August 2008

Having successfully lobbied the government to place limits on junk food ads on TV, consumer and children's advocacy groups now target marketing to kids via the Web. "While there are some rules for TV, there are no rules when you move online," says Patti Miller, vice-president of children's advocacy group Children Now and a member of the Federal Communications Commission's Task Force on Media & Childhood Obesity. "We don't want to reduce junk food advertising to kids [on TV] and then find that it has just moved to another platform." The worry is that food companies are bombarding kids with ads for non-nutritious foods, fueling the obesity epidemic that, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, has increased the proportion of overweight kids under age 12 fivefold in the last generation and left almost 19% of kids between 6 and 11 overweight. A new report, commissioned by the Berkeley Media Studies Group, part of the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, Calif., focuses on methods of advertising food to kids that have become particularly popular during the past two years, such as spreading messages through social networks, and urges lawmakers to restrict junk food advertising to kids online. It will be presented to members of Congress and has been shown to officials at the European Union. "With social networking, marketers are getting the kids to create the ads and share them with their friends," says Kathryn Montgomery, an author of the report and an American University communications professor. "It is incredibly sticky and it is viral. Regulators need to understand that."

[Commentary] Although the Supreme Court struck down most of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the Court let stand Section 230, which immunizes Internet service providers from being held liable for what their members post by stating that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The section was designed to protect service providers -- at the time mostly dial-up services like AOL and Prodigy -- from prosecution under CDA for distributing content posted by their members. It's analogous to holding phone companies harmless for obscene phone calls made by their customers or shielding the post office from liability for illicit material sent through the mail. But Section 230 has also been used to protect social-networking companies and other Web sites with user-generated content whose business plans weren't even on the drawing board when the law was written back in the mid-'90s.

Last week, Reps Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin saying, "We are concerned that incumbent wireless carriers are seeking unnecessary and unprecedented testing delays to prevent new innovative competitors from entering the market." At issue is a proposal from Chairman Martin to auction a 25MHz piece of spectrum in the 2155MHz band and require the winner to use a specified amount of spectrum for free wireless Internet access. Although the FCC first floated the idea last September, mobile operators have asked the commission to delay the vote to give them more time to consider technical issues. Reps Eshoo and Markey pointed out that tests performed by Ofcom, the UK's equivalent of the FCC, that showed no substantial interference from the type of technical plan the FCC is proposing. "We are concerned that unnecessary interference testing would needlessly delay this auction and that this constitutes the very rationale to kill this effort totally. We urge you to carefully consider the existing precedent before making your determination," they wrote. The International Telecommunication Union and other groups have also done tests, and they all come up with essentially the same results, said John Muleta, CEO of M2Z Networks, a company that backs the FCC's plan. The tests show that some interference is possible in certain, somewhat rare situations, a result that is typically considered acceptable, he said. In some countries, operators have already been allowed to offer services on the basis of those tests, he said.

For the eighth time in nine weeks, Sen Barack Obama substantially outdistanced Sen John McCain in the competition for exposure, according to PEJ's Campaign Coverage Index. Obama was a significant or dominant factor in 78% of the campaign coverage from August 4-10 compared with 53% for McCain. That is almost identical to the 79% to 54% lead in quantity of coverage Obama has accumulated since the general election campaign began in early June. Last week, the major story lines turned more to issues -- particularly energy policy -- discord among Democrats and the search for vice-presidents. Indeed, even as Obama regained a comfortable lead in the quantity of coverage, certainly some of it was ominous for the Illinois Senator's campaign. Hillary and Bill Clinton resurfaced in campaign news last week -- combining as significant or dominant factors in 23% of the coverage -- and with them, so, too, did the festering subject of party unity. By week's end, the Clintons' role and the issue of a divided Democratic party had accounted for 12% of the campaign coverage studied. There were two major components of the narrative about discord. One was Bill Clinton's interview with ABC, in which he appeared to betray residual bitterness about the primaries and Obama. At the same time, new questions surfaced about whether Hillary Clinton supporters want a convention roll call.