February 2010

[Commentary] The launch of Google Buzz has set various parts of the technology blogosphere afire -- and for all the right reasons: it does introduce a number of interesting social features that could make our email experience more social. However, what tech pundits have mostly overlooked is a peculiar privacy choice made by Google's designers: unless you tinker with Buzz's settings, a partial list of your most-e-mailed Gmail contacts might be automatically made public. Yes, that's right: without you ever touching Google Buzz's privacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes, including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker at the White House).

This could be an extremely uncomfortable and tragic privacy disaster for Google, potentially of the same magnitude that Beacon was to Facebook. I certainly don't have many concerns about those who are cheating on their spouses or are leaking sensitive information to journalists-- they will survive (even though the future of whistle-blowing does not look very bright in our increasingly overexposed information environment). Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists in authoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of their interlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because many of their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracy promoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of those contacts would now inadvertently be made public.

On Feb 12, the Federal Communications Commission released the first High-Speed Services for Internet Access report to be based on the new census tract-based Form 477 data collection requirements. For the first time, this report summarizes information about fixed-location Internet access connections in 3,232 counties and 66,287 census tracts and in 72 combinations of upload and download advertised transmission speeds. Additionally, the report summarizes information about subscribers with full Internet access at transmission speeds above 200 Mbps as part of their mobile wireless service package.

High-speed Internet access connections to homes and businesses over fixed-location technologies increased by 10% during 2008, to 77 million. By contrast, the annual rate of increase was 17% during 2007.

At year-end 2008, 25 million mobile wireless service subscribers had mobile devices (such as laptops and smartphones) with high-speed data plans for full Internet access. These subscribers are a subset of the 86 million subscribers whose mobile device was capable of transmitting information at speeds above 200 Mbps, including subscribers who purchased only a voice service plan for the handset and subscribers whose data service included only customized-for-mobile content.

Reported connections for the most widely adopted fixed-location technologies, cable modem and adsl, increased by 14% and 3%, respectively, during 2008, to 41 million cable modem connections and 30 million adsl connections, with the cable modem increase being partly due to more comprehensive reporting by small cable systems. A 56% increase in total FTTP connections, to 3 million, was the largest rate of increase among fixed-location technologies.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced the formation of a new Department of Justice Task Force on Intellectual Property as part of a Department-wide initiative to confront the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property (IP) crimes.

The Attorney General's announcement follows a summit meeting convened last December by Vice President Biden, a long-standing champion of U.S. intellectual property rights-holders. At that meeting, which was attended by Attorney General Holder and other cabinet heads, the Vice President discussed the importance of stronger enforcement and supported actions to raise the priority of combating IP theft and improving coordination -- including the establishment of an intellectual property task force at the Department of Justice.

The Task Force, to be chaired by the Deputy Attorney General, will focus on strengthening efforts to combat intellectual property crimes through close coordination with state and local law enforcement partners as well as international counterparts. It will also monitor and coordinate overall intellectual property enforcement efforts at the Department, with an increased focus on the international aspects of IP enforcement, including the links between IP crime and international organized crime. Building on previous efforts in the Department to target intellectual property crimes, the Task Force will also serve as an engine of policy development to address the evolving technological and legal landscape of this area of law enforcement.

As part of its mission, the Task Force will work closely with the recently established Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), housed in the Executive Office of the President and charged with drafting an Administration-wide strategic plan on intellectual property. As part of its mission, the Task Force will assist IPEC in recommending improvements to intellectual property enforcement efforts.

The Task Force will include representatives from the offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Attorney General; the Criminal Division; the Civil Division; the Antitrust Division; the Office of Legal Policy; the Office of Justice Programs; the Attorney General's Advisory Committee; the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and the FBI. As part of its broader intellectual property initiative, the Department will also step up policy engagement with foreign law enforcement partners, develop a plan to expand civil IP enforcement efforts, and leverage existing partnerships with federal agencies and independent regulatory authorities such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Communications Commission.

[Commentary] Why Google would want to undertake such a major project as building a high-speed network? It is not exactly clear yet.

It's doubtful that Google would want to deliver broadband service to every home in the United States. So what is the search giant up to this time? Is Google's goal to influence national broadband policies? Maybe Google wants to show that traditional ISPs are deploying broadband ineffectively.

It's hard to know for sure what Google's up to, but here are five different possibilities:

1) Google Is Trying To Shape Broadband Policy.

2) ISPs Must Bend To The Will Of Google.

3) Google's broadband Plan is Naive.

4) Google's advertising network is focused on delivering relevant advertising to Google users, so it's not unreasonable to wonder if the commercial interests of Google the ISP and Google the advertising network wouldn't conflict with the privacy interests of Google's broadband customers.

5) Google Is Building Up Municipal Broadband.