In the July 6, 2005 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin, CBP issued a notice containing guidelines with the following title, which are effective July 6, 2005:
AOL chose Carat Interactive, Atmosphere BBDO and The Martin Agency to market its newly free portal, AOL.com. Carat will handle search marketing, working to improve AOL’s chances of content landing in search results “organically,” plus buying links on search pages. AOL and Carat jointly have done some of this already. Atmosphere, an AOL partner since 2002, conceived and created the online ad platform, with OMD handling media buying. Martin will handle advertising for newspaper, magazine, outdoor, TV and radio spots in the fall, with Initiative buying media.
Consumers might be better off seeking credit reports via phone or mail rather than online, the World Privacy Forum (WPF) said Thurs. The official Annualcreditreport.com site has improved since its Dec. 2004 launch, but imposter domains still lurk, some aggressively trying to misdirect -- if not deceive -- visitors, officials said. In Feb., WPF documented 96 known imposter credit report domains. Now it tallies 233, of which 112 are active and online - a 124% rise since WPF’s last report. One imposter site lacked the period between “www” and “annual.” The site, “wwwannualcreditreport.com,” now taken offline, requested visitors’ Social Security numbers and, according to its privacy policy, was sharing them with car dealers. Another scam site was sending consumers directly to commercial data broker Intelius. A 3rd gathered consumers’ e-mail addresses to share as “fresh, real-time, Internet mortgage leads” for mortgage and debt consolidation loan pitches, WPF said. Some news is good. The credit bureaus now let news media and consumer groups link to the official credit report site, which should minimize the frequency with which visitors land on typo domains, WPF Exec. Dir. Pam Dixon said. TransUnion also has stopped pre-selecting consumers to receive marketing materials via a small checkbox at the bottom of its registration page. But Dixon said she fears imposter sites are showing up in search engine results, sometimes as paid listings ranked ahead official sites. She urged credit bureaus and the FTC to act immediately to “clean up all of the imposter domains” before a Sept. 1 rollout of free credit reports to consumers in Conn., Del., Me., Md., Mass., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., R.I., Vt., Va., W.Va., D.C. and P.R. as well as all U.S. territories.
In the July 6, 2005 issue of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bulletin, CBP issued a notice containing guidelines with the following title, which are effective July 6, 2005:
Universal Electronics expects to sign a U.S. distributor next week for its NevoSL ($800) universal remote control and NevoLinks ($200), which extend it wirelessly over 802.11b to any room in a house. NevoSL, which has been shipping through distributors in Europe for about 3 weeks, will target the custom installation market in the U.S., Product Development Vp Ramzi Ammari said. The device was unveiled at CES in Jan. and builds on the Nevo 2.0 embedded software that was introduced last year in Hewlett-Packard’s iPaq handheld PC. NevoSL has access to an updatable database of 200,000 infrared codes for 2,400 brands and 175,000 models of CE products and can communicate via IR and wireless. The remote has physical buttons and also features a 3.5” touch screen LCD with 320x240 resolution to display virtual buttons. These buttons can be configured with a CD packaged with it, and connected by USB 1.1 port to a Windows-based PC to create customized channel lists. The NevoSL has 64 MB of RAM, 32 MB flash and a 203 MHz Samsung processor and is compatible with RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service. While Universal has had discussions regarding developing OEM versions of NevoSL, the device will retain its own brand for now, Ammari said. Universal continues to ship a “fair number” of Nevo 2.0 modules to HP for use in the iPaq Mobile Media Companion rx3000 series, but the device appears to shifting toward a smart phone design, Ammari said. Universal has no immediate plans for a smart phone version of its Nevo software, he said. Meanwhile, Universal has signed an OEM agreement with Brillian to deliver an 8-function version of its Kameleon universal remote for the company’s LCoS-based 65W rear projection TV, Ammari said. The remote will contain a 2-3” electroluminescent screen manufactured by Pelican. It has a similar pact with LodgeNet for a 2-function remote used in hotels and will announce an agreement in Aug. with a “major” CE company, whom Ammari declined to identify. Universal also has moved the focus of subsidiary SimpleDevices, a development firm it acquired last fall, to embedded software for CE products and cable set-top boxes, Ammari said. Universal expects to land initial agreements for SimpleDevices’ embedded software within 2-3 months, Ammari said. SimpleDevices, which Universal acquired for $12.5 million last fall including Rockford Corp.’s 51% stake in the firm, previously marketed Linux- based SimpleWare and SimpleMedia streaming software to CE, PC and automotive OEMs. Rockford deployed SimpleDevices software in Omnifi digital audio streamers, products it continues to sell. Universal has no immediate plans to release the wireless game controller it demonstrated last year with Digeo. While the controllers were integrated with its Extensible Multimedia Protocal technology for wireless gaming, Ammari conceded the market “hasn’t taken off as we expected” and Digeo hasn’t deployed the product.
Law enforcement agencies asked the FCC to add in- flight satellite broadband to the technologies covered by federal wiretap law, in comments filed last week with the Commission. The Dept. of Justice, FBI and Dept. of Homeland Security said the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) “is a technology-neutral statute that applies to all ’telecommunications carriers,'” regardless of whether the platform is wireline, wireless, cable, satellite or others. The comments were in response to the Commission’s rulemaking (05-20) on creating a regulatory framework for aeronautical mobile satellite service (AMSS), which includes broadband service on aircraft.
MariTEL is “circumventing the FCC’s rulemaking” by trying to reallocate spectrum through FCC waiver procedures, said NTIA. The group has petitioned the FCC to deny MariTEL the necessary waivers to divide up its very high frequency (VHF) Public Coast Service Area licenses. The NTIA petition, filed July 6, also asked the FCC to deny a PacifiCorp request that the FCC let it operate VHFs as part of a Private Land Mobile Radio System. “This waiver involves a vast expanse of navigable ocean and river waterways, containing some of the busiest ports in the United States,” the petition said. Also, the license division would involve frequencies associated with maritime VHF channels, perhaps interfering with the Coast Guard Automatic Identification System, which transmits a ship’s identification and GPS information, said NTIA. The Coast Guard also has filed comments opposing the proposed waiver.
Land Rover said it’s offering Sirius as a factory- installed option on the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. Sirius said vehicles will be available with factory- installed head units. The Range Rover also will feature a touch-screen interface.
Law enforcement agencies asked the FCC to add in- flight satellite broadband to the technologies covered by federal wiretap law, in comments filed last week with the Commission. The Dept. of Justice, FBI and Dept. of Homeland Security said the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) “is a technology-neutral statute that applies to all ’telecommunications carriers,'” regardless of whether the platform is wireline, wireless, cable, satellite or others. The comments were in response to the Commission’s rulemaking (05-20) on creating a regulatory framework for aeronautical mobile satellite service (AMSS), which includes broadband service on aircraft.
Mich., by adopting a do-not-spam list of children’s e-mail addresses, has landed in a trap the FTC dodged last year when it rejected a similar idea, said Edward Felten. The Princeton U. computer scientist was a consultant to the FTC on the matter. “What bothered the FTC (and should have bothered Michigan) about this issue is the possibility that unscrupulous e-mailers will use the list as a source of addresses to target for spam,” Felten said in a blog posting. Mich.’s system lets e-mailers turn the spam blacklist into a solicitation list simply by checking which addresses they submit to the state for “scrubbing” are eliminated because they're on the do-not-spam list, he said. State law bars soliciting children on the list to buy anything they're too young to buy legally. The registry started July 1 and compliance must start Aug. 1.