The Inet Report

My Thoughts:Come on Congress. Can’t you deal with actual real issues instead od these items that most of your constituents would not care about. People are still going to find a way to play online or offline poker. As you stated, likely in less secure and trusted venues than the current major players.

Get with it Congress or get out. See you at the Polls.

Most forms of Internet gambling would be banned under a tentative agreement reached on Friday by U.S. congressional negotiators.

The measure would be attached to an unrelated measure to bolster port security. Democrats had accused Republicans of pushing the bill to placate its conservative base, particularly the religious right, in advance of the November 7 elections.

“It’s been over 10 years in the making. The enforcement provisions provided by this bill will go a long way to stop these illegal online operations,” one of the bill’s key backers, Sen. Jon Kyl, a Republican of Arizona, said in a statement.

The agreement, a blend of earlier measures passed by the House and Senate, would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

Investors in British-based gaming companies such as BETonSPORTS Plc, Partygaming Plc and 888 Holdings Plc are closely watching the U.S. legislation.

Democrats have criticized the Republican-backed measure as an election-year appeal to the party’s conservative base, particularly the religious right.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, recently appeared at a hearing in Iowa — the state that holds the first presidential nominating contest in 2008 — to listen to concerns about Internet gambling.

The Google backlinks and Page Rank are updating currently. There is about 4 datacenters that are currently updated. No Page Rank for The Inet Report yet, but maybe next time.

More Information

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it has struck a deal with Hewlett-Packard Co. to plant its Internet search engine on millions of computers, the latest volley in a high-stakes battle with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The alliance unites two companies trying to catch up to the longtime leaders in their respective fields.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo ranks a distant second to Google in the lucrative search engine market while Palo Alto-based HP continues to trail Dell Inc. in personal computer sales despite recent gains.

The agreement requires HP to set up its desktop and notebook PCs in North America so Yahoo’s search engine appears in the toolbar of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7, the next version of the Web’s most widely used browser. Yahoo is hoping that the tool bar will generate more search requests, providing a springboard for more ad revenue.

The BBC has signed an agreement with Microsoft that will see the two organisations work together to help deliver the broadcaster’s Internet strategy.

The BBC’s digital strategy includes plans for an online archive, a re-invented web site suited to Web 2.0 technology and second-generation Internet-based services, as well as ways for sharing its online content in the future.

My Thoughts.I am 100% for stopping all forms of child pornography on the Internet. But don’t you think there is a better way then giving every US Internet user’s web browsing history to the US Government. Hasn’t the government shown us enough recently that they have a hard time keeping track of their own data, that giving them personal and in some cases confidential data is not necessarily the best thing to do.

Also, wouldn’t you think that it would be much easier for the government and the ISP’s to go after the publishers of this material? I truly believe that my personal web viewing, as boring as it really is, should be private. Do I want the government knowing what candidates I support for election, do I want them reading an email that I sent to a business partner about a new project, let alone possibly losing it.

What do you think of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ plan to attempt to get congress to require Internet providers to preserve customer records, asserting that prosecutors need them to fight child pornography.

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller have met with several Internet providers, including Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Comcast Corp., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc.

The law enforcement officials have indicated to the companies they must retain customer records, possibly for two years. The companies have discussed strengthening their retention periods — which currently run the gamut from a few days to about a year — to help avoid legislation.

During those meetings, which took place earlier this summer, Justice Department officials asserted that customer records would help them investigate child pornography cases. But the FBI also said during the meetings that such records would help their terrorism investigations, said one person who attended the meetings but spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings were intended to be private.

Testifying to a Senate panel, Gonzales acknowledged the concerns of some company executives who say legislation might be overly intrusive and encroach on customers’ privacy rights. But he said the growing threat of child pornography over the Internet was too great.

“This is a problem that requires federal legislation,” Gonzales told the Senate Banking Committee. “We need information. Information helps us makes cases.”

He called the government’s lack of access to customer data the biggest obstacle to deterring child porn.

“We have to find a way for Internet service providers to retain information for a period of time so we can go back with a legal process to get them,” he said.

At today’s hearing, Gonzales said he agreed with the sentiment of 49 state attorneys general who in a June letter to Congress expressed support for a federal law that would require longer retention of customer records.

“We respect civil liberties, but we have to harmonize this so we can get more information,” he said.

Follow the links below to see what sometimes happens to that information.

FBI Looses Laptops
US Census Bureau Loses Laptops
Computer Missing in Child Pornography Case