June 2010

Google AdWords lacks transparency: French regulator

France's antitrust regulator accused Google Inc of a lack of transparency over its keyword advertising service and ordered it to clarify conditions for the product within four months. The Autorite de la Concurrence was responding on Wednesday to a complaint filed in February by French GPS and smartphone data services company Navx, which alleged the world's top search engine had abused its dominant position by scrapping Navx's AdWords contract. Such contracts push a paying advertiser to the top of Google search results and are at the core of its $23 billion online advertising operations.

Moviemakers' Demand for ISP Customers' IDs In Infringement Suits Should be Quashed, Argue Rights Groups

A copyright holder can't just randomly rummage around an Internet service provider's logs of its customers' online activities with the vague hope of somehow finding those too cheap to pay for their entertainment, a group of public interest lawyers argued June 30 in a DC court.

American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen say protecting everyday Internet users' online privacy and rights through an orderly legal protocol may not be as dramatic as the plot line for Mystic River, but it's the same idea: Justice can't be served without a methodical and well-thought-out investigative and legal process. Attempts to shortcut the checks and balances can often ensnarl people who have nothing to do with the infraction, backfire and result in further injustice.

Second half of 2010 looks strong for TV stations, but 2011's outlook is all about confidence

It is, by all accounts, a very good time to be running a television station ownership group.

After years of being stuck in neutral, automotive advertising is revving along, up as much as 60% year over year. Core business -- from local mom-and-pops, retail, restaurants and the like -- is also cooking again. And the fall's political season looks to be so gargantuan that it will likely surpass the record amounts spent by candidates in 2008's presidential season. The second half's earnings numbers will shine even brighter when compared to their dim counterparts in 2009. "Automotive has undergone a resurgence, and we see it continuing in the third and fourth quarter," says Meredith Local Media President Paul Karpowicz, who forecasts Meredith revenue to climb up in the high teens to 20% over last year in the second half. "Business has come back to life; life is good." Station groups have considerable momentum as they zoom into the second half of the year.

Petry Television President/CEO Val Napolitano, who handles agency business for around 120 stations, says stations' national ad revenue is not only robust but remarkably consistent across several categories. "It's not just automotive, but fast food, retail, travel," he says. "It's almost all categories." Local broadcasters say it's just the type of broad-based recovery that should sustain itself through the rest of the year.

Bill Would Give FCC More Authority to Vet Accessibility

A draft of a new version of HR 3101 would appear to give the Federal Communications Commission more flexibility to determine how cable operators and TV stations would meet a new congressional mandate that requirements for disability access to telecommunications be updated to reflect the rise of broadband and other technologies.

The FCC must require various phone, TV and online accessibility measures, including making mobile devices accessible, unless it would be "not achievable." The FCC would be tasked with determining whether that standard had been met, based on the nature and cost, the impact on the manufacturer and distributor and the deployment of new technologies, the manufacturers financial resources, and "the type of operations of the manufacturer or provider." That standard was described by an industry veteran as a midpoint between a "not readily achievable" standard and an "undue burden." The FCC will also have the ability to waive the requirement on its own authority or in response to a waiver request.

Bloomberg Outlines Opposition to Comcast-NBCU

Lobbyists for financial-media firm Bloomberg LP want the Federal Communications Commission to deny Comcast's deal for control of NBC Universal because it is concerned that, without certain conditions, Comcast will have the motive and opportunity to disadvantage its Bloomberg Television, a competitor to NBC's CNBC.

Bloomberg's position is that the FCC "must deny" the deal unless it requires Comcast to put all business-news networks on channels adjacent to CNBC, so that it cannot put BTV on a more-expensive tier, and to continue to carry all business-news channels. Bloomberg wants the FCC to prevent Comcast from packaging ad sales for non-Comcast owned business channels with its owned channels without those other channels' permission and prohibit it from offering advertisers discounts tied to not purchasing ads on competing business channels or distributors discounts tied to less favorable carriage terms. It also wants the FCC to streamline the complaint process, including arbitration for fee disputes.

Coalition Of Groups Embraces Broadband Reclassification

A broad coalition of nonprofit groups have written Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski reiterating their support for his efforts to reclassify some aspects of broadband as a telecommunications service in order to ensure the agency has authority over broadband providers.

The letter, sent June 29, was signed by representatives from 150 groups including Color of Change, Common Cause, Free Press, the National Organization for Women, NTEN: Nonprofit Technology Network, and others, many of which are local groups scattered throughout the country. The groups said that reclassifying broadband is essential to giving the FCC the authority to bar broadband providers from discriminating against Internet content in the wake of April's federal appeals court decision that found the commission overstepped its authority when it enforced network neutrality principles against Comcast.

iPhones, commercial satellites prominent in joint DOD exercise

A recent Defense Department interoperability exercise connected participants across the United States and Europe via commercially available satellite terminals. The annual Joint User Interoperability Communications Exercise (JUICE), which wrapped up last week, involved all of the U.S. military services, allied partners, industry and academia working together in a series of scenarios that stressed information sharing and getting the most out of existing equipment and technologies.

Facebook, Twitter 'powerful business tools'

Social media such as Facecbook and Twitter or blogging sites have become powerful tools that influence what people buy, online researcher Nielsen said Wednesday, urging business to embrace the trend. Nearly three in four people worldwide who use the Internet have visited a social networking or blog, spending an average of almost six hours a month on them, The Nielsen Company said in a report.

Smart Grid Standards Wars: The Battle over Communications is Heating Up

In the first half of 2010 there has been a significant level of activity, and some striking developments, in communications standards that are widely seen as applicable to the Smart Grid.

Some of this activity has been orchestrated and driven under the Priority Action Plans (PAPs) animated by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Specifically, PAP15 concerning Power Line Carrier (PLC) technologies, has been successful in validating co-existence requirements for both broadband and narrowband PLC technologies, getting Standards Defining Organizations (SDOs) and vendors to agree on many details of co-existence standard specifications and accelerating timelines for their implementation. This bodes well for utilities and appliance vendors, who want any PLC technology they choose to deploy, for example to support Demand Response applications, to work reliably over premise wiring, even if other variants of PLC are being used there as well. In the wireless arena, PAP02 has driven a modeling effort that used data developed by the Utility Communications Alliance (UCA) OpenSG Communications Working Group with a NIST- and IEEE-developed analytic model of IEEE 802.11. This effort has demonstrated the adequacy of that wireless technology for Smart Grid use cases in Advanced Metering, Distributed Energy, and Distribution Operations. While not (yet) offering an executable model, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Standards, the North American partner in the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), submitted an analysis presenting comparable results. While NIST is providing vision and leadership, it's the participation of SDO and vendor communities that is making things happen.

AdMob's Transparency Changing Post-Google Acquisition

For the past two years, AdMob has released a jam-packed report each and every month, publicizing its activities in the mobile advertising market and detailing the industry's rapid development. But with the official close of Google's $750 million acquisition of AdMob, the mobile ad network's level of transparency is changing.

AdMob said it is issuing its final Mobile Metrics Report. While it has had its share of controversies, and it was questionable how independent the analysis could be going forward, the report gave publishers and developers a valuable guide to the top countries where ads were being viewed, and the top devices that were being used to view them. How it will change is not exactly clear.

Benton

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