Deutsche Telekom said it had been notified by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office that it had made final decision against approving announced sale of Deutsche Telekom’s cable TV businesses to Liberty Media. Cartel Office had issued warning in its preliminary assessment Jan. 31. Deutsche Telekom said it was “open to new negotiations with interested parties” and would continue its quest to reduce company’s debt. Liberty Media had been notified of Cartel Office’s objections but chose not to make concessions (CD Feb 19 p7). Liberty said it wouldn’t appeal decision. In addition to 6 Deutsche Telekom systems, Liberty Media said it would give up its bid to acquire 4 cable systems from TeleColumbus GmbH. That acquisition was conditioned on completion of Deutsche Telekom deal.

FTC obtained stipulated preliminary injunction against promoters of “Miss Cleo” psychic services. FTC filed complaint against Florida-based Access Resource Services (ARS) and Psychic Readers Network (PRN) in U.S. Dist. Court, Ft. Lauderdale, on charges of: (1) Cost misrepresentation. (2) Billing for services not purchased. (3) Deceptive collection practices. FTC said defendants also harassed consumers with telemarketing calls that persons couldn’t stop and often were abusive, threatening and vulgar. Defendants stipulated to preliminary injunction entered by judge that prevents them from: (1) Falsely advertising that “reading” will be no cost. (2) Misrepresenting cost of calls. (3) Telemarketing consumers “frequently and repeatedly.” (4) Representing that consumers are legally required to pay for services. Injunction requires defendants to disclose in advertisements cost of pay-per call service. Injunction also appoints auditor to monitor activities.

DeCSS case in Cal. will be heard by state’s Supreme Court. Announcement of review of DVD Copy Control Assn. v. Bunner (S102588) came late Wed. and was setback for Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). In Dec., EFF argued that Cal. Supreme Court shouldn’t grant DVD CCA’s request to review case after Cal. 6th Dist. Court of Appeal overturned lower court injunction ordering defendant Andrew Bunner to remove DeCSS hack for DVDs from his Web site. DVD CCA had sued under Cal. Uniform Trade Secrets Act, but appeals court said preliminary injunction was prior restraint under First Amendment. Following appeals court’s reversal in Nov., DVD CCA charged that “intermediate scrutiny” test of First Amendment should have been applied. EFF challenged DVD CCA’s petition to Cal. Supreme Court on grounds that DVD CCA was raising new legal and factual arguments at Supreme Court level, which EFF said was improper. Cal. Supreme Court didn’t comment on case or set date for hearing.

Mich. Senate passed 3 broadband-related bills critical to high-speed Internet access development plan of Gov. John Engler (R). Meanwhile, group that conducted recent dial-up modem speed tests in Mich. (CD Feb 15 p12), which found actual throughput to be about half of what 56 kbps modems are capable of, said Mich. wasn’t only state where actual dial-up speeds fell well below modems’ top designed speed.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said Wed. he was asking World Trade Organization (WTO) for dispute settlement panel on complaint that Mexico hadn’t opened its cross-border telecom market to competitors. Bush Administration has said in last year that Mexico has made some progress in areas such as ensuring that competitors obtain local interconnection from incumbent Telmex. But serious concerns on international interconnection issues have remained unresolved. Request marks first time USTR under Zoellick has made such request to WTO. In Nov. 2000, U.S. asked WTO to convene dispute settlement panel on complaints about Mexico, process that wasn’t pursued when some progress was made. But USTR said its latest WTO request was focused on unresolved issue of U.S. carriers’ paying inflated charges because “Mexico has still not begun to dismantle its anticompetitive cross-border telecommunications regime.” Panel request is expected to be brought up at March 8 meeting of WTO’s dispute settlement body.

Sega of America (SOA) and its ad agency, Leagas Delaney, were sued last week by Nike for copyright infringement and unfair competition. Separately, BlackSnow Interactive (BSI) sued Mythic Entertainment charging game maker with various antitrust, copyright and anticompetitive activities.

Although he signed FCC filing on Transportation Dept.- funded research on ultra-wideband, Stanford U. Prof. Bradford Parkinson said he wasn’t involved in conducting study, meaning his corporate ties to GPS developer Trimble posed no conflict. In Sept. 2000, Parkinson, who is widely viewed as “Father of GPS,” jointly submitted to FCC ex parte filing with other Stanford researchers outlining preliminary results of UWB tests conducted by GPS Research Lab at Stanford and funded by DoT. “We urge the Commission to proceed with great caution and deliberation,” said filing by 4 professors, including Parkinson, that described research challenges of analyzing UWB-to-GPS interference. But Parkinson said Mon. his role in research, which had been among studies cited by federal agencies concerned about potential of UWB emissions to cause harmful interference to GPS, was to evaluate results after test phase was complete. He said Assoc. Prof. Per Enge oversaw research itself.

IP telephony equipment maker Nx Networks said it was seeking approval from U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Alexandria, Va., to sell its business at auction. Company Nov. 1 filed for protection under Chapter 11. Nx Networks had received letter of intent offer for its assets from Nsdata.com, with preliminary valuation of more than $2 million, company said. It also sought approval to retain investment bank RCW Mirus to oversee bankruptcy auction. Company said it would continue to “fully support” customers. Nx Networks’ IP telephony products include toll bypass, voice VPN, Internet access, packet data equipment.

Consumer intentions on buying TV sets rose in Jan. from Dec. for 2nd straight month, according to preliminary data in Conference Board monthly survey. Of 5,000 households polled, 7.2% said they planned to buy TV set in next 6 months, vs. 6.7% in Dec., 7.7% in Nov., 6.7% in Jan. 2001. Consumer Confidence Index jumped nearly 3 points from Dec., Conference Board saying: “While the economy has not turned around yet, the worst may well be over, and the upturn in confidence is being driven by growing confidence about the business outlook and job prospects.” Board said consumer expectations for near-term future “are now higher than they have been in more than a year.”

Verizon Wireless said its total subscribers grew to 29.4 million by year-end 2001, nearly 10% over 2000. In preliminary financial results released Mon., carrier said it added 715,000 net new customers in 4th quarter 2001. Carrier, which is joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, said total customer turnover (churn) dropped in 2001 to monthly average of 2.1%. Verizon Wireless invested $4 billion in national network last year, which it said resulted in 13% increase in cell site coverage, deployment of 2-way short- messaging service throughout its network and conversion of more than 20% of its network to 1XRTT version of CDMA. Carrier plans to release full financial results Thurs.