Washington - A group of key U.S. House lawmakers last week sent a letter to 33 Internet firms and broadband service providers, pressing them for information about the extent to which they collect information on consumers' Web surfing habits for the purpose of targeting advertising. The letter was sent by Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and ranking members Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) to a group of ISPs and other relevant firms that includes AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) and Google (NASD: GOOG).

Washington - Following news this week that broadband ISP Charter Communications (NASD: CHTR) was planning to begin tracking its subscribers' Web surfing habits in order to serve them targeted ads, two prominent U.S. lawmakers have called on the company to delay the move, as it may violate federal privacy laws, CNET News.com reported.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will hold a public hearing later this month on broadband network management practices, in the wake of an admission from Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) that it actively interferes with the peer-to-peer application usage of some of its customers. Responding to an FCC inquiry, which came after investigations by independent researchers and the Associated Press found that Comcast was throttling the BitTorrent uploads of some users, the company conceded in a filing with the FCC that it "manages the use of certain P2P protocols in a minimally intrusive way, and only when necessary, based on purely objective criteria."

Washington - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Wednesday denied webcasters' motions to delay the implementation of new royalty rates for streaming music while their appeal of the rates is heard.

Washington - At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) came to the aid of Web radio broadcasters who say they'll likely be forced offline if new royalty rates approved by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) are enacted, CNET News.com reported.