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March 19, 2012 (Defiant LightSquared)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2012
FCC budget hearing this afternoon. http://benton.org/calendar/2012-03-19/
WIRELESS
Defiant LightSquared says FCC action would violate its rights
Sprint Elects to Terminate Spectrum Hosting Agreement with LightSquared - press release [links to web]
AT&T scotches appeal, pays small-claims litigant
Californians Sue Google Over Faulty Android Apps
Satisfaction, Thy Name Is iPhone
Protesters cloud Apple’s new iPad launch
Apple’s New iPad Costs at Least $316 to Build, IHS iSuppli Teardown Shows [links to web]
Sprint's 4G aspirations depend on spectrum deals [links to web]
Time to Review FAA Policy on Gadgets - editorial
Will shift to mobile change balance of power between Apple and Google? - analysis
Mobile apps raise new privacy concerns [links to web]
The State of the Media 2012 - research
MEDIA & ELECTIONS
Buying A Political Ad? Let A SuperPAC Foot The Bill
Obama's 2012 campaign is watching you
Campaign Interest Comparable to Most Previous Elections, Well Below 2008 - research
OWNERSHIP
Merger 'Conditions' Can't Fail As Big Deals Are On The Line - editorial
This is why Google is losing the future - analysis
Will shift to mobile change balance of power between Apple and Google? - analysis
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Schools' high-speed installation going slo-mo in West Virginia
Broadband Providers Urge FCC to Act on Stalled Agenda [links to web]
Ethics Fight Over Domain Names Intensifies [links to web]
RADIO
Struggling Clear Channel And Rush Limbaugh's $400 Million Payday [links to web]
This American Life Retracts “Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory [links to web]
Theater, Disguised as Real Journalism - analysis [links to web]
EDUCATION
Rethinking the U.S. Department of Education - op-ed [links to web]
E-Schools Put Specific Measures for Success in Place [links to web]
CYBERSECURITY
'System is blinking red': Alarming rhetoric in push for cybersecurity bills [links to web]
Cybersecurity Legislation Should Force U.S. Government to Listen Less and Speak More - op-ed [links to web]
JOURNALISM
The State of the Media 2012 - research
Campaign Interest Comparable to Most Previous Elections, Well Below 2008 - research
2011 Newspaper Revenues Sink 7% [links to web]
This American Life Retracts “Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory [links to web]
Theater, Disguised as Real Journalism - analysis [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Unknown Tech Company Defies FBI In Mystery Surveillance Case
Supreme Court Will Release Same-Day Audio Of Health Care Arguments – But no TV [links to web]
AT&T to run Cold War-era military network for five more years [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Fred Upton finds it's good to be the chairman
Commerce Official To Lead Yahoo's Relations With Democrats [links to web]
Ethics Fight Over Domain Names Intensifies [links to web]
C-SPAN Founder to Step Down as Chief Executive [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
ISPs to take on illegally downloading, politely [links to web]
Telecoms antitrust probe details revealed [links to web]
Study: Expansion of IT Trade Pact Would Bring Huge Benefits [links to web]
New Nielsen Ratings to Measure TV and Online Ads Together [links to web]
WIRELESS
LIGHTSQUARED RESPONDS TO FCC
[SOURCE: IDG News Service, AUTHOR: Stephen Lawson]
The Federal Communications Commission's proposal to kill LightSquared's planned LTE network would violate the fledgling carrier's property rights by taking away its spectrum and destroying its multibillion-dollar investment in mobile broadband, LightSquared will argue in a formal comment to the agency. Shutting down its project would also violate the public interest by eliminating a potential mobile competitor that would sell network capacity to any carrier, LightSquared said. But the prospects of LightSquared ever launching its network look dim after the FCC's action and the loss of its main partner, Sprint Nextel, which terminated a 15-year network-sharing deal with LightSquared. LightSquared said the FCC must consider solutions to interference that LightSquared has proposed, which the carrier charged that the GPS industry has blocked. If the FCC concludes those solutions won't work, it has to work with LightSquared and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to swap the troubled spectrum for another band, LightSquared said. "The FCC has to exhaust reasonable alternatives before it reaches for the most extreme remedy here," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy. If the FCC doesn't let LightSquared build its network, the agency will be breaching its agreement with the carrier and violating its constitutional rights, according to LightSquared.
benton.org/node/117559 | IDG News Service | GigaOm | The Hill
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AT&T GIVES UP ON APPEAL
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Peter Svensson]
AT&T gave up on appealing an $850 award won by an iPhone user in small claims court, and sent him a check. Matt Spaccarelli, of Simi Valley (CA) had sued the phone company because it was slowing down the data service on his phone. Spaccarelli has an "unlimited data" plan, but as of this fall, AT&T had begun slowing download speeds for these subscribers if they use more than a certain amount of data in a month. Spaccarelli argued that "unlimited is unlimited," and the judge agreed at a hearing on Feb. 24. AT&T initially said it would appeal the decision. It then offered to go into settlement talks with him, in a letter that implied that AT&T was looking at cancelling his service completely. Spaccarelli has admitted to "tethering" his phone to other devices, providing them Internet access through AT&T's wireless network. That's against AT&T's rules. Spaccarelli turned the settlement offer down. On March 16, AT&T said it was sending Spaccarelli a check for $850, plus $85 for court costs.
benton.org/node/117567 | Associated Press
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GOOGLE SUED OVER FAULTY APPS
[SOURCE: mocoNews.net, AUTHOR: Jeff Roberts]
Two Android phone users who purchased defective products from Google’s app-store have filed a lawsuit, saying the company’s 15-minute refund window is unfair. Los Angeles man Dodd Harris says he purchased “Learn Chinese Mandarin Pro” for $4.83 while another, Stephen Sabatino, says he bought a bit-torrent application called aBTC for $4.99. Both claim the phone applications didn’t work and that they were unable to obtain a refund a short time later. The men are seeking damages for every California resident who purchased a defective Android app, claiming it’s wrong for Google to pocket a 30 percent commission for faulty products.
benton.org/node/117541 | mocoNews.net
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IPHONE IS SATISFYING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Paczkowski]
Here’s a data point sure to get prominent mention during Apple’s next big media event. The iPhone has once again claimed the top ranking in J.D. Power’s semiannual smartphone satisfaction study. For the seventh consecutive time. The iPhone scored 839 out of 1,000 possible points. That’s a point more than it claimed in J.D. Power’s September 2011 survey, and 41 points more than its nearest rival, HTC, which scored 798 (down from 801). It’s also 64 points more than the industry average of 774, beneath which rivals Samsung, Motorola, LG, Research In Motion and Nokia continue to toil. All five of those companies’ smartphones fell in customer esteem, some precipitously. Motorola’s score slipped to 758, down from 775; Samsung’s to 769 from 777; LG’s to 733 from 760; RIM’s to 733 from 762; and Nokia’s to 702 from 721. What a sad commentary on the industry that smartphones from five of its seven largest vendors posted below-average scores in customer satisfaction.
benton.org/node/117556 | Wall Street Journal
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PROTESTING APPLE PRODUCTS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Hayley Tsukayama]
Protesters asking Apple to change the labor practices in factories in its supply chain have mobilized at stores in Georgetown, San Francisco and New York City. Their goal was to remind Apple and its fans that the gadgets on sale today come from factories that have been criticized for poor labor practices. The protests at stores were organized by the same group that mobilized consumers to deliver two online petitions from Change.org and SumofUs.org, with a combined 250,000 signatures, to Apple employees at stores in Washington, New York, San Francisco, London, Sydney and Bangalore. Dozens showed up to protest the conditions reported in Apple’s factories around the world. The protests were fairly subdued. Change.org spokewsoman Sarah Ryan said that there were about a dozen protesters at each location to hand out cards with comments from those who signed the petitions.
benton.org/node/117555 | Washington Post
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FAA REVIEW
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Nick Bilton]
[Commentary] Laura J. Brown, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that the agency has decided to take a “fresh look” at the use of personal electronics on planes. That’s going to be welcome news to the people in the United States who, according to Forrester Research, by the end of 2012 will have bought more than 40 million e-readers and 60 million iPads and other tablets. Yes, you read that correctly. The FAA, which in the past has essentially said, “No, because I said so,” is going to explore testing e-readers, tablets and certain other gadgets on planes. The last time this testing was done was 2006, long before iPads and most e-readers existed. (The bad, or good, news: The F.A.A. doesn’t yet want to include the 150 million smartphones in this revision.)
benton.org/node/117577 | New York Times
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MEDIA & ELECTIONS
SUPERPACS AND ADVERTISING
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Brian Naylor]
There has been one constant throughout the GOP campaign — Mitt Romney and the superPAC that supports him have vastly outspent his rivals. An NPR analysis of various campaign data finds a new trend is now apparent — most of the TV ads supporting Romney have been bought by that superPAC, Restore Our Future, while Romney's campaign is spending little on TV. If you add up the numbers, the bottom line looks like this: Romney and the superPAC backing him outspent Newt Gingrich and the superPAC backing him by more than 5-to-1 in advance of the primaries in Alabama and Mississippi. They outspent Rick Santorum and his superPAC by more than 15-to-1. That's based on filings to the Federal Election Commission, and data compiled by Kantar CMAG. In Alabama the Romney campaign spent just a fraction of what Restore Our Future did on TV, and in Mississippi the Romney campaign spent no money on TV ads, while the superPAC bought $1.3 million in TV time. In effect, the Romney campaign has let Restore Our Future become its TV advertising arm. "It's a very interesting development in how campaigns, I think, are going to be run in the future, and I think the likely outcome of what we're seeing is that the quote independent superPACs are really going to become the major mechanism of delivering TV advertising," said Donald Tobin, a campaign finance law expert at The Ohio State University. Tobin says by leaving it up to the superPAC to handle and pay for the TV ad buys, the campaign itself can focus on other things, such as paying for staff and travel, office and organizing expenses.
benton.org/node/117557 | National Public Radio
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OBAMA CAMPAIGN WATCHING YOU
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Dave Levinthal]
President Barack Obama wants companies like Google and Facebook to reform their privacy practices. But that’s not stopping his reelection campaign from tapping the rich data Internet companies hold on millions of potential voters. Obama for America has already invested millions of dollars in sophisticated Internet messaging, marketing and fundraising efforts that rely on personal data sometimes offered up voluntarily — like posts on a Facebook page— but sometimes not. And according to a campaign official and former Obama staffer, the campaign’s Chicago-based headquarters has built a centralized digital database of information about millions of potential Obama voters. It all means President Obama is finding it easier than ever to merge offline data, such as voter files and information purchased from data brokers, with online information to target people with messages that may appeal to their personal tastes. Privacy advocates say it’s just the sort of digital snooping that his new privacy project is supposed to discourage. But this is what campaigning for president looks like in 2012.
benton.org/node/117548 | Politico
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OWNERSHIP
ENFORCING COMCAST MERGER CONDITIONS
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Art Brodsky]
[Commentary] On any given day, on any given cable or satellite system, subscribers will see a message telling them that a favorite channel which had been in one spot on the channel lineup has been shifted to another. It happens all the time as channels are added, subtracted or moved around. It's not a big deal. Unless, of course, the cable channel in question is Bloomberg Television. Since March 2011, Bloomberg has been trying to hold the Comcast-NBCU media behemoth to the promises it made, and agreed to, in order to complete the takeover that resulted in one of the biggest media companies in history. Comcast's power and influence belies its rankings of #66 on the Fortune 500 and #101 on the Financial Times Global 500. The numbers don't show the power of the largest cable provider, largest high-speed Internet provider, a TV network, a movie studio and numerous cable channels all rolled into one. But the sad story of this issue and other behavior, including that of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) begs the questions of how far the FCC is willing to go now that it has an even bigger deal with Verizon, Comcast and major cable companies to reshape the telecommunications business in the U.S. Under the deal, Verizon will buy for $3.6 billion spectrum the cable companies couldn't or wouldn't use to go into the wireless business. Verizon wireless will, in turn, market cable's landline high-speed Internet businesses. The answers are not encouraging.
benton.org/node/117547 | Public Knowledge
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GOOGLE IS LOSING THE FUTURE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Bobbie Johnson]
“Google is like a crack dealer,” one frustrated startup founder told me recently. “They give you something that gets you hooked, but you end up strung out. You’re so dependent on somebody that you can’t do anything about it.” He was talking about a now-familiar bait-and-switch that Google keeps running on web businesses. First, the search giant offers a little traffic boost to sites that organize data in certain useful ways. Then it turns the game on its head and — without any notice — starts using that structured data to inform its own services. Finally, with a disturbing inevitability, it launches its own competing product that steps in and replace yours. By the time it starts happening, you’re already in… and there’s no way back.
benton.org/node/117551 | GigaOm
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APPLE-GOOGLE POWER SHIFT
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Chris O’Brien]
[Commentary] Apple executives said they were dropping the use of Google Maps in favor of an open mapping product. Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie, wrote a note to clients asking of Apple: "What if it takes a bigger step?" What if, in other words, Apple ditched Google as the default provider of search on its Safari browser. This is where we see how their relationship is more complicated than it first appears. Many users assume Apple uses Google's search engine because it's the best. But while neither company likes to talk about it, Google pays Apple a significant amount of money to be the default search engine on Apple's browser. Indeed, Google in 2011 paid about $1.5 billion in total on such distribution deals last year to companies like Apple and Mozilla (which makes the Firefox browser) and MySpace. Schachter estimated that $1 billion of that goes to Apple, but the truth is that no one knows. In fact, Google has successfully fought the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which wanted the company to release information on the number of such deals as well as whether each deal made money. Google has acknowledged that it loses money on some of these deals. The nature of such agreements appears to be at the heart of a subpoena that Bloomberg News reported the Federal Trade Commission had served to Apple last week as part of its antitrust investigation of Google. But even without knowing the payment figure, Schachter says one thing is clear: Apple's products have become an increasingly important source of search traffic to Apple. So if Apple maintains its dominance of tablets in the coming years and more computing shifts to mobile, does it gain even more leverage over Google?
benton.org/node/117573 | San Jose Mercury News
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
BROADBAND STIMULUS PROJECT IN WV
[SOURCE: Charleston Gazette, AUTHOR: Amy Julia Harris]
A $126.3 million federal stimulus grant to provide high-speed Internet to hundreds of schools and other public facilities throughout West Virginia is far behind the timeline state education officials had envisioned and is hitting implementation snags, state Board of Education officials learned. Board members said that more than two years after West Virginia received the grant, there was still confusion about how many schools could actually connect to a high-speed Internet network. They also expressed growing frustration with the quality of service and lack of communication provided by Frontier Communications, a major contractor in the project.
benton.org/node/117545 | Charleston Gazette
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JOURNALISM
THE STATE OF THE MEDIA
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel]
The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in ten American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking. For news, the new era brings mixed blessings. New research released in this report finds that mobile devices are adding to people’s news consumption, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism. Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day – in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps. At the same time, a more fundamental challenge that we identified in this report last year has intensified — the extent to which technology intermediaries now control the future of news.
Two trends in the last year overlap and reinforce the sense that the gap between the news and technology industries is widening. First, the explosion of new mobile platforms and social media channels represents another layer of technology with which news organizations must keep pace.
Second, in the last year a small number of technology giants began rapidly moving to consolidate their power by becoming makers of “everything” in our digital lives. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and a few others are maneuvering to make the hardware people use, the operating systems that run those devices, the browsers on which people navigate, the e-mail services on which they communicate, the social networks on which they share and the web platforms on which they shop and play. And all of this will provide these companies with detailed personal data about each consumer.
benton.org/node/117571 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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CAMPAIGN INTEREST
[SOURCE: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, AUTHOR: ]
The presidential campaign again proved to be the top story for the public and the media last week. Overall public interest is comparable to most previous primary election cycles, but well below the high mark set four years ago. Last week, which included Super Tuesday contests in 10 states, 28% say they followed election news very closely, according to the latest weekly News Interest Index survey, conducted March 8-11 among 1,005 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Similar to current results, in February 2004 about three-in-ten (29%) said they followed news about the presidential candidates very closely. In March 2000 and March 1996, about a quarter in each survey (26%) said they were following campaign news this closely shortly after Super Tuesday voting. Still, interest and coverage were far below the week of Super Tuesday primaries in 2008, when 39% said they followed election news very closely. That year, both parties had contested races, including the high-profile fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination; 24 states voted on Feb. 5, 2008, that campaign’s Super Tuesday.
benton.org/node/117570 | Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
MYSTERY SURVEILLANCE CASE
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Kim Zetter]
Sometime earlier this year, a provider of communication services in the United States – perhaps a phone company, perhaps Twitter – got a letter from the FBI demanding it turn over information on one, or possibly even hundreds, of its customers. The letter instructed the company to never disclose the existence of the demand to anyone – in particular, the target of the investigation. This sort of letter is not uncommon post-9/11 and with the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, which gave the FBI increased authority to issue so-called National Security Letters (NSLs). In 2010, the FBI sent more than 24,000 NSLs to ISPs and other companies, seeking information on more than 14,000 individuals in the US. The public heard about none of these letters. But this time, the company that received the request pushed back. It told the agency that it wanted to tell its customer that he or she was being targeted, which would give the customer a chance to fight the request in court, as a group of Twitter users did last year when the Justice Department sought their records under a different kind of request. The minor defiance in this latest case was enough to land the NSL request in a federal court docket, where the government filed a request for a court order to force the company to adhere to the gag order.
benton.org/node/117542 | Wired
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POLICYMAKERS
IT GOOD TO BE KING
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Darren Samuelson]
Fred Upton’s finding out just how good it is to be a powerful committee chairman. Major corporate donors and PACs from the energy, health care and technology industries are giving to the House Energy and Commerce chairman at a breakneck pace this election cycle, helping the Michigan Republican amass a $2 million war chest as he prepares for an Aug. 7 primary against a tea party challenger. Upton’s recent donations are well beyond anything he’s ever experienced in his 26 years in Congress, with old friends giving more and new friends emerging from the woodwork. For the first time in Upton’s career, out-of-state individuals this cycle have outpaced Michigan donors when giving more than $200, compared with Michigan donors, according to donation data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. “What was the Mel Brooks line from the ‘History of the World’? ‘It’s good to be the king,’” said an industry source with ties to Upton, who overcame complaints from conservatives and became chairman at the start of 2011.
benton.org/node/117561 | Politico
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