May 2011

Industry-backed Group Looks to Help App Developers Create Privacy-Friendly Policies

With all the attention being given to mobile devices and privacy, one industry group is trying to help individual app developers that might want to do the right thing but don't know where to start when it comes to privacy policies and other best practices. The industry-backed Future of Privacy Forum is launching a new ApplicationPrivacy.org Web site that will give developers tools to create their own privacy policies as well as links to other important documentation, such as the privacy-related terms that are part of the major smartphone platform agreements. The Web site is being created with financial backing from Zynga, Facebook, AT&T, Google, Intel and TrustE.

Bloomberg: Comcast is cheating

Bloomberg LP is accusing Comcast of violating a key condition imposed by regulators to win approval of the cable giant’s NBC Universal purchase.

Specifically, Comcast is refusing to place Bloomberg TV in the same “neighborhood” of channel numbers as other news networks, making it harder for TV surfers to find it and potentially depressing viewership, Bloomberg alleges. In the letter to Comcast and copied to the Federal Communications Commission, Bloomberg tells the cable company it must quickly make arrangements to put the channel in a grouping of similar offerings — or face a formal complaint at the commission. “This refusal to place BTV in news neighborhoods places Comcast in direct violation of the FCC order approving the Comcast-NBCU merger,” Bloomberg attorneys write.

White House tech booster knows the way to San Jose

Aneesh Chopra, the White House’s first chief technology officer, bantered onstage with venture capitalists and forecasters about trends in technology May 25. The event, held by Silicon Valley’s premier business forum, the Churchill Club, involved panelists voting with bicolored ping-pong paddles over the likelihood a trend would take off. Chopra touted the president’s tech priorities and initiatives so much that he took some gentle ribbing from fellow panelists about his rah-rah tech optimism. “My theme tonight is ‘yes to everything,’” Chopra joked. Chopra, who makes quarterly visits to Silicon Valley, has become the de facto face of Washington in the region. This week, he was driving up and down Highway 101, for numerous speaking engagements over two days on topics ranging from immigration to software to top tech trends. Chopra appears wherever the industry gathers, whether it’s here; Las Vegas; Omaha, Neb.; Austin, Texas; or Seattle. His one-man roadshow is an effort to counter the stodgy image of government as being low tech and slow to adapt. Chopra’s message to anyone who will listen is that the federal government is changing, and it needs innovators to work on the nation’s biggest policy problems.

New Members of President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee

President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to be members of the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee:

  • Scott Charney: Charney is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing (TwC) Group. Before TwC, Mr. Charney served as Chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Charney also served as an Assistant District Attorney in Bronx County, N.Y., where he later was named Deputy Chief of the Investigations Bureau. He holds two B.A.s from the State University of New York in Binghamton and a J.D. from Syracuse University.
  • Dick Costolo: Costolo is the current CEO and former COO of Twitter, Inc. He is also an advisor to LaunchBox Digital and a mentor at TechStars, LLC. Prior to Twitter, Mr. Costolo worked at Google from 2007 to 2009, following Google’s acquisition of FeedBurner, which he co-founded in 2004. Prior to FeedBurner, Mr. Costolo served as a Senior Vice President at 724 Solutions Inc. Mr. Costolo was also CEO, President and Co-Founder of Spyonit.com. Mr. Costolo holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan.
  • David G. DeWalt: DeWalt is President of McAfee, which provides computer antivirus and security products and services. Prior to joining McAfee, Mr. DeWalt was President of Software, Sales and Services at EMC, a provider of storage hardware solutions. Previously, Mr. DeWalt was President and CEO of Documentum. He also held executive-level positions at Eventus Software, Quest Software, Segue and Oracle. He holds a B.S. from the University of Delaware.
  • Jamie Dos Santos: Santos is the current President and CEO of Terremark Federal Group. She previously served as Chief Marketing Officer for Terremark Worldwide, Inc. Prior to joining Terremark, Ms. Dos Santos worked for several global companies including BellSouth, Bellcore and SAIC. Ms. Dos Santos sits on the AFCEA Intelligence Committee as well as the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council for the U.S. Protection of Critical Information Infrastructure. Her educational background includes eight years in the Bellcore Training Center, the University of Florida and Harvard Business School for Continuing Education.
  • Lisa Hook: Hook is the President and CEO of Neustar, Inc. Prior to joining Neustar, Inc., Ms. Hook held leadership positions at AOL, Time Warner and Viacom. Ms. Hook also served as a senior advisor at the Federal Communications Commission. Ms. Hook currently serves on several corporate and non-profit boards, including Reed Eslevier PLC, Reed Elsevier NV, Reed Elsevier Group PLC and The Ocean Foundation. She holds a B.A. from Duke University and a J.D. from Dickenson School of Law.

Florida Cuts Public Broadcasting Funding

Public broadcasters in Florida are smarting over $4.7 million in funds cut to public media outlets in the state.

In the Tampa Bay area, local radio and TV stations will lose a combined $1 million in grants, including more than $500,000 to WUSF TV and radio, $435,000 to WEDU-Ch. 3 and $62,000 to Tampa community radio station WMNF-FM. The GOP-dominated Florida legislature had already budgeted a 30 percent reduction in the funds provided to the state's 26 non-profit public radio and TV stations, forcing organizations scrambling to deal with a long-expected downturn in donations and memberships to conserve further. But Gov Rick Scott's (R-FL) veto zeroes out funding completely beginning with the start of the state's fiscal year on July 1, ending a funding arrangement which has stood for 35 years.

James O'Keefe Wins Nonprofit Status From IRS

The Internal Revenue Service has granted nonprofit status to the group that brought down two senior executives at NPR and dealt a death blow to the community organizing group Acorn with videos of its employees giving tax advice to people claiming to be a pimp and prostitute.

Project Veritas, a group founded by James O’Keefe, received the status from the IRS in April, according to documents gathered by The Chronicle of Philanthropy through a Freedom of Information Act request. “It will help us expand as an organization and institution,” O’Keefe said. He said the money saved with the status would help Project Veritas train and equip “an army” of citizen journalists to carry out its mission: “to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”

Literacy is about a lot more than reading and jobs

[Commentary] Today, if you want to make a living, you have to be able not just to read but to be truly literate. You have to be able to imagine what the next jobs are going to look like. You have to be able to imagine the lives of people in China, in India, in Brazil, because you're going to be competing with them. So helping children become literate is our patriotic duty. They'll be better citizens, of course, because they can think critically and vote accordingly. They'll have richer and fuller personal lives because they can understand other people. And they'll be able to participate in the life of this country in a way that's constructive, positive and informed.

Companies in confusion over ‘cookie’ laws

Companies across Europe are in a state of confusion over what they need to do to comply with new Internet privacy laws that come into force on May 26.

The way that most companies currently collect information about people who visit their websites – using so-called “cookies” or small pieces of tracking code – will become illegal under the new European Union rules, and punishable in the UK, for example, with fines of up to £500,000 ($813,000). Companies operating in the region must now get permission from web users for this kind of tracking, but there is little guidance on how they should do so. Internet companies such as Facebook and Google are particularly concerned that the new laws could put their businesses in jeopardy, and advertisers are worried that the market for highly targeted Internet advertising – worth nearly £100m a year in the UK alone – could be damaged. The laws will touch every company that does business over a website. Any site that sells products or carries advertising will use cookies. Cookies can track items that a customer is putting into a website shopping basket, for example, or note the web pages individuals visit and send this information to advertising companies. Most websites will have between 10 to 20 cookies; big corporations with multiple websites could have hundreds or even thousands in use.

Recap: How Will the Proposed Merger Between AT&T and T-Mobile Affect Wireless Telecommunications Competition?

The House Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet held a hearing on AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile on May 26. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed skepticism that the transaction would lead to the consumer benefits that AT&T has promised.

"There are legitimate questions about whether this merger could move this market past the anti-competitive tipping point," said Rep Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Rep Goodlatte, Rep Darrell Issa (R-CA), and others also expressed concern that AT&T would have the power to price "backhaul" -- the connections between cell towers and voice networks or the Internet -- so expensively that smaller carriers would be unable to compete. Rep Mel Watt (D-NC) expressed concern about the impact on innovation if just three major carriers remain. And he worried aloud about handsets, like the iPhone, being available only on major carriers.

AT&T Chairman Randall Stephenson painted the proposed transaction as a way to extend the company's reach into the countryside and other underserved areas. "It's about achieving this with private capital," Stephenson told the panel. "We continue to invest at a very aggressive pace."

Rep Ben Quayle (R-AZ) argued that prices had not gone up as the market consolidated and that higher prices would likely give new companies incentive to get into the market for wireless service. But Rep John Conyers (D-MI) dismissed At&T's arguments, saying there was a potential cost in terms of lost jobs, innovation and smaller competitors."Everything that we're talking about that's so great from this merger is really already accomplishable," he said. "I see absolutely no redeeming reason for this merger." Rep Conyers said AT&T did not need to buy T-Mobile to deliver on the promise to build out wireless broadband to 97% of the country. Stephenson begged to differ, saying they needed both the spectrum and the marketplace incentive to build out next generation mobile wireless service to 97% of the country that the deal would enable. He said that the company's business plan was based on getting a return on investment, and that expanding its customer base by T Mobile's 30 million subs would help justify the business decision to build out 4G wireless to 55 million additional customers, particularly in rural areas where there had not been an economic model.

Parul Desai of Consumers Union pointed out that AT&T had been cutting jobs for most of the last decade. Stephenson countered saying that was on the wireline side, not wireless, which had shown steady growth. He said, short-term, there could be some job loss, but that long-term it should create jobs, particularly union jobs.

George Mason University Professor Joshua Wright, who expressed generally pro-merger views, said the level of concentration in the backhaul market is sufficient to provoke scrutiny from the Justice Department, but doesn't reach the level where it would spur an automatic probe. Stephenson countered the special access concerns by saying that the market for backhaul includes a diverse array of choices, including cable companies.

Analysts widely expect AT&T will have to sell off pieces of its business if federal regulators decide they are going to approve the deal. Under pressure from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Stephenson promised to explore the ways that the company might be able to favor minority or women-owned businesses when it is making those sales. "Yeah, we would obviously look at considerations for the kinds of folks we could help in business development and economic development and folks who normally wouldn't have an opportunity to do this, we would give that evaluation," he said.

How wireless policy affects minorities

[Commentary] Latinos and African-Americans lead the way in mobile broadband use — subscribing at a rate of 53 percent and 58 percent, respectively, and both groups will be disproportionately affected if providers fail to keep up with the demand for more spectrum.

The wireless industry is looking into market-based solutions. AT&T’s recently announced merger with T-Mobile is one example. The near future means a fully connected world, and to get there, both long and short-term solutions need to be considered. AT&T told the FCC that, if the merger is approved, the company will deploy next-generation 4G Long Term Evolution wireless networks — lightning-fast mobile Internet speeds comparable to wired broadband in the home — to more than 97 percent of Americans. AT&T said it can provide higher-quality and faster service while also closing coverage gaps. Given that minority communities rely on wireless services as their primary means for Internet access, the merger should offer these communities greater accessibility to reliable services. All communities can gain from a healthy wireless industry that will offer widespread options to the best technologies, create jobs through infrastructure upgrades, increase construction and deployment projects and foster online business opportunities — while allowing everyone to participate in a digitally connected society.

[Rivera is a partner at Wiley Rein, a law firm serving as counsel to Deutsche Telekom on the proposed sale of T-Mobile USA. He is also chairman of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council, chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age, and General Counsel of the Benton Foundation]