June 1, 2012 (Cyberattacks Against Iran)

On May 23, Headlines included a Wall Street Journal article (see Sirius Airs Static in Liberty Clash http://benton.org/node/124007) which indicated that Sirius XM Radio Chief Executive Mel Karmazin said he resisted John Malone's Liberty Media taking control of the satellite-radio operator partly because he didn't want to report to a majority shareholder. The WSJ has now corrected the article. Karmazin said he didn't want to report to a majority shareholder. He didn't say that was a reason he resisted Liberty Media's effort to take control of Sirius. We regret our role is sharing the misstatement.

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012

Today’s events http://benton.org/calendar/2012-06-01/

CYBERWARFARE
   Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   House Subcommittee Discusses the Dangers of International Regulation of the Internet
   Connect2Compete Adoption Pilot Program - press release
   Carlos Slim Donates $3 Million to Connect2Compete [links to web]
   Approximating the Distribution of Broadband Usage from Publicly-Available Data - research
   Cable still beating telcos at the broadband game
   Google spends more than $9 million on top-level domains
   Amazon to Build New Jersey Warehouses and Collect State Tax [links to web]

SEE YA IN COURT
   Judge Weighs 'Slippery' Legality of Barry Diller's Aereo in Day 2 of Key Hearing
    See also: Public Knowledge Launches Pro-Hopper Campaign [links to web]
   Google wins crucial API ruling, Oracle's case decimated
   Google Points Finger at Microsoft, Nokia
   Judge gives OK to authors, photographers to sue Google over book scanning
   US Argues to Preserve GPS Tracking
   ACLU backs Twitter's bid to hide user information
   Apple-Samsung Copy Case Hinges On Cheech, Chong Test [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   US Argues to Preserve GPS Tracking
   ACLU backs Twitter's bid to hide user information
   Lawmakers consider extension of overseas surveillance powers [links to web]
   Riverside Program Helps Close City’s Digital Divide [links to web]

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
   Ambassador Verveer: State Still Working on Broadcast Border Issues
   T-Mobile pits its math against Verizon’s; The loser? Common sense - analysis
   AT&T: Telecom consolidation 'logical,' inevitable
   Regional carriers call AT&T's bluff on spectrum interference
   Martin Cooper, Father of the Cellphone, on Spectrum Sharing [links to web]
   iPhone Users Biggest Data Consumers [links to web]

CONTENT
   Hopes for Hollywood cloud darken
   Google to Require Retailers to Pay
   On Facebook, ‘Likes’ Become Ads
   The Blogosphere Worried about Government Propaganda - research [links to web]
   How Hulu’s Battleground changed the web TV ballgame [links to web]
   Twitter Use 2012 - research
   Letters to the DOJ: Public speaks out on e-book pricing case [links to web]
   Rise In TV Shows Viewed Online, On Mobile [links to web]

OWNERSHIP
   Liberty Tells Regulators It Wants Control Of Sirius [links to web]
   Liberty to Convert Shares to Gain Control of Sirius [links to web]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   To GOP, blatant bias in vetting
   GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz
   Presidential Campaign Public's Top Story - research [links to web]
   Election 2012 coverage: another gender gap

JOURNALISM
   It’s 2012 already: why is opinion writing still mostly male?
   Election 2012 coverage: another gender gap
   Presidential Campaign Public's Top Story - research [links to web]
   Chicago Sun-Times shuffles newsroom, stresses digital moves [links to web]

EDUCATION
   Higher Education's Online Revolution - op-ed [links to web]

HEALTH
   Health Information Technology Committees seek Nominees [links to web]
   Mobile tech, money help patients help themselves: study [links to web]

TELECOM
   Rural Telco Associations Take Action on Universal Service Caps
   AT&T Mulls Upgrading Rural Lines Instead Of Selling Them
   AT&T, IBEW Reach Tentative Agreement on One-year Contract Extension in Core Wireline Negotiations [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   Rep. Lamar Smith, SOPA sponsor, sees critics retreat in bid to unseat him
   Aides in Silicon Valley for Trip Promoting Innovation; Lobbyists There Too
   In an Age of Digital Identity, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz Calls for Privacy by Design [links to web]
   FTC chairman praises lawyer on Google case [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   British Minister Concedes Sympathy to Murdoch TV Bid
   Good innings ensures survival till stumps - analysis
   Report claims harsh conditions persist at Apple’s China factories
   Google and the Great Firewall: An Interesting New Twist
   China offers to avoid trade spat as EU mulls new tactic
   Reeling ACTA treaty rejected by three European Parliament committees

MORE ONLINE
   Tech executives expect growth to begin slowing in 2012 [links to web]

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CYBERWARFARE

OBAMA ORDER FOR CYBERATTACKS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Sanger]
From his first months in office, President Barack Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program. President Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush Administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet. At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. Told it was unclear how much the Iranians knew about the code, and offered evidence that it was still causing havoc, President Obama decided that the cyberattacks should proceed. In the following weeks, the Natanz plant was hit by a newer version of the computer worm, and then another after that. The last of that series of attacks, a few weeks after Stuxnet was detected around the world, temporarily took out nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran had spinning at the time to purify uranium.
benton.org/node/124740 | New York Times
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

HEARING RECAP
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing to examine International Proposals to Regulate the Internet. The hearing was one of the most bipartisan in memory, with everybody in agreement that government oversight of the Internet is a bad idea. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking member of the full House Commerce Committee, said there is "no daylight" between House Democrats, House Republicans and the Obama Administration on the issue. Republican and Democrat alike said a top-down, government-controlled approach, rather than the current multistakeholder model, would be a threat to the Internet economy and political speech and a mechanism for those regimes to restrict content they believed was a threat to their political control or cultural norms.
“The Internet is the single largest engine of global change since the printing press. Non-governmental institutions now manage the Internet’s core functions with input from private- and public-sector participants. Weakening the multi-stakeholder model weakens the Internet, harming its ability to spread prosperity and freedom,” said Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR). “As the U.S. delegation to the WCIT takes shape, I urge the administration to continue the United States’ commitment to the Internet’s collaborative governance structure and to reject international efforts to bring the Internet under government control."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philip Verveer warned that proposals to give the United Nations more control over the Internet could lead to international censorship. He testified that the measures would "slow the pace of innovation, hamper global economic development and potentially lead to an era of unprecedented control over what people can say and do online."
“If there’s one thing that we should not do,” said Vint Cerf, “it is to centralize decision-making power. The greatest strength of the current system of Internet governance is its meritocratic democracy. Anyone who cares can voice ideas and opinions, but the ultimate decisions are governed by broad consensus. It might not always be the most convenient of systems, but it’s the fairest, safest, and historically most effective way to ensure that good ideas win out and bad ideas die.”
Robert McDowell, a Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, said if the ITU does try to regulate the Internet, the United States could opt out of many provisions, but that the changes could create a "balkanized" and "bifurcated" Internet instead of the global one that exists today. Commissioner McDowell also testified that foreign government officials have talked to him about plans to create an international fund allowing state-owned telecom companies to charge for access to certain websites on a per-click basis to fund the build out of Internet networks. He identified Google, iTunes, Facebook and Netflix as possible targets for the extra fees.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) accused the Obama Administration of hypocrisy for opposing the UN effort on Internet control but supporting network neutrality regulations that bar Internet providers from slowing down or speeding up access to websites in order to preserve competition and protect consumer choice. Rep Blackburn also questioned why the FCC hasn't officially closed its inquiry into whether the Internet should be reclassified as a "Title II" utility, which would give the agency more authority over it.
benton.org/node/124697 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee | | ars technica | The Hill | FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell | B&C | GigaOm
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CONNECT2COMPETE
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Julius Genachowski was joined by Connect2Compete (C2C) members, including Cox Communications, Redemtech-GoodPC, The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and Carlos Slim at Horace Mann Middle School in San Diego (CA) to announce progress on a national effort to close the broadband adoption gap. C2C is piloting their program with 39,000 eligible students in San Diego, and includes $9.95 monthly broadband service and discounted computer offerings for eligible school lunch children and their families.
benton.org/node/124656 | Federal Communications Commission | Chairman Genachowski | en español
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BROADBAND USAGE
[SOURCE: Phoenix Center, AUTHOR: George Ford]
If a broadband service provider imposes a monthly usage cap of 250 gigabytes (“GB”), how many of its customers would hit the limit? What if it were 200GB? 100GB? 50GB? Oddly, while we can look up on a broadband map what type of broadband is available at every address in the United States, we have no off-the-shelf answers to many basic questions about Internet usage levels. In this paper, Ford attempts to provide some rough guidance on how Internet usage varies across users, and do so using publicly-available information. His calculations are based on only two data points that, when combined with the pattern Internet usage is known to follow (that is, the statistical distribution of usage), permit the full pattern of usage levels across connections to be approximated. A check on the accuracy of this approximation is conducted using other publicly-available data. Finally, an example of how to use this information, drawing from claims made by Comcast about usage levels and caps, is provided.
benton.org/node/124633 | Phoenix Center
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CABLE WINNING IN BROADBAND
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
Cable continues to crush telcos when it comes to stealing broadband customers, according to new data from the Leichtman Research Group. The analyst firm noted that during the first quarter of the year cable and telcos representing 93 percent of the U.S. market added 1.3 million new subscribers, bringing their total nearly 80 million subscriptions. A year ago the top providers had 76.6 million subscribers. As has been the case since 2006, cable companies have the most subscribers, with 45.3 million broadband subs now, while the top telcos have 34.6 million subscribers. This dynamic isn’t likely to shift anytime soon given the improvements that cable providers have made in terms of delivering faster speeds to customers as they upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 networks. Meanwhile, telcos are stuck offering DSL or fiber-to-the-node products that top out at speeds that are far below cable’s. The primary exception to this is Verizon’s FiOS fiber-to-the-home product — on Wednesday Verizon said it would offer a 300 Mbps tier. The top cable companies added about 980,000 subscribers, representing 75 percent of the net broadband additions for the quarter, versus roughly 320,000 from the top telephone companies.
benton.org/node/124650 | GigaOm
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GOOGLE SPENDS ON DOMAIN NAMES
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Salvador Rodriguez]
Google has applied for more than 50 top-level domains that include obvious choices like .google and .youtube while also including other, more interesting choices such as a .lol domain. Google applied for TLDs in four general categories that include its trademarks, words related to its business, like .doc, domains that will improve user experience, and others that it thinks have interesting and creative potential, which is where the .lol came in. With Google applying for more than 50 TLDs, according to Ad Age, and each application costing $185,000, that means the company spent more than $9 million on domains.
benton.org/node/124691 | Los Angeles Times | AdAge
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SEE YA IN COURT

AERO CASE
[SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Eriq Gardner]
At the close of a two-day hearing to determine whether TV broadcasters will prevail on a motion for a preliminary injunction against Barry Diller's Aereo, a judge made no explicit indication of which way she is leaning. That said, one thing is clear from two days of testimony and arguments: If the Internet broadcaster survives, the revolution in how content is televised will be traced back to Aug. 4, 2008. As the parties made closing arguments for and against an injunction, the potential impact of this case became apparent: It's huge. And to borrow the word used by New York Federal Court Judge Alison Nathan, what was being presented before her was "slippery." To understand why, consider that in 1984, in the famous Sony Betamax case at the U.S. Supreme Court, the VCR got legal blessing. Nearly a quarter-century later -- Aug. 4, 2008, to be exact -- remote-storage DVRs received a similar stamp of approval from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in the so-called Cablevision decision. In that case, the appellate division ruled that "because each RS-DVR playback transmission is made to a single subscriber using a single unique copy produced by that subscriber, we conclude that such transmissions are not performances 'to the public,' and therefore do not infringe any exclusive right of public performance."
Now consider for a second what happens if someone builds a system where a DVR-type device captures an over-the-air TV signal and transmits it to a single subscriber over the Internet. What if the subscriber is able to "play back" the "copy" of the recording "contemporaneous" with the original live transmission?
benton.org/node/124724 | Hollywood Reporter
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JUDGE RULES FOR GOOGLE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Joe Mullin]
Federal Judge William Alsup, who recently finished presiding over the six-week Oracle v. Google trial, ruled that the structure of the Java APIs that Oracle was trying to assert can't be copyrighted at all. It's only the code itself—not the "how-to" instructions represented by APIs—that can be the subject of a copyright claim, ruled Judge Alsup. "So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API," wrote the judge. The ruling is the cornerstone of what now looks like a complete win for Google in its legal struggle with Oracle, which began more than two years ago. The order follows an inconclusive copyright trial and a patent trial that Oracle also lost.
benton.org/node/124695 | Ars Technica | The Verge | GigaOm
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GOOGLE, MICROSOFT AND NOKIA
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: John Letzing]
Google filed an antitrust complaint in Europe arguing that Microsoft and Nokia are using proxy companies to brandish patents and hurt the prospects of Google's Android mobile-phone software to the advantage of Microsoft's technology. Google also plans to share its complaint about patent "trolls" with U.S. competition regulators. Google alleges that Microsoft and Nokia have entered into agreements that enable entities such as Canada-based Mosaid Technologies Inc. to legally enforce their patent rights and share the resulting revenue. Google, which hasn't been sued by Mosaid or related firms, described its filing with European regulators as a pre-emptive measure against a developing legal hazard for Android partners. The threat is that if phone makers perceive a significant legal risk in using Android, they may opt instead for Microsoft's Windows Phone software.
benton.org/node/124693 | Wall Street Journal
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GOOGLE LOSES ROUND WITH AUTHORS
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Jeff John Roberts]
In a major development in the long-running case over Google’s unauthorized book-scanning, a federal judge ruled that groups representing authors and photographers could go forward with a class action. The ruling is a setback for Google which asked Judge Denny Chin earlier this month to remove The Authors Guild and a photographers’ group from the lawsuit. Google had also argued that a class action was not appropriate because many authors were in favor of having their works appear in the company’s search results. Chin’s ruling means the stage is now set for a trial on whether Google’s decision to scan millions of books amounted to fair use under copyright law. This fair use question has triggered passionate debate among lawyers and scholars, and reflects Google’s position at the time it was sued by the Authors’ Guild and a consortium of publishers in 2005.
benton.org/node/124692 | paidContent.org | ars technica
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

GPS TRACKING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Julia Angwin, Jess Bravin]
The US government told a federal appeals court that it still has the right to place Global Positioning System tracking devices on cars without obtaining a search warrant -- despite a January Supreme Court ruling that the warrantless installation of such a device violated the Constitution. In arguments aimed at preserving warrantless GPS tracking evidence in a case before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department relied on the fact that the high court didn't specifically state that a search warrant would be required in other situations. The government maintains "that a warrant is not needed for a GPS search, as the Court…did not resolve that question," a Justice Department spokeswoman said. Nevertheless, she said, the department has "advised agents and prosecutors going forward to take the most prudent steps and obtain a warrant for new or ongoing investigations" in most cases. The government's awkward position -- saying search warrants are not needed but advising agents to seek warrants anyway -- highlights the unanswered questions about digital tracking techniques that remain in the wake of the court's privacy decision in U.S. v. Jones in January.
benton.org/node/124735 | Wall Street Journal
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ACLU BACKS TWITTER
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a brief in a New York state court supporting Twitter's effort to avoid handing over the personal information of one of its users to the police. Aden Fine, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU said in a statement that the case "is important because law enforcement around the country is becoming increasingly aggressive in its attempts to obtain information about what people are doing and saying on the Internet." "People rely on the Internet to express themselves and to live their lives, and the government shouldn’t be able to get this constitutionally protected information without a warrant and without complying with the First Amendment," Fine said. In its filing, the ACLU argued the subpoena infringes Harris's First Amendment right to free speech and that he has the legal standing to challenge it on his own.
benton.org/node/124689 | Hill, The
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

BROADCAST BORDER ISSUES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Ambassador Philip Verveer, the State Department's coordinator for international communications and information policy, suggested the State Department is still trying to resolve spectrum coordination issues with Canada and Mexico related to the planned reclamation of spectrum from broadcasters and repacking of the band to make room for wireless broadband, but he suggests no broadcasters will be hurt in the process. Ambassador Verveer said that treaty obligations with Canada and Mexico, combined with the incentive auction legislative mandate "that no one be disadvantaged if they continue to broadcast" creates an engineering challenge.
benton.org/node/124687 | Broadcasting&Cable
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T-MOBILE VS VERIZON
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
In its attempts to kill Verizon’s mega-spectrum deal with the cable operators, T-Mobile has opened up a new front in its lobbying war. The no. 4 U.S. operator is challenging Verizon’s claims that it is the most efficient user of mobile spectrum in the country. On May 31, T-Mobile trotted out an expert to not only refute Verizon’s claims but show that Big Red is actually the most inefficient steward of the nation’s cellular airwaves. Speaking at a T-Mobile media briefing, Illinois Institute of Technology Vice Provost and computer science research professor Dennis Roberson presented a study that accused Verizon of using flawed math when it made its efficiency calculations. He stated that once that math is corrected – surprise, surprise – T-Mobile comes out on top.
benton.org/node/124681 | GigaOm
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TELECOM CONSOLIDATION
[SOURCE: ZDNet, AUTHOR: Larry Dignan]
Speaking at a Nomura investment conference, AT&T CFO John Stephens said the wireless industry is likely to shrink down to two or three players, roughly half the roster across the U.S. today. “I think it is just logical that the industry is going to consolidate in some form or fashion. I think the marketplace has spoken to that with what it has done to pricing in the valuations on some of the companies. From an economic perspective and a highly CapEx-intensive business, I think it is logical to assume you’re going to have two or three and certainly not six and seven competitors in any marketplace. So I think consolidation is logical,” he said. “Will the government allow it to happen? They have certainly spoken to us on that as a participant in that from acquiring spectrum and more customers. They spoke to us last year. Whether they will let it go at other levels or at a lower level or smaller deals, we will leave that to the FCC.” The argument from Stephens rhymes with what is usually heard from the airline industry. The theory: There can only be a few players given the high costs. In the wireless industry, spectrum is limited and it’s not cheap to build out a network.
benton.org/node/124638 | ZDNet
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AT&T AND SPECTRUM INTERFERENCE
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]
A group of regional wireless carriers is calling AT&T's bluff when it comes to claimed interference issues in the lower spectrum bands of the 700 MHz frequency. Cavalier Wireless, C Spire Wireless, Continuum 700, King Street Wireless, MetroPCS Communications, U.S. Cellular, and Vulcan Wireless filed a report to the Federal Communications Commission detailing results from a test conducted that shows there are no interference issues between devices operating in other parts of the 700 MHz spectrum frequency bands and the broadcast TV channel 51, which is right next to the lower A block portion of the 700 MHz frequency band. AT&T has created a separate band class for its 4G LTE devices that would not be interoperable with services deployed in other parts of the 700 MHz spectrum frequency band that was bought by these smaller carriers in the FCC's 2008 auction. AT&T has said it created a new band class due to potential interference issues with adjacent broadcast TV spectrum. But the regional wireless carriers claim that this study shows no such interference exists.
benton.org/node/124652 | C-Net|News.com
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CONTENT

HOLLYWOOD CLOUD
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Matthew Garrahan]
Hollywood studios banking on a cloud-based locker system to revive home entertainment sales face an uphill battle after a new report showed a slowdown in purchases of film content from Apple’s iTunes store. While revenues from subscription rental services such as Netflix are increasing, sales of feature films on iTunes – the largest US online movie retailer by sales – have slowed, according to the report from IHS Screen Digest, a media research firm. Online film revenues in the US more than doubled in 2011 to reach $992 million and are on course to double again in 2012 to $1.9 billion, said Dan Cryan, the author of the report. But subscription rental services such as Netflix drove this growth, with total digital rental revenues rising 355 percent to $727 million. Revenues from online film purchases increased by less than $6 million, or 2.4 percent, to $236 million in 2011. With consumers turning away from buying films online in favor of renting them digitally, the outlook is bleak for UltraViolet, a new industry-wide, cloud-based locker system that Hollywood hopes will stimulate purchases of film content. “When consumers go digital, they go to rental,” said Cryan. “There’s just no interest in owning anything.”
benton.org/node/124731 | Financial Times
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PAY TO PLAY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amir Efrati]
Google, in a move to squeeze more cash out of its lucrative Web-search engine, is converting its free product-search service into a paid one. Online retailers will now have to bid to display their products on Google's Shopping site. Currently, retailers include their products for free by providing Google with certain data about the products. Google then ranks those products, such as cameras, by popularity and price. "Google Shopping will empower businesses of all sizes to compete effectively—and it will help shoppers turn their intentions into actions lightning fast," said Sameer Samat, a Google vice president. Eric Best, chief executive of Mercent Corp., which helps retailers sell and market products through Google, said Google's move "represents a fundamental shift in how Google participates in the e-commerce market."
benton.org/node/124732 | Wall Street Journal
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FACEBOOK ADS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
Sponsored stories are a potentially lucrative tool that turns a Facebook user’s affinity for something into an ad delivered to his friends. With heightened pressure to step up profits and live up to the promise of its gigantic public offering, Facebook is increasingly banking on this approach to generate more ad revenue. The company said it does not break down how much revenue comes from such ads. Its early stock market performance — down 22 percent from its offering price — is likely to increase the urgency. But this new twist on advertising has already proved to be tricky. Users do not always realize that the links and “likes” they post on Facebook can be deployed for marketing purposes. And Facebook has already agreed in principle to settle out of court a class-action lawsuit over the practice in California. Not least, its algorithms lack a sense of humor, which can lead to surprises.
benton.org/node/124738 | New York Times
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TWITTER USE 2012
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Aaron Smith, Joanna Brenner]
Some 15% of online adults1 use Twitter as of February 2012, and 8% do so on a typical day. Although overall Twitter usage has nearly doubled since the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project first asked a stand-alone Twitter question in November 2010, the 15% of online adults who use Twitter as of early 2012 is similar to the 13% of such adults who did so in May 2011. At the same time, the proportion of online adults who use Twitter on a typical day has doubled since May 2011 and has quadrupled since late 2010—at that point just 2% of online adults used Twitter on a typical day. The rise of smartphones might account for some of the uptick in usage because smartphone users are particularly likely to be using Twitter. Several demographic groups stand out as having high rates of Twitter usage relative to their peers:
African-Americans — Black internet users continue to use Twitter at high rates. More than one quarter of online African-Americans (28%) use Twitter, with 13% doing so on a typical day.
Young adults — One quarter (26%) of internet users ages 18-29 use Twitter, nearly double the rate for those ages 30-49. Among the youngest internet users (those ages 18-24), fully 31% are Twitter users.
Urban and suburban residents — Residents of urban and suburban areas are significantly more likely to use Twitter than their rural counterparts.
benton.org/node/124632 | Pew Internet & American Life Project
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

GOP AND MEDIA BIAS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jim Vandehei, Mike Allen]
Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign. To them, reporters are scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of Mitt Romney to the general election audience – and once again downplaying ones that could hurt President Barack Obama. Republicans cry “bias” so often it feels like a campaign theme. It is, largely because it fires up conservatives and diminishes the punch of legitimate investigative or narrative journalism. But it also is because it often rings true, even to people who don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. And the imbalance can do slow, low-grade but unmistakable damage to Romney: Swing voters are just getting to know him. And coverage suggesting he is mean or extravagant can soak in, even though voters who took the time to weigh the details might dismiss the storyline.
benton.org/node/124642 | Politico
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GOP AD BLITZ
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei]
Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations. That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections - twice what they had been expected to commit. Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.
benton.org/node/124641 | Politico
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ELECTION COVERAGE GENDER GAP
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Erika Fry]
Looking at US election coverage, The Fourth Estate, a new project that monitors 2012 election coverage for various influences, found that women accounted for 13 percent of sources quoted. On TV, they made up 16 percent. Indeed, particularly given this political season’s various “wars on women”. In debates particularly relevant to women—on abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood, and women’s rights—the numbers, while slightly better, are still stunningly low.
benton.org/node/124674 | Columbia Journalism Review
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JOURNALISM

OPINION WRITING MOSTLY MEN
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Erika Fry]
Women wrote 20 percent of op-eds in the nation’s leading newspapers—The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal—between September 15 and December 7, 2011, according to a byline survey conducted by Taryn Yaeger of The OpEd Project, an organization that aims to diversify public debate. And women were practically absent in the debate of many hard news subjects, with their opinions accounting for 11 percent of commentaries on the economy, 13 percent on international politics, 14 percent on social action and 16 percent on security. Perhaps just as striking, women produced just over half—53 percent—of commentaries on “women’s issues.”
benton.org/node/124672 | Columbia Journalism Review
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TELECOM

RURAL TELCOS AND USF CAPS
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
Four rural telco associations filed an application for review and petition for stay of new caps on Universal Service support. The caps, adopted several weeks ago by the FCC’s wireline competition bureau, have come under fire because of their use of quantile regression analysis to impose limits on the funding that small rate-of-return carriers receive to help cover the cost of their local loop infrastructure in areas that are expensive to serve. The quantile regression formulas are “arbitrary, unpredictable, utilize faulty data and ultimately fail to accomplish what they were intended to do: encourage carrier efficiency and increase broadband deployment,” said Stuart Polikoff, vice president of regulatory policy and business development for the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies, in a press release. OPASTCO is one of the associations that filed the application and petition, along with the National Exchange Carrier Association, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the Western Telecommunications Alliance.
benton.org/node/124630 | telecompetitor
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AT&T’S RURAL LINES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Scott Moritz]
AT&T, the largest US telephone company, is considering a plan to upgrade its rural phone lines to handle higher-speed Internet service, potentially putting off an effort to sell off the underperforming assets. AT&T would rely on new copper-line technology to offer faster broadband in areas without access to AT&T’s U-verse fiber-optic network, Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson told investors last week on a conference call hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. The idea is to provide an enhanced version of digital subscriber line, or DSL, technology on existing lines. The move would mark a shift for AT&T, which had identified its rural lines and its Yellow Pages directory service as “underperforming assets” that were dragging down the growth of the company. AT&T sold a majority stake of the Yellow Pages business to Cerberus Capital Management LP for $950 million last month. Rural lines had been next on the block.
benton.org/node/124685 | Bloomberg
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POLICYMAKERS

SMITH WINS PRIMARY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
Political action committees and Internet activist groups that sought to unseat Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) over his sponsorship of the Stop Online Piracy Act are going back to the drawing board after failing to muster enough support from voters. Representatives for anti-Smith PACs such as the Americans for Internet Freedom and Test PAC are regrouping and deciding where they want to focus their energy and fundraising dollars next, now that Smith has secured his party’s nomination for another House term. “We set our goals really, really lofty this time and unfortunately, we were flying a little too close to the sun,” said Andy Posterick, treasurer for Test PAC, which was borne out of the anti-SOPA movement on the social news website Reddit. Supporters of stronger online copyright legislation weren’t surprised that the anti-SOPA efforts fell flat at the voting booth. Many never believed that SOPA would be much of an election year issue. And the Texas GOP primary proved that. Not only is Smith an incumbent in a predominately Republican district, opponents say the size of the Judiciary chairman’s campaign war chest — roughly $1.3 million — easily trumped the money the newly formed PACs raised. That included contributions from PACs for Comcast, the Recording Industry Association of America and Go Daddy, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
benton.org/node/124727 | Politico
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TRIP TO SILICON VALLEY
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Maggie Fox]
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation has whisked a number of Hill and administration staffers out to Silicon Valley for a three-day tour promoting innovation. There are also a number of lobbyists on the trip, including some from Microsoft, AT&T and Facebook. ITIF's Steve Norton emphasized that the trip complies with ethics rules governing staffer and lobbyist travel. The lobbyists, for example, did not travel with the Hill aides to Silicon Valley and had to pay their own way, while ITIF covers the trip for the staffers. The visit includes stops at Yelp, Intel, Google and Facebook and a dinner with IT CEOs.
benton.org/node/124682 | National Journal
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

HUNT TESTIMONY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Burns, Ravi Somaiya]
With his career in the balance, Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt said at a judicial inquiry into the British media that he had been personally sympathetic to a bid by Rupert Murdoch to take over Britain’s most lucrative pay-television network, but that he did not act with improper bias. Hunt, 45, was responsible for overseeing the regulatory processes for the $12 billion bid for the 61 percent of the British Sky Broadcasting network, or BSkyB, that Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation did not already own, and held the ultimate authority to approve it. Last July, Murdoch withdrew the bid amid widespread outrage over the phone hacking scandal, which has enveloped two newspapers in Murdoch’s British stable and shaken his global media empire. At the inquiry, headed by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, Hunt faced intense questioning over e-mails, phone calls, text messages and other communications with Murdoch, his son James and News Corporation executives that suggested he was sympathetic to the bid. Confronted with the cascade of supportive communications that flowed between his office and a Murdoch lobbyist — and in one case, with James Murdoch himself — Hunt admitted that he had strongly favored the takeover but insisted that he had set aside his own bias when taking on the “quasi-judicial” decision.
benton.org/node/124721 | New York Times | Wall Street Journal | Financial Times
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LEVESON INQUIRY
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Megan Murphy]
[Commentary] If you were a betting man, you would not have wagered a large amount on Jeremy Hunt surviving as culture secretary during the opening hours of the Leveson inquiry. From the start, the embattled minister looked and sounded like a man who knew he would not be able to explain what was about to become public. When a series of his text messages from December 21, 2010 – the day he was handed responsibility for News Corp’s bid for full control of BSkyB – flashed up on the screen, it became clear why. The real damage came from the release of text messages showing Hunt offering “congratulations” to Murdoch when the BSkyB deal cleared a key European regulatory hurdle on the day he was given a quasi-judicial role overseeing the News Corp bid. Ninety minutes later, when news of the government’s U-turn on the charity tax began to circulate in Court 73, the overriding sentiment was that the culture secretary would not last the day. But, in Leveson as in cricket, a lunch break can make all the difference. Hunt returned to the inquiry more forceful, more animated in the afternoon.
benton.org/node/124720 | Financial Times
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FOXCONN WORKER CONDITIONS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Andrew Feinberg]
A labor advocacy group claims Apple has done little to alleviate harsh working conditions at its manufacturing facilities in China. Apple contracts Foxconn Technology Group to run the massive plants, which employs more than 1 million workers who produce the company’s iPhones, iPods and other gadgets. Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), an independent nonprofit labor advocacy organization, released a report that claims to document continuing worker abuses at the plants despite commitments from Apple and Foxconn executives to address them. SACOM said it interviewed 170 workers at several different research sites for the investigation and found that workers were warned during their employee orientation not to speak to journalists or researchers without permission from management. The workers were also ordered to join a company-controlled union, according to SACOM.
benton.org/node/124688 | Hill, The
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GOOGLE AND THE FIREWALL
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: James Fallows]
In a post that went up a few minutes ago on its official "Inside Search" blog, Google offers some fascinating tips on "improving our user experience" for people inside mainland China. As a background reminder: after its showdown with the Chinese government two years ago, Google moved its Chinese search servers outside the mainland, to Hong Kong. People in Beijing, Shanghai, and elsewhere on the mainland can still use Google, but their queries must pass through "Great Firewall" filters on their way out to Hong Kong and then back in again. One valuable part of this new post is a video that vividly conveys how it feels to run searches from inside the Great Firewall.
benton.org/node/124679 | Atlantic, The
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CHINA AND THE EU
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Robin Emmott, Sebastian Moffett]
China sought to defuse a deepening trade conflict over accusations that it subsidizes hi-tech firms exporting to Europe, as European Union trade ministers met to discuss a new tactic against Chinese companies seen as trading unfairly. Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, on a visit to Brussels, said Beijing would seek to "exercise restraint in trade remedy measures", saying he wanted to see more European hi-tech exports to China. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, who diplomats say is considering action against China's top telecoms gear makers Huawei and ZTE Corp, said he wanted to agree "conciliatory practices" but added that China and Europe still needed to address their differences.
benton.org/node/124668 | Reuters
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ACTA FAILING IN EUROPE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Timothy Lee]
Momentum against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continued to build on as three different committees of the European Parliament voted not to recommend adoption of the treaty. A final vote by the full European Parliament is scheduled for July. The EU-wide votes followed on the heels of a vote in the Dutch parliament. The Dutch government had placed the controversial copyright treaty on the back burner while it waited for the results of Europe-wide debate over the treaty. But the vote in the Dutch parliament will place pressure on the government to actively oppose the treaty. The ACTA treaty is nominally an anti-counterfeiting treaty, but its provisions would have broader implications for copyright policy. While the treaty is not as bad as its strongest critics claim, it would be a vehicle for ratcheting up already excessive copyright protections by one more notch.
benton.org/node/124653 | Ars Technica
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