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  2. June 2011

June 2011

Latinos Are Changing the Landscape of Television

[Commentary] For over a decade, NHMC has been illuminating the growing Latino market at its annual meetings with the four major English-language television networks. NHMC’s President and CEO, Alex Nogales, regularly explains that hiring more Latinos in front and behind the camera is not only the right thing to do, but it’s also good business. The 2010 census gave further notice to the industry, showing strong continued growth among the Latino population. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the number of Latinos to be about 50.5 million, about 16% of the U.S. Population. As a result, television media is demonstrating increased interest in Latino viewers.

Reforming, Modernizing Lifeline, LinkUp

As the Federal Communications Commission considers updating the Lifeline and LinkUp -- two programs that make it easier for low income consumers to afford telecommunications services -- a number of groups are visiting with FCC Commissioners and staff to discuss the how best to improve the programs.

Community Voice mail and the National Consumer law Center recently reiterated that:

  • The one-phone-per-address issue bars otherwise eligible people from receiving Lifeline and LinkUp services, especially those who are homeless and/or temporarily housed.
  • This is a significant population and arguably one that Lifeline policy would benefit most. According to the recently released 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress 1.59M people experienced homelessness during the 2010 fiscal year.

The groups offered alternate models for eligibility, including use of collateral contacts (agency service providers) to verify identification.
They also discussed the issue of creating a national database to determine duplication of services raising concerns that:

  • Numerous policy issues need to be clarified as part of the design process including timelines, notification, consumer education, portability of Lifeline status, and a dispute resolution process.
  • Those issues should be resolved by a sufficiently diverse group of stakeholders in order to avoid unintended barriers to enrollment by eligible persons.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas has also spoken with FCC staff about:

  • the matching and automatic enrollment processes in Texas for the Lifeline and Link Up program;
  • specific state statues that require certificated providers to provide Lifeline service to its customers;
  • costs of the matching and enrollment processes used in Texas; and
  • implementation of the screening process by Solix, the Texas Low Income Discount Administrator, to eliminate duplicate Lifeline subscriptions for the same customer.

Finally, the American Public Communications Council has been arguing that the FCC use Lifeline support to subsidize public payphones which have been rapidly disappearing.

The Wavelength: FCC Decries Lack of Media Diversity, Stymies Low Power TV

Local coverage and diversity are in short supply in today’s media landscape–especially when it comes to broadcast and cable TV. But there is hope. In markets like the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, Low Power TV (LPTV) has emerged as a viable alternative to network and cable TV, offering 24-hour programming and locally-produced news shows for ethnic communities in their own languages. While LPTV offers incredible opportunities for ethnic communities, these stations face considerable challenges, including an unfriendly regulatory landscape and the weighty influence of the big-bucks telecommunications industry, which just wants LPTV to go away so it can claim the full digital spectrum. Moreover, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers LPTV a secondary service with no legal protection from interference or displacement by broadcasters – which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for LPTV to thrive, since its future is uncertain.

Broadband for All: A Networked and Prosperous Society

Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell was in Stockholm, Sweden to deliver a keynote on technology and democracy. Here's some excerpts:

Freedom is on the rise unlike any other time in world history. In the early 1970s, the world had fewer than 40 electoral democracies. Today, there are 116,19 with perhaps more on the way soon. That’s phenomenal growth. And the proliferation of communications technologies is not following the spread of liberty, it is pushing it. Communications technologies are now the tip of the spear in the fight for freedom across the globe.

As we look across the globe, it is state interference with the ’Net that has been undermining liberty, not private sector mischief. Government control of the Internet is antithetical to the entire notion and architecture of the Internet itself. By definition, the Internet is decentralized and defies authoritarian top-down control – be that technical control, political control or both. In fact, its very structure is helping to shape governments in its image.

Furthermore, countries that regulate the ’Net more tend to be less free. But we live in an exciting new era where attempts to maintain “walled information gardens” – be they state-sponsored or not – are doomed to fail. Explosive growth of telecom innovation is dissolving authoritarian regimes by strengthening the sovereignty of the individual. As Italian thinker Bruno Leoni wrote, “Individual liberty is antithetical to the power of the State.” A mobile Internet liberates individuals as never before. Not surprisingly, the purveyors of overwhelming state authority are threatened by this paradigm shift.

To propel freedom’s momentum, policy makers should remember that, since their inception, the Internet and mobile connectivity have migrated further away from government control. As the result of longstanding international consensus, the Internet itself has become the greatest deregulatory success story of all time. To continue to promote freedom and prosperity, regulators should continue to rely on the “bottom up” nongovernmental Internet governance bodies that have a perfect record of keeping the ’Net working and open. We must heed the advice of leaders like Neelie Kroes, who has consistently called on regulators to “avoid over-hasty regulatory intervention,” and steer clear of “unnecessary measures which may hinder new efficient business models from emerging.” I couldn't agree more. Changing course now could not only trigger an avalanche of international regulation, but it could halt the progress of freedom’s march as well.

The Second Coming Of Vatican Social Media

The faithful will now be able to keep up with the Catholic Church's news and opinions via Facebook and Twitter.

The Vatican has announced the launch of a social media-integrated official news website, news.va, that will make heavy use of those social networks. Reports say it'll be introduced to the public with a click of a mouse by Pope Benedict XVI himself. Although several Vatican-related entities, such as the Vatican Museums and the official L'Osservatore Romano newspaper, have well-trafficked websites, the Curia has been timid about the use of new technologies. News.va will function essentially as a Vatican and Catholic Church-related news aggregator. The site, which will initially publish stories in only English and Italian, will republish stories from L'Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, Vatican Television, the Fides news agency and from Vatican media relations. Livestreaming of Papal events will also be featured, along with links to homilies, statements, and speeches. Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese-language versions of the site will reportedly be launched over the next few months. News.va will be stripped down, with navigation primarily centered on social media. Users won't be able to search through news archives, but they will be able to post links on Twitter and share stories on their Facebook walls. The Catholic Church, in the eyes of many observers, has had a severe public-relations problem in past years that's been exacerbated by clumsy interaction with the media.

China's 'Twitter' Has Big Dreams

Charles Chao has built Sina Corp. into a Chinese Twitter. Now he wants it to be a Chinese Facebook, too.

Chao, Sina's chief executive, has led the company's transformation from an online portal focused on news and blogging to China's most talked-about social-media company. Since he launched Sina Weibo -- which lets users send short, Twitter-like messages to their followers—less than two years ago, the service's popularity has exploded, with more than 140 million users as of March, by Sina's count. RedTech Advisors LLC, of Shanghai, estimates that Sina Weibo has 57% of China's microblog users and 87% of its microblog activity. Sina CEO Charles Chao, shown in April, has led the company's transformation from an online portal focused on news and blogging to China's most talked-about social-media company. But in the ultracompetitive world of China's Internet industry, such leads are hard to keep, and Sina faces pressure from rivals, who are pouring resources into the social-networking sector. Chief among them is Tencent Holdings Ltd., an industry giant with a big pile of cash that has been aggressively promoting its own microblogging site.

Pay TV market growth expected to slow by 2016

The sector is set to earn revenues of $173 billion in 2016. Growth in the global pay TV market is set to slow over the next five years, according to Digital TV Research. In its Digital TV World Revenue Forecasts report, the organization claimed revenues from the sector will reach $173 billion (£108 billion) by 2016. Although this figure represents a $49 billion increase on the 2006 total, it is only $18 billion - or 12 per cent - above the level recorded in 2010. Study author Simon Murray attributed the trend to the increasing popularity of bundling TV packages with broadband and landline services, explaining: "Subscription revenues will stutter as more homes convert to bundles, thus reducing TV-related income."

Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
House Commerce Committee
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
2:00 p.m.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=8759


June 27, 2011 (76 House Dems Praise AT&T-T Mobile 4G Pledge)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2011

In Cleveland today -- the Community Broadband Adoption Impact & Sustainability Conference http://benton.org/calendar/2011-06-27/


AT&T/T-MOBILE
   76 House Dems Praise AT&T-T Mobile 4G Pledge
   AT&T Gave $500k to House Democrats Pushing The T-Mobile Takeover
   June 18-24: AT&T/T-Mobile Update - analysis

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Microsoft steps into the spectrum space race

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   FCC Spokesperson: Net Neutrality Rules Going To OMB 'Very Soon'
   Crocker is New ICANN Chairman [links to web]
   The new web will need a new network

OWNERSHIP
   Google's refusal puts Sen Herb Kohl on spot
   Three Questions the FTC May Study in Google Antitrust Probe - analysis
   The road to antitrust is paved with good intentions
   Comcast has to sit on its hands while Hulu drama plays out
   Consumer group says White House is too friendly with Google
   Why Is Mighty Time Warner So Scared of Tiny Salisbury, NC? - op-ed
   New Jersey Assembly rejects plan to transfer NJN management to NY-based WNET

CONTENT
   Tech Community Lining Up Against Digital Piracy Bill
   Legislation pushed to legalize and regulate online poker sites [links to web]
   What Shoppers Don’t Realize About Amazon’s Reviews [links to web]
   Hot News: Technology Trumps Law - analysis [links to web]
   Piracy and the 4th Amendment - editorial [links to web]
   Companies Are Erecting In-House Social Networks [links to web]

JOURNALISM
   Americans Regain Some Confidence in Newspapers, TV News - research
   TMZ: A Newsroom That Doesn’t Need News [links to web]
   Andrew Breitbart: The Right’s Blogger Provocateur [links to web]
   Journalists cash in on WikiLeaks rights scramble [links to web]

FCC REFORM
   Rep Latta Introduces FCC Cost-Benefit Bill [links to web]

CYBERSECURITY
   US to Provide Guidelines to Bolster Computer Security
   The Cop on the Cyber Beat [links to web]
   Dissolution of Hacker Group Might Not End Attacks
   America has double standards in fighting cyberwar - op-ed

PRIVACY
   Battle brewing over control of personal data online

MORE ONLINE
   California PUC president must resign - editorial [links to web]

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AT&T/T-MOBILE

CONGRESSIONAL LETTER ON MERGER
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Seventy six House Democrats have written Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Attorney General Eric Holder to urge them to consider the benefits of an AT&T-T Mobile acquisition of T-Mobile in their respective agencies' reviews of the proposed $39 billion deal. While the letter does not explicitly endorse the merger, it does celebrate AT&T's pledge that the deal will allow the combined companies to deliver next-generation wireless broadband to over 97% of the country. Led by Reps. G.K Butterfield of North Carolina and Gene Green of Texas, the Dems extolled the potential benefits of that rollout. Those include driving investment and innovation, creating jobs, and reaching the rural constituents that the FCC has just said need more help getting broadband. They make it clear that the FCC review should include "all relevant issues," including price and competition. But they also point out, as has AT&T at every opportunity, that President Barack Obama has made ubiquitous wireless broadband a national priority.
Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said, "We wish the members of Congress had studied AT&T’s proposal, backed by the Communications Workers of America, more closely. Had they done so, they would have found that AT&T’s deployment plan is only marginally better than what they have proposed before and that under this merger, jobs will be lost, not gained. Had they done so, they might have asked AT&T and the CWA why the company was spending $39 billion to buy T-Mobile instead of expanding their coverage, as they could have done at any time rather than use the buyout as a threat or, as former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt characterized it, a ‘state-authorized bribe.’ It is unfortunate that proponents of the merger have been able to mislead so many Members of Congress."
"Members of Congress should be more careful about signing any letter that AT&T puts in front of them. This letter is riddled with misleading and factually inaccurate statements that contradict what the company is telling investors and regulators. It is simply wrong on the facts," said Derek Turner of Free Press.
benton.org/node/79659 | Broadcasting&Cable | paidContent.org | Public Knowledge | Free Press
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MONEY AND THE MERGER
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Sam Gustin]
If you had any doubt that money talks in politics, consider June 24’s development in the lobbying effort for AT&T’s proposed $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile. Seventy-two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the FCC and Justice Department praising the deal. Turns out, 66 of the more than 70 signatories received a combined half-million dollars in campaign contributions from the telecom giant in the most recent election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of the donations came from political action committees (PACs) associated with AT&T, which is the single-largest corporate donor to members of Congress over the last two decades. To get an idea of how widely AT&T spreads its money around the nation’s capitol, consider this: during the last election cycle, the company gave money to 391 of the 435 members of the House, and 78 of the 100 members of the Senate.
benton.org/node/79658 | paidContent.org
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AT&T/T-MOBILE UPDATE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
We return this week to the story that's been dominating our Headlines since mid-March: AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile. First off, thankfully, there's no worries: the deal is on track to close by March 2012. No problems. No unexpected resistance. Nothing to see here behind the curtain. Or so says AT&T. The company's general counsel, Wayne Watts, met with DC reporters June 21 to reiterate that the deal will get done as things move along at both the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. Typical of the support AT&T has gotten for the deal, the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts sent a letter to the FCC this week citing the familiar arguments in favor of the merger from proponents: that it will speed the deployment of 4G wireless broadband to more than 97 percent of the population and increase the membership of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The letter also touts AT&T's commitment to preventing online piracy of movies and music while T-Mobile's efforts have been "less than adequate." NHFA argues the acquisition of T-Mobile would benefit content creators because AT&T has gone much further than T-Mobile to ensure its networks aren't used to download pirated content. But the NHFA's letter of support is also typical of a darker side of this debate.
http://benton.org/node/79573
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

MICROSOFT AND UK WI-FI
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Parker, Paul Taylor]
The great and the good from the media and telecoms industries will gather in Cambridge on June 29 for the launch of an eagerly awaited technology trial. Microsoft is leading a consortium that will investigate whether radio spectrum not wanted for transmitting terrestrial television can instead support a new generation of mobile broadband networks. These infrastructures – and the spectrum to support them – are likely to be badly needed if consumers are to make the most of Internet-connected smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and those featuring Google’s Android software. In big cities, the bandwidth-hungry iPhone has been overloading some mobile phone operators’ networks, and smartphone users wanting to watch data-rich video such as YouTube often find the best way to do so is at WiFi hot spots. WiFi is a technology enabling short-range wireless data connections that then plug into fixed-line networks; the arrangements usually provide faster broadband download speeds compared to mobile operators’ infrastructures. The trial in Cambridge will look at whether some of the spectrum designated for transmitting digital TV could be used to create super WiFi networks in towns and cities.
benton.org/node/79676 | Financial Times | FT
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

NET NEUTRALITY RULES TO OMB
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A Federal Communications Commission spokesperson says the FCC is expected to send its network neutrality rules to the Office of Management Budget for Paperwork Reduction Act vetting "very soon," which also means it hasn't sent them yet. The rules were adopted in December 2010, but because they cause new reporting requirements, those were put out separately for comment by the FCC, which has been vetting those comments since April. The rules cannot be challenged in court until they are published in the Federal Register, which can't come until OMB has put them out for comment for 30 days and decided they do not create undue paperwork burdens. The rules do not go into effect until 60 days after that publication, however, so it will likely be October at the earliest before they would take effect.
benton.org/node/79653 | Broadcasting&Cable
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A NEW FIBER BOOM
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
It’s been more than a decade since the large construction of fiber networks crisscrossing the world in response to the first web boom, and since then, the Internet has grown to become interwoven with every aspect of our daily lives. Billions now have a web connection, from either a mobile phone or a fiber to the home connection, if not both. Now the fiber boom is back, but the next generation network isn't just more fiber; it’s an entirely new type of network that fits what we now expect the web to do: Be smarter and be everywhere we are. To do that, Allied Fiber is building a new kind of fiber network that combines not just network materials, but also data centers, to bring connectivity at competitive places over more and more of the country. Within the next three weeks, Allied Fiber will order its fiber cable, and six months later, the network will begin taking traffic. The premise is radical in that founder Hunter Newby has envisioned a way to bring terabyte connections across a certain swath of America by building out a new type of infrastructure, and leasing it out to other providers.
benton.org/node/79639 | GigaOm
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OWNERSHIP

GOOGLE AND CHAIRMAN KOHL
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Mike Zapler]
Google’s refusal last week to let Chief Executive Officer Larry Page or Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt testify at a Senate antitrust hearing on the tech giant’s alleged bad acts put the screws to subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl. Chairman Kohl now has a dilemma: Subpoena a tech icon or back down and potentially undermine the panel’s authority to compel top corporate executives to appear. It’s no easy call. Congressional subpoenas typically are reserved for extraordinary situations — a banking meltdown or a colossal oil spill. Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Mike Lee of Utah, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee, must decide whether Google’s behavior in Internet search warrants going to the mat. “That seems to be a bit over the top,” said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. “You bring in financial executives after the collapse, or tobacco executives. This could be seen as an exercise in slamming Google.” At the same time, Ornstein and others said Google’s refusal to play ball with a congressional committee appears unwise — even naive.
benton.org/node/79675 | Politico
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3 QUESTIONS FOR GOOGLE
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Edmund Lee]
Google, the dominant navigator and king-maker of the web, is finally getting the antitrust inquiry from the Federal Trade Commission that its competitors and opponents have long hoped for, a challenge that goes to the very core of the search titan's business practices.
Does Google's ad auction operate fairly? Companies that advertise on Google bid against each another to place a "sponsored result" on its search-result pages. But there is unfair pricing pressure in some instances. Whenever Google places a "house ad" on a search term, such as an ad for its photo product Picasa that shows up when consumers search for "photos," the company takes up a keyword ad slot and thereby boosts scarcity.
Does Google favor its commerce affiliates? Google also sometimes places links to members of its Affiliate Network, which includes marketers such as Target and Land's End, in sponsored search results. But these are effectively house ads, placed at no cost to affiliates. Google gets an affiliate fee for any product a person buys through this network, so it is in Google's interest to show affiliate links free of charge.
Does Google unfairly promote its own products in search? Most of Google's efforts these days center on building its position outside search, in display ads, maps, mobile and social. And searches for an address, for example, typically return Google Maps results first. In some cases, competing map engines such as MapQuest don't even show up in the first page. The government might well argue this is an anti-competitive practice. Google may say its Maps product offers the best result, meaning it provides the most value to consumers.
benton.org/node/79644 | AdAge
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GOOGLE'S RESPONSE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Mathew Ingram]
In a recent blog post, Google Fellow Amit Singhal — the head of Google’s core ranking team — began the company's response to an antitrust inquiry from the Federal Trade Commission. He reiterates several times that “using Google is a choice,” and says the company tries hard to be as competitive as possible by doing a number of things (the obvious implication being that some competitors don’t), including:
Provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible. Singhal says Google is “always trying to figure out new ways to answer even more complicated questions” and advertisements “offer useful information, too.”
Label advertisements clearly. Google “always distinguishes advertisements from our organic search results,” the blog post says, and will “continue to be transparent about what is an ad and what isn't.”
Be transparent. Singhal says Google shares “more information about how our rankings work than any other search engine.”
Loyalty, not lock-in. The Google post says the company believes “you control your data, so we have a team of engineers whose only goal is to help you take your information with you.” (This one is probably aimed at Facebook and its refusal to let you download your contact info.)
benton.org/node/79642 | GigaOm | paidContent.org
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COMCAST AND HULU
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Joe Flint]
Comcast owns a big chunk of Hulu, but the company has to sit on the sidelines while the future of the online video site is determined even though the end result could greatly affect it. Comcast ended up with a piece of Hulu when it acquired majority control of NBCUniversal from General Electric Co. At the time, there was great concern about what Comcast's acquisition of NBC would mean for the future of Hulu. Many consumer advocates, lawmakers and media watchdogs feared that Comcast would view Hulu as a competitor to its own cable distribution platforms and try to squash it. Indeed, in the consent decree approving the deal, the government said, "Comcast has an incentive to prevent Hulu from becoming an even more attractive avenue for viewing video programming because Hulu would then exert increased competitive pressure on Comcast's cable business." When it signed off on the deal, the government essentially told Comcast that it could retain its stake in Hulu but also had to give up its voting rights and board representation. As part of the approval order, Comcast was also ordered to provide programming to Hulu on the same terms as the other owners. Earlier this week, News Corp. was near a renewal deal for its content with Hulu and Disney is now following suit. Comcast will also now do the same per its deal with the government.
benton.org/node/79651 | Los Angeles Times
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CONSUMER WATCHDOG, GOOGLE AND THE WHITE HOUSE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
Frequent Google critic Consumer Watchdog wrote to the White House Counsel arguing that President Barack Obama and other Administration officials must distance themselves from Google during pending federal investigations of the search giant. "It’s unheard of for the President to publicly embrace a corporate executive whose company is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department," said Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court and Privacy Project Director John Simpson. "Nonetheless, the Obama Administration continues to have close relationships with top executives of Google Inc. while the company is the target of serious federal investigations for possible wrongdoing." Google is currently under review by the government for allegedly selling ads to illegal online pharmacies; the Justice Department is also evaluating Google's proposed acquisition of Admeld for antitrust concerns. Most notably, the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly poised to bring a broader antitrust probe of the firm's core search business. The pair note Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and a company vice president were both guests at a State Dinner honoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and argue the invitations undercut federal investigators by indicating White House support for the firm.
benton.org/node/79650 | Hill, The
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ISPs VS MUNICIPAL NETWORKS
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: David Morris]
[Commentary] Conservatives would have us believe the public sector can't compete with the private sector. The private sector itself knows better. Nowhere is this more evident than in the telecommunications sector. People hate their telecommunications companies. The poster child for poor customer service in the public sector may be the Department of Motor Vehicle Bureau, but its unresponsiveness and arrogance pales into insignificance to those of Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and AT&T. Cities now view high speed broadband networks as essential infrastructure like water, sewer, and roads. The increased importance of high speed broadband in everything from business to education to entertainment coupled with soaring prices, slow speeds and bad service from private providers finally led cities to take matters into their own hands and build their own broadband networks. Today, over 54 cities own citywide fiber networks. When a public network opens for business, a town finally experiences effective competition, and it shows. [Morris is the Director of the New Rules Project]
benton.org/node/79637 | Huffington Post, The
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NEW JERSEY PUBLIC TELEVISION
[SOURCE: Star-Ledger, AUTHOR: Peggy McGlone]
The New Jersey Assembly rejected Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to turn over management of New Jersey public television to WNET, delivering a political blow to Gov Christie (R) while leaving the fate of the state’s public broadcasting network in limbo. In a vote of 45 to 30, the Assembly blocked the five-year contract that would allow Public Media NJ, a subsidiary of Channel 13 WNET, to be incorporated in New Jersey, to operate New Jersey public TV. Several who voted to nix the deal complained about an out-of-state entity operating a New Jersey asset. "Giving NJN to New York makes no sense," said the resolution’s sponsor Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) before the vote. "We need to make NJN stronger and not give it away." Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) introduced a similar resolution in the Senate. That body could vote on June 27, but it must pass by June 28 to prevent the deal from going through.
benton.org/node/79633 | Star-Ledger
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CONTENT

RESISTANCE TO PROTECT IP
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Katy Bachman]
The tech community has begun to marshal its forces against the Protect IP Act, a bill aimed at shutting down rogue websites. Some 50 venture capitalists fired off a letter to members of Congress in which they charge that the act, which has already been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would "chill investment in the Internet, throttle innovation, and hurt American competitiveness." "The bill is ripe for abuse, as it allows rights holders to require third parties to block access and take away revenue sources for online services, with limited oversight and due process," wrote Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures, which has funded Internet companies such as Twitter, Foursquare, Boxee, Kickstarter, Clickable, and Zynga. His letter was signed by 53 other venture capitalists representing 40 firms, including AOL Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and EDventure Holdings.
The Motion Picture Association of America is striking back, hard, against the venture capitalists and their letter. "We can’t keep being asked to choose between technology and creativity, and we can’t stand by as criminals profit from the hard work of the millions of American men and women of the creative and entertainment industry," Michael O'Leary, the MPAA's executive vice president for government affairs, said in a statement. "This is a smart, narrowly-crafted bill whose purpose is stopping theft, not slowing innovation. All we’re asking is that the innovators play by the rules.”
benton.org/node/79646 | AdWeek | ars technica
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JOURNALISM

CONFIDENCE IN NEWSPAPERS, TV NEWS
[SOURCE: Gallup, AUTHOR: Lymari Morales]
Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news rebounded slightly in the past year, having been stuck at record lows since 2007. The 28% of Americans who express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers and the 27% who say the same about television news still lag significantly behind the levels of trust seen through much of the 1990s and into 2003. The findings are from Gallup's annual update on confidence in institutions, which found few other notable changes from last year. Newspapers and television news rank 10th and 11th in confidence, respectively, among the 16 institutions tested. While the improvement for each is small in absolute terms, it could mark the beginning of the reversal of the trend seen in recent years. The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual report on The State of the News Media suggests that the state of the media improved in 2010 as content providers found new ways to meet the changing needs of their audiences as well as new revenue models.
Confidence in newspapers and television news increased across most key subgroups, with the biggest across-the-board improvements among 30- to 49-year-olds and men. The views of Americans aged 18 to 29 exhibited the most mixed year-to-year change, with this group showing a 10-point increase in confidence in television news but a 10-point decrease in confidence in newspapers. While members of this group remain among the most confident in each, their views are now on par with those of Democrats and liberals. Republicans also showed inconsistent movement in their opinions, registering a nine-point increase in their confidence in television news and essentially no change in their views of newspapers. Interestingly, considering the highly polarized nature of cable news, all ideological groups increased their trust in television news to about the same degree.
benton.org/node/79673 | Gallup
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CYBERSECURITY

BOLSTERING COMPUTER SECURITY
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Riva Richmond]
The Homeland Security Department plans to unveil a new system of guidance intended to help make the software behind many services -- be they Web sites or power grids -- less susceptible to hacking. The system includes an updated list of the top 25 programming errors that enable today’s most serious hacks. To help make the list more useful, it adds new tools to help software programmers eliminate the most dangerous types of mistakes and enable organizations to demand and buy more secure products. The effort to improve software security has been three years in the making, according to Robert A. Martin, principal engineer at Mitre, a technology nonprofit that conducts federal research in systems engineering. The Homeland Security Department’s hope is that the program, which is voluntary, will make it easier for companies and agencies to better secure their corners of cyberspace and contribute to building safer global networks.
benton.org/node/79688 | New York Times
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LULZSEC DISBANDS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Riva Richmond, Nick Bilton]
Facing increasing pressure from law enforcement agencies over its brazen computer attacks, the small group of hackers known as Lulz Security announced over the weekend that it would disband. But security experts said that the dissolution of the group might not signal an end to the attacks, which have hit dozens of Web sites, including those of prominent targets like the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Senate, the Arizona state police and Sony. Indeed, in its farewell message, the group, also known as LulzSec, urged other hackers to join the “revolution” aimed at governments and corporations that it started recently with Anonymous, a much larger collective of politically minded hackers from which many of the LulzSec members sprung. “It looks like these sort of ‘hacktivist’ ideas are spreading and gaining popularity,” said Dino A. Dai Zovi, a prominent independent security consultant. He said that LulzSec appeared to be trying to inspire others to join a sprawling, if fragmented, array of local groups, which could feed more attacks.
benton.org/node/79687 | New York Times | WSJ | FT | Bloomberg
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CYBERWAR DOUBLE STANDARD
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Thomas Wright]
[Commentary] The hacking of the International Monetary Fund, Central Intelligence Agency and Citibank computer systems has raised fears that the US is on the brink of a cyberwar for which it is woefully unprepared. To deal with this growing threat, the Obama administration’s strategy is to treat destructive state-sponsored cyberattacks as an act of war that may even result in a conventional military response. This approach unfortunately has an unsustainable double standard: while Barack Obama’s strategy treats cyber­destruction by someone else as an act of war, his administration’s actions imply that cyber-destruction by America is a normal covert action, equivalent to espionage. This double standard will undermine US attempts to confront cyberattacks and exacerbate one of the most intractable problems: how to attribute blame for such an attack. The US, along with Israel, is widely believed to be responsible for the creation and deployment of the Stuxnet computer worm now wreaking havoc with Iran’s nuclear programme. Stuxnet appears to have inflicted huge damage on Iran’s centrifuges, probably exceeding what could have been accomplished by an air raid, and set back its nuclear ambitions by several years. By the logic of the Obama cyber-strategy, this was an act of war against Iran. [Wright is executive director of studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs]
benton.org/node/79685 | Financial Times
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PRIVACY

CONTROLLING PERSONAL DATA
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Mike Swift]
Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other Internet companies have made billions of dollars tracking people's online movements and using that data to target advertising based on their prediction of what a person might want to buy. But as privacy concerns grow in Washington and Europe over the voluminous personal data being collected online and through smartphones, a wave of startups hopes to create a new business model for the use of that data. Rather than an Internet where invisible software "cookies" track consumers' movements online -- allowing somebody else to cash in on that data -- their alternative model would allow individuals to control their own data, and perhaps even profit by selling access to it. Some advocates predict the rise of "a privacy and reputation economy," where a constellation of Internet companies would provide services that allow people to discover what information exists about them online, to counter false information, and even allow people to share personal information with advertisers when it benefits them.
benton.org/node/79681 | San Jose Mercury News
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US to Provide Guidelines to Bolster Computer Security

The Homeland Security Department plans to unveil a new system of guidance intended to help make the software behind many services -- be they Web sites or power grids -- less susceptible to hacking.

The system includes an updated list of the top 25 programming errors that enable today’s most serious hacks. To help make the list more useful, it adds new tools to help software programmers eliminate the most dangerous types of mistakes and enable organizations to demand and buy more secure products. The effort to improve software security has been three years in the making, according to Robert A. Martin, principal engineer at Mitre, a technology nonprofit that conducts federal research in systems engineering. The Homeland Security Department’s hope is that the program, which is voluntary, will make it easier for companies and agencies to better secure their corners of cyberspace and contribute to building safer global networks.

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