Here's the good news: Average broadband speed has now reached 4.7 Mbps, up from 3.9 Mbps last year, according to Akamai's first quarter report. But here's the bad news: Speeds in the U.S. are slower than in 15 other countries, including South Korea (12 Mbps), Romania (6.3 Mbps), and Switzerland (5.3 Mbps).

Authorities in the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office say that Google gathered only "fragments of content" and not "meaningful personal details that could be linked to an identifiable person" when its Street View cars collected payload data from unsecured WiFi networks.

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz surprised many industry watchers yesterday when he told the Senate that the commission might recommend a do-not-track mechanism for behavioral targeting. But, while the phrase do-not-track might sound comparable to do-not-call, the concepts really aren't all that similar.

In general, U.S. courts don't put all that much stock in rulings from other countries. But a recent move by a French antitrust regulator could end up playing a role in an antitrust lawsuit brought in Ohio against Google by comparison shopping search engine myTriggers.

Handing Apple a big defeat, the Library of Congress and Copyright Office said today that jailbreaking an iPhone isn't unlawful -- even when users bypass digital rights management technology to do so.

Gamestation's April Fool's stunt made its way into the Congressional record today during FTC consumer protection chief David Vladeck's testimony at a hearing about online privacy.

Privacy is taking center stage in Capitol Hill this month, with one hearing in the House slated for tomorrow afternoon and one in the Senate scheduled for Tuesday.

Report after report has shown that the state of broadband in the U.S. leaves much to be desired. Not only does adoption lag in the U.S., but connections are slower than in other countries and prices are higher. Until now, however, the Federal Communications Commission has told Congress that Internet service providers are deploying broadband in a "reasonable and timely fashion." But the FCC today said that ISPs are falling short. In a statement describing its latest report to Congress, the FCC said that between 14 million and 24 million Americans don't have access to high-speed lines.

Facebook's privacy revisions angered many users, some of whom were upset enough to sue the social networking site earlier this year. But whether their lawsuit goes anywhere in court remains to be seen.

The Federal Communications Commission's so-called "third way" for broadband -- a plan to reclassify broadband access, but not other components of the Internet, as a telecommunications service -- drew a flurry of last-minute endorsements and opposition this week.