The vast majority of Web connections in the U.S. don't transmit content at speeds fast enough to meet the Federal Communications Commission's new definition of broadband, according to a report issued this week.

Branching out beyond Stephens Media and its flagship publication, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, copyright enforcement outfit Righthaven seems to have signed up a new client: Denver Post owner MediaNews. Last week, Righthaven filed a lawsuit against blogger Dana Eiser of the right-wing site Lowcountry912.com for allegedly publishing a column that originally appeared in the Denver Post.

Last week the Federal Trade Commission called on companies to find a way to offer consumers the ability to opt out of online ad tracking. Today, Microsoft took a significant step toward answering that call. The company just announced that its next version of Internet Explorer will offer do-not-track functionality in its browser.

No sooner did Federal Trade Commission consumer protection chief David Vladeck condemn "history sniffing" -- or the practice of exploiting a browser vulnerability to surreptitiously discover which other Web sites users had visited -- than the site YouPorn was hit with a lawsuit about the practice.

Columbia Law professor Eben Moglen seemed to have touched a nerve on Capitol Hill this week when he touted the social networking start-up Diaspora, which he advises, while simultaneously bashing Facebook, in his written testimony.

Add "history sniffing" to the roster of techniques that can be used to circumvent people's attempts to protect their online privacy.Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, recently released a paper outlining how 46 sites engage in history sniffing by exploiting a vulnerability in browsers to learn what other sites users previously visited.

In an apparent retreat from earlier calls for strong net neutrality rules, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski this morning proposed that the agency vote on a compromise that mirrors a proposal floated earlier this year by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).