December 2011

GoDaddy Faces boycott over SOPA support

Major Internet companies have formed a united front in their opposition to the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. Well, almost. One exception has been the domain registrar GoDaddy.

In an op-ed published in Politico shortly after SOPA was introduced in the House, GoDaddy applauded the bill and called opponents "myopic." Now furious Internet users at reddit (owned by Advance Publications, which also owns Condé Nast) have organized a boycott of the registrar. "I just finished writing GoDaddy a letter stating why I'm moving my small businesses 51 domains away from them, as well as my personal domains," wrote redditor selfprodigy on Thursday morning. He proposed that December 29 be declared "move your domain day," with GoDaddy customers switching to competing registrars. The post has accumulated more than 1,500 comments, most of them supporting the idea.

Anti-Piracy Bill Draws Opposition From Heritage Foundation

The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation has joined the growing roster of opponents to a controversial anti-piracy proposal pending in Congress. The organization warned this week that passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (HR 3261) could harm online security, while also undermining free speech. “While the legislation’s goal -- the protection of property -- is a proper one, there are alternative approaches,” Heritage Foundation senior research fellow James Gattuso says in a new report.

Mayor Emanuel has deep financial ties to new Sun-Times owners

[Commentary] Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D-Chicago) sure will have a ton of buddies in one key local media outlet, because virtually every one of the Sun-Times' new owners has been a major contributor, business partner or civic ally of his.

For instance, at least eight of the 12 board members of the new company, Wrapports LLC, have donated to Mr. Emanuel's campaign fund in the past year, collectively plunking down $241,000 that I found in a quick survey of Board of Elections disclosures. Included: $25,000 from the Sun-Times' new chairman, Michael Ferro Jr., and $105,000 from Mr. Emanuel's frequent visitor at City Hall, Grosvenor Capital Management L.P. chief Michael Sacks. Then there's the at least $20,000 that new S-T owners gave in recent months to New Chicago, the political action committee that Mr. Emanuel uses to help elect political allies. And the more considerable $350,000 that the owners and their companies collectively gave to Stand for Children, a Springfield lobbying group that helped pave the way for recent public school reform legislation that the mayor badly wanted.

Time Warner Cable Chief Fires Back at MSG Sports Network

Facing a heated battle with MSG sports network over rising rates, Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt said sports channels should be sold separately from the main cable-TV package of channels.

"What was a minor problem is turning into an astronomical problem," Britt said, referring to the cost of sports programming generally. "The ultimate solution is to get that programming on some sort of smaller packaging scheme." Britt spoke as rhetoric between Time Warner Cable and MSG network owner Madison Square Garden Co. has been escalating ahead of a New Year's Eve deadline for resolution of a dispute between the two companies. If unresolved, the sports network could be blacked out in roughly two million New York-area homes on New Year's Eve. The network carries games of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, also owned by Madison Square Garden Company.

Online music: Rhapsody reaches 1 million subscribers, finally

Rhapsody, the longest-running subscription-music service, announced that it had finally crossed the 1 million subscriber threshold.

Before you cue the cork-popping, bear in mind that Rhapsody launched almost exactly 10 years ago, so its growth isn't setting land-speed records. And three years ago, Rhapsody and rival Napster each reported having about 750,000 subscribers. The two companies are now combined, thanks to Rhapsody's purchase of the fast-declining Napster in October, but the total is far less than the sum of their erstwhile parts. So the announcement doesn't exactly herald the dawn of a new era for subscription music services in general or Rhapsody in particular. The total number of people who pay for on-demand music services online is still dwarfed by the more than 21 million who subscribe to Sirius XM. And in a country of more than 110 million households, 1 million isn't mass market. Nevertheless, Rhapsody President Jon Irwin insists that the new total is a real milestone.

The Verizon-cable deal would end competition and incentives to innovate

[Commentary] There is a growing divide in the United States between the people who can afford top-notch Internet access and those who cannot. The best way to close that gap is with more competition. But we're moving in the opposite direction.

Unless federal regulators scuttle the anti-competitive pacts just struck between the nation's largest phone and cable companies, we are witnessing the end of broadband competition. Verizon Wireless recently announced major deals to acquire valuable chunks of the public airwaves now held by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Bright House Networks. The most stunning part of these deals is a side agreement between the erstwhile competitors to resell each other's products. You'd be able to buy Verizon Wireless service from your friendly neighborhood cable company, or get cable modem and cable TV service from the Verizon Wireless retailer around the corner. That would put an end to any hope for nationwide competition between truly high-speed Internet service providers, while dousing any chance of next-generation wireless services competing against cable and telco broadband. That means higher prices, fewer choices and less innovation.

Things weren't supposed to turn out this way. The last time Congress overhauled the law, in 1996, it decided that competition was the best way "to secure lower prices and higher quality services." But the Federal Communications Commission has generally favored deregulation over rules that would promote competition. Competition was supposed to make broadband more affordable. Having the largest wireless provider and the largest cable companies repackage each other's products simply won't do that.

[Wood is the policy director for Free Press and, overall, a pretty great guy]

White House to respond to petition urging veto of online piracy bill

An online petition urging President Obama to veto a controversial anti-online piracy bill has passed the number of signatures required to receive an official response.

The petition, which is on the White House's official "We the People" page, urges the president to veto the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and "any other future bills that threaten to diminish the free flow of information." The petition now has more than 34,000 signatures. It needed 25,000 before Jan. 17 for the White House to issue an official response. The White House petition, which gained popularity on the discussion site Reddit, includes a link to an image of a person behind bars and the headline, "This is a copyrighted image." The link is meant to demonstrate that websites should not be blocked just because their users post copyrighted material. "It would be ridiculous for an [Internet service provider] to block the entire whitehouse.gov domain on court order because a single user posted a link," the petition author wrote. "It is difficult for any web administrator to know which links to copyrighted material are done with permission."

Conferee Walden Pitches Spectrum Incentive Auctions

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) pitched spectrum incentive auctions in a press conference featuring the Republican conferees named by House Speaker John Boehner. Chairman Walden pointed to the spectrum auctions as one of the job-creating elements of the House bill that he suggested deserved to be on the table if they did go to conference. He said freeing up spectrum would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and would also create the interoperable broadband public safety network both sides of the aisle support.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate would not return to try to conference on the House and Senate versions of payroll tax cut extension bill. The House version contained the incentive auction legislation language, essentially rolling Walden's version of that bill into the package verbatim. That package passed the House, but the incentive auction was stripped from the bill before the Senate passed its version and sent it back to the House, where Republicans blocked a vote.

Congress gives DoD green light on cyber attacks

Congress has given the Defense Department explicit authority to launch offensive operations in cyberspace.

The provision included in the National Defense Authorization Act passed by lawmakers affirms that DoD has offensive cyber capabilities and that the department "may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace" when directed to do so by the President. The legislation calls on DoD to select at least one official to coordinate, oversee and carry out collaborative cyber activities with the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is likewise required to assign a director of cybersecurity coordination to work with DoD.

Congress Calls for Defense Department Plan for Cloud Computing

Congress ordered the Defense Department to develop a plan to use more cloud-computing services, a move that may lead to U.S. contracts for suppliers including Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

The fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, approved by Congress on Dec. 15, requires the Pentagon to develop a strategy by April 1 to migrate its data to cloud-computing services to consolidate resources, according to the legislation. The cloud is a Web-based pool of shared computing resources such as software and data storage. The White House is trying to get agencies across the government, including the Pentagon, to embrace cloud computing to reduce $80 billion in annual U.S. spending. Moving Pentagon data to cloud services raises security concerns that call for service contract requirements, said James Lewis, director of the technology and public policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Benton

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