Policy

San Francisco hotels pricey? Van on Airbnb is only $92 a night

You can rent a castle on Airbnb and a treehouse. Boats are popular, and there are plenty of farmhouses. So why not a van?

As reported on the SF.StreetsBlog, an enterprising Airbnb user in San Francisco has started advertising a 1990 Chevy Conversion van, offering the vehicle (with just 45,000 miles!) for only $92 a night.

One might think the nightly rate (which is more if you consider the service charge) is a bit much to pay to sleep in a cramped space probably better suited for a Scooby Doo video. But, as everyone knows, real estate is … Read more

DOJ: We don't need warrants for e-mail, Facebook chats

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI believe they don't need a search warrant to review Americans' e-mails, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and other private files, internal documents reveal.

Government documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and provided to CNET show a split over electronic privacy rights within the Obama administration, with Justice Department prosecutors and investigators privately insisting they're not legally required to obtain search warrants for e-mail. The IRS, on the other hand, publicly said last month that it would abandon a controversial policy that claimed it could get warrantless access … Read more

Internet tax bill targets all digital downloads

Update: The Senate late today passed the bill, sending it to the House.

The U.S. Senate is planning to vote Monday to levy new taxes on mobile app developers, cloud computing services, music and movie downloads, and even people selling collections of WordPress themes.

Senators who are backing the legislation known as S.743 describe it as a way to force out-of-state retailers to collect taxes on physical shipments. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., claims his bill will "put local and Main Street retailers on a level playing field with their out-of-state and online counterparts."

What Enzi and … Read more

Craigslist wins early legal victory against PadMapper, 3Taps

Craigslist has won the first round in its federal lawsuit against PadMapper and two other companies, which extracted and used real estate listings from the world's most popular classifieds site.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco on Tuesday rejected attempts by the defendants to dismiss Craigslist's lawsuit, which alleged a slew of unlawful acts -- including terms of use violations, copyright violations, trespass, and civil violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

"Defendants' continued use of Craigslist after the clear statements regarding authorization in the cease and desist letters and the technological … Read more

U.S. gives big, secret push to Internet surveillance

Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws.

The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.

"The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said … Read more

Facebook spending millions to make friends in Washington

Facebook is spending fast and furious to advance a social-network-friendly agenda with U.S. lawmakers.

In its first quarter of this year, Facebook, according to its lobby disclosure form, shelled out $2.45 million on lobbying costs. The figure amounts to a 75 percent increase from the $1.4 million it spent in the previous quarter, and a 277 percent increase from the mere $650,000 it spent in the first quarter of 2012. In 2012, Facebook spent a total of $4 million on lobbying efforts.

The company's lobbying budget is now in the same ballpark as that of … Read more

Securities regulators balk at employee social-media privacy

Securities regulators are advocating for special exemptions to new and pending state laws that prevent employers from snooping on employee Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent U.S. securities regulator that seeks to protect investors, is asking lawmakers in around 10 states to amend their legislation to allow financial firms to peak at social media accounts when employee misuse is suspected, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The fear seems to be that brokers could use their social media accounts to spread information that would influence stocks, and that misdeeds would go unchecked without … Read more

Film 'War for Web' warns of CISPA, SOPA, future threats

From Aaron Swartz's struggles with an antihacking law to Hollywood's lobbying to a raft of surveillance proposals, the Internet and its users' rights are under attack as never before, according to the creators of a forthcoming documentary film.

The film, titled "War for the Web," traces the physical infrastructure of the Internet, from fat underwater cables to living room routers, as a way to explain the story of what's behind the high-volume politicking over proposals like CISPA, Net neutrality, and the Stop Online Piracy Act.

"People talk about security, people talk about privacy, they … Read more

CISPA plan to let feds receive confidential data wins big House vote

The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a controversial data-sharing bill that would authorize e-mail and Internet providers to share confidential information with the federal government.

By a 288-127 vote today, the House adopted the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA, which supporters say is necessary to protect American networks from electronic attacks and intrusions. The vote signals more support for the bill than it enjoyed last year, when it cleared the House by a narrower margin but died in the Senate. (See CNET's CISPA FAQ.)

CISPA is "so important to our … Read more