Say Anything Blog

AP - Talk about turning in your homework late: The government just finished a report on Internet traffic that Congress requested seven years ago.

Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million federal study, ultimately called "Signposts in Cyberspace," under a 1998 federal law, the Next Generation Internet Research Act. Passed near the dawn of what became the Internet boom, it required the Commerce Department to seek a study about Web addresses and trademarks by the National Research Council and wrap up the report within nine months.

The research council was expected to publish its findings Thursday - two presidential administrations later and years after the implosion of what had been a bustling Internet economy. . . .

Leading experts, including several who participated, defended the 283 pages of conclusions as significant and relevant. But some acknowledged so much time had passed - especially given the blistering pace of the Internet - that few people were anxiously awaiting the results anymore.

"To be honest, most people forgot it was ever going to happen," said Michael A. Froomkin, an Internet law professor at the University of Miami who reviewed two early drafts since 2001. "When it started, it seemed important; then it faded completely from sight."