national

To give online car shoppers a feel for the brick-and-mortar buying experience, eBay is teaming up with AutoNation to sell new vehicles using a modern take on a "tent sale" method.

Starting today at 9 a.m. PT, AutoNation will post a handful of new vehicles each day on eBay that initially bear the MSRP. However, each hour the price of the car will drop until someone clicks the "Buy It Now" button. The drop each hour will be "significant," said eBay in a statement," and there's no bottom floor or reserve … Read more

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite blasted off today, creating a dramatic sky show as it boosted its secret payload into orbit.

Running two days late because of work to fix an environmental control system duct, the 188-foot-tall Atlas 5 roared to life at 8:28 a.m. EDT and climbed away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, trailing a brilliant plume of flame from its Russian-designed RD-180 first-stage engine.

Without any strap-on solid-fuel boosters, the initial climb out appeared relatively sedate compared with more powerful variants … Read more

Songwriters and music publishers don't want to get left out of the online music-video boom.

The top sites -- Vevo and YouTube -- are among the sites already paying fees to the major music publishing companies for music videos, but independent publishers have been left out. Today, the National Music Publishers Association announced that it has reached a "new model agreement" with Universal Music Group that ensures indie publishers get paid.

David Israelite, chief executive of the NMPA, told CNET this morning that the deal with Universal calls for the label to pay indie publishers directly and … Read more

European network providers that want the United Nations to consider a new Internet tax targeting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix today defended their proposal, which was leaked earlier this week.

The idea of requiring content providers to pay fees based on usage is an "innovative" change to the way the Internet currently works and will create a more "fair" environment "where operators' revenues will not be disconnected from the investment needs made necessary by the rapid growth of Internet traffic," the providers said in a statement (PDF).

Last night, CNET reported that the European … Read more

The United Nations is considering a new Internet tax targeting the largest Web content providers, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix, that could cripple their ability to reach users in developing nations.

The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.

The documents (No. 1 No. 2) punctuate warnings that the Obama administration and Republican members of Congress … Read more

The United Nations has seized on the appearance of the Flame worm, which targeted computers in the Middle East, to argue that it should have more authority to deal with cybersecurity threats on the Internet.

Last week, the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union circulated a statement about Flame saying the malware "reinforces the need for a coordinated response" that could come from "building a global coalition." It took credit for Flame's discovery, saying Kaspersky Lab identified it "following a technical analysis requested by the ITU." (See CNET's FAQ.)

ITU spokesman Paul Conneally … Read more

An important law that would protect California consumers from state-level regulation of VoIP and other IP-based services passed the California State Senate late last week on a bipartisan 30-6 vote.

The bill, SB 1161, now moves to the State Assembly, which has scheduled hearings for June 11.

SB 1161 is short and sweet. It prohibits the state's Public Utility Commission "from regulating Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled service...except as required or delegated by federal law" or otherwise authorized by statute, until at least 2020.

Its goal is even more straight-forward. As the bill'… Read more

Democratic and Republican government officials warned this morning that a United Nations summit in December will lead to a virtual takeover of the Internet if proposals from China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are adopted.

It was a rare point of bipartisan agreement during an election year: a proposal that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described last year as handing the U.N. "international control of the Internet" must be stopped.

"These are terrible ideas," Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing. They could allow "governments to … Read more

The Flame virus recently found in Iran could be used to infect other countries, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

As the United Nations agency charged with helping members protect their data networks, the ITU plans to issue a warning about the danger of Flame.

"This is the most serious (cyber) warning we have ever put out," Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the ITU, told Reuters. The warning will paint the virus as a "dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure," Reuters added.

Flame was recently identified as a culprit … Read more