November 2009

Foundation giving is expected to drop more than 10% in '09

Foundation giving is expected to drop more than 10 percent this year from 2008 and to continue falling next year, according to a survey conducted in September of almost 600 large- and mid-size organizations by the Foundation Center. The decline reflects steep losses in assets this year, and the reductions are greater than foundations had anticipated at the beginning of the year. Many grantmakers said they had thought the recession would improve the nonprofit sector, encouraging organizations to work together and find creative ways to raise money. More than two-thirds of the foundations surveyed said they had cut operating expenses in the past year by reducing expenses, freezing salaries or laying off employees.

Google's 3Q lobbying costs eclipse $1 million

Google's quarterly lobbying expenses eclipsed $1 million for the first time during the summer as the company tried to build on its dominance of Internet search and expand into other markets. The company spent nearly $1.1 million trying to influence lawmakers and regulators in the third quarter, a 50 percent increase from the July-September period last year, according to a recent disclosure statement. Google's lobbying budget has been steadily rising during the past year even as it tightened its belt in other areas to bolster its earnings during the worst U.S. recession in 70 years. Through the first nine months of this year, Google's lobbying costs came to $2.9 million, a 41 percent increase from the same time last year. That contrasted with a 2 percent decline in Google's companywide expenses during the same period.

New York sues Intel over bullying, bribes

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a suit Wednesday against Intel for allegedly forcing or paying kickbacks to computer manufacturers to use their chips over those of rivals. The suit was filed in the US District Court of Delaware, and comes amid increased scrutiny over the company's business practices. AG Cuomo claims Intel got computer makers to a carry its chips in exchange for billions of dollars of payments masked as "rebates." The company also allegedly threatened to punish manufacturers that worked with Intel's competitors like AMD. Cuomo said Dell has taken $2 billion in "rebates" in 2006 from Intel to put the company's chips in its computers. Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said that Cuomo's 83-page suit outlined new evidence involving the rebates.

Verizon jacks up early cancellation fees on smart phones

With a whole new line of smart phones coming onto the market, Verizon Wireless says that starting November 15 it is doubling to $350 the penalty fees for subscribers who leave their contracts early. James Gerace, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest cell phone provider, said the fees are for subscribers in one- and two-year contracts on an "advanced device" and that those fees will be prorated $10 a month. Gerace said the company decided to raise fees because phones are just getting more expensive. The firm subsidizes the overall cost of its fastest and most tricked-out phones to make the upfront price more appealing to customers. He said consumers can buy any of the phones that work on Verizon's network without signing a contract. So if you want to buy a Blackberry Storm 2 you could get the device for $180 with a two-year contract or pay $539 to use the phone without any obligation for your term of service.

Internet censorship liable to WTO challenge

Censorship of the Internet is open to challenge at the World Trade Organization as it can restrict trade in services delivered online, a forthcoming study says. A censorship case at the WTO could raise sovereignty issues, given the clear right of member states to restrict trade on moral grounds -- for example, by blocking access to child pornography websites. But a WTO ruling could set limits on blanket censorship and compel states instead to use more selective filtering, according to the study, to be published on Thursday by think-tank ECIPE. "Censorship is the most important non-tariff barrier to the provision of online services, and a case might clarify the circumstances in which different forms of censorship are WTO-consistent," said the study by Brian Hindley and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama.

Broadcasters To FCC: Digital Age Increasing Competition, Ownership Rules Harmful

At the Federal Communications Commissions media ownership workshop on Wednesday, broadcasters said the digital age has produced a wealth of competition that ownership rules are preventing them from facing head on. David Barrett, president of Hearst Television, said that what was formerly the prospect of increased competition was now an "undisputed fact" that the FCC must take into account when deciding which of its rules were still necessary in the public interest. He said it was increasingly tough to finance the local news and public affairs programming and political coverage and provide emergency information -- information that cable and satellite did not provide -- and certainly not for free to anyone who wants or needs it. Barrett said the FCC should rightly be concerned about undue consolidation, but it must also be concerned about fostering and preserving local TV. He said broadcasters need to further consolidate to achieve economic efficiencies and compete more effectively with competitors like cable, satellite and the Internet, which are not subject to similar constraints. National Association of Broadcasters Executive VP Jane Mago said broadcasters were not looking to get rid of all ownership regulations, but that in light of the reality of competition, it must review the newspaper cross-ownership ban and local ownership rules. Mago's three main points were that the FCC recognize that allowing them to compete effectively was the best way to insure they are serving the public interest; that the FCC must base its review on the current level of competition and that the FCC base any judgment on evidence, not "unsupported claims." Representatives of minority broadcasters saw it rather differently.

Ferree: Ownership Deregulation Not Enough

Former Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau Chief Ken Ferree is now telling the FCC that it needs to do more than just relax broadcast ownership rules. "The FCC should abolish archaic broadcast speech restrictions so that broadcasters can compete with new media platforms that enjoy full First Amendment protection," he said. "Even more dramatically, Congress could recognize that broadcasters hold a property interest in their licenses and allow them to use their assigned spectrum in the most efficient manner as determined by free people interacting in free markets — or to trade or sell it to those who world." Now a senior Fellow at conservative think tank Progress and Freedom Foundation, Ferree portrayed broadcasting as being badly in need of help, as an "increasingly marginal player in the media world" that is attracting little interest from the financial community. How many stations one can own is no longer the question, he said. The question is "how will anyone sustain audiences substantial enough to pay for serious programming?"

CDD: Industry Self-Regulation Has Failed For Online Privacy

In a filing at the Federal Trade Commission, the Center for Digital Democracy and US PIRG argue that industry self-regulation has failed and existing regulations are out-of-date and in need of revamping. They have been pushing the commission for several years to drill deeper into the issue on online privacy and behavioral advertising, ad tracking and social media marketing, particularly its impacts on children and wider implications related to media consolidation. CDD has also called for a legislative ban on collecting from or targeting information to anyone under 18, a do-not-track list similar to the do-not-call list for telemarketers, and prohibiting the tracking or use of "sensitive" data on health, finances, ethnicity, sexual orientation, personal relationships or political activity to target marketing pitches."

Better Business Bureau Refers Comcast 'Fiber-Optic' Claim To FTC

The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has referred Comcast's decision to not participate in the industry group's adjudication process involving the advertising claim that the company provides "fiber-optic network" services to the Federal Trade Commission for further review. The NAD, acting on a challenge by Verizon Communications, had requested substantiation from Comcast for the advertising claim that it delivers services over a "fiber-optic network." Verizon contends that Comcast, like virtually all cable companies, uses a hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) network rather than a pure fiber-to-the-home architecture as used by the telco's FiOS. Because Comcast uses coaxial cable to connect to subscribers' homes, the telco argues, Comcast cannot claim to employ a "fiber-optic network."

Department of Education announces new ed tech chief

Karen Cator, former director of education leadership and advocacy for Apple and a long-time education technology leader, will serve as the new director of the Office of Educational Technology (OET) for the Department of Education. Cator served as chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills from September 2006 to September 2007. She also was in charge of technology planning and implementation in the Juneau, Alaska, school district before joining Apple in 1997. OET is responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of ED's education technology policies, research projects, and national technology summits. The office's main goal is to maximize technology's contributions to improving education. The announcement coincides with the development of a new National Education Technology Plan that will provide a vision for how information and communication technologies can help transform American education. The plan will provide a set of concrete goals that can inform state and local ed-tech plans, as well as inspire research, development, and innovation. A draft of the new plan is expected in early 2010.

Benton

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