Internet governance, Google’s domain names, pre-paid iPhone

Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), chairman of the House subpanel on commerce, introduced a resolution Thursday to “keep the Internet free from government control.” Mack was joined by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) in introducing the measure.

The subcommittee heard testimony Thursday on international proposals to regulate the Internet — a proposal opposed by several giants in the technology field.

In a rare coordinated effort to knock down the proposals, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Cisco also warn of financial risks to their businesses if new rules are adopted. They say some nations may push for laws on Internet firms that could lead to tariffs on Internet service providers such as Verizon, or even Web firms such as Facebook that enable people to communicate over the Internet, The Washington Post reported.

Google domain names:Google said Thursday it has applied for the Internet identifiers “.google,” “.docs” and “.youtube,” with the planned expansion of the Web’s domain name system, The Washington Post reported.

Aside from the suffixes that reflect their brands and services, the search giant said in a blog post that it has also applied for a bunch of other domain names that “we think have interesting and creative potential.”

Pre-paid iPhone coming to Cricket: Cricket Communications, a part of Leap Wireless, announced Thursday that it will be the first pre-paid carrier in the United States to offer the phone to its customers. Cricket will be offering the iPhone for the subsidized price of $399.99 for an 8 GB iPhone 4 or $499.99 for a 16GB iPhone 4S. That’s still more than users would pay on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint or any of the many regional carriers that offer the iPhone — but still much less the cost of an unlocked phone from Apple.

Users will pay $55 per month for their plan, which comes with unlimited voice and text. Customers also get data with the plan, though they may see slower data speeds past 2.3 GB.

The company will begin pre-selling the phone on June 15; the devices will go on sale on June 22.