• Broadband industry group say U.S. rules go too far [yahoo.com]
• Mobile operators question net snoop plan [theregister.co.uk]
• Space Data maps broadband signals from altitude [Phoenix Business Journal]
• The Death of Exclusivity? [xchangemag.com]
• FCC To Seek More Public Input on Broadband Plan [multichannel.com]
• Novarum tests 3G in 13 US cities [muniwireless.com]
• Dish Wins Stay From Appeals Court On DVR Order [multichannel.com]
• Apple Admits iPhone Overheating Issues -- Sort of [networkworld.com]

Just like AT&T did a few weeks ago, the folks at the Verizon policy blog say they've refined and clarified the company's privacy policy, creating one "easy to read" privacy policy that applies across all Verizon services. "We've tried to make our policy more customer friendly," says Verizon's Chief Privacy Officer, Kathy Zanowic, who adds the carrier believes consumer trust is an "essential" to their business and an "important responsibility." Why all this touchy-feely privacy love by Verizon and AT&T? The carriers are worried that new Democratic leadership at the FTC and FCC may craft new privacy laws, so they're trying to pre-empt them by illustrating how they're model citizens when it comes to consumer privacy.

As we recently noted, Minnesota mom Jammie Thomas was recently found guilty of copyright infringement for sharing songs via P2P, and was fined $1.9 million dollars ($80,000 per song). Quickly after the verdict, the Electronic Frontier Foundation questioned whether the extremely high damages were constitutional, citing past instances where the Supreme Court ruled against disproportionate damage awards intended to "send a message." Not too surprisingly, Thomas, who obviously can't pay the award, says she's going to appeal the ruling on constitutional grounds.

Mac Daily News has posted a leaked memo from AT&T proclaiming that the iPhone 3GS generated the best ever sales day for the company. More interesting perhaps is this little nugget: on the day Michael Jackson died, AT&T set a high SMS messaging record with 65,000 text messages sent per second.

For years the baby bells have been trying to slow (or ignore) the death of the landline by forcing DSL customers to bundle one, whether they wanted it or not. That's why it's kind of refreshing to see this Verizon ad (pdf), forwarded to us by a reader, that actually encourages customers to drop their landline.

In an article discussing the wireless handset market, CNET trots out this interesting stat: Unlocked phones comprise 80% of the market in Asia, and 70% in Europe. In the United States? Just 5% of handsets are unlocked.

While yesterday's news that the Pirate Bay is being sold has angered the site's fan base, more interesting perhaps is the insider trading allegations that plague the transaction. "Equity marketplace Aktietorget shut down the trading of GGF stock after it spotted unusually large trading volumes leading to a rapidly increasing stock price, notably in the absence of any new information to explain the sudden interest in the company," notes Torrent Freak. Also of note is that the company buying the website wants to monetize P2P by paying people to seed pirated files. Does anyone think that's a realistic goal?

New FTC boss Jon Leibowitz has promised that one thing he'll be tough on is consumer privacy. To prevent government from passing tough consumer protection laws (particularly ones that force marketing to be "opt in"), the marketing, advertising and telecom industries recently joined forces to come up with a "self-regulation" plan that has them adhering to a set of privacy best practices created by the industry. Companies like Verizon, who's interested in behavioral advertising, have stated that "public shame" will keep them honest about privacy. The new guidelines, pushed by organizations representing more than 5,000 companies, will be reviewed by Congress today, but as you might expect, consumer advocates think the guidelines are rather flimsy.

• US agencies require net neutrality with broadband grants [networkworld.com]
• RIAA Wins Layup Against Usenet.com [techdirt.com]
• Sprint Text Messaging Tax Suit Dropped [cellular-news.com]
• Zer01 goes nationwide with unlimited voice, data service [fiercewireless.com]
• The Pirate Bay's New Owners: Service Providers Will Pay Us, We'll Pay Users [techdirt.com]
• China's web filtering mandate is delayed [theinquirer.net]
• Torrentreactor breach serves potent exploit cocktail [theregister.co.uk]
• iPhone 3.1 code goes beta [theregister.co.uk]

Before there was the Internet there was Compuserve, which was founded in 1969 and by 1979 was among the first commercially successful online & e-mail services (see 1991 advertisement), before being acquired by AOL in 1998 and ultimately eclipsed by the modern broadband-fueled Internet. Yesterday Compuserve Classic officially ended its life as an ISP service, an important footnote for those who've had Compuserve e-mail addresses for nearly a generation. While the Compuserve Classic forums and service died yesterday -- the largely irrelevant Compuserve 2000 AOL sub-brand lives on if you'd like to retain your e-mail address for geek cred or just pine wistfully for online's yesteryear.

Uncle Sam today announced the rules governing the first of three rounds in the government's $7.2 billion broadband economic stimulus package, all 121 pages of which are now available if you're a non-profit or municipal entity planning on applying, or if you just like wordy government documents. The NTIA will dole out $4.5 billion in government funds to help deliver broadband (feebly defined as 768kbps downstream and 200kbps upstream) into under or unserved areas.

Time Warner Cable has upgraded their NYC speed test so it has a maximum top speed of 100Mbps, instead of the previous top speed of 20Mbps. We asked the company if faster speeds were any closer, and were told they're getting "closer every day" and to "stay tuned." Insiders at Cisco working with the company have told us DOCSIS 3.0 gear has been installed in NYC for testing for months, and company COO Landel Hobbs recently confirmed NYC upgrades would be done by the year's end.

As we mentioned late last week, a new SEC filing by Fairpoint shows that the telco may have to file for bankruptcy, as they continue to struggle with the debt load created when they acquired Verizon's New England DSL networks last year. To be prepared, Vermont has hired a law firm with experience in corporate bankruptcy cases. While Fairpoint executives and spokespeople have remained bubbly amidst Fairpoint's problems, the company has stopped responding to press requests focused on the company's financial future. Meanwhile, they've hired a new CEO, who in a letter to employees urges employees to keep moving forward in order to repair Fairpoint's damaged reputation.

Sprint was the first wireless carrier to embrace femtocell technology, their Airave service debuting back in 2007 and allowing unlimited mobile calls over a user's home broadband connection for an additional $15 per month. Now Sprint tells Unstrung they'll be the first to offer 3G femtocell service, allowing not only improved voice signal strength in the home -- but improved EVDO/data phone connectivity as well.

Users in our AT&T U-Verse forum are tracking AT&T's release of some free new functionality for the company's IPTV customers. "Phase 2" upgrades of the service now allows customers to record, delete or schedule recordings from any box in the house -- instead of just the primary DVR. In addition to the new recording functionality, AT&T appears to have fixed several persistent bugs (like dropped audio under some optical connections) and tweaked the service's GUI, with many users saying they the channel guide is more responsive. As part of this latest U-Verse upgrade, AT&T's also giving High Speed Internet Max customers a free 20% boost in downstream speed from 10Mbps to 12Mbps.

According to CNET, the RIAA has emerged victorious in their case against Usenet.com for wholesale copyright infringement. Filed back in 2007, the RIAA took particular issue with the outfit's ads promising "access to millions of MP3 files" for the monthly $19 payment. While the advertising was bad enough, the case was made substantially easier for the RIAA thanks to the fact that Usenet.com was destroying evidence on hard drives, often supplying incorrect information -- and even sent several employees to Europe to prevent them from testifying. In a statement, the RIAA lauds the courts for taking action against Usenet.com's "egregious litigation misconduct."

Prompted by legislation, the cable industry has been working for more than a decade on the OCAP (Open Cable) specification, which would allow consumer electronics vendors to embed cable functionality directly into TVs and other devices -- a more elegant replacement for the CableCARD. Back in January, the cable industry announced Tru2way, a re-imagining of OCAP technology that's supposed to work with any cable carrier. According to Multichannel News, the nation's six largest cable companies won't have Tru2way deployed across their entire footprints as they agreed with consumer hardware vendors last year.

• Obama team members to fan out on summer rural tour [adn.com]
• All deserve access to broadband [dailynews.com]
• Sprint Wins Exclusive Wireless Data Contract for 2010 Census [convergedigest.com]
• Jammie Thomas Not Willing To Settle Yet... Acccording To The RIAA [techdirt.com]
• Sprint: We'll Beat AT&T to 3G Femto [unstrung.com]
• Broadband key for growth in developing countries [news.com.au]
• Former Qwest CEO Nacchio seeks judgment in his favor in SEC lawsuit [cellular-news.com]
• Infamous Niro JPEG Patent Smacked Down Again [techdirt.com]

• Mobile broadband 75% slower than advertised [mobilechoiceuk.com]
• Three Startups That Want to Deliver a Fat Mobile Pipe [salon.com]
• J.D. Power: Verizon Business No. 1 in Customer Satisfaction [cable360.net]
• Nortel's LTE Patent Goldmine [lightreading.com]
• Analysts Doubt Future of Comcast's WiMAX Offering [newsfactor.com]
• Forrester: Worst May Be Over for U.S. Tech Market [wirelessweek.com]
• European Commission gives Carphone the nod to snap up Tiscali [broadbandgenie.co.uk]
• Trapeze Invents Location-Based Security [networkworld.com]

While broadband video service Joost had an ambitious launch, the operation has since landed with a thud at the feet of more popular alternatives such as Hulu, which is now the second most popular Internet video site behind YouTube. Founded by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom of Skype and Kazaa fame, the service hoped to revolutionize the broadband video industry, but struggled with slow broadband speeds, internal turmoil and a contractually-limited catalog. Last winter, Joost ditched their P2P approach for a more Hulu-esque flash-based website approach, though it didn't help. The company has since been shopping itself around to cable and satellite operators, and now has announced they're shuttering their consumer service entirely -- instead focusing on developing video services for existing ISPs.