The Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act and VoIP

The Cox-Wyden Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act passed the House last month, and will go before the Senate as early as next week. As c | net reports today ("Senate to ponder permanent Net access tax ban"), this could be more good news for the VoIP industry: "In a nutshell, information services and telecommunications services are beginning to look alike, leaving many parties trying to figure out the benefits and consequences of an unregulated Internet." Kevin Werbach, former Counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC, has an informative post analyzing the VoIP-related issues confronting the FCC. A sample:

If the legal requirements change when an end user swaps a computing device labeled "phone" for one labeled "computer," the rules will fail. The real issue here is that basic voice service is going to be deregulated. There is no way to put the VOIP genie back into the bottle without destroying it.

"It's Super-Fabulous, Would You Like Some Shiraz?"

Eek! I don't know if my doctor would approve of my laughing this hard in the 33rd week. Have you seen the Metrosexual episode of South Park?

Can't We Just Make All Of It A Felony?

AP: "The 'Can Spam' bill, approved Wednesday by a 97-0 [Senate] vote, would outlaw the shadiest techniques used by many of the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, who pump out millions of unsolicited messages daily." Via The Screen Savers, who also point out that this bill, if passed, may supersede more stringent state spam laws already in place.

Big, Big, BIG

Posner!!!! On How Appealing. In December.

A Little Like Audblog. But Softer.

In case you didn't know, you can put audio posts on your Blogger blog in MP3 format. (An example, from Jason Shellen. Audblog works with many other blogging tools too.) Similar deal, less public: according to mail I got last night, you can also send MP3 voice recordings to any email address using Infone (this new feature does not seem to be listed on the Infone site yet; I couldn't find it anyway). Cool idea. Do you really *need* to leave voice messages in people's email? Probably not. Could it be fun/useful? Sure. (Truth be told, this reminds me a bit of how excited I got years ago—must've been '95—upon discovering you could embed little recorded comments into Word documents. Visions of audio editing danced in my head. I think I used it twice.)

I signed up for Infone about a month ago, falling prey to the aggressive TV ad campaign they were running at the time. (Not the one with James Carville in his underwear, thank goodness.) It's a pretty nice service to have available in a pinch, with a free trial period and pay as you go pricing after that (so it costs nothing unless you use it). I didn't fully appreciate it until the night I got a panicked phone call from my husband, relaying a panicked phone call from a neighbor. One of our pipes had burst—flooding, joy. It was a Saturday night. Not so easy to find emergency plumbing services under those circumstances, but with Infone, it was. One $.89 call (actually, it didn't even cost that; I'm still in the free trial) produced a handful of local referrals and a competent guy with a big wrench within about an hour. Me gusta. The Infone FAQ page also is well worth a visit. Ahem:

What is a 10-10 number?

Who cares?