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March 23, 2012 (US Moves to Ease Limits on Data Use in Terror Analysis)
In Thursday’s Headlines, we misidentified Joel Kelsey of Free Press as John Kelsey. We regret the error.
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MARCH 23
A peak at next week http://benton.org/calendar/2012-03-25--P1W/
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
US Moves to Ease Limits on Data Use in Terror Analysis
On the road to digital FOIA processing, agencies take separate paths
Executive Order -- Improving Performance of Federal Permitting and Review of Infrastructure Projects [links to web]
FBI Still Struggling With Supreme Court's GPS Ruling [links to web]
White House might finally go wireless [links to web]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Membership Of Technical Advisory Board For First Responder Interoperability - public notice [links to web]
CTIA Offers Own Timetable for FCC Auction Action
Verizon to the Cable Industry: Let’s Be Friends - op-ed
T-Mobile USA to Cut 1,900 Jobs as It Consolidates Its Call Centers
Lost cellphones added up fast in 2011 [links to web]
UBS: For now, mobile still comes down to Samsung v. Apple [links to web]
How Skype’s Co-Founder Hopes to Make Money Giving Away Mobile Broadband [links to web]
INTERNET
The Future of Apps and Web - research
Amazon Faces Taxing Times
CONTENT
LA City Council urges end to racist, sexist language on radio [links to web]
President Sarkozy announces crackdown on Internet hate sites [links to web]
Illinois to become first state to allow online lottery sales [links to web]
Our social-media amnesia - op-ed
Apple Antitrust Suit Would Aid Amazon Book Monopoly - op-ed [links to web]
Silicon Valley and Hollywood: Rivals or Kindred Spirits? - op-ed
Bloggers Hammer Romney [links to web]
Americans now watch more online movies than DVDs [links to web]
PRIVACY
House Dems Launch Inquiry into Information Collection and Use Practices of Social Apps for Apple Devices
Is the debate over data and online privacy misguided? [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
Universal Soldiers On With Music Deal [links to web]
Facebook Said to Acquire 750 Patents From IBM Amid Lawsuits [links to web]
MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
Broadcasters, get with the program — put records online - op-ed
The Selling of a Politician, and the Ads Almost Broadcast [links to web]
TELEVISION/RADIO
Digital Diversity By The Numbers
Mediacom Says Cable Ops Should Be Able to Jointly Negotiate Retransmission [links to web]
SiriusXM CEO Explains Rate Hike [links to web]
CYBERSECURITY
More Data Thefts Affect Individuals, Verizon Report Finds [links to web]
FCC’s CSRIC Offers recommendations to Minimize Cyber Threats - press release [links to web]
HEALTH
Electronic care plays role in disaster response: IOM [links to web]
LOBBYING
Did telecom campaign cash affect NC broadband vote? [links to web]
FCC REFORM
CBO Scores Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Bill [links to web]
TELECOM
United States Files Lawsuit Against AT&T in Telecommunications Relay Services Fraud Case - press release
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Carlos Slim Needs More Competition - op-ed
Overseas Ticket Sales Buoyed Movies in 2011 [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
African Americans: Web-, Smartphone-Centric [links to web]
Recommendations of the Consumer Advisory Committee [links to web]
TiVo Settles Patent Litigation With Microsoft [links to web]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
NEW GUIDELINES FOR NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Charlie Savage]
The Obama administration is moving to relax restrictions on how counterterrorism analysts may access, store and search information about Americans gathered by government agencies for purposes other than national security threats. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr signed new guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center, which was created in 2004 to foster intelligence sharing and to serve as a clearinghouse for terrorism threats. The guidelines will lengthen to five years — from 180 days — the center’s ability to retain private information about Americans when there is no suspicion that they are tied to terrorism, intelligence officials said. The guidelines are also expected to result in the center making more copies of entire databases and “data-mining them” — using complex algorithms to search for patterns that could indicate a threat — than it currently does. The changes, described by senior intelligence officials on Thursday, are intended to allow analysts to more quickly identify suspicious people and activities. But they are also likely to set off concerns about Americans’ privacy.
benton.org/node/117941 | New York Times
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FOIA HEARING
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Andrew Lapin]
Multiple federal agencies are forging ahead with their own separate plans to incorporate technology to dig themselves out of a demanding backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests. At a hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform, representatives from various government branches outlined efforts to combat the Obama administration's FOIA struggles. The hearing focused on how to move FOIA processing into the Digital Age in accordance with a 1996 congressional amendment allowing public government documents to exist in electronic as well as paper formats.
Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Office of Information Policy at the Justice Department, discussed the office's recent implementation of FOIA.gov, a comprehensive website that aims to make FOIA data throughout the government publicly available from one location. The site is not the government's only current effort to migrate FOIA processing online. In September 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency partnered with the Commerce Department and the National Archives and Records Administration to adapt the pre-existing Regulations.gov, a federal rule-making portal, to the world of FOIA processing. Miriam Nisbet, director of the Office of Government Information Services at NARA, said in her opening testimony that "harmonizing" efforts with FOIA.gov "is an idea worth considering."
benton.org/node/117909 | nextgov
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
CTIA SPECTRUM AUCTION TIMETABLE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Wireless companies have proposed a timeline for the Federal Communications Commission to reclaim and re-auction spectrum from broadcasters and governments users to feed the country's voracious appetitive for spectrum. To feed those hungry hoards, CTIA The Wireless Association suggested in letters to the relevant agencies, it will take "immediate action by the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ('NTIA') is needed in partnership with stakeholders such as CTIA and its members, in the shadow of the second anniversary of the National Broadband Plan." The plan, which set a target date of freeing up 300 MHz of spectrum by 2105, was released March 17, 2010. The two-page list of dates, part of what CTIA says is a blueprint for action, includes a rulemaking proposal on forward incentive auctions by May 2012 and an order by March 26, 2013. CTIA wants the first auction -- in which broadcasters offer up spectrum and the FCC chooses the lowest bidder -- to be completed by Jan. 7, 2014, and the second auction, in which that reclaimed spectrum is sold to the highest bidder, to be completed by Oct. 14, 2012.
benton.org/node/117934 | Broadcasting&Cable | read the CTIA letter
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VERIZON TO CABLE – LET’S BE FRIENDS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] When it comes to high-speed wired data distribution -- America’s critical information infrastructure -- Comcast and the other cable incumbents have won the battle for subscribers and face neither oversight nor competition. Although the deregulation of the communications sector over the last few years was premised on the notion that competition among platforms -- wired, wireless and satellite -- would protect consumers and businesses from price surges, the laws of physics have gotten in the way: Lower-capacity (but mobile) wireless services are complementary to the high-capacity (but stationary) wires Comcast sells. Very few Americans are substituting wireless access for a wire when it comes to data, and no one would start a business relying on a wireless connection. On the wireless side, the powerhouses are Verizon and AT&T Inc., which collectively accounted for 65 percent of all wireless subscribers and 71 percent of all net new subscribers in 2011; of the two, Verizon is larger. When it comes to the crucial issue of spectrum licenses, Verizon Wireless already holds approximately 43 percent of all 700 MHz spectrum in the nation (nicknamed “beachfront” spectrum for its favorable propagation characteristics) and 48 percent of cellular spectrum. These are the two most suitable (and valuable) bands for mobile data transmission services.
benton.org/node/117931 | Bloomberg
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T-MOBILE CUTTING JOBS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
T-Mobile USA will cut thousands of jobs as it closes seven customer service facilities across the country. About 3,300 people work at the call centers being closed, but T-Mobile said it plans to hire up to 1,400 people at the remaining facilities, resulting in 1,900 net job cuts. The facilities set to close by the end of June are: Allentown, Pennsylvania; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kansas; Thornton, Colorado; and Redmond, Oregon. “Concentrating call centers is an important step to achieve competitive cost structures to successfully compete as [a] challenger and value player in the wireless market,” said Philipp Humm, CEO and President of T-Mobile. “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.” T-Mobile has been losing customers in recent months, resulting in a decreased need for call center staffers.
benton.org/node/117939 | Wall Street Journal | The Verge | AP
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INTERNET
APPS VS WEB
[SOURCE: Pew Internet and American Life Project, AUTHOR: Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie]
The Web Is Dead? No. Experts expect apps and the Web to converge in the cloud; but many worry that simplicity for users will come at a price. Tech experts generally believe the mobile revolution, the popularity of targeted apps, the monetization of online products and services, and innovations in cloud computing will drive Web evolution. Some survey respondents say while much may be gained, perhaps even more may be lost if the “appification” of the Web comes to pass.
The Pew Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center invited experts and Internet stakeholders to predict where things might be by the end of the decade. They were asked to take sides in the apps vs. Web debate by choosing among alternative visions of where things will stand in 2020. A number of survey participants who are most attuned to the nuances of this particular issue responded that the outcome will be a mix; they said apps and the Web are converging in the cloud. Some argued that the language framing the question did not frame the issue well. While most people agreed with the statement that the Web will generally be stronger than ever by 2020, many who chose that view noted that it is more their hope than their firm prediction. Some 35% disagreed that the Web would be in better shape, and a number of survey participants said the outcome will be a combination of both scenarios.
benton.org/node/117945 | Pew Internet and American Life Project
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AMAZON AND TAXES
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Justin Lahart]
Back in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that retailers were exempt from collecting taxes where they didn't have a physical presence. From the outset, Amazon understood that the decision could provide a competitive advantage: CEO Jeff Bezos has said one reason he located the company in Seattle was that Washington's small population would minimize the number of customers it would have to tax. Amazon's formula worked. By 2011, it had $26.7 billion in North American sales—an amount equal to 13.7% of total U.S. online sales. But with state and local budgets strapped, and Main Street merchants increasingly irate over being treated like showrooms by customers who then buy from online competitors, the political winds shifted against Amazon. More states have begun looking for workarounds that would allow them to tax online sales. After agreeing last year to begin collecting sales tax in California starting in September, Amazon got behind a Senate bill that would enable state and local governments to collect out-of-state sales taxes from online retailers. The day when any state can tax online sales now seems less a matter of if, but when. The bulls' case on the sales-tax issue is that it won't affect Amazon all that much. According to a survey conducted by William Blair analysts, even with sales tax and shipping included, Amazon's prices would be nearly as low as Wal-Mart’s on comparable items, and still about 7% below Target. But while Amazon would still look very competitive, the cost difference would narrow. People will take that into account when deciding whether to buy something in a store for a bit more now, or to buy it on Amazon and having to wait for it to arrive.
benton.org/node/117948 | Wall Street Journal
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CONTENT
SOCIAL-MEDIA AMNESIA
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Nancy Scola]
[Commentary] Twitter’s internal search tool only reaches back a week or so before you get a note saying that older tweets are not available. Twitter does, to its credit, publish an interface that allows others to pull information from its services. But there’s a built-in cap on how many tweets can be accessed that way. (It changes, but at one recent point it was in the couple-thousand-tweet range.) And so, we’re left with our current status quo: tweets that seem to fall into a black hole. Who cares, right? These are tweets, after all. Somehow we’ve survived as a culture without recording, say, every phone call we made in the ’80s. But Twitter’s centrality to the political conversation from the U.S. to Egypt has already made it more than mere ephemera. It’s still the early days of the social-media era, and our vantage point is not a particularly good one to decide what’s worth saving and what’s not. Of course, it’s not really us making the decision about what to save. It’s Twitter and the other big players in the digital communications realm that are making it. So, if private industry isn’t going to save our tweets, maybe the public sector will?
benton.org/node/117933 | Reuters
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SILICON VALLEY AND HOLLYWOOD
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Vivek Wadhwa]
[Commentary] How has Hollywood affected Silicon Valley? The pat answer for lots of technologists in the Bay Area would likely be: “Not for the better,” citing the recently tabled SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) laws. According to that worldview, SOPA and PIPA were ham-fisted attempts by Hollywood types and their buddies in the music business to commandeer the Internet and remove critical legal protections for search engines and hosting companies that may shelter pirates but also promote free speech and technology innovation. The common belief is that SOPA and PIPA represent yet another instance of entertainment industry greed trying to force people to pay up or face litigation—often for questionable trespasses such as viewing a movie they legitimately purchased on more than one device. But the symbiosis is essential: Silicon Valley has yet to inspire great art, and Hollywood has yet to produce game-changing technology. The two communities together, however, have powered the most important cultural movements of the past century.
benton.org/node/117929 | Bloomberg
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PRIVACY
INFO COLLECTION AND APPLE DEVICES
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) sent letters to 34 sellers of social apps for Apple’s mobile devices inquiring about their information collection and use practices. Following recent reports that apps could collect address book information and photos without notice and consent from users of Apple’s mobile devices, the members are seeking to better understand what, if any, information these particular apps gather, what they do with it, and what notice they provide to app users. The members want the information to begin building a fact-based understanding of the privacy and security practices in the app marketplace. The apps were selected for the inquiry based on their inclusion in the “Social Networking” subcategory within the “iPhone Essentials” area of Apple’s App Store.
benton.org/node/117915 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee
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MEDIA AND ELECTIONS
BROADCASTERS, PUT RECORDS ONLINE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Meredith McGehee]
[Commentary] Television broadcasters are going to the mat for paper cuts and metal file cabinets. At a time of huge profits from political ad sales, many broadcasters are fighting tooth and nail to continue to make it difficult for people to access their public political files. Under laws that have been on the books for decades, television broadcasters are required to keep information about all requests for political advertising time in a file open to public inspection. The political file is supposed to include a note showing what happened to the requests — when spots aired, rates charged and classes of time purchased. All records are to be filed as soon as possible and kept for two years. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the publicly owned airwaves, recently proposed that broadcasters give up their paper files and simply upload the data to a common FCC database. Broadcasters are pulling out all the stops to protect a process designed for the previous century. One went so far as to say the move from paper to digital would “lead to a Soviet-style standardization of the way advertising should be sold as determined by the government.”
Broadcasters claim the proposed change is burdensome. But the claim doesn’t pass the laugh test — stations already use computers for virtually every task, yet they wish to keep the public political file exclusively on paper. Let’s be clear. The FCC is not proposing any change whatsoever in what information broadcasters are required to keep, only that they put the same information online instead of on paper. That broadcasters are clinging to Luddite ways to lessen transparency is outrageous — especially at a time when they are seeing a huge windfall from selling political ads on the publicly owned airwaves. The FCC should move quickly to adopt this change. [McGehee is policy director of the Campaign Legal Center]
benton.org/node/117918 | Hill, The
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TELEVISION/RADIO
DIGITAL DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Thomas Umstead]
Multicultural viewers are more likely to consider cutting the cable cord and getting their TV fix through alternative distribution platforms, according to a new multicultural digital-media report from Horowitz Associates. The move is being led by Hispanics, who are 18% likely or very likely to cancel TV service altogether and not replace it in the near future, compared to 13% of white urban multichannel households, according to the multicultural edition of Horowitz’s State of Cable and Digital Media report. Asians were 13% likely to drop subscription-cable service, while African- Americans were 12% likely to do so. In addition, 76% of all urban multicultural homes have access to an over-the-top platform, with Asians reporting a whopping 85% penetration rate. Asians lead all multicultural groups with handheld Internet/video capability (52%) and with home broadband service (64%).
benton.org/node/117913 | Multichannel News
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TELECOM
AT&T AND TRS
[SOURCE: Department of Justice, AUTHOR: Press release]
The United States has filed a complaint against AT&T under the False Claims Act for conduct related to its provision of Internet Protocol (IP) Relay services. AT&T is a global conglomerate that provides a wide variety of telecommunications services, including Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The United States alleges that AT&T violated the False Claims Act by facilitating and seeking federal payment for IP Relay calls by international callers who were ineligible for the service and sought to use it for fraudulent purposes. The complaint alleges that, out of fears that fraudulent call volume would drop after the registration deadline, AT&T knowingly adopted a non-compliant registration system that did not verify whether the user was located within the United States. The complaint further contends that AT&T continued to employ this system even with the knowledge that it facilitated use of IP Relay by fraudulent foreign callers, which accounted for up to 95 percent of AT&T’s call volume. The government’s complaint alleges that AT&T improperly billed the TRS Fund for reimbursement of these calls and received millions of dollars in federal payments as a result.
benton.org/node/117905 | Department of Justice | B&C | National Journal | WSJ | Bloomberg | AP | The Hill | ars technica
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STORIES FROM ABROAD
CARLOS SLIM NEEDS MORE COMPETITION
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Emilio Azcarraga]
[Commentary] Last month brought mixed news for Carlos Slim, the world's richest man. Mexico's Federal Competition Commission disapproved an investment by Televisa, the country's largest television broadcaster, in Iusacell, a cellular phone company. That was good news for Slim because it hampered a rival to his telecommunications empire. The bad news: The nation's Federal Communications Commission failed to reach an agreement to clear the way for a third and fourth broadcast television network. Slim badly wants to get into the television business. Both decisions lock in the status quo, are bad for consumers, bad for Mexico, and bad for Televisa, the company I chair, manage and in which I am the largest shareholder. Mexico's antitrust agency, Cofeco, blocked our transaction with Iusacell on concerns that two broadcasters joining in a common venture in the telecommunications industry could collude in the mass media market. This has never happened and is not Televisa's intention. We are prepared to establish firewalls in order to address the agency's concerns. The antitrust agency should understand that not only is it good business for us to enter the telecommunications market, it is also good news for Mexico. That's because Mexico's telecommunications market sorely lacks competition. Companies owned by Carlos Slim control 70% of Mexico's mobile phone market, 74% of fixed broadband service, and 80% of the country's landline market. Mexico is changing for the better. Televisa is too. So should someone with the vision, the talent and the clout of Carlos Slim.
benton.org/node/117943 | Wall Street Journal
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