WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Chief executives at
eight wireless carriers sent a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday,
urging them to preserve the ability of U.S. communications
regulators to design airwaves auctions.

The top executives at Sprint Nextel, Deutsche Telekom
AG’s T-Mobile USA and other smaller carriers took
issue with proposed legislative restrictions that would bar the
U.S. Federal Communications Commission from setting certain
bidding rules in the next wireless spectrum auction.

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – A U.S. public interest
group asked a federal court on Wednesday to block Google Inc
from consolidating more than 60 of its privacy
policies, saying it could make it easier for advertisers to
target users.

A lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy Information Center
alleged Google violated a settlement agreement reached with U.S.
regulators last March that requires consent from the user if
Google collects information under one privacy policy and then
changes the policy.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Preparing to join the ranks of publicly traded companies, Facebook Inc is also beefing up its presence in the U.S. capital with a first report of money pouring into its newly created political fundraising arm.

A latecomer to Washington, the social networking site is joining scores of powerful technology companies such as Microsoft Corp and Google Inc that have political action committees (PACs) used to raise funds for donations to political campaigns or causes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Netflix Inc on Tuesday urged a panel of senators to support legislation that it said would allow the company’s U.S. users to share information on Facebook about the TV shows and movies they are watching through Netflix’s service.

The movie provider launched a Facebook application last year that makes recommendations for users based on the Netflix viewing habits of their friends also using the social networking site. But the app was not offered to Netflix’s U.S. subscribers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Planned changes to Google Inc’s privacy policies that have caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers would not take away the control its customers have over how data is collected and used, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday

Google, whose offerings include its flagship search engine, Gmail, YouTube and Google+ products, announced last week that it was unifying 60 of its privacy policies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers stopped anti-piracy legislation in its tracks on Friday, delivering a stunning win for Internet companies that staged an unprecedented online protest this week to kill the previously fast-moving bills.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would postpone a critical vote that had been scheduled for January 24 “in light of recent events.”

Jan 18 (Reuters) – Wikipedia, the world’s free online
encyclopedia, went dark on Wednesday and other Internet players
including Google put black censorship bars on portions of their
websites in protest of pending U.S. legislation designed to curb
online piracy.

The unusual protest was visible across the Internet in many
forms on Wednesday, with dozens of commercial and non-profit
websites either closing down for the day or urging visitors to
oppose what had until recently been a relatively obscure and
technical legislative proposal.

Jan 18 (Reuters) – Wikipedia, the world’s free online
encyclopedia, went dark on Wednesday and other Internet players
including Google put black censorship bars on portions of their
websites in protest of pending U.S. legislation designed to curb
online piracy.

The unusual protest was visible across the Internet in many
forms on Wednesday, with dozens of commercial and non-profit
websites either closing down for the day or urging visitors to
oppose what had until recently been a relatively obscure and
technical legislative proposal.

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The English page of
Wikipedia, the world’s free online encyclopedia, was dark on
Wednesday except for a paragraph urging users to protest
legislation designed to stop copyright piracy, but that
Wikipedia says “could fatally damage the free and open
Internet.”

Google’s home search page has the logo: “Tell Congress:
Please don’t censor the web!”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A blackout scheduled for Wednesday to protest against proposed legislation on online piracy has failed to get the support of the biggest Internet players.

Despite calls for the participation of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other big names, the biggest participants are the online dictionary Wikipedia and the social-news website Reddit.