on Wednesday to pass cybersecurity
legislation, but the bill looked increasingly likely to languish
until next year as opposition from business and privacy concerns
bogged down Senate debate.

The Democratic-led Senate this week has been debating a bill
that would allow information sharing and create a set of
voluntary cybersecurity standards for companies in charge of
U.S. energy, water, transportation and other critical
infrastructure.

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – U.S. regulators proposed a
revised rule on Wednesday to protect children’s privacy online,
aimed at boosting privacy safeguards on mobile devices and
ensuring that websites and third-party data brokers get parental
permission before they collect children’s data.

The Federal Trade Commission would make websites, mobile
apps and data brokers all responsible for data collected about
children by third parties like data brokers, strengthening a
proposed update of its Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule
that it had released last September.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Verizon Wireless will pay $1.25 million to settle a regulatory probe into whether it blocked customer access to mobile broadband applications on Android phones, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday.

The U.S. telecommunications regulator said the payment stemmed from a probe into whether Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile service provider, had complied with rules governing spectrum used for high-speed wireless services.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for new rules to take effect next week that will force broadcasters to publish political advertising contracts online.

The court denied an emergency motion from the National Association of Broadcasters to stop the rules from taking effect during a larger judicial review.

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) – A U.S. federal appeals court
on Friday cleared the way for new rules to take effect next week
that will force broadcasters to publish political advertising
contracts online.

The court denied an emergency motion from the National
Association of Broadcasters to stop the rules from taking effect
during a larger judicial review.

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) – The Federal Communications
Commission upheld an administrative law judge’s ruling that
Comcast Corp discriminated against the Tennis Channel
when it placed the network in a more expensive viewing tier than
Comcast’s affiliated sports networks.

The agency voted 3-2 along party lines last week to require
Comcast to move the independent Tennis Channel within 45 days to
a tier in line with and reaching the same number of subscribers
as the tier carrying Comcast’s Golf Channel and NBC Sports
Network.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House wants a “Do Not Track” option put on websites to give consumers greater control of their personal information online but Internet companies and privacy groups are at odds on how tight the controls should be.

The stalemate could lead to a legislative crackdown on Internet privacy if left unresolved.

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. government should
share some of its airwaves with wireless service providers to
help them meet increasing demand for services such as mobile Web
surfing, a White House advisory panel said on Friday.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology released a report calling for 1,000 megahertz of
federal spectrum to be made available for a shared spectrum
“superhighway,” double the amount of airwaves the Obama
administration said in 2010 should be freed up for mobile
broadband.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An annual report card on how well Internet service providers meet or exceed advertised broadband speeds has placed Verizon Communications Inc and Cablevision Systems Corp at the top of the class.

Overall, the 13 top U.S. broadband providers, representing four-fifths of all U.S. landline broadband connections, are coming much closer to consistently delivering their advertised speeds, the Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday.