Consumer group blasts White House's digital piracy pow-wow

Late last month, Somali brigands in a dinghy hijacked the Maran Centaurus, an American-bound tanker carrying millions of barrels of crude oil, in the latest episode of escalating pirate attacks off the coast of the failed, anarchic East African state. But that event won't come up at Tuesday afternoon's White House meeting on piracy, because at that gathering, the topic of discussion will be so-called digital piracy. Led by Vice President Joe Biden, the meeting "is the first of its kind, and will bring together all of the stakeholders to discuss ways to combat piracy in this rapidly changing technological age," according to the White House.

On Tuesday morning, a prominent consumer advocacy group took the White House to task for the lopsided guest list of the meeting, which did not include "consumer or public-interest groups, technology companies, technology associations or Internet Service Providers."