June 22, 2009 (Kittens to the Rescue)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY JUNE 22, 2009
Bleary-eyed, Headlines is back. Here's the latest, you can find more updates later today pasting http://www.benton.org/index.php?q=taxonomy/term/6/all/feed into your RSS Aggregator/reader.
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATION
As Blogs Are Censored, It's Kittens to the Rescue
Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology
US lodges China censorship complaint
POLICYMAKERS
Attempt To Hotline Genachowski, McDowell Nominations Falls Short
Facebook hires a former foe as Washington lobbyist
WIRELESS
FCC's Genachowski to look at mobile handset deals
Investors Bet on Payments via Cellphone
Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind Your Manners
DIGITAL CONTENT
Obama in cyberspace
Eight percent admit to downloading video illegally
Record industry does not plan more lawsuits
QUICKLY -- Too Big to Mail?; Digital TV Switch Is a Boon for One DC-Area Station; Fox News Anchor Draws Ratings, and Ire of Conservative Critics
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATION
AS BLOGS ARE CENSORED, IT'S KITTENS TO THE RESCUE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Noam Cohen]
To censor the Internet painlessly, undetectably, is the dream that keeps repressive governments up late at their mainframe computers. After all, no users are so censored online as those who never see it. The Iranian government is carrying out an Internet crackdown in hopes of subduing the protest movement that has surged since the disputed results of the presidential election on June 12. At the same time, the Iranian government has been sending out the police to restrain protesters and foreign journalists. Thus far, however, the Iranian government has learned the difficulty of trying to control the Internet in half-steps. Because the government's censorship efforts are so evident — transparent, even — there is a battle raging online to keep Iran connected to the world digitally, and thus connected to the world. Sympathizers around the world are guiding Iranians to safe access to the Internet and are hosting and publicizing material that is being banned within Iran. If only Iran's leaders had thought through the implications of what can be called the Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship, as propounded by Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. His idea is deceptively simple: most people use the Internet to enjoy their lives, and among the ways people spread joy is to share pictures of cute cats. Even the sarcastic types (who, for example, have been known to insert misspelled messages under pictures of kittens) seem to be under their thrall. So when a government censors the Internet, it had better think twice: "Cute cats are collateral damage when governments block sites," Mr. Zuckerman wrote for a recent talk. People who could not "care less about presidential shenanigans are made aware that their government fears online speech so much that they're willing to censor the millions of banal videos" and thereby "block a few political ones."
http://benton.org/node/26026
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IRAN'S WEB SPYING AIDED BY WESTERN TECHNOLOGY
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Rhoads, Loretta Chao]
The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections. Instead, in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts. The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed. The "monitoring center," installed within the government's telecom monopoly, was part of a larger contract with Iran that included mobile-phone networking technology, Mr. Roome said.
http://benton.org/node/26025
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US LODGES CHINA CENSORSHIP COMPLAINT
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Richard Waters,Joseph Menn, Daniel Dombey, Kathrin Hille]
The US has complained officially to China over its strict new internet censorship rules as tension builds over an issue causing consternation among international technology companies and Chinese internet users. The development is a rare direct intervention by the US over internet freedom, which has steadily risen in importance as an issue between the two countries in recent years. US technology companies see it as a back-door way of keeping them out of the Chinese market. "We view with concern any attempt to restrict the free flow of information," said Ian Kelly, a State department spokesman. "Efforts to filter internet content are incompatible with China's aspirations to build a modern, information-based economy and society." The US embassy in Beijing said representatives had met officials at the ministry of industry and information technology and the ministry of commerce on Friday. Chinese Internet users are calling on fellow web surfers to stay offline on July 1, the debut of a controversial software filter that critics say the Chinese government is using to tighten censorship
http://benton.org/node/26024
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POLICYMAKERS
ATTEMPT TO HOTLINE GENACHOWSKI, MCDOWELL NOMINATIONS FALLS SHORT
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
On Friday, the US Senate confirmed a number of nominees for posts in the Obama Administration, but Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Commissioner Robert McDowell were not among them. Senate leaders tried to hotline their nominations, which means by unanimous consent without debate or even an actual vote. But just one Senator can keep that from happening, and at least one did. Sen Jim DeMint (R-SC) voted against Genachowski at his nomination hearing Tuesday in the Senate Commerce Committee, so he could well have been the hold-up on Genachowski Friday. Those nominations could still get approval the old-fashioned way--a floor vote--next week. The Senate doesn't go on its July 4 break until June 29.
http://benton.org/node/26028
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FACEBOOK HIRES A FORMER FOE AS A WASHINGTON LOBBYIST
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Timothy Sparapani, who previously was an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, will now be responsible for shaping Washington's view of social-networking site Facebook. As a prominent privacy advocate, Timothy Sparapani, former senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that Internet companies had too much control over consumers' data. The self-described "privacy zealot" didn't join Facebook until seven months ago because he was uneasy about revealing personal information on the site.
http://benton.org/node/26018
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WIRELESS
FCC'S GENACHOWSKI TO LOOK AT MOBILE HANDSET DEALS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: John Poirier]
According to a copy of the written responses to questions from Senate John Kerry (D-MA), Julius Genachowski, President Obama's pick to head the Federal Communications Commission, said he will focus on promoting competition and consumer choice and plans to review the exclusive arrangements between wireless carriers and cell phone makers. The issue of exclusive agreements among some of the biggest companies like Apple Inc's iPhone and service provider AT&T Inc is at the center of some lawmakers' concerns about whether such practices hinder competition and innovation. Genachowski's comments reflect similar comments made by Acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps who said Thursday that the commission should open a proceeding to closely examine the those arrangements. Chairman Copps said that he has asked officials to begin crafting such a proceeding to examine the effects on consumer choice and innovation.
http://benton.org/node/26027
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INVESTORS BET ON PAYMENTS VIA CELLPHONE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Cain Miller, Matt Richtel]
On a computer, having to fill out a form and type in a credit card number to buy something is only mildly annoying. On a cellphone, it could make you want to skip the purchase entirely. This is why investors, start-ups and major corporations are pouring money into services that make it easier to use cellphones to buy goods and transfer money. The aim is to turn phones into virtual credit cards or checkbooks, enabling the kind of click-and-buy commerce and online banking that people have come to expect on their PCs. But shrinking down those services to fit onto cellphones presents serious challenges. The services must work on many different phones and through many cellphone service providers, which usually control the billing relationships with customers. That adds complexity to the already tricky business of safely and securely transferring funds among financial institutions and merchants.
http://benton.org/node/26016
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MIND YOUR BLACKBERRY OR MIND YOUR MANNERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Alex Williams]
As Web-enabled smartphones have become standard on the belts and in the totes of executives, people in meetings are increasingly caving in to temptation to check e-mail and websites. But a spirited debate about etiquette has broken out. Traditionalists say the use of BlackBerrys and iPhones in meetings is as gauche as ordering out for pizza. Techno-evangelists insist that to ignore real-time text messages in a need-it-yesterday world is to invite peril.
http://benton.org/node/26017
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DIGITAL CONTENT
OBAMA IN CYBERSPACE
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: James Boyle]
[Commentary] So what does Obama's mixture of principle and pragmatism look like in the world of the new economy, and more specifically, the world of intellectual property policy? The picture is definitely mixed. On the one hand, he has brought brilliant people to important positions. It is nice to have a Nobel prize-winner (Steven Chu) as Secretary of Energy, and another (Harold Varmus) as the Co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It is hard to imagine the Obama team talking about science as if it were simply one inconvenient partisan position or ridiculing the "evidence based mindset" or, for that matter, evolution itself. The administration has good ideas about what to do with the slow motion train-wreck that is the US Patent and Trademark Office. It is not clear if those good ideas will be implemented, but one can hope. In the area of copyright law ... well, the signs are mixed.
http://benton.org/node/26023
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EIGHT PERCENT ADMIT TO DOWNLOADING VIDEO ILLEGALLY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Georgina Prodhan]
Eight percent of all consumers in Britain, France, Germany and the United States admit to downloading video illegally from the Internet, according to a survey, showing the scale of the ongoing fight against piracy. Two-thirds of those surveyed in Britain often or sometimes watched TV, movies and video on their PC or laptop computer, with U.S. consumers not far behind. Of those, 15 percent did so illegally, the Futuresource Consulting survey showed.
http://benton.org/node/26022
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RECORD INDUSTRY DOES NOT PLAN MORE LAWSUITS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Joseph Menn]
The US record industry has no plans to resume suing individuals who use online file-trading services to share digital music files, despite an unprecedented $1.9 million verdict returned by a civil jury last week.
http://benton.org/node/26021
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QUICKLY -- Too Big to Mail?; Digital TV Switch Is a Boon for One DC-Area Station; Fox News Anchor Draws Ratings, and Ire of Conservative Critics
TOO BIG TO MAIL?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The Post Office may be the next too-big thing. If it continues on its present course, the U.S. Postal Service stands to post $6 billion to $12 billion in losses by the end of the fiscal year. By the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2009, it had racked up an operating loss of more than $2 billion, almost equal to its total losses last year. So far, the Postal Service has depended on loans from the Federal Financing Bank, a federal borrowing agency, to help make up the difference, but it is fast approaching its $15 billion credit limit. Something has to give. The Postal Service has asked Congress to omit a rider on an annual appropriations bill that mandates six-day service, opening the possibility of five-day delivery as a cost-cutting measure. It has also requested a temporary relaxation of its obligation to its pension program, enabling it to put nearly $2 billion toward breaking even. Both these short-term fixes fail to address the challenges facing the Postal Service. Before computers, people depended on the mail to maintain relationships and conduct business. No longer. Overall mail volume has been in a nosedive for seven years.
http://benton.org/node/26019
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DIGITAL TV SWITCH IS A BOON FOR ONE DC-AREA STATION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
The switch to digital TV has caused static and headaches for thousands of viewers in the Washington region. But for one local station, the transition has been something of a revival. MHz Networks, based in Falls Church, has carved out a niche for international programming over the past 15 years, showing Russian newscasts, Nigerian documentaries and Italian mysteries, to name a few of its offerings. To build its digital antenna and boost the signal's power, MHz shut off analog to its two channels in September -- the first station in the country to do so -- leaving many viewers who were not yet equipped to receive digital signals believing it had simply disappeared. But on June 12, when viewers hooked up converter boxes and scanned for digital stations, MHz came through at full strength.
http://benton.org/node/26020
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FOX NEWS ANCHOR DRAWS RATINGS, AND IRE OF CONSERVATIVE CRITICS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
Does Shepard Smith belong at Fox News? He believes he does, even though he's irritated Rush Limbaugh, teased Glenn Beck and grilled Samuel J. Wurzelbacher (a k a Joe the Plumber) over his attacks on President Obama.
http://benton.org/node/26015
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