July 10, 2008 (FISA Passed)
This bill will "will ensure that those companies whose assistance is necessary to protect the country will, themselves, be protected from lawsuits for past or future cooperation."
-- President George Bush
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY JULY 10, 2008
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Bush Wins on Spy Bill
House votes to preserve White House e-mails
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
Obama's online muscle flexes against him
Obama's Brain Trust
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
FCC adopts emergency alert test rules
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Online Advertising Hearing Recap
Why is YouTube hoarding data?
Comcast Vows to Smooth Access for Vonage Users
BROADCASTING
Members of Congress Ask Postmaster to Speed DTV Coupons
Bill Provides $65M for DTV Transition
Digital TV switch will boost cable subscriptions
TELECOM
Court Gives FCC Deadline To Justify ISP-Bound Comp Rules
Verizon Wireless Settles Early Termination Fee Suit For $21 Million
AT&T, Verizon, Qwest Team Up to Keep Phone Customers
Universal Service Reform: Start With Accountability
POLICYMAKERS
The FCC's Compromiser in Chief
BUSH WINS ON SPY BILL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Thomas Ferraro]
President George W Bush (R) won final congressional approval on Wednesday of a bill granting liability protection to telecommunication companies that took part in the warrantless domestic spying program he began after the Sept. 11 attacks. The measure shields those firms from potentially billions of dollars in damages from privacy lawsuits implements the biggest overhaul of U.S. spy laws in three decades. On a vote of 69-28, the Senate approved the measure, previously passed by the House of Representatives, and prepared to send the legislation to Bush to sign into law. The measure replaces a temporary law that expired in February and modernizes the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to keep pace with technology. It will also bolster judicial and congressional oversight of U.S. surveillance of foreign targets and increase protection of civil liberties of law-abiding Americans swept up in such spy efforts -- but not as much as critics wanted. The bill authorizes U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop without court approval on foreign targets believed to be outside the United States. Critics complain this allows warrantless surveillance of the phone calls and e-mails of Americans who communicate with them. The bill seeks to minimize such eavesdropping on Americans, but critics say the safeguards are inadequate. Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) had opposed immunity for telecoms, but he ended up voting for the bill after a failed effort to strip liability protection out of the measure.
http://benton.org/node/15111
HOUSE VOTES TO PRESERVE WHITE HOUSE E-MAILS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Richard Simon]
The House moved Wednesday to impose new rules to preserve e-mails from the White House and other federal agencies, acting in defiance of a veto threat from President Bush. The Electronic Message Preservation Act would direct the archivist of the United States to draw up new rules for preserving electronic records. The measure was in response to an uproar over e-mails found missing by recent Capitol Hill probes of Bush aides, including Rove, then the president's chief political strategist. Investigators have tried to determine whether Rove and others used Republican National Committee e-mail accounts to conduct government business in an attempt to circumvent the Presidential Records Act, a post-Watergate law designed to preserve White House records. The measure, which passed 286 to 137 in the House on Wednesday, faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.
http://benton.org/node/15121
OBAMA'S ONLINE MUSCLE FLEXES AGAINST HIM
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: John McCormick]
The same Internet-fueled power that led to historic gains in organizing and fundraising for Sen Barack Obama's presidential campaign is now providing a platform for fiery dissent in a most unlikely place: his own Web site. Amid criticism from the left that he has eased toward the center on a number of issues in recent weeks, the presumptive Democratic nominee has angered some of his most ardent supporters while triggering something of an online mutiny. Thousands are using MyBarackObama.com to angrily organize against him because of a changed position on the FISA update (see story above). A new online group named "Senator Obama -- Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity -- Get FISA Right" formed on his campaign's social networking Web site. Now with more than 22,000 members, it is the largest group on MyBarackObama.com. The online group is flooded with messages of disappointment and disillusionment. Some threaten to ask that their campaign contributions be returned, while others suggest they will simply stay home this fall.
http://benton.org/node/15109
OBAMA'S BRAIN TRUST
[SOURCE: Rolling Stone, AUTHOR: Tim Dickinson]
A profile of Sen Barack Obama's top aides including high-tech entrepreneur Julius Genachowski, the man behind the campaign's unprecedented use of high technology to empower grass-roots activists and helped to churn out campaign contributions. Although Obama is far from a techie, in Genachowski he found a personal Internet evangelist, someone who convinced him that the Web had powerful implications for his core ideas about empowerment and connecting people. Genachowski persuaded the campaign to hire a chief technology officer from the private sector, as well as a new-media director from the political realm. This cross-pollination of the political and new-media worlds continued with the hire of one of the wunderkind founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes, whose unofficial campaign title is "Online Organizing Guru." With reassurance from Genachowski, the campaign has learned to embrace the chaos that goes along with empowerment. Genachowski is quick to point out that credit for Obama's online machine goes to the campaign team that spent 15-hour days building it. But the vision was undeniably his. From the beginning he was insistent that the campaign invest in tools that were professionally built and that could scale along with the campaign -- no matter how big it got. His philosophy was simple: "If we don't build it, they won't come." He credits Plouffe for taking the leap of faith required to invest, on the front end, in pricey technology with no guarantee of return, and in ramping up the investment as the tools began to prove their worth.
http://benton.org/node/15110
FCC ADOPTS EMERGENCY ALERT TEST RULES
[SOURCE: RCRWirelessNews, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
The Federal Communications Commission approved testing guidelines for wireless providers that decide to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers as part of a government effort to modernize a Cold Era, mostly broadcast-based public warning system. The issue came to the fore following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists, and received renewed interest after Hurricane Katrina. The FCC’s job is not finished, however. The agency must establish by Aug. 9 a process for wireless providers to elect whether to transmit emergency alerts to subscribers. Mobile-phone carriers must inform the commission in early September whether they plan to participate in the program. While the 2006 Warning Alert and Response Network Act makes the program voluntary, major cellphone operators initially signaled they’re on board.
http://benton.org/node/15108
ONLINE ADVERTISING HEARING RECAP
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
NebuAd, which has reportedly worked with more than a dozen ISPs in the United States, collects information about users' Web surfing habits, then delivers targeted advertising based on those results. Privacy critics have protested the service, saying it uses common Internet attacks to collect data and may be illegal because it does not get affirmative consent from both the ISP subscribers and the Web sites they visit. But NebuAd, Robert Dykes, the company's chairman and CEO told the Senate Commerce Committee that the company does not collect personally identifiable information or keep the information it collects for an extended time. NebuAd only collects information to use to create profiles for a limited number of advertising categories, Dykes said. All other data collected is deleted, he said. In addition, users can easily opt out of NebuAd's data collection. At the same hearing, the Federal Trade Commission testified that the issues surrounding behavioral advertising are complex, "the business models are diverse and constantly evolving, and ... behavioral advertising may provide benefits to consumers even as it raises concerns about consumer privacy," said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. The Center for Democracy and Technology noted that consumers are increasingly concerned about the growing amount of personal data being collected by online advertising practices, but that they are ill-equipped to take steps to protect their privacy. CDT also said that the emerging advertising model partnering ISPs with ad networks brings new legal complexities and privacy risks to the e-commerce equation. CDT urged Congress to take a comprehensive look at online advertising practices and made several recommendations for designing policies and laws that insure consumer privacy and instill trust in the electronic marketplace.
http://benton.org/node/15107
WHY IS YOUTUBE HOARDING DATA?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Last week, a pretrial ruling in the case caused a furor for reasons that had nothing to do with copyrights. Granting a request from Viacom, District Judge Louis L. Stanton in New York ordered YouTube to turn over all the data it had collected about what its users watched. As it turns out, YouTube has kept extensive records of all its users' viewing histories, including the Internet addresses of the computers they were on at the time. And the data include not just the videos watched on youtube.com but also the YouTube clips embedded on other sites. Although the revelation might have come as a surprise to users, YouTube's privacy policy says the company "may record information about your usage," including the videos watched, the time spent on the site and the clips uploaded. It adds, "If you are logged in, we may associate that information with your account." Privacy advocates hit the panic button, saying the combination of user names and Internet addresses could provide enough information to identify individual users. Stanton's order is a reminder that websites shouldn't retain personally identifiable data any longer than the law or their services require. Google argues that the data enable it to improve its services, combat fraud and personalize offerings. Its approach, though, reflects an engineer's habit of hoarding information for the sake of as-yet-unimagined features, not the cautious practices of a privacy-conscious company. If YouTube really needs to keep months' worth of data about what users do, the least it can do is remove the links to who's doing it. In the meantime, users should remove the links themselves by following instructions on the site for erasing their viewing histories.
http://benton.org/node/15122
COMCAST VOWS TO SMOOTH ACCESS FOR VONAGE USERS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Vishesh Kumar]
Amid growing regulatory scrutiny, Comcast said Wednesday it would collaborate with Vonage Corp. to ensure the Internet phone company's service runs more smoothly over Comcast's broadband network. Under the new arrangement, Vonage and Comcast will have a direct line of communications between their network operations centers to resolve customer issues, the companies said. Vonage will also participate in testing the impact of Comcast's network management techniques on its service. Comcast says the arrangement will allow it to better balance the management of its network at peak times. Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, responded, "We are baffled as to why it was necessary for Vonage to strike a network management agreement with Comcast to guarantee that their services are not degraded or blocked. Such anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices are already against the law. And beyond that, Comcast has been on the record as saying that they do nothing to deter their customers' use of VoIP. This announcement calls into question the company's honesty about its treatment of competing services."
http://benton.org/node/15124
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ASK POSTMASTER TO SPEED DTV COUPONS
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: ]
On Wednesday, key members of the House Committee on Commerce wrote to the United States Postmaster General to urge that the Postal Service give priority status to coupons being mailed to consumers as part of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Digital Television Converter Box Program. Among the points made in the letter was that since the converter box coupon expires 90 days after the date it is mailed by NTIA, "it is essential that consumers receive these coupons as quickly as possible. To keep administrative costs down, NTIA is mailing coupons Standard Class rather than First Class. Because of the limited amount of time consumers have to use their coupons, as well as the overall importance of a successful DTV transition for the Government, public safety, consumers, and industry, we strongly urge you to give mailed coupons priority status so households receive them promptly." The letter was signed by Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI), ranking member Joe Barton (R-TX), Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA) and ranking member Cliff Stearns (R-FL).
http://benton.org/node/15106
BILL PROVIDES $65M FOR DTV TRANSITION
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
As expected, the House Energy & Commerce Committee passed a bill that would free up some more money for the digital-TV transition. The bill makes $65 million available Feb. 17, 2009, to help low-power stations make the transition to digital. The bill, which already passed the Senate, will also allow some of the $10 million allocated to help translator stations, which help broadcast full-power stations to reach remote areas, for DTV education, since that program has more than enough money to pay the $1,000 per translator that it will take to make the conversion. The way the DTV-transition bill had been written, low-power stations would not get the money until October 2010, a year-and-a-half after full-power stations make the DTV switch.
http://benton.org/node/15120
DIGITAL TV SWITCH WILL BOOST CABLE SUBSCRIPTIONS
[SOURCE: Hollywood Reporter, AUTHOR: Georg Szalai]
Most cable operators have been struggling with basic-subscriber declines in recent quarters, but the digital TV transition early next year could provide a once-in-a-lifetime boost for some. Observers say that overall, cable companies -- rather than their satellite TV and telecom rivals breathing down their necks -- look best positioned to sign up a portion of the estimated 14 million US homes who still only get free over-the-air television rather than paying monthly fees to multichannel providers.
http://benton.org/node/15105
COURT GIVES FCC DEADLINE TO JUSTIFY ISP-BOUND COMP RULES
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: ]
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threatened to strike down Federal Communications Commission rules that exempt phone companies from paying some connection fees when they use rivals' networks to connect subscribers to Internet service providers. The FCC now has to November 5 to provide "valid legal justification" or else have them thrown out by the court.
http://benton.org/node/15104
VERIZON WIRELESS SETTLES EARLY TERMINATION FEE SUIT FOR $21 MILLION
[SOURCE: DowJones, AUTHOR: Roger Cheng]
Verizon Wireless agreed to settle a lawsuit over early termination fees for $21 million, avoiding a drawn-out dispute that fellow wireless provider Sprint Nextel is now enduring. The wireless carrier on Tuesday said the settlement resolves the plaintiffs' claims, although the company didn't admit to any wrongdoing. The settlement covers the various lawsuits across the country. The $21 million - the maximum amount Verizon Wireless is liable for - would be doled out to plaintiffs and will cover the attorney's fees.
http://benton.org/node/15103
AT&T, VERIZON, QWEST TEAM UP TO KEEP PHONE CUSTOMERS
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: ]
AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest -- the three biggest home-phone companies in the US -- are working together for the first time to prevent cable rivals from gaining subscribers. When customers move to an area served by a different carrier, the companies will refer them to a Web site that offers help in switching service, AT&T executive Frank Mona said Tuesday. The site, Movearoo.com, doesn't show options for cable providers. AT&T operates home-phone lines in 22 U.S. states, including much of the Southeast and Midwest, including Illinois. Verizon serves customers in parts of 25 states, concentrating on the Northeast. Qwest offers local phone lines in 14 Western states.
http://www.benton.org/node/15102
UNIVERSAL SERVICE REFORM: START WITH ACCOUNTABILITY
[SOURCE: George Mason University, AUTHOR: Jerry Ellig]
The Federal Communications Commission is reviewing public comments on how to reform the federal Universal Service Fund. The proposed reforms raise many significant policy questions. Should the size of the subsidies be capped? Should the FCC stop subsidizing competing phone companies in locations where there are not sufficient customers to support one? Should the commission use “reverse auctions” to award subsidies to the party that offers to serve an area at the lowest subsidy? Should mobile phone and broadband service become part of the universal service bundle supported by federal subsidies? But what about this question -- How will we know whether the proposed reforms will accomplish the fund’s congressionally mandated goals: providing access to reasonably comparable services at reasonable rates?
http://benton.org/node/15101
POLICYMAKERS
THE FCC'S COMPROMISER IN CHIEF
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
Unlike his predecessor, Michael Powell, a Republican who had pushed for stronger indecency rules and free markets, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Martin has not shown a strong ideological bent. He has pushed to change cable television pricing, which angered business leaders and party members. He sided with Democratic lawmakers to pry open wireless airwaves to more companies. He's revived debate on Internet rules that service providers and key Republican lawmakers called a solution looking for a problem (Network Neutrality). In the remaining months of his tenure -- it is expected that the next president will appoint a new chairman -- support for Martin has waned. He is now at the center of a congressional oversight investigation into his leadership, which some officials inside the FCC describe as secretive and autocratic. Yet for all the ripples he's caused with his aggressive push for changes in the cable industry, critics say he has overlooked the nation's biggest priorities including universal, affordable broadband.
http://benton.org/node/15123