If passed, the GOP bill would ban broadband providers from blocking, slowing down or speeding up access to certain websites and keep broadband as a lightly regulated Title 1 service of the Communications Act. Republican lawmakers in both the House and Senate introduced on Friday draft legislation they claim will protect Net neutrality without reclassifying …

Sony’s PlayStation Network was still recovering on Saturday from a suspected attack that took it offline over Christmas. PSN, along with Microsoft’s Xbox Live, started experiencing connection problems three days ago on Wednesday afternoon. A hacking group called Lizard Squad claimed responsibility via Twitter for a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack, but the attack and its involvement couldn’t be confirmed. The …

Though more accurate, “Black Thanksgiving Week” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. David Carnoy/CNET The bloom may finally be off Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, which earned a reputation as the biggest shopping day of the year, has always lured price-conscious consumers with the promise of killer deals. But it’s just not all that it used to …

Even the Samsung Galaxy S3 allowed for mobile payments — this one done at a McDonald’s in the UK. Rich Trenholm/CNET It’s Labor Day weekend in the US, a time for barbecues, back-to-school shopping — and iPhone rumors of course. Recode on Sunday reported that American Express has agreed to “work together” with Apple on its new iPhone payment system, …

Amazon It looks like Amazon is about enter the competitive mobile payments space by introducing its own credit card reader. That’s the assumption being made by 9to5Mac, which has obtained internal Staples documents that seem to show an “Amazon Card Reader” will go on sale in the near future for $10 (roughly £6 or AU$11) alongside existing card readers from …

Here’s some Grinchy news for those of you who put Samsung’s Galaxy S4 on your holiday wish list: Israeli researchers have identified a vulnerability in the smartphone that allegedly allows a hacker to easily intercept secure data. Samsung told CNET and other news outlets that it’s looking into the issues and thus far doesn’t believe the problem is as serious …

AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile all vowed to stop billing their customers for spam text messages that come from third parties, according to Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, who worked on the initiative with attorneys general from 44 other states. The carriers will no longer charge for what’s known as commercial “premium short messaging service,” or PSMS, which is the main …

Clearing the way for services like Uber, an appellate court Thursday lifted a temporary injunction on New York City’s pilot plan to allow travelers to hail yellow cabs via smartphone. The plan, which challenges the traditional curbside street hail, has faced strong opposition from New York’s livery and black-car operators. Uber Uber had just launched its New York taxi-hailing pilot …

Interesting how the very week that Google became a hardware maker with the closing of its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, there’s talk of another Internet giant making a similar move. The New York Times’ Nick Bilton reports today, citing unnamed sources, that Facebook is hoping to release its own smartphone by next year. Bilton’s sources include Facebook employees and several …

Continuing its push into the mobile devices market, Chinese PC maker Lenovo broke ground Monday on a new base in the central Chinese city of Wuhan that will focus on research, production and sales of mobile devices. Lenovo, which in late 2011 became the world’s second-largest PC maker, issued a statement that the 5 billion yuan ($800 million) facility could …