FBI toughens up on ISPs

The US Justice Department is arguing for changes to the law that governs the kind of information it may demand, without a warrant, from Internet service providers (ISPs), reports The Washington Post.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) authorises the FBI to gather subscriber information and toll billing records information, or electronic communication transactional records that are relevant to a terrorism investigation.

Some ISPs have argued that the key part of the statute that lists the types of information the FBI may obtain does not explicitly mention e-mail. The Justice Department is now urging lawmakers to borrow the words "electronic communication transactional record" from one part of the ECPA and insert them into this section.

China is one the most attractive markets for payments through mobile phones, according to Arthur D Little (ADL) a global consulting firm, states The Economic Times.

Currently, only 32 million people in Mexico, Brazil, Russia, India and China use mobile financial services, with 20% of them in China. The world's total mobile payment transaction volume is to reach about $280 billion by 2015.

These users are expected to conduct a total of 20 billion transactions in 2015, with 6.9 billion in China.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless will begin rolling out contactless payment system trials in Austin, Texas, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City in the US in 2011, says Fierce Mobile Content.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless are equal partners in the venture, with T-Mobile US controlling a smaller stake.

Consumers participating in the pilot will be able to pay for retail goods and services by waving a radio microchip-equipped smartphone at a point-of-sale reader.