This month, if everything goes according to schedule, your Internet service provider may begin monitoring your account, just to make sure you aren't doing anything wrong with it -- like sharing copyrighted movie or music files. While we might all agree that copyright holders need to be protected, we may not all be equally happy about all of our communications being checked for violations. People and businesses who are not doing anything illegal may still have some things they wish to hide from their Internet access providers.
One of the crucial mechanisms powering the Internet got a giant, years-in-the-making overhaul on Wednesday.
SOPA appears to be dead. But the battle over Internet piracy is not.
The turn of the 21st century was rife with bitter anti-piracy lawsuits pitting studios against their potential customers, with music labels banding together to blast Napster -- and its massive user base -- to smithereens.
Today hundreds of Internet giants, including Google and Facebook, are participating in the first worldwide "test flight" of a major engineering upgrade to the Internet's infrastructure.
Libya is the latest North African country to experience internet trouble as democratic protests continue to sweep the region.
updated: Thu Feb 03 2011 10:23:00
Google and Twitter create a "speak-to-tweet" service allowing Twitter users to post updates without internet access.
It seemed so easy for Egypt. Just order a shutdown of the country's internet connections and -- bam -- it happens.
Don't panic, but we're running out of internet addresses.
The internet as we know it is reaching its limits.
International Internet traffic kept growing in the last year, but at a slower rate than before, and carriers more than kept pace by adding more capacity, a research firm said
British music fans sharing illegal files online can now expect a polite slap on the wrist in the form of a letter through the post from their Internet Service Provider
Only 14 percent of dial-up users say they're stuck with the older, slower connection technology because they can't get broadband in their neighborhoods
Heath Thompson is vice president, product development for IBM Internet Security Systems.
The best companies know they can't do it all themselves, so they encourage an ecosystem to grow up around them. Think of Wal-Mart's "Vendorville" in Bentonville, Ark., or the hand-picked produce suppliers to McDonald's, or the way Japanese steel companies follow Toyota around the world.
Verizon isn't going to take it anymore. After years of ceding ground in the broadband wars to cable operators Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable (owned by the parent of Fortune's publisher)...
If anyone needed a further sign of cable's resurgence, it came today in the numbers issued by Comcast, the nation's largest cable player. And it comes at a crucial moment in the telecommunications business -- just a week before expected government approval of the mega-merger between AT&T and BellSouth, a combination seen as necessary to give the telcos the scale to compete with cable.
In the busy, ever-changing financial district here, stores come and go in the blink of an eye. But Market Street's newest tenant isn't planning to stay long.
"The U.S. is a few years behind the rest of the world," says Tom Patterson.
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - The first-quarter earnings that EarthLink announced today illustrate its plight. While the Internet service provider is still profitable, dial-up revenues dropped 18 percent from the same period last year, broadband revenues increased a mere 6 percent, and earnings-per-share dropped nearly 50 percent to 12 cents per share.
In late July 2004, Time Warner's America Online unit assembled 25 or so of its top managers for a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The session, held in a narrow conference room in the hotel basement, was blandly billed as a "strategic offsite." But in truth, though no one came right out and said it, the executives were there to plot AOL's last stand. Just before lunch, AOL's vice chairman, Ted Leonsis, and Mike Kelly, president of the media networks group, delivered a sobering assessment: Customers were defecting in droves from AOL dial-up accounts to broadband. Competitors like Yahoo and MSN were only getting stronger. To stay relevant--and to stay in business--AOL would need to build a Yahoo-like Internet portal. And to make that portal attractive to users and advertisers, AOL would have to offer up its rich content for free. Leonsis, a gregarious, sometimes unpredictable sort (the majority owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team, he once shoved a fan who taunted him at a Cap
Computer users in many urban and university areas have come to expect connectivity 24/7. There's a cable modem or DSL at home, a high-speed connection in the office and Wi-Fi for the places in between, from the commute to the coffeehouse.
Unveiling a cheaper, albeit slower, broadband Internet service on Tuesday, telecommunications giant Verizon is hoping that people will hang up the phone and opt for a router.
The Federal Communications Commission is close to new rules that could limit choices or raise prices for those getting high-speed Internet access over the telephone lines, according to published reports.
The rapid integration of the Internet and World Wide Web into daily life has added an array of new words, acronyms and even alternative forms of language to the human lexicon. Click on the words for definitions of some basic Internet jargon.
Thomas Bleha believes the United States stands to lose big if it keeps slipping behind other countries in the percentage of citizens with high-speed Internet access.
For more than a decade, no matter how you've wanted to connect, Sky Dayton has been there with the hookup. The coffee shop owner turned Net entrepreneur started EarthLink and built the Internet ser...
Pakistani security forces have stormed a plane carrying Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and detained him upon his arrival in the country, witnesses told CNN.
About 12,000 police were deployed across Lahore on Saturday ahead of the return of opposition leader Asif Ali Zardari, with the government vowing to block any rallies by his party and effectively sealing off the city.
Since 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been suing peer-to-peer (P2P) file swappers and downloaders. The RIAA alleges, in its suits, that P2P file swapping and downloading, when it involves pirated files, violates copyright law -- and, at times, also the Digital Music Copyright Act (DMCA).
In late September, a federal district judge in New York, Victor Marrero, ruled that a key component of the USA Patriot Act is unconstitutional. The ruling made headlines, for it is the first to strike down any of the vast new surveillance powers the act authorized.
Sina.com, China's biggest Internet service provider, got stung by sanctions again Thursday as part of an industry crackdown on porn and "inappropriate content" -- the latest sign of the huge risks of investing in China's Internet sector.
Spend some time talking with fans of Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's PlayStation 2, or Nintendo's GameCube, and it won't be long before you hear the word "networked" or "online."
Major companies and government agencies are scrambling to ensure they are not vulnerable to an Internet flaw that would allow attacks that could disrupt all communication.
America Online is expected to put more marketing focus back on dial-up service and the price of its service, according to a published report.
"Voice over Internet protocol" uses the Internet to replace ordinary phone service. Virtually any Net connection--cable modem, DSL, dial-up--can be turned into a phone line. Usage is tiny now, but ...
Ted Larson arrives at geek headquarters smack in the middle of the much-awaited season premiere of UPN's latest Star Trek show, Enterprise. The former chief technical officer at an Internet startup...
There's a new vibe at America Online (which, like FORTUNE, is owned by AOL Time Warner). Gone, of course, is the swagger that propelled executives during the years when AOL was the dominant online ...
Jealousy runs rampant in my broadband heart. Someone has faster Internet access than I do. And this feeling is only getting worse.
It's an ordinary Saturday afternoon: You're in the bedroom sending e-mails from your laptop when your wife, who's in the kitchen, picks up her Pocket PC and swoops into your hard drive to copy the ...
So much for consumer choice. The Federal Communications Commission has turned its back on the public by abandoning rules that require the Baby Bells to accommodate competition in broadband services...
Wi-Fi is already huge--and it's only going to get bigger. Wireless hotspots are sprouting up in airports, hotels, and cafes, while many new laptops come straight from the factory with Wi-Fi capabil...
Broadband Lite
Even for a time of bitter harvests in Silicon Valley, longtime tech executive Eric Benhamou has had a particularly frustrating year. Benhamou is chairman of 3Com, a producer of data-networking gear...
In this downbeat issue of FORTUNE, you can read one story full of depressing stuff about tech stocks. In another piece, on Comcast, you can read some depressing stuff about broadband. Despite all t...
Don't spit out your Joe:
In the battle to wire homes for high-speed Internet access, DSL was once thought to have the edge over cable. A DSL hookup uses your existing telephone lines and jacks, not cables that have to be t...
For Brooks McLaren the timing could not have been worse. His post-production film company, Colorlab, was bracing for its spring season, when students from nearby NYU and Columbia University inundat...
In more innocent times, people often left their front doors unlocked. The odds of a burglar trying the front door on any given day were small, especially in rural communities.
Who doesn't want a high-speed Internet connection? Of course, therein lies the catch-22. Business demand for fast Net access, in particular Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), has been so overwhelming t...
The hottest entry in the race to build faster, more robust phone networks is--surprise--Ethernet, a 25-year-old computer standard developed for linking PCs in office networks. Don't yawn. A handful...
Computer companies have had an epiphany. They now tell us that computers are hard to use. "We still need to do more to make computers easier and more intuitive," Bill Gates, the world's chief prope...
In today's troubled telecommunications sector, there are laggards, there are losers, and then there are DSL companies. These stocks, which include Covad, Rhythms NetConnections, and NorthPoint, hav...
As America Online and Time Warner seek government approval for their merger, the long-running battle over access to the merged company's cable systems has obscured a simple truth: Everyone involved...
Have I told you about my new routine for writing this column? Early Monday morning (and I mean early, as in 5 A.M.), I sit down at my DSL-armed desktop computer in the Digital Manor, fire up Micros...
There's an old saying at the poker table that if you don't know who the sucker is, it's you. Well, there are more than a few suckers out there betting on broadband, you can be sure. The world is ju...
Broadband. Short for "broad bandwidth," as in a high-speed network able to carry video as well as voice. Bandwidth describes the throughput of a network per unit of time, measured in kilobits, mega...
Three years ago when I worked at AT&T Laboratories, I wrote an essay called "The Rise of the Stupid Network," which analyzed how new technology would reshape the telecommunications industry. In the...
To get an idea of just how hungry--and how fickle--the market is for broadband stocks, check out Corvis Corp. The optical-networking company, based in Columbia, Md., more than doubled the asking pr...
Christine Price remembers the moment when she said, "Enough." It was June and her six-month-old ad agency was racing to crank out a 14-page brochure for a client she needed to please, a major finan...
As dawn breaks in Las Vegas, an unlikely crew of venture capitalists spills onto the people mover at Bally's Casino, stogies in hand, bleary-eyed from a night at the blackjack tables. Thrown in amo...
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood. --Eric Burden and the Animals
A year or so ago, when the term "broadband" first entered the tech vernacular, there were three competing strategies--cable modems, DSL (through existing phone lines), and satellites. That meant th...
Edward E. Whitacre Jr., the plain-talking CEO of SBC Communications, is in his headquarters in San Antonio, telling how much he likes the Internet. He volunteers that he has used his home computer ...
A letter touting Bell Atlantic's new high-speed Internet service arrives at my house in October: "Tired of waiting for files to download? Or for Internet home pages to appear? Wish you didn't have ...
Recently I began to notice a smug look and a new air of privilege and superiority on the faces of some of my clients and friends. They had just obtained high-speed Internet access using the technol...
In this era of technological obsession, it's easy to forget that tens of millions of Americans are still not plugged into the Internet. But every so often you get a personal reminder--for example, ...
Q. I'm looking for a new Internet service provider. Where can I find the best and least expensive service? I have a Mac, and not all ISPs are Mac-friendly. Jane Wittmann-Roll jane@monocfcu.com
It's sometimes said that a man can be judged by the enemies he has made. The same might be said of a company, especially if those enemies are the competition. The louder they complain, the better t...
If there's anything a baby hates, it's the arrival of a newer, cuter baby. For some, that day never comes; but for the Baby Bells (and let's face it, they're not getting any younger) the time is he...
Dustin Grosse is sitting on the edge of his seat in a conference room at the ad agency Young & Rubicam in San Francisco. Grosse is the brand manager for Covad, a Silicon Valley company that sells h...
In a windowless room of a Pacific Bell office in San Francisco, inside a locked, 100-square-foot chicken-wire cage, hums a device called a CopperEdge 200 Multi-Speed DSL Concentrator. That's a mout...
I'm on a first-name basis with the tech guys at FORTUNE. Printer on the fritz? I call tech. Can't open an e-mail attachment? Call tech. Accidentally delete important program? Fiddle around a while....
Imagine a world where you no longer have to wait to get on the Internet. Where you can play a computer game with an opponent in Hong Kong in real time. Where it's quicker to look up a telephone num...
Has the time come, at long last, for a home network? A few years ago, the idea of a LAN running from the den to the bedroom was just a techie's fantasy. But now even some regular folks have an ince...
HIGH-SPEED LOCAL PHONE SERVICE hq: Englewood, Colo. founded: 1997 sales: $528,000 employees: 550 stock: RTHM (Nasdaq) address: www.rhythms.com
My editors thought it would be cool for me to write something about the difference between Intel's and Microsoft's experiences in dealing with antitrust problems. But what's to say? Intel didn't ha...
In your service, Noble Reader, I am constantly in search of the latest technology. As I try to perfect my totally wired home, the Digital Manor, it is my responsibility as a columnist to report fro...
Some 110 or so national Internet service providers (ISPs) would like to be your gateway to cyberspace (with another 4,900 regional players at the fringes), and what largely separates one from the o...
In Silicon Valley, venture capitalists often distill their collective business wisdom into maxims that belong on the bumper of a BMW or Range Rover. Bet on the jockey, they like to say, not on the ...
Once I built a tower up to the sun/Brick and rivet and lime./Once I built a tower,/Now it's done./Brother, can you spare a dime?
Did you see the news a few weeks ago that Sprint is planning a digital telephone network called ION? Sprint calls it a "transformational enabling platform." Sounds pretty important, huh?
hq: bedford, mass. founded: 1986 sales: $6 million employees: 91 stock: awre; nasdaq web address: www.aware.com
I'm having a little fantasy. It involves turning the Digital Manor into a digital castle. You know the saying "A man's home is his castle"? That's what I'm talking about--a castle you can build a m...
As the Internet transcends its geeky beginnings, phone companies that would use it to turbocharge their growth have been rethinking their strategies, often widening their circle of acquaintances in...
Bernie Ebbers' audacious gambit to buy MCI, a company three times the size of his WorldCom, is about more than Jonah trying to swallow the whale. This deal, along with others it has overshadowed, s...
The world of digital technology is famous for its rapid pace of innovation, and the language that describes it changes just as quickly. Because the computer industry is constantly spinning out new ...
To work at home successfully, you'll need more than just a PC, a suite of office software and a decent phone. But the essential home office needn't cost you a fortune, either. Here's what the ideal...
When Joe Kandra, 36, needs a break from work, he takes his dog Kali and heads for the woods. The fragrant eucalyptus trees of Stern Grove Park, Calif. are more than an hour's drive from Cisco Syste...
In early December, when America Online began offering customers unlimited use of its service for $19.95 a month, it seemed as if cheap Internet access had finally become universal. Now just about a...
Cable modems are a fantasy. Unfortunately, an entire industry is enjoying the fantasy.
You're lounging on the sofa in the den, remote control in hand. That familiar thwickety-thwack bass riff signals a commercial break in Seinfeld, and another of those unbearable battery ads takes ov...
So here I am, logged on to the Web Museum watching Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party scroll gracefully down my screen. Then it's over to Atlantic Records, where at my kids' urging I downlo...
The Baby Bells have a small identity crisis. They provide local phone service to 78 million U.S. households, and millions of investors have done well with their stock. Yet a dozen years after the A...
AMERICA'S hottest industry has staked out a place on the map. New York was Radio City; so many machine-tool makers once lined the banks of the Black River in Springfield, Vermont, that the area was...
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