Results of a survey by Accenture indicate a likely increase in IT spending over the next three years. The annual survey, which questions IT managers at 300 large U.S. businesses, found that 60 percent expect to increase spending, while just 13 percent anticipate that IT spending will drop. Thirty-two percent of respondents said IT spending […]

Hoping to save administrative costs in the long run, the Dutch government announced an initiative to give every citizen and company in the country a personal Web page where they can access government information and services. The Personal Internet Page (PIP) program will initially include between 10 and 15 government agencies, which will make their […]

Growing numbers of students are turning to Web sites–some commercial and some hosted by colleges and universities–that provide chat rooms, blog tools, and other online forums for aspirants to swap rumors and stories about the admissions process. Many observers believe such sites suffer from the rampant misinformation that plagues plenty of other online content. Moreover, […]

A study conducted by the University of Southampton indicates that a majority of government Web sites in the United Kingdom suffer from HTML errors and are designed in ways that restrict access to users with disabilities. According to the study, 60 percent of government sites contain errors, and 61 percent do not meet accessibility standards […]

Subpoenas obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the U.S. Justice Department is seeking Internet usage data from at least 35 companies in its efforts to defend the 1996 Child Online Protection Act (COPA) against court challenges. One of the subpoenas sparked a legal showdown between the government and Google, which challenged the […]

A new Web site being developed by researchers at Syracuse University and the University of Washington (UW) will provide users with tools and tips for separating good online information from the vast amounts of unreliable material. R. David Lankes, associate professor of information studies at Syracuse, and Michael Eisenberg, professor in the Information School at […]

Attendees at the 2006 Spam Conference at MIT agreed that filters and other technologies designed to prevent spam from reaching its intended targets merely address the symptoms without doing anything about the underlying problem. Many were similarly dismissive of proposals to charge a fee to senders of e-mail, saying that such an approach runs counter […]

Another company has contacted a number of colleges and universities about a technology patent they might be infringing, this time for systems that transfer money across the Internet to campus cards. in 1998, JSA Technologies applied for a patent, which was granted in 2005, that covers such transfers. Many institutions use campus cards for student […]

U.K. Internet service provider BT has sent letters to 3,200 subscribers letting them know that their usage exceeds the 40GB per month download limit to which they agreed in the terms of their service. The letters inform customers that they must either pay a surcharge for the extra usage or their service will be disconnected. […]

Several contests for the creation of computer games focus on social causes and other notions beyond simple entertainment. The Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games Competition, sponsored by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the U.S. State Department, will award $5,000 to the developers of the game that best uses the concept of “public diplomacy” […]