A little while back Blizzard announced a new feature called Real ID that would allow individuals playing World of Warcraft and the forthcoming Star Craft II to see the real names of players they had added to their friends list. The move has been protested vehemently, specifically the fact that this new “feature” will be added into the official WoW forums as well.

Ford presents an article on the continued push for Internet regulation based on misleading data. He believes that the mindset is that the U.S. is “falling behind” the rest of the world in broadband adoption. So the only solution is one in which the government pushes ahead to solve the supposed problem.

Navx, a GPS company who maintains online databases of geolocation makers, issued a complaint against Google to the Autorite. Navx claims that Google is active in anti-competitive practices in online advertising. Autorite has made a temporary decision while it investigate for its final action. At the moment they feel that Google holds a dominant position and is used for 90% of all searches in France.

CDT, PFF, and EFF have filed joint comments to the FCC regarding COPPA. They state that the COPPA rule is in place to prevent information being collected from children under the age of 13. This is something that the groups believe have been successful and that has improved parental supervision of what children are viewing online.

National Journal’s Tech Daily Dose is reporting that Douglas C. Sicker will be the new Chief Technologist for the FCC.

Screening and Simplifying the Competition Arguments in the NBC/Comcast Transaction
Technology Policy Institute
James B. Speta
May 5, 2010
Speta examines the NBC – Comcast merger.  The merger will bring two large corporations that have significant control in their own sectors together with Comcast being majority owner.  Because the combined company would have both production and distribution capability of media and news coverage, the deal has received a significant amount of attention from the non-profit sector, the public and the government.
Speta believes that one of the main competition concerns in this deal is that …

YouTube, Inc has qualified for the safe-harbor protections of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). This has occurred even in light of the fact that it was stated in court that YouTube founders, “not only were generally aware of, but welcomed” piracy.

Welcome to the show. It is June 25th and today will be a Q&A discussing the iPhone 4, the broken antenna, and the future of FaceTime with George Ou and Nick R Brown.

Last week Wired’s Ryan Singel wrote an article on cellular devices and the marketplace in which he describes how awful the cellular industry is for innovation even though the iPhone, Nexus One, EVO, and other Android devices have all been created within the current market structure.

Progress & Freedom Foundation comments on the announcement of the Federal Communications Commissions vote to move forward with a Notice of Inquiry to regulate the Internet under “Title II” classification. This move to reclassify under Title II would define Internet provision as a telecommunications service.