U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a press release which highlights aspects of President Bush's fiscal year (FY) 2008 budget request for CBP. According to the press release, President Bush's FY 2008 budget request for CBP represents an increase of $2.43 billion, a 31.4 percent increase over FY 2007 (excluding funds provided in FY 2007 as emergency appropriations).

For the first time, sales in the domain name secondary market sales are exceeding those in the primary registration market, said experts at the DomainPulse meeting near Zurich. On domain name trading platform Sedo alone, sales grew to $40 million in 2006, up from $20 million in 2005, said CEO Marius Wuerzner. Vodka.com sold for $3 Million. Domain name sales for more than $10,000 grew even faster than sales of less expensive ones. Many people have given up jobs to make careers of domain trading, said Christoph Grueneberg, CEO of domainvermarkter.com. He called them “the estate agents of the Internet.” Trends include the sale of large domain name portfolios, the growing interest of investment companies in the value of domains, and growing integration of the primary and the secondary market. Some registrars expressed concerns about speculation and land-grabbing. Land-grabbing is a problem, said Wuerzner, but it will disappear soon because a more mature market is aware of the value of domains. Wuerzner said he doesn’t expect new TLDs to decrease demand for attractive .com domains that make up over 80% of the secondary market sales.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site another revised (February 2007) version of its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on e-Manifest" (electronic manifest).

CBP has issued an ABI administrative message announcing that recent changes to the 2007 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) records, Harmonized System (HS) Update (No. 0703) include the following:

A proposed White House FY 2008 budget would double FCC spending for oversight of the Universal Service Fund, add $2 billion in interoperability funds and spend $426.3 million on the digital converter box program, according to documents submitted Mon. to Congress. OMB Dir. Rob Portman called the President’s budget request “credible” in a briefing with reporters. Portman said he consulted with Congress before drafting the document so he could be responsive to concerns.

“Substantial public interest benefits” would flow from giving Horizon Mobile Communications special temporary authority (STA) to provide Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) service using Inmarsat-4, Inmarsat said in an FCC filing. Mobile Satellite Ventures opposed the STA, but Inmarsat said Mobile “failed to show any countervailing harms.” Horizon would use IP technology, which Inmarsat said would provide connectivity with other IP-based technologies and potentially support remote access to land mobile radios if terrestrial infrastructures are disrupted.

The Pirate Bay’s quest to buy an island free of copyright law (WID Jan 16 p7) produced a faction aiming to found a society with broader goals than evading DMCA takedown notices. The Free Nation Foundation wants to “establish an ecologically sustainable society that provides the freedom to advance humanity through science, reason and cooperation.” The only restrictions on personal freedom that the nascent group would impose are “upon actions that disallow the freedom of others,” and it emphasizes “information sharing” as a core principle. The foundation has “encompassed new ideals” and broken with its Swedish copyfighting colleagues, which means abandoning immediate attempts to buy land for a new country, it said: “Our current plan is to build the organization that can make the ideas of the society a reality.” People who want to contribute to discussion can post to project forums and join official IRC discussions -- www.freenationfoundation.org.

Companies seeing huge profit in broadcast white spaces want FCC rules as loose as possible, to promote a vibrant market and get gear makers to offer many devices, they said in comments filed with the FCC. With the key question being whether the spectrum will be licensed or not, some commenters warned of the risk of interference to wireless microphones and other devices already using the TV bands.

Companies seeing huge profit in TV “white spaces” want FCC rules as loose as possible, to promote a vibrant market and get gear makers to offer many devices, they said in comments filed with the FCC. With the key question being whether the spectrum will be licensed or not, some commenters warned of the risk of interference to wireless microphones and other devices already using the TV bands.

Federal policymakers are discussing net neutrality in quiet tones and without rhetoric, abandoning the invective prominent when Congress was considering a major telecom bill, Rep. Boucher (D-Va.) told reporters at the Wed. State of the Net conference. Signaling shifts in his own thinking, Boucher said he’s concerned about protecting innovation -- a concern to be balanced against the need to protect startup companies’ ability to have access to “fast lane” services, he said.